Blood on the Runway

“Recolonization Beyond Somalia” Revisited

2012-01-31T00:49:00.000-08:00

“Recolonization Beyond Somalia” Revisisted

By S. Abdi Sheikh

In the book " Recolonization beyond Somalia", Mousa Sheikh Mohamed's central thesis was the eminent permanent UN presence in Somalia. His predictions have come to pass; today the UN is Somalia's de facto government. UNDP runs the economy, UNCHR runs the Social Services and UNPOS runs the politics. Recolonization beyond Somalia is complete.

The history of Somalia is replete with struggles among major powers. Somalia was colonized by three major powers with different styles and interests; Italians controlled Southern Somalia, The British colonized both North and South West Somalia, the French contented themselves with Djibouti. This scenario had created a tower of Babel barely able to hear each other. The failure of the Somalia State was given even before the state-building project began.

The British ceded parts of Somalia to Kenya and the Americans supported Ethiopia to annex parts of Somalia now known as the Fifth Region in Ethiopia. By the time Somalia was attaining independence, it looked like a body without arms or legs. The struggle for complete Somali territorial space consumed the Somali resources, intelligence and personnel and eventually the people of Somalia felt defeated, betrayed and frustrated. The dictatorship of Siyad Barre was not sufficiently prepared to guide the discontent into any meaningful patriotic enterprises. The situation was pregnant for civil strife by early 1978. Repression was Barre's answer to the defeat, frustration and dissent by the population.

The aim of the rebellion was to change the Somali Government to be responsive to its people's needs but the rebels could not agree on the mode of government and the personalities that would lead. The regional powers like Kenya and Ethiopia were always apprehensive of any strong government in Somalia. The intervention by UN and US added fuel to an already explosive situation. The foreign interventionists started dictating to the main rebel leaders on what to do but Aideed and his group rejected any orders from the UN or the US. What followed was the failure of the intervention, the warlordism and the near genocide of Somali civilians over the years.

Most attempts to bring peace to Somalia were more a lipservice to peace rather than actual peace-building; regional states were looking for a weak friendly regime that will exercise any influence upon Somalis living outside the Somalia State. It was like an experience in mediocrity. Each time a new leader was tested and discarded; Abdiqassim, Abdullahi Yusuf and Shariff Sheikh Ahmed. The only credible and hopeful regime lasted for six months and was created by a consortium of Islamic Courts; the ICU which became a clear and present danger to the regional powers. Currently, the TFG is the internationally backed show government which really has little chance of pacifying Somalia. Obviously the bogeyman is AlShabaab, a group of small arms carrying weak rebel group who's objective though not really defined is to impose Shariah on Somalia.

The greatest threat to Somalia's statehood is not really Islamist groups but the regional players and international organizations; like mad men they are doing the same thing since 1991 and expecting a totally different results. But then Somalia has become the burial ground of good ideas and good intentions. These good intentions have spawned piracy, corruption and terrorism. It has created a war economy, a war culture and a warring life. The interests of Ethiopia and Kenya will not let them refrain from interference in Somalia's affairs. They have little choice.

How then should an acceptable solution be procured? A Somali politician who felt pained by the drudgery and hopelessness of Somalia's situation once had a hilarious solution to Somalia's problems. He wanted to ask every group what they really want: those who want oil contracts give them! Those who want land, give them! Those who want money, give them livestock! All he wanted to buy from the UN, US, IGAD, Kenya, Ethiopia and Eritrea was non-interference. It would be ideal if Somalis were left to their own devices but that will never happen.

There is however nothing stopping Somalis from organizing an independent grassroots movement which is not armed and not protected by foreign forces to attempt to force every warring group to the negotiating table and finally procure a local solution for the Somali problems. Somalis need to start a piece caravan that will move all over Somalia to organize peace rallies and traditional conflict management techniques to create consent based state-building momentum. That approach may work better than the hammer and the anvil approach of the foreign interventionists. Meanwhile all foreign forces and organizations should be urged to withdraw their persistent meddling. This point is obviously naive but nothing better is on the table so far.

S. Abdi Sheikh, the author of "Blood on the Runway: The Wagalla Massacre of 1984" is a freelance writer who specializes on the Horn of Africa. Read the writer's blog at www.xudayi.wordpress.com. The author can be reached at xudayi@gmail.com

What Ails North Eastern Kenya?

2011-10-13T03:09:00.000-07:00

What Ails NEP?
A Speech by Salah Abdi Sheikh to NEPUSA, Kenyatta University Chapter.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I was invited to this forum by a young man, Ahmed Shekhey, who consulted me through Facebook. He informed me that the topic of discussion is “What Ails NEP”? Being an addicted Facebooker and Twitter subscriber, I put the question to my friends by posting it on my wall. 55 people responded. Their contributions form part of this speech tonight.

The problems facing Northern Kenya, according to the respondents are varied. The problems are too many for anybody to give coherent and decisive answer to that question. If we do a list of all the problems we know that afflict NEP, a general consensus will arise out of the following:

1. Lack of hospitals

2. Underperforming schools

3. Lack of proper markets for animals

4. Lack of water and Sanitation facilities

5. Unresolved historical injustices: Massacre and Genocide.

6. Poverty

7. Miraa Addiction

8. Poor Leadership

9. Tribalism, cronyism and nepotism

10. Corruption

11. Inefficiency of the civil service

12. Clan clashes and conflict

13. Lack of proper roads

14. Illiteracy

15. Harsh climatic conditions

16. Brain Drain

17. Dependence syndrome

These are too many issues not aggregated into any order and by the look of it they are discouraging. One will be hard-pressed to find a solution for a list of seventeen problems. But these issues are interrelated and can be disaggregated into a few broad categories.

1. Infrastructural problems

2. Cultural problems

3. Leadership problems

4. Natural Climatic Conditions

5. Law and Order issues

Infrastructural problems are very evident because of lack of hospitals, Roads, Schools, Sanitation problem, Lack of Sources of energy like electricity and lack of Social Halls. These are massive infrastructure components that the state provides for its people. Therefore the Kenya state has failed to provide infrastructure to its citizens. The question is why? Is it a general problem or was there a particular reason for the failure of the state to build infrastructure of in this region? Understanding this issue will require an understanding of history. I will come back to that point later.

Cultures are norms and customs of a society that has been adopted over a period of time. Cultural problem are evidenced by tribalism, nepotism, corruption, clan conflict, colonial borders, rigid sedentary or pastoralist lifestyle. The culture of our people favours chivalry, warfare, favouritism, corruption and disregard of authority. This is not a new idea I am bringing, all those who made it their business to study Somali culture came to the same conclusion. We lived in a lifestyle that was suited to cattle rustling and fighting over marriageable girls. I was born in reserve and I grew up there and so I came to realize very early the idea of “me against my brother, my brothers and I against our father, my clan against other clans, and my tribe and I against the world”. Our tribalism is the cause of many of our problems including the concretization of colonial borders in North Eastern Kenya. Other cultural problems that we have adopted include our view of girls’ education, the idea of collective responsibility for crime of one person and misapplication of Islam to suit our own whims. The last point is evidenced by several sayings including: Sheekh qabiilkiisa kama janataga (The Sheekh cannot choose paradise over his tribe). Cultural issues are a central cause of many of our problems.

