1. Introduction

1. Introduction 1.1 Conflict in Wajir When reading the paper, or watching the news, you are constantly confronted with conflicts or the so-called situations of armed peace. The UN is still present in Kosovo, Israel is startled by a violent attack roughly every other week, the situation in Afghanistan is still very unstable and Iraq is all but safe. The end of these (repressions of) violence does not seem to be near. People often wonder whether a solution is even possible, whether a durable peace is within reach. Instead of focusing on all the peace-building failures, I decided to look at a success story. One of these success stories is located in the Northeast of Kenya, in Wajir. I first heard about Wajir when I saw the documentary ‘The Wajir Story’. The documentary deals with a clan conflict in Wajir1, a district in the Northeast Province of Kenya. The story begins in 1992, when the conflict commenced, and ends in 1998, the year the documentary was made. The documentary looks at the multi-faceted and complex causes and the consequences of the conflict. Its main focus is on the responses of the local community which ended the conflict and brought about a period of peace. The documentary showed how three groups played an important role: the women started the peace initiative when their domain, the market, was also influenced by the conflict. Having regained the peace there, they tried to extend the peace and involved the elders. The elders, also called wazee, could reach a peace agreement and were able to implement it. The youth contributed to the implementation of agreement by convincing young men to lay down their weapons. The documentary ends with hopes for the future, in achieving enduring peace in their neighbouring countries Ethiopia and Somalia, thus stopping the influx of refugees, weapons and bandits, (Responding To Conflict, 1998). This documentary inspired me. It showed that ordinary people could really make a difference in a conflict situation. Not only had 1 Wajir is the name of the district, but also the name of the main town. I will use the name ‘Wajir’ to refer to the district, including the town Wajir. and use ‘Wajir-town’ when I specifically refer to the town. 1 they reached a cease-fire, which is always an enormous step on the road to peace, but they seemed to have reconciled. I wanted to know how it was possible that some ordinary people, without any special means, education or experience, were able to succeed where organisations like the United Nations and the NATO largely failed. I wanted to learn from their experience, so I decided to conduct my master-research, as part of development studies at the Centre of International Development Issues Nijmegen, in Wajir. Map 1. Wajir within Kenya Other arguments supported this decision. First of all, the Wajir case is a success story against all odds. There are many difficulties that could have hindered the reconciliation process: Wajir lies within the Horn of Africa, which is one of the most violent areas on earth; it is the poorest area of Kenya and neglected by the central government; natural resources are scarce. Despite all this, the people of Wajir laid 2 down their arms, made peace and reconciled. If the people of Wajir could reconcile, there remains hope for other, rather desperate situations. Secondly, it was rather safe within Wajir-town, which is not always the situation in a post conflict area. After a conflict, there are often many weapons remaining, which results in a lot of post conflict violence. This was fortunately not the case in Wajir. Most people had handed in their weapons; the peace was very stable. I, a white, non- Muslim woman, could walk freely during daytime in Wajir town. This does not mean that I could walk in the streets unnoticed. I always received a lot of attention, which is not surprising, knowing that there were only very few white people in the district. Thirdly, the conflict was restricted to a limited area and the parties involved were quite clear and, although the impact of the conflict had been considerable, people were rarely traumatized and were willing to talk about it. This made it not too difficult to research the conflict and the reconciliation process. Finally, I was fortunate to make contact with the Wajir Peace and Development Committee2 (WPDC), who helped me greatly during my research. The presence of this organisation was of vital importance to my research. Their activities were absolutely essential to understanding the concepts of peace and the reconciliation process: the aim of the WPDC is to maintain the sustainable peace and thus to stimulate the reconciliation process. The information given by members of the WPDC and my attendance at the workshops held by the WPDC were, as I explain in the third chapter on methodology, of vital importance for my research. Before I go into the research in depth, the main objective and the research question, I will elaborate some more on the case study I have chosen. The following features are not only characteristic for the district; they are also somehow related to the conflict3. Wajir is a 2 The committee was founded in 1995, when people had stopped the escalation of violence and a period of peace was reached. It aims at reaching sustainable peace and it consists of the different groups who had been involved in stopping the conflict. These groups represent the entire community of Wajir: women, elders, -who are often called wazee- youth, religious leaders and the Members of Parliament. WPDC is an umbrella-organisation in which all these groups function separately. WPDC has a secretarial function, it looks for financial support from external donors and it takes care of the co-operation between the different groups. 3 I return to this subject in the fourth chapter, when I discuss the conflict. 3 district in Northeastern Kenya, bordering on Somalia and Ethiopia. It is the second largest district of Kenya, and extends over 57,600 square kilometres. In 2000, the area counted about 320,000 inhabitants, who are almost entirely ethnic Somali (ARMP, 2000, n.n.). Due to the harsh living conditions -a large part of this area is either semi-arid or arid- people are originally nomads, relying on pastoralism as their main source of income. Although, due to the population pressure, many people have relocated to permanent settlements, a considerable part of the population still lives as nomadic pastoralists, tending herds of camels, cattle, sheep and goats. Owing to insufficient and unreliable rainfall, these pastoralists require extensive land for grazing and watering the herds. The necessity for unrestricted movement and the scarcity of natural resources are potential causes of conflict. Quarrels over land and access to water have previously escalated into serious conflicts. Traditionally, the Somali clan system was the basic organisational structure of the Somali society. The clan-based relationships assured the survival of pastoralists, and provided for the restocking of families who lost their animals through drought, disease or theft (Afrax, 1993, p. 135). Although the land is accessible for all people, each clan has its own share, its own base. Tensions mount between the different clans in times of drought. People are less willing to share the scarce resources, and forbid members of other clans to enter ‘their’ land. This can lead to quarrels. When the clan-based legal system fails to function as well, these quarrels can turn into conflicts. These are, in short, some important root causes of the conflict in Wajir between 1992 and 1994. During that period, thousands of people were robbed, raped, wounded or killed. Each event led to another. Revenge followed on revenge. A circle of violence had emerged. How to break this vicious circle of violence? How to reach a peace resolution? How to reach reconciliation? Questions often asked, but difficult to answer. Answers cannot be found behind a desk, but it is possible to gain some insight by learning from practical situations. This is what I have done in my research. I went to Wajir to find out how they had broken that circle, how they had reached durable peace. 4 1.2 Research aims Although my research is confined to Wajir, my research aim is broader: I want to contribute to a specific part of the discussion on peace building. A peace process is a broad and inclusive process, transforming a conflict into sustainable peace (Lederach, 1997, p. 20). It does not end by reaching a cease-fire, or by signing a conflict resolution. Other, long-term processes, such as democratisation, poverty reduction, empowering the civil society, can also be part of the reconciliation process. Which processes are necessary depends on the kind of conflict and its causes. Reconciliation is always a necessary element of the peace process. Much has been written about peace building, but most of it is on the macro or meso level, i.e. mediation and negotiation, and democratisation are well-attended subjects. The micro level of peace building, to which the reconciliation process belongs, seems to get neglected. For decades, social scientists have paid little or no attention to reconciliation and as a concept it is just emerging. Only in the last few years it began to receive some attention. Gerrit Glas finds an explanation for this omission in the association between reconciliation and religion: people often reconcile by virtue of their religion: forgiveness is an important value in both the Christian and the Muslim religion. It is thus not surprising that the theological literature gives considerable attention to the subject.

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