A Case Study of Isiolo County, Northern Kenya
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Working Paper Working The Politics of Pastoral Violence: A Case Study of Isiolo County, Northern Kenya Roba Sharamo June 2014 Working Paper 095 www.future-agricultures.org Table of Contents 1.0 Introduction...........................................................................................................................................................3 2.0 Background to the study..................................................................................................................................3 2.1 The policy problem: The politics of pastoral violence..................................................................................................................5 3.0 Understanding the changing dynamics of contemporary pastoral violence in Isiolo................................5 3.1 The role of dominant political and economic agendas...................................................................................................6 3.1.1 Political dimensions and agendas: Dynamics of ethnic fears and interests..........................................6 3.1.2 Economic dimensions and interests....................................................................................................................6 4.0 Attempts to mediate and manage security..................................................................................................10 5.0 Policy recommendations.....................................................................................................................................11 References ..............................................................................................................................................................12 Working Paper 095 2 www.future-agricultures.org 1.0 Introduction are reinforcing destabilising processes and potentially undermining livelihoods. The study argues that the Conflicts and violence taking the form of cattle rustling, conflicts that engulfed the multi-ethnic Isiolo town were ethnic violence, displacements and massacres have fundamentally founded on a recognition that pastoral characterised inter-communal and clan relations among conflict dynamics have been transforming over a long the various pastoralist communities of northern Kenya period, and traditional structures have often been ill and the greater Horn of Africa region. In addition to stress equipped to cope. Increasingly, the government has factors such as environmental degradation, drought, been blamed for laxity in enforcing security and rule of famine and other natural catastrophes, pastoralists law in Isiolo as in other parts of northern Kenya affected face complex challenges of land related conflicts (some by violence, including the town of Moyale on the border of which are related to administrative and electoral with Ethiopia (Jamah 2012). boundaries); recurrent violent conflicts aggravated by the proliferation of small arms and light weapons (SALWs); With devolution and the emergence of northern tensions with agricultural communities; and human- Kenya as a key focus for the country’s future national wildlife conflicts aggravated by competing uses of land development, the dynamics of violence are set to for commercial ranching and wildlife conservation, transform again. The policy challenge is how to prevent amongst others. violence from spreading while ensuring that pastoralists are able to benefit from the region’s economic transition. However, while the nature of pastoral conflicts has Hence, the conflicts have critical political and economic changed over time, recent violence in northern Kenya dimensions which must be discerned to present a suggests that there are worrying new dynamics at play. coherent roadmap for its effective management and The nature of pastoral conflict seems to be changing yet the reduction of violence. again alongside northern Kenya’s new importance in the country’s wider development strategy and also in relation This study posed two key research questions. Firstly, to the politics surrounding its new decentralised political what is the nature of the contemporary conflict in Isiolo? system. Through a case study of Isiolo – historically the Secondly, how did political agendas and economic gateway to northern Kenya – this paper examines in detail interests shape and sustain the violence in Isiolo during the dynamics of new violence in the region’s pastoral the 2011/2012 period? The study utilises a qualitative areas and assesses their implications for conflict reduction case study research design drawing on both secondary and peacebuilding efforts. While many automatically link and primary data collection methods, notably fieldwork, intensifying development with more secure livelihoods, focus group discussions and informant interviews well-being and a greater propensity for peace, a different between July and December 2012. The study concludes picture emerges from recent violence in northern Kenya. by advancing some policy recommendations to enhance Here, violence and militarism have accompanied and the prospects for durable solutions to the crisis in Isiolo marked developmental transitions. Even with the advent under the devolved system of governance. of a new constitutional dispensation that heralded a devolved governance system, from Samburu to Isiolo to Marsabit violence has persisted and flared anew across 2.0 Background to the study northern Kenya. Fear of devolution and complex political and economic interests converge to fan violence among Across the African continent, from the Tuaregs of Isiolo’s communities. Mali to the Pokots of Kenya and Uganda, violence, inter-clan warfare and conflict are almost synonymous This study posits that in anticipation of the new with livestock keeping populations and nomadic devolved governance system, the nature of pastoral culture. However, in Kenya as in many other East African conflicts has shifted as new county-level political and countries, a number of factors have changed the nature governance structures are introduced. Under the new of pastoral conflict into something that is arguably more devolved system, considerable public resources are violent, connected to wider political, economic and channelled through county governments, setting the social dynamics. These factors include the proliferation stage for intensified competition between county-level of deadly SALWs; climate change; competition over elites. If not well managed, the allocation of public shrinking grazing lands and water resources as a result resources at the county level could intensify violence at of increased human settlements and emergence of the local level and thereby undermine the promise of the zoned wildlife parks/conservancies; and politicisation much-awaited devolution agenda and national security of communal relations. Additionally, due to weakened and stability. While the conflicts and violence in Isiolo traditional governance systems, breakdown of inter- appear to be the usual traditional pastoral communities’ communal social contracts, elders’ loss of control over competition for pasture and grazing land, this study will the youths, the persistence of moran (warrior) culture, argue that dominant political and economic interests and politicisation of peacemaking processes, pastoral are the major drivers of ethnic violence in the county. conflicts have become quite intractable. Porous borders Thus, using the Isiolo’s pre-election violence, this paper coupled with insurgency and counter-insurgency forces will reveal how economic and political linkages which supported by neighbouring states add a regional security are increasingly tying Isiolo (as elsewhere in northern dimension to Kenya’s conflict situation. Over time, Kenya) into the national economic and political trajectory livestock rustling has become an instrument of violence Working Paper 095 3 www.future-agricultures.org among pastoral communities. Indeed, contemporary famines, malnourished children – basically, a ‘bandits’ pastoral conflicts are no longer simply cultural sport or kingdom’. In a confidential interview, a former Kenyan localised competition over scarce natural resources, but Provincial Administrator noted that Kenyan government rather a manifestation of the generalised violence in the officers posted to the region often lamentingly referred country’s evolving politics and deep political divisions to the North Eastern Province (NEP) as ‘Nothing at clan and ethnic levels. Except Problems!’1 Such perceptions and realities of developmental marginalisation have earned northern In Kenya the prevention, management and eradication Kenya the humiliating tag of Kenya’s ‘other frontier’ of the dehumanising practice of cattle rustling among (Menkhaus 2008). pastoral communities has often defied contemporary solutions – making policing of the region a Herculean As Menkhaus argued, due to the Kenyan state’s weak task for the government and law enforcement officials. presence in the north, it took the emergence of local Highlighting a debilitating policy paralysis and peace structures to help negotiate peace in collaboration operational failures in countering pastoralist militarism, with state security and administration officials (Ibid). Osamba (2000) argues that the Kenyan authorities seem Nonetheless, community pacts among pastoral groups to have weakened authority over bandits and cattle have also become short-lived affairs. When pressed by rustlers who are heavily equipped with sophisticated state organs for an end to violence, many politicians