Leadership or the lack of it is an all enveloping factor that is causing many of our problems. Poor leadership has cost us development and infrastructural improvement. Massive illiteracy is caused by poor leadership, extreme poverty is a symptom of poor leadership, brain drain is a caused by lack opportunities brought about by lack of creative leadership. In fact leadership is what causes state failure to provide proper infrastructure, is what impedes cultural change and is the worst form of affliction to have. Poor leadership resulted from cultural factors that insure that society does not choose the best for positions of leadership. Tribalism, nepotism and corruption insure the perpetuation of poor leadership. How do you know there is poor leadership? Few yardsticks will suffice; elected leaders who cannot speak for their people honestly and anticipate issues before they arise. Today there is an outbreak of Denge Fever in Mandera. I know it because I talked to someone in the Ministry of Health. There is also famine ravaging the region. The elected leaders are mum over these issues? Who do they expect to speak for their constituents? In a democracy where there are competing voices, the loudest voice is likely to be heard; there is no dignity in keeping quiet when everyone is jostling for a piece of the pie. Lack of leadership has also arisen out of the application of the available resources chiefly the devolved funds especially the famed CDF. Our elected leaders appointed their relatives and supporters to manage the funds and at least in all the constituencies I have visited created millionaires out of their friends. The impact of CDF is visible but is constrained by the abuse of authority and lack of selflessness in our leaders. Leadership also involves creating initiatives, thinking out of the box, leading people to a new direction. I put to you young men and women that without leadership nothing will change.

Our chief complaint is that God in his wisdom did not bless us with a good climate. We live in an arid region with unreliable rainfall and very high temperatures. So we say the famine is caused by the climate and we are just innocent victims. The world has different climatic conditions and North Eastern is not the worst. In fact the worst climatic conditions are not the hottest climate but the coldest. People living in Greenland have something to complain about but not those living in North Eastern Kenya. While the climate is harsh no doubt, it is not as harsh as the deserts of the world. In NEP we are trying to save pastoralism as a method of livestock production in the 21st century. We seem to be stuck in time; running after dwindling herds in the era of the Ipad. It is not the climate that is the problem but our insistence on not adapting to our environment which brings me back to the issue of leadership.

Lawlessness is a problem in NEP. We have absolutely no law operative in that region and this is not by accident. This takes me back to my first point; was infrastructural neglect intended? The lack of infrastructure is intended. It has a long history. Before we were born, Somali was just a tribe living between the Gulf of Trafura (Eden) and Tana River; a vast piece of real estate. They were a tribe of a million clans chasing their camels and one another across this vast land. The Europeans came and partitioned the land among themselves. The French took over Djibouti, Italians grabbed Southern Somalia, the British grabbed both NFD (South West Somalia) and Northern Somalia and finally in the 1930s Ethiopia grabbed the Ogaden Region and parts of Southern Somalia I will not bore you with various struggles but when in 1960s Kenya became independent the British incorporated NFD into Kenya despite the inhabitants’ protestations. Jomo Kenyatta said that he would allow the Somalis and their herds to leave Kenya but he won’t cede one Kilometre of the NFD. This led to the so called Shifa War that lasted from 1963 to 1967. Somalia despite encouraging the initial insurrection dropped its entire claim to the NFD in 1967. That brought the Shifta War to an abrupt end.

Kenya never forgave the Somalis for that insurrection. What followed was decades of genocide; particularly, Malka Mari Massacre of 1978, The Burning of Garissa in 1980, Wagalla Massacre of 1984 and the Kenyan Somali Screening of 1989. Kenyan government suspended the rule of law and the rights of the Somalis. The Somalia crisis also contributed to the problems facing Somalis of Kenya. In the past the excuse for marginalization was Shifta, I am afraid the excuse is now mutating into terrorism and Al-shabaab. The Kenya government has never been serious in integrating the Somalis into the general population; it only uses the region as a buffer zone against Somalia. And even the current democratic environment has not changed anything; the problems of infrastructural neglect have not changed and the historical genocide has not been addressed.

Lawlessness on our part is related to our culture. We aid and abet crime; we pay blood money for crimes committed by serial killers and rapists. We give protection to criminals and we do not allow individuals to take responsibility for their own crimes. That is one problem that is also related to poor leadership; it is leadership that institute cultural change.

I am sure you did not invite me to talk about problems only. You also think that I have some solutions somewhere. Last month I posted a set of 10 points on my blog on how we can fight the famine. We are faced by famine at all levels. My solution to NEP’s problems revolves round these ten points:

1. Abolish the colonial borders: This will involve changing administrative units to cut across clans so that clans are forced into cosmopolitan enclaves.

2. Stem the brain drain: Reverse the extensive lack of manpower facing NEP. Last month I was informed that Ministry of Northern Region and Other Arid Lands have come up with a report saying NEP has no capacity to handle the new devolution units and should have the bare minimum of powers devolved to their Counties. We need to invite back the best among us to take up jobs in the region.

3. Ban Miraa: Miraa is to the Somalis as illicit alcohol is to the Kikuyu; it is killing us. We need to ban miraa completely and insure that it is not sold or consumed in the region once the counties are established. Such a simple action would free a lot of cash and manpower.

4. Undertake a massive literacy campaign. Illiteracy is a source of all problems in Northeastern Kenya. The illiterate person who cannot read or write any language; Arabic, English or Somali, has no place in modern society. Illiteracy is a severe inability worse than any physical impediment. The illiterate person cannot communicate effectively with others, cannot take advantage of the available free knowledge in the world and is easily deceived by hype about clan allegiance, political tomfoolery and settlers for less than his or her worth. It is because of the debilitating illiteracy that the people of Northeastern Kenya have become dependent in handouts from all sources; politicians well-meaning elites and humanitarian organizations. A 10 year massive literacy campaign targeting all sectors of society; children, pastoralists, women and men should be undertaken as a matter of urgency. The mission should be to make education and literacy accessible to people of all ages and make it mandatory for everyone to learn how to read and write effectively. If literacy penetrates into the society then poverty will decrease tremendously and the need for food aid will reduce.

5. Provide water: Water is the most essential ingredient missing in North Eastern Kenya. It is plenty and flows in to the Indian Ocean through Tana River every year, yet the whole of Garissa County suffers acute lack of water. Water should be available every five kilometers in each of the counties. Solving the problem of water eliminates the whole idea of pastrolism and opens up the land for settlement, ownership and reclamation for farming and industry. Water trucking is a waste of public resources, a short term drought alleviation measure and very expensive. There has to be an engineering solution to the problem of water; piping and pumping. The idea is to provide piped water over enormous distances and in a complex network.

6. Change of Diet: Expensive meat and milk based eating habits interspersed with every poor diet of maize grain is the mainstay of people of Northeastern Kenya. It is no longer possible to raise enough camel to produce meat. Milk has now become a luxury in many homes. The low quality maize provided by humanitarian agencies is a stop gap measure. The solution is to rear an animal that can be raised cheaply, grows to maturity within months, produces a lot and which can withstand the harsh climate . The camel; being the largest domestic animal can only be raised for commercial, aesthetic reasons. They can be used for Derby, for expensive branded and exported milk and generally can be raised as a fixed asset. The cows are not able to withstand the harsh climate and there are too few sheep and goats left. Research points to two animals that can be raised in large scale; rabbit and chicken. That is a revolutionary change of diet. Will Somalis eat rabbit? Will they eat chicken? There is really little choice as to the eating habits. There is need to have grilled rabbit and moofa for breakfast and chicken drumsticks for lunch. Massive change of diet means less conflict over space and increased availability of food.

