This is no way to end cattle wars

TWO WEEKS AGO, ANOTHER ugly incident of cattle-rustling was witnessed in Isiolo. Six people, five of them police officers, were killed and 10 others seriously injured by Samburu raiders. While it is easy to excuse this as an archaic traditional pastoralist practice, the ferociousness and frequency with which it is happening begs for answers.

Isiolo is cosmopolitan and home to the Borana, Samburu, Turkana, Meru and Somali communities. Its proximity to Mt Kenya makes it a strategic pasture reserve of last resort. Competition for dwindling pasture and water continues to be fodder for simmering conflicts.

However, cattle-rustling is more complex than this. It is a high-stakes, well-organised crime involving many well-armed raiders. It takes time to plan and skills to execute. It involves intricate networking and reconnaissance missions before it is commissioned.

Such details cannot pass the attention of any government worth its name. Chiefs and police are aware of a raid in the making, but are either lax or complicit.

The disjointed nature of various government department makes any response slow and ineffective. As was the case with the Isiolo raid, the handful of security officers sent to quell it were easily outnumbered by the hundreds of well-prepared Samburu raiders.

This puts to doubt the willingness of the government to deal firmly with insecurity in Northern Kenya. Even when it acts, its use of force is arbitrary, excessive and meant to inflict collective maximum injury. The results are often disastrous.

The most affected districts have committees tasked with promoting peace and reconciliation. Patronised by local MPs and the Provincial Administration, these committees have been turned into local courts for harassing pastoralists in the name of recovering stolen livestock.

Area MPs are in supremacy contests of sorts. They engage in shadow-boxing at the expense of their constituents. In Isiolo North, Livestock Development minister Mohamed Kuti rode to Parliament on the platform of peace and reconciliation. But in his second term, he has retreated into the ethnic cocoon.

Earlier this year, Dr Kuti led a delegation to State House. What followed was distribution of guns to Kuti’s side of the conflict and the military operation in the neighbouring Samburu.

Dr Kuti’s counterpart in Samburu East, Mr Raphael Letimalo, was mum for two years as raiders from his constituency wreaked havoc on Borana and Meru pastoralists. Yet he is now quick to call press conferences to defend his constituents. When President Kibaki grants separate audience to conflicting groups and arms warring communities, he is playing bad politics.

There is need to learn from the past. Approaches applied by the former PC for North Eastern Province, Mohamud Saleh and the KWS wildlife protection model with its early warning and rapid response mechanism has worthy lessons.

Like the Mungiki menace, cattle-rustling is sucking in huge numbers of idle youths. A lot of funds currently wasted on conflict resolution seminars in posh hotels can be put to meaningful use at the village level.

Mr Ido is a management and institutional development consultant with a focus on pastoral development issues.