By Fr Makau Nicholas IMC
For the past five months Isiolo County has experienced nasty episodes. Despite being a natural disaster county, it has now turned to a human designed disaster. To many, the problem is invented so as to answer to some personal or particular group’s interest. The recent conflict between the Borana who are searching for pasture for their animals and the Turkana has left many wondering. The clash has left about 30 people dead and many displaced. It has returned the development stride to the scratch as property was reduced to ashes and potential income generating people maimed and incapacitated. Disheartening is the fact that the dispute has not been given any sensible attention.
A councilor was arrested and accused of inciting the Turkanas. There is a calculated move to ignore the plight of the victims. Reasons are given that the land in dispute is trust land and no one can claim ownership. The constitution is quoted to defend the position of Borana’s entry to the place saying that everyone has a right to live anywhere in Kenya. But they deliberately avoid quoting the clause that defends the freedom and right against invasion, forceful eviction and the right to ownership. In defending the right of the Borana to graze their camels anywhere, it is to accuse the Turkanas for farming or erecting their houses which bars the presence of the animals.
One is forced to repeat the question the Turkana community is asking; What is the motive of the Boranas keeping so many animals if there is scarcity of grazing land? Why did the Borana move to Camp Garba at this moment of the year? If they are only after food for their animals, why kill people and burn houses? The church and the school destruction, lingers very serious questions; is it a tribal clash or a religious conflict, is it a fight over resources or fight over chiefdom dominance, is it power wrangle or it is economic strength, is to tell who is the host community or the newcomer? Is it a way to prepare who will own the resource city that Isiolo is being designed to be?
Who is responsible and who can help avert it? The local leaders and particularly the area MP has been absent from the area. Very little has been done to call for a resolution. Now is the time to seek an equitable justice. Further delay will escalate the conflict. It has been explained, “it is the culture of the Borana people to keep animals”. But is it their culture also to be hostile and violent? Their neighbors also have their culture. Now is the time to develop a new culture of coexistence. Let the Borana elders be summoned by the state law and be forced to acknowledge that their culture is not in isolation and that it is not just to promote their own haven without care of the others’. Let culture and tradition not be used to justify or explain a conflict that has claimed lives and destroyed properties. Validating such culture and tradition is only a limping pretext that does not pass the test of credibility.
March 14, 2012, I visited the catholic mission at Camp Garba which hosts over 600 people in the open ground in very dire circumstances. I visited Kiwanja, Eremet and mashambani villages where they had escaped from. The villages of Bulagadud and LMD were also empty as people had run away for their safety. I was saddened by the ugly incident which I found. The catholic Consolata missionaries, Fr Tallone and Fr Wambua have opened doors to the children and mothers as other women and men are spread across the compound. Fr Wambua guided me through the compound; crowded, with dusty, torn mattress, blankets, worn out sheets and all sorts of house hold goods are scattered all over. The demarcation of occupancy space is the far the mattress can reach. Given that the cemented corridors of the clergy house, the sisters’ convent and those of the school are not enough, others find space along the fence and under the trees. Since the school is still on, they have to vacate the place before 7.00 am before pupils come and return at 5.00pm when the school day is over.
This is the most painful moment that I have witnessed. I stood near the police post and 200m away I could see small children, women with babies on their back, and men carrying their items packed in polythene bags or sacks coming to the mission for the night. At arrival it is still painful to see them rushing to get water or collecting grass for firewood to cook something. The mosquitoes sting leaving pimples. Children are crying as they scratch themselves all over due to irritation. One can hear the alternating cry of babies across the compound. As I visit groups am overwhelmed by fear as I see small bonfires scattered in the entire mission compound. “hawa wote ni waturu (Turkana’s) tulichomewa mahome zetu na waboraana” (all this are Turkanas, our houses were burned by the Boranas) a teenager told us.
As I look at the thickets, I could imagine of the invasion of snakes, scorpions or other crawling creatures. I see the same place has become a toilet. It is a nightmare to walk as one will be stepping on the excrement or surprise an adult at the call of nature. Cooking is done on the open. For those who have sick, aged or small babies in their family, they suffer a double tragedy. As the cooking items are not enough or conducive, there is also the danger of an accident and diseases.
March 15, 2012, I could see people going out of the church compound. They want to provide room to the school that is about to start. Majority are eligible to school, but theirs is far away. “our school is not here, it was there (pointing the direction), we ran away when camels came in and the owners were shooting us” a standard three girl at mashambani primary school told me, as I walked her and her family out to nowhere in particular. It was heart breaking to see families leave only to go out of the fence, gather in groups as they had nothing to do. Their village is across but they cannot dare return. They spend whole day in the same routine waiting for any hope. They are on their own; no one comes to speak to them except the catholic missionaries. The police who are expected to come to tell them to go back are silent.