7. Build Feeder Roads (And other infrastructure): The increased accessibility of the region will open up commerce among the Counties of Wajir, Garissa and Mandera. It is not so much as connection with the rest of Kenya but ability to move goods and people within the counties. The building of all weather roads to important settlements will aid all the other points in the plan. Accessibility is important for literacy to penetrate, for the brain drain to reverse, for massive change in diet, for water networks to be built and for information to be distributed easily. In Northeastern Kenya in 2011 there is only seven (7) kilometer of tarmacked roads which is within Garissa town. The rest of the region has only footpaths. This is enough to cause discontent and civil disobedience; it is enough to bring back irredentism and is enough to affect the peace of the whole region. Neglect by successive government has lead to closed region accessible only to the most daring. Building roads will open up the rest opportunities in this region. A 5 year infrastructural development plan to improve all the roads in the region is vital in tackling poverty.

8. Provide Social Welfare: A massive cash back scheme targeting families is more important than humanitarian food-based relief. Cash back schemes where families receive token of cash for child support, unemployment benefits and pension for old age is vital to provide economic stimulus in the who region. The cash advanced to families will be spent within their locality; improving business opportunities and increasing production. The government and the County authorities should develop a plan that targets the most vulnerable members of society, the poorest families and the aged to provide basic social welfare support. This in addition to free education up to secondary level and a 20-year program for free subsidized tertiary education. Each county should put in its budget a scholarship program that targets bright students from poor families which automatically kicks in once a student reaches a certain pre-determined grade and shows need for assistance. There is a potential for mismanagement and corruption in social welfare programs but the potential good that it can do outweighs any administrative bottlenecks that may be experienced.

9. Initiate individual and community reparation programs: The state of Northeastern Kenya is a product of the abusive regimes of Moi and Kenyatta. The Shifta war ceasefire agreement included a provision for massive development, integration and reparations. This provision has never been discussed or implemented. The abusive practices of Kenyatta regime led to the exodus the Somalis call “John ka carar” (Escaping John) where Somalis left Kenya literally with only their clothes on their backs. This was an imposed poverty. The abuses of Moi regime in Malka Mari, Garissa and Wagalla amounted to genocide. Reports say that for women of 30-45 years among Somalis of Kenya up to 20% have been exposed to sexual violence or rape by security forces. It is the shame Somalis rarely expose of themselves. These abuses were coupled with economic sabotage and neglect. It is this cauldron of abuses, sabotage and neglect that has fanned the ballooning poverty. The Kenya government has little choice but to address these issues. A gigantic program of reparations for individual victims and communities should be initiated. This should include acknowledgement, apology and significant compensation to individuals and development of schools, hospitals, boreholes and universities in the worst hit areas. A Marshall plan of some sort should be undertaken over 5 year duration to lift this community left behind and subjugated by successive governments.

10. Develop a tax regime : Tax is a source of revenue for the government. This is what makes government function and pay its bureaucracy as well build infrastructures. Any region that does not pay its share of tax to the government is a parasite region that is not vital to the economy of the country. The nine points in the plan can only be initiated if there is sufficient revenue expected from the counties in North Eastern Kenya. It is not in the interest of the inhabitant of these Counties to be net consumers of government revenue without contributing to the common coffers. An appropriate taxation regime for both County and National tax should be developed. Each county should set itself a target of 15 years to build up its own revenue to a level of self- sufficiency. After this period Central Government funds can only be used for massive infrastructure projects like highways bridges, alternative power installations and projects of long term nature. The county must be able to finance its recurrent expenditure, its social welfare programs and maintain its local development projects. The initiation of a tax regime at an early stage will set the tone for self sufficiency and local autonomy.

The ten points above are not exhaustive and may not be original. Each of these ten points has been elucidated somewhere else before. The idea is to have a plan and an eventual objective of tackling the poverty in the region. The plan requires leadership; motivated leadership. Implementation of such a plan is not a Central Government problem; it is the people who can demand that such a plan be created and implemented. It is the responsibility of the County governments once they are created.

Thank You.

Fighting the Famine: A 10-Point Plan

2011-08-18T07:56:00.000-07:00

NORTHEASTERN KENYA

Fighting Back the Famine: A 10 point plan

By Salah Abdi Sheikh

The response of people of goodwill to the famine in Northeastern Kenya and parts of Rift Valley has been phenomenal. The Kenya Red Cross and the organizers of “Kenyans for Kenyans” initiative must be lauded for their effort. The sheikh Umal led relief drive, Eastleigh Business Association initiative and the general efforts being made to combat the famine through massive famine relief is an indication of the way the society has become awake to its own challenges. This efforts are vital albeit short term and unsustainable. The relief food will save lives now and that is the focus but the long term implications of dependence on food aid are dire.
Since 1985, there has been steady increase of the need for relief food annually. Every year of the last 27 years has seen intervention from humanitarian organizations in Garissa, Wajir and Mandera. This means famine and drought have rarely let up. Poverty is pervasive and has increased to a level that cannot be mitigated easily by grain relief. There has to be a new way of thinking to bring to an end the humanitarian intervention and focus on development, economics, growth and prosperity.
The famine and drought are natural occurrences that result from lack of rain. The climate of Northeastern Kenya is naturally harsh. If rain fails in the two normal seasons, drought is surely to follow. The inhabitants of this region who are nomads are vulnerable to seasonal changes. Their livestock cannot survive without pasture or water. The intervention thus far has in form of been relief food which created permanent dependence on the goodwill of its donors. The people of this region no longer take responsibility for their own lives. Even those with enough skills to survive do not put much effort in surviving; the creativity and human instinct to do something about the deplorable standard of life in the region has been replaced by dependence on food aid.
There has to be a permanent solution to the famine, drought and general underdevelopment of the region. The causes of the poverty can be summarized into illiteracy, harsh climatic conditions, poor local leadership, brain drain and negligence by the government. The solution therefore has to tackle the causes of the poverty and underdevelopment but not just the symptoms which are starvation, listlessness and human suffering. In order to provide a solution to the massive poverty level in North Eastern Kenya, the following 10 point plan is proposed.
1. Lift the colonial borders and promote integration
In Northern Kenya the curse of the “colonial border” left by the British still haunt the residents. These colonial borders have led to restriction in movement of people, goods and ideas. They have also created a “them” and “us” attitude which inimical to community cooperation. These colonial borders also fan clan hatred, provide politicians with ammunition to “divide and rule” and generally encourage wastage of resources. The first point in the plan is to openly declare that there are no clan lands or colonial borders or “seer” and nobody should be bound by them. There should be freedom of movement and settlement for nomads and settlers. This will release massive amount of resources from security in to development.
2. Stem the Brain Drain
Northern Kenya is suffering massive brain drain . Many of its towns are inhabited by illiterates, NGO field officers and civil servants. Any young person completing the KCSE leaves the town for Nairobi immediately he or she hands in his last examination paper. This is because there are no opportunities for higher education or jobs. This has created large towns without any literate persons. In some places the highest educated individuals has neither formal secular education nor formal religion education. With the exception of the primary school teachers, many villages have absolutely no literate residents. This means many of the university educated elites now living comfortable lives in Nairobi and other major towns are just sending handouts home and nothing more. They are contributing to the culture of dependence promoted by the humanitarian agencies. There is need to stem the flow of the educated class into major towns and create opportunities for them to stay and develop the towns and villages in Northeastern Kenya. There is need to promote the movement back to rural areas by highly educated doctors, lawyer, accountants, development experts and political scientists so that a level of educated intelligence can cross-pollinate with the nomads and village inhabitants and bring new ideas for survival.
3. Undertake a massive literacy campaign.
Illiteracy is a source of all problems in Northeastern Kenya. The illiterate person who cannot read or write any language; Arabic, English or Somali, has no place in modern society. Illiteracy is a severe inability worse than any physical impediment. The illiterate person cannot communicate effectively with others, cannot take advantage of the available free knowledge in the world and is easily deceived by hype about clan allegiance, political tomfoolery and settlers for less than his or her worth. It is because of the debilitating illiteracy that the people of Northeastern Kenya have become dependent in handouts from all sources; politicians well-meaning elites and humanitarian organizations. A 10 year massive literacy campaign targeting all sectors of society; children, pastoralists, women and men should be undertaken as a matter of urgency. The mission should be to make education and literacy accessible to people of all ages and make it mandatory for everyone to learn how to read and write effectively. If literacy penetrates into the society then poverty will decrease tremendously and the need for food aid will reduce.

