Haunted Mt Elgon residents cry for justice

By John Oywa

The narrow footpath meanders across the rugged ridges that cut across the scenic hills and disappears into a forested enclave on the Kenya-Uganda border. It is this path, now overgrown with shrubs, that leads to the killing fields and mass graves of Mt Elgon.

At the foot of the hills, overlooking the sleepy Cheptais township, are caves that served as command posts for one of the top the militia commanders – Wyclife Komon Matakwei.

Many terrified villagers were dragged up this path by the ruthless Sabaot Land Defence Force (SLDF) executioners, never to be seen again. From a distance, the Cheptais hills are a beauty to behold. But to the locals, the hills now mean nothing but terror. The Human Rights Watch says the forest is littered with mass graves and skeletons of some of the more than 300 people killed by either the SLDF or the military.

More than 1,000 people died in the Mt Elgon mayhem, more than half of them killed by the SLDF and the rest by the military. Milka Kemei, a woman leader from the neighbouring Kipsiro division, shudders every time she looks at the hills.

"I was once kidnapped by the SLDF fighters and taken to the ‘slaughter house’ alongside other villagers who had allegedly failed to pay taxes to the militia. I watched them being slaughtered like chicken as I waited for my turn," Komen said in an interview last week.

She added: "They had put a panga on my throat when their commander asked them to spare me after I agreed to pay a Sh50,000 fine. That evening, they stormed my home, took the money, all my 29 head of cattle and several bags of maize. They also sexually assaulted me." The 52-year-old woman is now the Chairperson of the Kipsiro division Peace Committee. Three years after the military crushed the SLDF, through ‘Operation Okoa Maisha,’ Mt Elgon has refused to heal. Despite an uneasy calm restored by the military after the killing of Matakwei in 2008, residents fear the mountain could erupt again.

"There is no peace. Our people are still bitter because the issues that forced us to join the SLDF have not been resolved," says Kansan Kanai, a former militia member.

"By deploying hundreds of military, police and spies in Mt Elgon, the Government is just treating the symptoms of the disease," says Kansan.

Calm, not peace

He added: "Hundreds of youths who were tortured and arrested by army officers are back from jail. They are sick, jobless and landless and no one is talking about them. How can there be peace in such a situation?"

Although former SLDF operatives who spoke to The Standard On Sunday denied reports they were regrouping, they said the land problems remain unresolved, even with the recent Government initiative to settle 1,732 families on the controversial Chepyuk Phase 3 settlement scheme. The Minister for Internal Security and Provincial Administration, Prof George Saitoti issued letters of offer to the families on Thursday.

A former SLDF spokesman, Mr John Kanai, is an angry man. He says the Government is mishandling the Mt Elgon crisis.

"What we are witnessing is calm and not peace. Justice has not been done and the Government has failed to fulfill its promises," he told The Standard On Sunday from his home in Cheptais. A former powerful figure in SLDF, Kanai who is now a farmer, wants the settling of the 1,732 families on the Chepyuk phase 3 scheme shelved until the plight of all landless villagers in Mt Elgon is resolved. Besides the land issue, residents of Mt Elgon are faced with a more unique problem – reconstructing their lives after traumatic experiences. They still bear the ugly scars of torture.

There are those who witnessed their loved ones being killed and men who were castrated as their wives watched. An anthropologist, Mr Godfrey Kipsisey, says the atrocities committed in Mt Elgon would have a devastating impact on future generations.

"My worry is for the next generation. The children who watched mothers being raped and killed and the youths who went through horrifying torture are likely to re-invent the violence in the future. He said it was tragic that no reconstruction programme was being undertaken in areas affected by the atrocities. He added: "We should borrow from Rwanda which has an elaborate rehabilitation and remonstration programme in areas affected by genocide. Its reconciliation and healing process is real and focused."

He wants the Government to change tack in handling the Mt Elgon issue, which he says has grown beyond land disputes.

"We must ask ourselves why the youths of Central Province decided to form Mungiki because the situation is the same in Mt Elgon," he says. Western PC, Samuel Kilele and Cheptais DC, Mr Omar Salat are however emphatic that peace has finally returned to the troubled mountain.