As I talk to them I understand there is another group who went to camp at the Isiolo police station as a way to draw attention to their cause. But they are not wanted there. “This is my home and I can’t allow strangers to stay in. I don’t know who is who” the OCPD told me in asking him why he wanted the people to vacate the only place that looked securer. In the police station there are another 450 people who are living behind the post. It is a pain and nuisance to the police officers, it is a matter of their reputation and rank “but supposing something happens when they are here, who will be responsible” one of the police officer tells me. But an exchange ensures as one of the elders answers back very bitterly “it is better we die here and someone can report and be held responsible than being burned in the village”.
I discover that the police have arranged for two Lorries to take the people back to the villages they had run away from.
Things are in disarray. It is purported that the police station wasn’t secure. The people do not want to go back in fear of a possible attack and fear that they will be forgotten and they had nothing to sustain themselves, since all their belongs had been burned down or vandalized by the Borana invaders. As I tried to engage the OCPD to a negotiation, we reached a deal that men will go first to survey the situation accompanied by a contingent of police men. I opted to drive down the villages with them as a way of solidarity.
THE CAMELS OF ISIOLO THAT SHOOT AND BURN
Heaven broke loose. The village was ashes. No house is standing. No sooner had we reached the first village, the people jumped out of the vehicles crying “look here was my house, look this was my kitchen. Oh! Here, here they caught up my brother, here they killed him” the people scattered, each trying to trace their homestead that was no longer there. The exercise was guarded by Kenya police. Visible were exercise books, metallic and steel items that the fire could not reduce to complete ashes. The tears and the lamentations were so painful. The journalists who had kept a distance now came closer.
I noticed a young police officer wiping tears and shaking his head vigorously and this hurt me the more. You can only discover there were homesteads when you see bricks, some spared iron sheets, some other household goods that had now been turned black. Before the houses were torched some were vandalized and properties were scattered outside. The Catholic Church had not been burnt. But it had been seriously profaned. The doors had been broken, the windows smashed and the glass spread all over. The holy of holiness, the altar, the tabernacle the most sacred places had been tampered with and cut into pieces. I could not understand the motive of destroying and disfiguring the statue of Mary. The poster bearing the image of Pope Benedict XVI had been badly pierced and there was disorder in the church. Rosaries were cut into pieces.
A man was able to identify a rosary that belonged to his mother. I blessed it and let him carry it to her. In the school, everything was in total mess spread all over. The furniture was damaged, cut into pieces or simply scattered out of place. At the head teacher’s office, there was no place to step in. The desks and the shelves had been destroyed and all the materials sprinkled on the floor. Text books, exercise books, packets of chalk had been littered. A similar dreadful face confronted us at the teachers’ staffroom. We toured the village collecting various items; chairs, books, spoons either lifted from the school, the church or homesteads and abandoned in the forest.
I had never seen search a massive herd of camels at one place at one given time. They filled the whole place. They exceeded 20,000 camels. The police men had pushed an equal number across the mountains in the previous day. The men in seeing the camels were agitated, they became irate. The village elder explains “we saw the camels first, as we wondered due to their number, there was shooting and our houses began to burn”. He narrated how it all started. “We had not seen the owners, but the camels. When we reported, we were ridiculed by the police officers; can camels shoot or torch a house?” a heated discussion ensured as policemen tried to explain to the elders’ dissatisfaction.
The situation was getting out of control; I invited the OCPD and his team for a meeting with the elders and probably invite some groups from the camel herders who were not far. The officers and Turkana elders accepted but to bring a Borana on board was not viable. After a fruitless hour of consultation the OCPD declared; “you will not go back to the backyard of the police station, you either remain here or I will take you to the stadium” Roma locuata causa finita. At this time as we sought the next move, the police officers jumped into their vehicles and sped off.
As the dust calmed down, only the camels that earlier we had known to “shoot and torch” and six police officers are visible. We are at the middle of the camels at the battle field. I called the group for a prayer. At the end of it, I could not only read my own tension but it was in all the faces in front me. How can we get out of here? Are we safe? “Hapa kuna njama, wametudanganya tuingie kwa magari yao na sasa wametuleta hapa na kutuachia adui. Hatuna silaha kama wao, tena tuko wachache. Hata ka nikubaki, hatuna chakula. Kwanini wanatufanyia hivi” Complained one man.
Two hours later, two GK Lorries brought back the women and children. Dumped them and went back. It was assumed that shelters like tents, food, water will be provided but all in vain. People remained in darkness, the night was unusually chilly and dark perhaps to celebrate the misfortune. Men organized themselves to remain awake guarding their families till the following day.
All looked exhausted. They appeared a people without a future and hopeless. Some mothers had given up the struggle and they complained kwanini wasitumalize badala ya kutuangaisha hivi. Hata hawa askari siwana bunduki, siwatuue, waenda wakapumzike? I got disturbed and disappointed. Where is the rule of law? Where are the executors of law? Who are the leaders of Isiolo who should intervene to restore hope to these displaced residents? Where is the conscience of the government officers?
Fr Makau is the chair of the Consolata Missionaries Justice and Peace Commission.
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