4. Provide water
Water is the most essential ingredient missing in North Eastern Kenya. It is plenty and flows in to the Indian Ocean through Tana River every year, yet the whole of Garissa County suffers acute lack of water. Water should be available every five kilometers in each of the counties. Solving the problem of water eliminates the whole idea of pastrolism and opens up the land for settlement, ownership and reclamation for farming and industry. Water trucking is a waste of public resources, a short term drought alleviation measure and very expensive. There has to be an engineering solution to the problem of water; piping and pumping. The idea is to provide piped water over enormous distances and in a complex network.
5. Banning of Miraa
This may look unusual but it is the single most destructive habit of the Somalis living in Kenya. Just like gambling and alcohol have destroyed the aborigines of Australia and Kumi Kumi and changaa are destroying the Kikuyu community, this narcotic has taken over the lives of promising young teachers, civil servants and businessmen and reduced them to wrecks. Miraa brings in little or no profit while it takes an equivalent of 5-10 million shillings every week from Wajir County’s economy. This is exacerbated by the fact that it takes away the very energy to work, is addictive and has created a society of single parent families led by women. It’s a disaster of unimaginable proportion. Miraa also contributed to the corruption, conflict and general lack of good leadership in the communities. Banning Miraa completely will free the energy of the remaining literate manpower in the Counties into productive use, raise standards of education and increase the standards of living of many families.
6. Change of Diet
Expensive meat and milk based eating habits interspersed with every poor diet of maize grain is the mainstay of people of Northeastern Kenya. It is no longer possible to raise enough camel to produce meat. Milk has now become a luxury in many homes. The low quality maize provided by humanitarian agencies is a stop gap measure. The solution is to rear an animal that can be raised cheaply, grows to maturity within months, produces a lot and which can withstand the harsh climate . The camel; being the largest domestic animal can only be raised for commercial, aesthetic reasons. They can be used for Derby, for expensive branded and exported milk and generally can be raised as a fixed asset. The cows are not able to withstand the harsh climate and there are too few sheep and goats left. Research points to two animals that can be raised in large scale; rabbit and chicken. That is a revolutionary change of diet. Will Somalis eat rabbit? Will they eat chicken? There is really little choice as to the eating habits. There is need to have grilled rabbit and moofa for breakfast and chicken drumsticks for lunch. Massive change of diet means less conflict over space and increased availability of food.
7. Build Feeder Roads
The increased accessibility of the region will open up commerce among the Counties of Wajir, Garissa and Mandera. It is not so much as connection with the rest of Kenya but ability to move goods and people within the counties. The building of all weather roads to important settlements will aid all the other points in the plan. Accessibility is important for literacy to penetrate, for the brain drain to reverse, for massive change in diet, for water networks to be built and for information to be distributed easily. In Northeastern Kenya in 2011 there is only seven (7) kilometer of tarmacked roads which is within Garissa town. The rest of the region has only footpaths. This is enough to cause discontent and civil disobedience; it is enough to bring back irredentism and is enough to affect the peace of the whole region. Neglect by successive government has lead to closed region accessible only to the most daring. Building roads will open up the rest opportunities in this region. A 5 year infrastructural development plan to improve all the roads in the region is vital in tackling poverty.
8. Provide Social Welfare:
A massive cash back scheme targeting families is more important than humanitarian food-based relief. Cash back schemes where families receive token of cash for child support, unemployment benefits and pension for old age is vital to provide economic stimulus in the who region. The cash advanced to families will be spent within their locality; improving business opportunities and increasing production. The government and the County authorities should develop a plan that targets the most vulnerable members of society, the poorest families and the aged to provide basic social welfare support. This in addition to free education up to secondary level and a 20-year program for free subsidized tertiary education. Each county should put in its budget a scholarship program that targets bright students from poor families which automatically kicks in once a student reaches a certain pre-determined grade and shows need for assistance. There is a potential for mismanagement and corruption in social welfare programs but the potential good that it can do outweighs any administrative bottlenecks that may be experienced.
9. Initiate individual and community reparation programs
The state of Northeastern Kenya is a product of the abusive regimes of Moi and Kenyatta. The Shifta war ceasefire agreement included a provision for massive development, integration and reparations. This provision has never been discussed or implemented. The abusive practices of Kenyatta regime led to the exodus the Somalis call “John ka carar” (Escaping John) where Somalis left Kenya literally with only their clothes on their backs. This was an imposed poverty. The abuses of Moi regime in Malka Mari, Garissa and Wagalla amounted to genocide. Reports say that for women of 30-45 years among Somalis of Kenya up to 20% have been exposed to sexual violence or rape by security forces. It is the shame Somalis rarely expose of themselves. These abuses were coupled with economic sabotage and neglect. It is this cauldron of abuses, sabotage and neglect that has fanned the ballooning poverty. The Kenya government has little choice but to address these issues. A gigantic program of reparations for individual victims and communities should be initiated. This should include acknowledgement, apology and significant compensation to individuals and development of schools, hospitals, boreholes and universities in the worst hit areas. A Marshall plan of some sort should be undertaken over 5 year duration to lift this community left behind and subjugated by successive governments.
10. Develop a tax regime
Tax is a source of revenue for the government. This is what makes government function and pay its bureaucracy as well build infrastructures. Any region that does not pay its share of tax to the government is a parasite region that is not vital to the economy of the country. The nine points in the plan can only be initiated if there is sufficient revenue expected from the counties in North Eastern Kenya. It is not in the interest of the inhabitant of these Counties to be net consumers of government revenue without contributing to the common coffers. An appropriate taxation regime for both County and National tax should be developed. Each county should set itself a target of 15 years to build up its own revenue to a level of self- sufficiency. After this period Central Government funds can only be used for massive infrastructure projects like highways bridges, alternative power installations and projects of long term nature. The county must be able to finance its recurrent expenditure, its social welfare programs and maintain its local development projects. The initiation of a tax regime at an early stage will set the tone for self sufficiency and local autonomy.
The ten points above are not exhaustive and may not be original. Each of these ten points has been elucidated somewhere else before. The idea is to have a plan and an eventual objective of tackling the poverty in the region. The plan requires leadership; motivated leadership. Implementation of such a plan is not a Central Government problem; it is the people who can demand that such a plan be created and implemented.
There is a potential for the plan to be hijacked for political expediency and it may end up being a wishy-washy project that increases the disappointment of the inhabitants in the region. It is however a starting point; a point of discussion that can be modified, altered, discarded altogether for a better plan or implemented.

Salah Abdi Sheikh, the author of “Blood on the Runway: The Wagalla Massacre of 1984” is a community leader and human rights campaigner.

Kenya's TJRC should be disbanded before it leads to further polarisation of the country

2010-09-16T02:09:00.000-07:00

Press Statement: TBT Network on behalf of survivors and families of victims of Wagalla Massacre

Press Statement

The Truth Be Told Network, on behalf of the survivors and families of victims of Wagalla Massacre of 1984, register its rejection of the Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission as presently constituted.

As we have stated before, Wagalla Masscare is the most serious crime committed on Kenya's soil; in this massacre it is believed 3000 innocent men and boys were shepherded into a disused airstrip, tortured, starved and shot by the Kenya Security Forces. It was a well planned operation to exterminate a named community completely and therefore qualifies as genocide; a crime against humanity.

