Pokot community claims their neighbours are favoured during conflicts

NCIC peace facilitator Peter Chemaswet addresses Pokot residents of Paka area in Tiaty, East Pokot.

NAIROBI: Members of the Pokot community living in Baringo County now  to break away and form a new county to take care of their interests.

In multiple meetings held between the community and National Cohesion and Integration Commission peace facilitators, speaker after speaker argued that the current arrangement that places them in Baringo County is no longer tenable.

In Chemoril, where the NCIC team held the first meeting, elders said their community felt disregarded in favour of others.

In Paka area, they regretted why they had not pushed to belong to West Pokot County, the distance notwithstanding.

And in Seretion on the border with the Tugens, they demanded that President Uhuru Kenyatta grant them their own county.

In Chemoril, Lemaruk Teta’s outburst earned him claps of approval from the audience.

“Our neighbours took away all the important seats in the county and only left us with the Speaker’s position, which they have now taken away. We now realise a little late that we were fooled into accepting this arrangement,” he said.

In Paka, up in the hills, Mzee Nakan Alupen sought to contextualise the warring attitude of the Pokots, saying they are assailed on all sides; by the county government, by the national government and by all their neighbours.

There are no schools in Paka. No churches either. But the road passing through Paka from Loruk is being graded.

“Turkanas started it off by owning guns and pushing us to live with the Tugens. Samburus started off by killing our herders.

“Ilchamus opened the floodgates of war and we decided to dehorn them before they grew wild,” he said, painting the picture of a saintly community.

He suggested that people blame the devil for starting off the killings instead of always blaming the Pokots.

In Seretion, Mzee Charles Sarich Sirpel, a former assistant chief, harped on a similar theme about Baringo County: “It is Tugen-led. They are now oppressing and colonising us. Please go and tell the President we need our own county.”

The old man believes the leadership crisis in the county ought to be sorted out before calls for peace are made.

Lipole Ewai complained that the Pokot had been stereotyped as raiders and warmongers: “What do you expect from me when you call me a raider? What do you expect me to eat when you close all economic opportunities yet you know I have a stomach?

But it is also in these meetings that Pokots were pushed to the wall to account for their role in insecurity in the area and to some extent for their perceived backwardness.

In Seretion for instance, Ewai urged the community to take their children to school. He said a constant demand for Teachers’ Service Commission-hired teachers lost meaning when teachers were offered only for them to find the classrooms empty.

“We must also get serious,” he said.

He argued that as long as Pokots remained by and large illiterate, they would continue to be mocked and ruled over by other communities. He mocked them for the folly of attracting other people “born of women like us” to come and teach them the benefits of keeping peace.

EXERCISE CAUTION

During the Seretion meeting, Amos Rono ole Chesuswo gave an incisive and detailed presentation that depicted interactions between the Turkana, Pokot, Tugen and Ilchamus in the course of history.

“You could be killing your relatives. Your blood has grown thicker owing to this mingling over time and in different circumstances. You must exercise caution lest you kill your own,” he warned.

He called for more inter-marriage between the Kalenjin sub-tribes in order to fully secure peace.

Rono became an instant hero as excited Pokots demanded more.

“We believe this is more than education. This is inspiration!,” Mzee Sirpel said.

But when he rose to respond, Chesuswo took it in his stride, saying that had been merely the tip of an iceberg, almost mimicking Apostle Paul’s letter to the Corinthians: “I have fed you with milk, and not with meat. For hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.”

Their demands for a county aside, one could tell from their talk and song that they still long for the long gone days of peace and co-existence in Baringo.

In Paka, they sang an old song extolling the virtues of the old Baringo.

In Seretion, they sang: ‘Akonech kalia” (Give us back our peace) and “Amten ngolion va amani (Preach the Gospel of peace)”.

It is the song of men and women, tired of war and looking for exit strategies. It is the story of Baringo and her people.