Long road to peace as hostilities simmer over runaway insecurity

MP Johnson Sakaja addresses residents of Loruk in Baringo County on Monday. [PHOTO: ALPHONCE SHIUNDU/ STANDARD]

In the plains of Loruk, a little market on the banks of Lake Baringo, there’s a circle of huge acacia trees next to the smooth tarmac road that leads to Nakuru on one end, and Sigor on the other. That is Baringo North, the land of the Tugen.

On any other day, that little circle of trees with a very cool shade is just a patch in the wilderness. Everyone goes about their business in the market a few yards away. Tired cattle chew cud in the cool breezy shade. It looks peaceful. Calm.

But every Tuesday morning, it is the theatre of war — the village version of an air-conditioned five-star boardroom — where the elders and warriors of the community meet senior government officials to discuss how to defend their territory.

Ultimatums are issued. Calls for peace are made. Pledges for arrests are done. Promises of security are doled out.

But when a parliamentary committee visited the area last Tuesday, the residents were in a foul mood. A retired chief, Wilson Chebungei, was slaughtered just days after he told government officials his life was in danger. He had made the report three times. Now he was dead. The people felt helpless.

When the four helicopters carrying the MPs landed on the dusty patch just next to the market, turning up a huge cloud of brown dust, the residents sat quietly in that little circle on logs, watching as the rotors slipped into silence. The others stood behind forming a neat little semi-circle. Light-blue and white plastic seats were reserved for the members of the joint parliamentary committee on National Cohesion and Equal Opportunity at the mouth of the semi-circle.

The MPs, local chiefs, the county commissioner and policemen made their way on foot to their seats. It was about mid-day. The sun was hot. The wind had stopped whistling, but there was a light breeze blowing in the tense air.

A chief, eager to have the politicians get to the microphone, asked the people to speak: “Please, we don’t have time, our visitors have arrived, now you can tell them your issues!” He got blank stares.

Hostile crowd

The county commissioner, also tried. Nothing.

Then, Kemboi Bartwos, an elder, took to the microphone that was connected to a public address system mounted on a black double-cabin pick-up truck. He looked at the MPs unsmilingly. “We don’t know why you are here, and neither do we know what you want. If this is a meeting like the others, you better leave,” he said, stone-faced.

The chief tried to explain that the MPs wanted to listen to their security challenges. “If you don’t speak now, you will not get a chance,” the chief said.

There were murmurs, as if the crowd was having some kind of communal consultation, then one man, sitting on a rotting log, shouted. “Baas! Nendeni! (Get out of here)”.

Silence.

In that awkward moment when you have to speak the language of peace, the MPs were staring at a hostile crowd. A little wrong word and that village arrogance couched in communal pride will shatter the aura of civility. The MPs watched silently. Stunned. The people stared silently. It was like a dare.

Nominated MP Johnson Sakaja, the chairman of the committee, stood up and took the microphone. He scanned the crowd.

“My name is Johnson Sakaja, I am the chairman of the parliamentary committee on National Cohesion and Equal Opportunity. I am here with Members of Parliament and senators to listen to the issues here. We hear about a lot of insecurity, now we want to hear it from you. No one will be victimised. Speak your truth. You will be heard in silence. No interruptions,” said Sakaja.

The crowd clapped. You could feel the tension dissipate. Their fear was that they had seen the chairman of the National Assembly’s Committee on Administration and National Security Asman Kamama, a Pokot. They are Tugen. The Pokot attack them from across the ridge, kill their kin and take their cattle away. Sometimes, they don’t steal anything.

“We have not invaded anyone’s land; we have not stolen anyone’s cattle; what have we done to deserve this?” posed Bartwos. The Pokot come for the pasture, but they destroy some of their crops, they said.

“We need the boundaries of 1959 enforced. Everyone should know where their land begins, and where it ends,” said Bartwos as he pointed to hills in different directions as the place where beacons have to be placed to keep the Pokot out.

The pugnacious atmosphere at the meeting that morning was because a villager had been shot and injured in his legs as he came for the peace meeting. Bleeding profusely, he was rushed to a hospital in Marigat, the Baringo county commissioner Peter Okwanyo was told.

There were a few women and no children at the meeting.

“It is because of the fighting that we have asked them to be as far away as possible. They are hiding in the thickets near Marigat and Kampi ya Samaki herding their goats,” said Patrick Kipkiror.

Then the villagers ranted. They poured their anger. Murderers were walking free; the government had abandoned them; their houses had been torched; their animals stolen; life was hard.

The plea is for the policemen to put a buffer zone to keep the criminals from Pokot East away from Baringo North. The police think they can do the job, but they are few; the area is vast; the terrain is harsh and the people bear arms. Not bows and arrows. They carry guns.

The men have mulled over getting their own guns for defence but they want the government to act. “They have come to me and asked me to train them and help them find guns, but I am a security consultant. I know that after they are done with this enemy, they won’t give back the guns. So the solution is, let’s do a thorough disarmament. Mop up all these guns,” said Col (rtd) Moses Kwonyike.

Kwonyike added: “Somebody is sleeping on the job”.

Right to pasture

For instance, there are two chiefs in Loruk. All appointed by the same government. The little market centre is claimed by two Members of the Baringo County Assembly Fredrick Kibet from Loiyamorock Ward in Tiaty Constituency and Richard Kambala of Saimo/Soi Ward in Baringo North. Kambala, a Tugen, is tall and huge; Kibet, a Pokot, is short and a little slender. It is easy to see why they were elected. They speak the language of their people.

Kibet believes the Pokot have a right to look for pasture wherever it exists and the Tugen have no right to cite boundaries; but Kambala believes that everyone should stick to their land and make good use of it.

In that meeting, Kamama asked to have one Samuel Lemale, a Pokot from Loruk, speak. The crowd booed and rejected. Kamama insisted. Sakaja agreed. Lemale came to speak. They heard Lemale in silence. A Pokot in front of a crowd of Tugens.
Before then, they never met face to face.

If the MPs went away with anything, it is that, shuttle diplomacy in hired choppers is a tricky affair. People have issues and they will deal with them at their own time.

They need a platform, they need an ear, but ultimately, as Sakaja told them, it begins with them.