The planning for this genocide was executed at the top level of government and many past and present leaders of this country were privy to its this planning and execution. We have provided evidence to show that at more than time and more than one location meetings of top level civil servants took place to plan, strategize and carry out this heinous crime against humanity. One such meeting took place at Wajir DC,s office on 8th February, 1984 and was attended by at least 8 top civil servants whose line Ministries were responsible for national security. This was a day before the operation began to detain men and boys which lasted for four days. Among those who attended that meeting was Hon. Amb. Bethuel Kiplagat. Kiplagat is currently the Chairman of TJRC which intends to look into the circumstances surrounding the Wagalla Massacre. This is not an allegation, it is a material fact proven by government's own records and corroborated by eyewitnesses.

We also believe, the TJRC as constituted has neither the motivation, the credibility or the capacity to undertake the task required to unearth the truth, provide justice and reparations and create memorization for Wagalla Massacre and other crimes committed by government of Kenya against its own people. We specifically believe the following to be true:

That the TJRC was specifically designed to be perpetrator friendly. It was designed to absolve perpetrators of crimes and not heap the right accountability and blame on them. The former regimes which committed much of these crimes are still in control of the country through proxies. They are therefore in control of the truth-seeking process, leaving the victims and survivors disempowered.
That the TJRC is designed to validate long held false insinuations and untruths about many of the crimes committed in this country. In the case of Wagalla Massacre; the government admission of killing 57 men is likely to be validated while in actual terms this number was its own civil servants who died in the massacre. Governments own records show that it killed 2619 people. (In the political assassinations, it wants to validate, the false theory that the gentleman committed suicide etc).
That the TJRC was designed to limit the magnitude of reparations payable to the families of victims and survivors of the heinous crimes like Wagalla Massacre. The TJRC was modelled on the South African Truth Commission which eventually paid US$ 400 as reparations to all the victims, regardless of the crime. This idea was floated in meetings of the TJRC and even the figure of Ksh. 2000 was discussed.
That the TJRC will meet a limited number of victims and survivors. The number being discussed being 1200-1700 victims in a country of 38 Million people. Of this the TJRC is likely to decide on who is a victim and who is not. Justice will not therefore be served by a government agency dictating the identification of victims and survivors.
That the TJRC will focus mainly on foot soldiers not planners and political leaders of many of the crimes. For instance the Wagalla Massacre case low level soldiers have been lined up to confess to the crimes and apply for amnesty. While the soldiers committed unimaginable crimes, the responsibility for genocide is political and it is those higher in the echelons of the military and the executive who should be prosecuted.
That the TJRC as presently constituted will definitely lead to polarization in this country. It will not lead to reconciliation but further disorder and violence which turn our society upside down. Since the model used was from South Africa it can correctly be stated that the product will be identical; South Africans have turned on one another leading killing of white farmers and xenophobia against other Africans because of the way the Justice and Reconciliation process was handled. We believe that the result in Kenya will not be much different.

Because of the foregoing reasons Truth Be Told Network on behalf of the families of victims and survivors has resolved to:

Hold public demonstration in Wajir on 16th, 17th and 18th September, 2010 to protest TJRC process and urge the families of victims of survivors to boycott the TJRC.
Enjoin ourselves in the ongoing suits by the civil society aimed at halting the TJRC process.
Consult with various stakeholders on the formation of a separate People's Commission on Justice, independent of the government's TJRC intended to unearth the truth and recommend appropriate justice against the perpetrators.
Continue to agitate for appropriate mechanism for Truth, Justice, Reparations and Memorialization.
Continue to prosecute the two cases currently in court; one at the High Court of Kenya and the ACPHR in Banjul and seek the courts intervention to stop the TJRC from interfering in this matter which is already in court.

Further:

We therefore urge the TJRC staff to forthwith stop harassing the families of the victims of Wagalla Massacre in Wajir.
We strongly urge the disbandment of the TJRC and serious study on what went wrong with the process with the intention of constitution an appropriate body designed for Kenya's circumstances and staffed by Kenyans who had no involvement in the operations of the past regimes.
Implementation of the new constitution's provisions on leadership, integrity and bill of rights so that the credibility of any justice mechanism is enhanced.

We believe any further continuation of the TJRC process is deliberate chest-thumping of the perpetrators of past crimes and gerrymandering of politicians who had no intention to heal this country in the first place.

(Ends)

Signed:

Salah Abdi Sheikh: Coordinator TBT Network

The Wagalla Massacre: The Case Against TJRC in Kenya

2010-03-02T01:17:00.000-08:00

By S. Abdi Sheikh

On 11 January 1985, the Principal State Counsel, M. Ole Keiwua, wrote on behalf of the Attorney General to Ibrahim Khamis Adan and Alinoor Yussuf Mohamed Hussein through their lawyers, Munikah and Company Advocates, asking them, in accordance with the rules of civil procedures, to supply specific information about the death of their fathers. The information requested included the particular dates and times when the deceased persons were killed; whether they were killed by the Kenya Army Personnel, the Kenya Police or 1982 Airforce personnel; and the names of the specific officers responsible for the deaths of the deceased. Khamis Adan Mumin, Ibrahim’s father, worked for Wajir County Council until his death; Yussuf Mohamed Hussein was a civil servant in the Ministry of Health. The two were among 55 or so employees of various government agencies who disappeared from work in early February 1984, never to be seen again. Their employers reported them as having deserted their duties and their families could not access their terminal benefits.

The question of who killed these two men and more than three thousand others was raised in parliament by the former Member of Parliament for Wajir West, the late Ahmed Khalif Mohamed, on 21 March 1984. During a debate on then-President Moi’s speech at the opening of that parliamentary session, Khalif accused the security forces of killing hundreds in Wajir District. The government forces, he said, had placed more than 4000 people in a concentration camp, over 300 had been immediately executed, and over 600 were confirmed missing. Khalif directly accused the PC for North Eastern Province, Benson Kaaria, and the Somalia government of collusion in the murder. Kaaria had claimed, as reported by the Standard on November 9, 1980, that he would eliminate all Somali-speaking people in the country unless they exposed shifta who had killed a District Officer. Khalif’s accusations were met with utmost hostility by the entire parliament. Mwai Kibaki, Keneth Matiba, A. Y. Boru and Samuel Ng’eny demanded substantiation. Charles Muthura accused Khalif of irrelevance in his contribution to the presidential speech while Parmenas Munyasia jestingly demanded to know the names of those who threatened to wipe out the Somalis. Khalif was cornered into dropping the Somalia claim but stood his ground on the mass killings of Somalis in Wajir. In a bid to substantiate his claim the late MP tabled the lists of massacre victims and their photographs in parliament on 28 March 1984; many on the list were civil servants,

including Noor Haji, the former Senator from Wajir, who had been killed in the military operation.

The question of just what happened at Wagalla Airstrip between 10 and 14 February 1984 was partially answered by the late Justus Ole Tipis in a ministerial statement about the military operation, read on the floor of parliament on the night of 12 April 1984, and reported in the Nation of April 13 1985. Ole Tipis revealed that the security situation in Wajir was politically motivated, and that leaders were involved in divisive strategies planned along ethnic considerations. He claimed that the government decided to carry out its operations against the Degodia community in order to provide security to a

neighbouring clan. Ole Tipis gave an accurate account of the operations but avoided mention of the resulting genocide.

