Campaign against border raids on the way

• Forum was expected to foster security along the Kenya-Ethiopia-Somalia common border to make the three countries work together as a cluster zone for IGAD.

A major peace awareness campaign aimed at ending cattle rustling and cross border raids is about to be rolled out in Kenya.

Kenya’s minister for Development of Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands, Mohammed Elmi, told an international conference in Southern Ethiopia that the campaign, which will be carried out just like the HIV and Aids drive, will cover a period of five years.

“Whoever will be in the forefront to spearhead this campaign will receive an incentive from the government,” Mr Elmi told the conference organised by the Inter Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) in the Moyale town of Ethiopia.

However, he did not give details or lay down modalities of the new campaign.

Ethiopia’s Regional Affairs minister, Dr Shifarau Mariam, also attended the conference, which ended Wednesday evening.

The forum was expected to foster security along the Kenya-Ethiopia-Somalia common border to make the three countries work together as a cluster zone for IGAD.

The porous border has since independence remained insecure owing to recurrent incidents of attacks that occur between communities living on each side of the three territories.

As the forum was told, the current threat along the Kenya-Somalia border has been constant raids by a group allied to Al Shabaab – an Islamic extremist group fighting to oust the Somalia Transitional Government.

Although incidents of cattle raids and other cases of attacks along the Kenya-Ethiopia border are recurrent, the two governments, Mr Elmi said have established an accord to stamp out such conflicts.

The communities embroiled in conflict along this border include, Borana, Gabra and Garre. They live on each side of the border. They had sent representatives at the meeting.

Community leaders from Somali community living in North Eastern province were also present.

Mr Elmi accused some Kenyan politicians of being behind the conflicts.

And he warned them: “Whoever will be found inciting his community against their neighbours will be held responsible for his own actions.”

He at the same time dismissed as primitive the notion that cattle rustling is a tradition of the pastoralists communities saying it should be viewed as a national crisis.

Ethiopian Regional Affairs minister, Dr Mariam on the other hand wondered why the pastoralists continue to fight instead of focusing on problems like drought and poverty that bedevil them.