The Wajir District Security Committee and the Provincial Security Committee were convened by an order from the National Security Council. The meeting took place on 8 February 1984 at the DC’s office, Wajir. The District Commissioner himself was conveniently replaced by a District Officer, M. M. Tiema. According to the signatures in the visitors book at the DC’s office, and eyewitness reports, this meeting was attended by J.S. Mathenge, Permanent Secretary Office of the President; B. A. Kiplagat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; David Mwiraria, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs; John Gituma, Permanent Secretary Ministry of Information and Broadcasting; Brigadier J. R. Kibwana, Department of Defence; B. N. Macharia of the Treasury; Z. J. M. Kamencu, Deputy Secretary in the Office of the President; J. P.Gitui, D.C.O Police Headquarters; J. K. Kaguthi and J. P. Mwagovya of the Office of the President; C. M. Aswani, Provincial Police Officer, North Eastern Province; Lt. Col. H. F. K. Muhindi of 7KR; J. K. Kinyanjui, director of Land Adjudication Nairobi; and finally Benson N. Kaaria Provincial Commissioner, North Eastern Province. The meeting resolved to carry out an operation with the objectives of disarming the Degodia and forcing them to provide the names of bandits who were committing crimes in the district.

Once the operation was authorised, it began in earnest on 10 February at 0400 and involved the Police, the Administration Police and the Army. The operation covered Elben, Dambas, Butelehu, Eldas, Griftu and Bulla Jogoo. According to the government statement, most of these areas had been swept by February 11 . When the army surrounded Bulla Jogoo, they ordered the residents to vacate their homes. According to Ole Tipis, the residents refused to comply with the order; the military then forcibly removed 381 male members of the Degodia clan from their homes and took them to Wagalla Airstrip, 9 miles West of Wajir Town. Ole Tipis admitted that those held were

interrogated for three days and a scuffle erupted when the District Commissioner accompanied by the OCPD entered the airstrip. Some of the crowds started to escape while others shouted at government officers. In this confusion and stampede, 29 people died of gunshots or were trampled upon, while 28 others were killed when the army met with resistance during the operations, according to the ministerial statement.

The official story given by the government was close to what happened, save that the government minimised the operation’s callousness. The operation covered all of Wajir District including Tarbaj, Leheley, Wajir-Bor and Khorof Harar. The target community were the Degodia but it is believed a number of Somalis of other extraction were caught up in cases of mistaken identity. The operation targeted male members of the clan above 12 years of age but women were raped, houses were burnt and property was looted in every locality where the operation took place. The men rounded up were subjected to torture in an effort to force them to confess to owning a rifle. Some died of their wounds before they reached Wagalla Airstrip. Those who reached the airstrip were sorted into sub-clans and up to 30 members of Jebrail sub-clan were burnt alive in an orgy of unprecedented violence. Their clothes were piled on top of them, petrol or some other highly flammable chemical was sprinkled on the clothes, and a bonfire whose fuel was human flesh was created. The other detainees watched as their colleagues were roasted alive. The rest of the men were forced to strip naked and told to squat in the hot sun – those who resisted were shot. The late Ahmed Khalif reported that the detainees were held at the airstrip for five days; that they were denied food and water; and that during this period those who tried to pray were shot. In those five days, more than 1000 people starved to death, shot for questioning the orders of the forces, or died at the hands of gangs which were allowed into the airstrip at night to carry out revenge against those whom they held a grudge.

On the fifth day the remaining men bolted, broke the barbed wire fence and ran for their lives. The military opened fire and hundreds were shot — many in the back — and killed. The stampede helped most escape into the bushes where they received needed help from nomads in the bushes. It was an escape that should have come on the first couple of days before so many were murdered, but without it the Degodia people would have been wiped off the map. The military found itself amid thousands of dead and injured men. The plan had gone awry: men had escaped and told others what happened. The military attempted a massive cover-up that involved piling the dead and injured into lorries and dumping them in the bushes; many bodies were also disposed of by fire and acids. A rescue attempt by the current Minister for Northern Kenya and Arid Lands, Mohamed Ibrahim Elmi, Catholic nun Annalena Tonelli, businessman Noor Unug and others saved many people who were ferried into various parts of Wajir district by the armed forces.

That is how Wagalla Massacre took place. The survivors’ stories are almost unbelievable.

One survivor says that he had never stepped into Wajir town before Februray 9, 1984. He decided to visit his father there; they were both picked up by the military the night he arrived and he found himself at Wagalla naked, hungry and thirsty and watching as life ebbed out of his father. Another survivor woke up in a pile of bodies in a depression in a bush; next to the his 16 year old cousin’s corpse — just an innocent boy shot at back of the head. One survivor escaped in the stampede naked and found a young girl herding goats who helped him cover his shame with her scarf .

It has been exactly a quarter of a century since the Wagalla Massacre. In these years the victims have refused to stay quiet, the dead are bursting out of their graves and giving clues to those who wish to resolve the massacre. The available evidence is sufficient to recreate what happened at Wagalla. It is still possible to give State Council M. Ole Keiwua the specific information he requested, in order to allow Ibrahim and Alinoor to prosecute those who killed their fathers, Yussuf Mohamed Hussein and Khamis Adan Mumin, along

with 3000 others — this is the figure given in the UN report — on the 10, 11, 12, 13, or 14 February 1984 by a combined contingent of security officers from the Kenya Army, the 82 Airforce, the Kenya Police and the Administration Police. (The larger casualty figures were also mentioned to the author by Ahmed Khalif while he was still alive.) The officers who killed received an order from their superiors who met at Wajir District Commissioner’s Office on 8 Februray 1984. Information of this kind could not be given by the sons of the deceased. The same information cannot be given now in a Kenyan court. The judiciary in Kenya has refused to hear the case because evidence will be adduced unfavourable to the current establishment. The Kenya government has therefore decided to form a Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) which will have powers to summon evidence and give amnesty to those who are truthful. The idea of the TJRC is that perpetrators of past injustice have been defeated and fear has arisen of the victims exacting revenge on past oppressors. It is a way of creating a semblance of justice for victims of past crimes who now wield power to harm others. TJRC is a tool of reconciling the society at large and it is those who suffered in the past who create this tool to clear revenge from their conscience. The Wagalla Massacre victims are still victims; they have not acquired any power to harm those who carried out such genocide against their people. The only thing that might satisfy their urge for justice is a genocide court established on Kenyan soil, but administered by international jurists, where the perpetrators can face justice and the community can

demand reparations. The other alternative is a revolution that replaces the current order giving all Kenyans who suffered under Kenyatta, Moi and Kibaki a chance to dictate how and who should govern them. A TJRC can then be mooted to give amnesty to the junior officers who did the footwork but the main perpetrators of impunity in this country need to be punished for their victims to feel safe.

About the Author

S. Abdi Sheikh is the author of Blood on the Runway: The Wagalla Massacre of 1984. Also known by the pen name Abjad Howartz Xudayi, Sheikh is a founding member of the Truth Be Told Network, a lobby group working to bring the perpetrators of Wagalla Massacre to justice.

S. Abdi Sheikh holds an MBA from the University of Nairobi and is involved in teaching and research in various institutions. He lives in Nairobi with his wife and two sons.

Sheikh can be reached at xudayi[at]gmail.com, and many of his articles and books can be reviewed for free at www.scribd.com/xudayi.

Xudayi's Page: TJRC is a fraud; Kenya is not ready for the Truth

2010-03-02T00:25:00.000-08:00

http://www.scribd.com/doc/27696140/TJRC-is-a-Fraud-Kenya-is-Not-Ready-for-the-Truth

TJRC is a fraud; Kenya is not ready for the Truth

2010-03-02T00:21:00.000-08:00

TJRC is a fraud; Kenya is not ready for the Truth

By S. Abdi Sheikh

These are interesting times. The Chairman of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission is embroiled in a dispute that touches on his past unjust actions. The latest information is that he has refused to resign even after being asked to by such eminent personalities as Desmond Tutu and 10 other members of past Truth Commissions in Africa . I am elated at this turn of events. I warned about the possibility of hijacking of the TJRC process by members of the past regimes in the book "Blood on The Runway". As usual Kenyans don't read or listen and they are usually taken in easily by hype. The idea of a Truth Commission is noble, beautiful. It is intended to allow a country to move forward without its past baggage.For a country to move on there are certain conditions that must be met as a basic minimum. There must be significant political, economic and social change that renders the past rulers powerless. Those who terrorized their population in the past should be disarmed, their institutions eradicated and their networks broken. The formerly oppressed must be abale to exercise power and be able to exercise options of retribution against their former tormentors. That is the basic minimum that must be met in order to explore TJCR among the options available to the victims and survivors of past atrocities. TJRC is the worst option available and it short circuits the well-developed mechanisms used by societies to accord justice and deal with criminality.

Truth and Reconciliation commission is formed in order to try and understand why a powerful class of society used crude and inhuman methods against the lower class members of the society after such powerful members were disarmed of their excessive power and privilege.

It was used in Argentina after the military dictatorship fell and a democratically elected government was formed. It was used in South Africa after the white minority rule was dethroned and it was used in Sierra Leone after a war that divided the country into warring factions on a tribal footing.

The common factor among these commissions is that they were constituted after the powerful clique that terrorized the public were disarmed. The perpetrators of the crimes had used a policy (say apartheid of South Africa ), a dictatorship ( Argentina ) and war ( Sierra Leone ) to justify their heinous actions. The perpetrators at the time of committing the crimes were following the procedure that they developed to commit these crimes. They could hardly therefore be called as common criminals.

Kenya has had a relatively dictatorial past. But this does not fall either in the category of war, apartheid or military dictatorship. Much of the crimes committed by Kenyatta, Moi and Kibaki regimes are just crimes even under existing laws.

TJRC is created where the formerly oppressed have taken power and have the ability to exact revenge on their persecutors. That has not happened in Kenya . The KANU regime is still in power under a different guise.The powerful barons of yesteryears still exercise power over their victims. The time for TJCR in Kenya has not arrived yet. Those who were victims are still being oppressed. Impunity is still the order of the day and we are living under an illegitimate government cobbled together after a seemingly bungled election. There is absolutely no enabling environment for a TJRC. The very idea therefore has been put into the public conscience because of for two purposes; for political expediency and advancement of academic discourse. It is for political expediency because the truth itself is not in any dispute but wider political interests are being served by being seen to be doing something. The NGO’s being used to push through this commission have had interests in research and inter-disciplinary studies in this matter and hence advancement of academic discourse. Being appointed to such a position as a commissioner in the TJRC is a lucrative possibility for all.

The very composition of the commission itself raises eyebrows. It vindicates those who believe that it is a tool for cover up and is intended to protect powerful interests from being disturbed in the quest for justice. Hon. Bethuel Kiplagat was a member of very brutal regime, he participated in it with gusto that few of his colleagues could muster. He attended a meeting at Wajir DC 's Office on 8 February 1984, which preceded the rounding up and killing of 3000 innocent Kenyans. There are questions being raised about public land, Ouko murder and funding of dissidents in Africa . He cannot purport to lead a commission that will investigate past crimes. The rest of the Commission include a spouse to a serving military officer, a former military colonel, the wife of a powerful Minister, a former chairman of the law society that is not very well respected for independence of thought and the niece of a well-connected political player. These elitist fellows are not qualified for this work. They are just hirelings of the former regimes trying to cleanse their murky past. Regardless of the future turn of events, the perception that the truth will be manipulated and the victims shortchanged is as clear as the light of day.

We know the TJRC is a fraud on the Kenyan people but at least let it be a fraud that they cannot see through.

About the Author

S. Abdi Sheikh is the author of Blood on the Runway: The Wagalla Massacre of 1984 and Out of Control: How Kenya is Sliding into Civil War. Also known by the pen name Abjad Howartz Xudayi, Sheikh is a founding member of the Truth Be Told Network, a lobby group working to bring the perpetrators of Wagalla Massacre to justice. Sheikh can be reached at xudayi[at]gmail.com, and many of his articles and books can be reviewed for free at www.scribd.com/xudayi.

Blood On The Runway, The Wagalla Massacre of 1984

2007-08-09T06:05:00.000-07:00

Blood On The Runway,

The Wagalla Massacre of 1984

Blood On The Runway

2007-08-09T05:43:00.000-07:00

The story of Wagalla massacre and arguments about how it can be resolved has finally been published in a book.

Negative Ethnicity And Its implications for Human Rights in North Eastern Kenya

2007-04-11T05:18:00.002-07:00

Ethnicity is a major factor in the existence of the nomadic and pastoralist communities in all over the world. Distinct tribal cultures, cynism against other tribes, civil wars, cattle rustling, tribal revenge, discrimination, corruption and nepotism have developed sequentially without any particular order. Noble ideas of yesterday as good tribal cultures for perpetration of identity turned into civil strife to defend tribal territory and later to enrich the warriors with cattle and women. The tribe became a symbol in elections and employment and later led to discrimination against minorities in allocation of common resources. In modern times in Northeastern Kenya, resources like the CDF, bursaries and other government allocations to the regions has been greatly misallocated to the numerically powerful tribes leaving out minorities from smaller clans. Harmless quest for identity has created a monster called clan that is now manifesting itself in colonial borders, exclusive clan constituencies and new tribal districts. Positive ethnicity, which was about cultural identity, gave birth to negative ethnicity where large tribes dominate small clans, stifle their freedoms and trample on their very existence. Minorities are subjugated and because of the fact that they have been completely eclipsed their plight is not heard.
Negative ethnicity is alive in the Northeastern Kenya and is being actively perpetrated in practices that are at crossroads with law and order, that are criminal yet tolerated, practices that insure there is constant tension in the region, in town and villages, practices that turn individual grievances into clan conflict.
A common practice that has entrenched tribalism is the famous Maslaha system that provides common insurance to the clan while ignoring the individual plight completely. Maslaha is beautiful when pronounced, the word means peaceful arbitration without acrimony and hostility. Maslaha is intended to address every kind of grievance. The question is does the Maslaha system insure that that the rights of the poor are protected? Maslaha system is based on physical or material compensation for the wronged individual yet most of the time; the Maslaha system forgets the victim and makes the tribe the central issue. If Maslaha is intended to bring justice, why then should it lead to tribal negotiations? Why not create a system that be accessed by anyone even without a tribe behind him? Does Maslaha system provide justice to the victims of rape and punish the rapist? Or does Maslaha system, as it is now, set the rapists free so that they can rape again while compensating the tribe of the victim of rape and not herself?
How does Maslaha system deal with murder? Why should accidental death be treated the same as murder? While accidental death has a victim and no intentional perpetrator, murder is a grim crime, which should attract punishment for the murderer. Maslaha system sets murderers free for blood money contributed by the larger tribe. The murderer remains triumphant while the family of the victim is left vanquished as their tribe accepts compensation on their behalf. This is abuse of justice. Maslaha system based on tribal norms and customs is unjust and is a negative ethnicity tool.
A very distinct negative ethnicity tool Northeastern province is colonial borders or what is called “seer”. The British colonialists created borders between major Somali clans so that they do not rebel collectively. Before this Somalis lived without borders and mixed with one another. The misconception that clearly demarcated grazing lands existed and that Somali clans were separate nations before the white man came is a creation of politicians who are interested in applying ethnicity to achieve individual goals. Negative ethnicity is being applied here to create exclusive constituencies to insure that they are re-elected without opposition from smaller clans. The politics of the region is being narrowed down to clan and sub-clan level and few individuals are subverting the interests of their clans to achieve their own selfish objectives. The colonial borders have been the cause of many conflicts in Northeastern province. They are tools for distinct clan existence and control of grazing land and water, cattle rustling which feeds an upper market hungry for meat, regular inter-clan fights and open discrimination against smaller and less numerous clans.
The colonial borders are the single most negative ethnicity tool that was used to perpetrate genocide. Location specific clan system ensured that it was easy to demarcate the killing zone in 1984 when the Degodia clan was almost wiped off by the Kenya security forces. It was used before and again at Garissa, Malka marri, Isiolo, Bagalla and many other places in the former NFD. The victims were an easy pick because of the exclusion from other clans and the enemy mentality and subsequent competition meant that other clans did not protest when their neighbours were being butchered.
Today negative ethnicity is being perpetuated through the creation of exclusive districts and constituencies and the much acrimony about the district headquarters and their borders. It seems like a new country is being created, a country that will belong to a specific clan.
In Northeastern Kenya electoral colleges have sprung up in all the constituencies. These electoral colleges are based on clans and their job is to ensure that strong clans get their sons elected while smaller clans and corner tribes are not heard of. The larger clans have sub-clans with differing strength. The smaller sub-clans are also treated as minorities while the larger clans dominate the leadership scene. The presence of electoral colleges in the constituencies will explain why well-known and high performing MP’s never make it back to parliament. This also explains why politics is such a divisive thing and why it is a matter death and not development. The electoral colleges stifle competition and entrench mediocrity; the most incompetent and uneducated fellows get elected to parliament on the back of their clans.
The old and the uneducated perpetuate negative ethnicity. They make clan an economic and political issue rather than a social and cultural one. The old men and tribal elders are instilling in every clan member the mortal distrust and hatred of other clans. Their sense of justice is crooked; justice is only justice if it furthers the interest of their clan. If it means cheating, corrupting, killing and raping, it is all worth it so long as it is helpful to their cause. They threaten minorities with death if they don’t follow the majority line and they actually follow up on their threats.
The implication of negative ethnicity for human rights is grave. The right to life is violated in the name of protecting clans. Innocent people are killed for purposes of revenge when conflicts occur. All kinds of criminality like rape, looting and murder are perpetuated in the name of the clan. Clans protect their murderers and when they feel charitable brave murderers are pardoned by payment of blood money to the victim’s clans. Almost in all cases murderers are never punished. Life is equated to a few heads of cattle even when the murder was gruesome and intentional and the murderer is unrepentant.
Clan system dictates the ownership of property. There have been cases where the local government forced individuals to sell their land to others because the land was prime and the local council was dominated by one clan. In main district headquarters specific clans dominate business where they allocate themselves prime spots and evict non-tribesmen from their legally owned land. Businessmen from smaller clans can only be tenants and are not even allowed to show their success off.
The right to marry and found a family is dictated by schism against other tribes and intermarriage is frowned upon even though it is practiced widely. In fact there are some clans who will not marry others, as they feel superior to them. There is lack of security for self and family in many places in the region because of being different from the dominant clan. In some towns thugs attack those termed, as foreigners and nobody will come to their aid. Even the government will not dare upset a dominant clan. In a region where you may be killed, robed in daylight with the approval of the local government and raped because of clan vendetta there is little hope that human rights will be respected.
How will this menace be addressed?
The first thing that should be done is to review the Maslaha system to incorporate elements of just and fair punishment. The system is perpetrator friendly and very hostile to victims. The Maslaha system should divorce the clan and be just a system of arbitration where justice and mutual reconciliation is the target and not blood money. Independent judges whose oath is to be fair and impartial should do arbitration through Maslaha and administer justice as agreed by the parties to the conflict. Clan precedents and prior judgments should not inform the system. It should be case specific and there should be alternative solutions that will insure that those who are deliberate offenders do not get protected from facing the law and getting punished.
The government should develop active detribalization policy where integration and nationalism are rewarded and tribalism and nepotism is punished. The government should cosmopolitanize the areas and stop clanization. The government should create districts in existing cosmopolitan towns and make it a policy that no particular tribe should dominate a whole district alone. The same should apply to constituencies, which should not be allowed to become clan fiefdoms. For now the constituencies in Northeastern Kenya strictly follow clan borders and those elected further only the agenda of their clans.
Active identity management for the youth should be able to make them non-tribal in their outlook on life. The question “who are we?” should not be answered with a clan in mind but with a nation in mind. Tribal stereotyping should not creep into the minds of the youth. Identity can be managed through integration. Ghana has been relatively successful in identity management for its people through extensive boarding school system. Uganda is managing to create a generation of non-tribal Ugandans through the boarding school system and through the dominance of kiganda as the national language despite the fact that the language itself originated from just one tribe, the Baganda. The method of managing identity can be discussed but the intention is to create a group of people who will not use ethnicity to help or hurt others. Ethnicity must not be allowed to run riot and takeover the mind of an individual reducing his humanness in the process.
A strong legal system that is independent, able to administer justice and which has the trust of the people is the perfect antidote to tribalism. People use tribe as a cover of protection against their enemies. Where there is protection offered to all citizens there is little need for tribal cocooning. A strong legal system at the grassroots means that the poor and the vulnerable will be emboldened and cannot be threatened to put themselves at the mercy of the tribes. The judiciary should be able to give independent and unbiased decisions on all matters and this will diminish the need for tribes. The tribe should be replaced by the wider nation, which should offer protection and welfare to its people and not leave their fate to tribalists. Tribes have become a state within a state in Northeastern Kenya. They have become too important and thus have trapped people inside them. The tribes control land and other resources, offer themselves jobs in the civil service where they control, distribute resources like CDF and bursaries among themselves and now they control districts and constituencies. The tribes have actually abrogated the constitution of the country and replaced it with tribal edicts that are rewarding the powerful and trampling on the rights of the vulnerable.
Human rights education may help in ending negative ethnicity. The education may make tribalists realize that fairness and justices comes before blood and other filial relationships. It may make people realize that meritocracy benefits everyone while nepotism is unjust and in the end it is not in the interest of anyone.
Finally, there is a Somali saying: “ tribalism and nationhood are archenemies, they cannot fit into the same room.” The interest of a tribe is contrary to that of a nation. The tribe will dominate others and take away their land, wealth and women and kill their men. The nation will tax everyone in equal measure and build roads among the tribes to enable them to mix with one another. The tribe wants to allocate its sons all bursaries and block the corner tribes from accessing them. The tribe also wants to limit all CDF projects only to the part of the constituency where they live and forcefully block all small tribes from reaping any benefit from the common resource. The state on the other hand cares about its entire people and wants the bursaries distributed to bright children from poor families. The state wants to develop every inch of the land and sees no sign of tribal border unless one tribe controls the state. The tribe wants exclusive zones, wants no competition in politics and will kill to protect that turf. The state wants to be the only gun around and enforce a law on everyone regardless of one’s tribe. The tribe wants to finish off its opposition, kill them, behead them, gag them, take away their property by force and by threat and if forced only allow them enough space just to exist. The state thrives on opposition and government. One cannot exist without the other. The government and opposition share the house call parliament where they call each other names and then they all troop out for tea in the canteen. Negative ethnicity is the enemy of the state and a sure enemy of human rights.

Negative Ethnicity And Its implications for Human Rights in North Eastern Kenya

2007-04-11T05:18:00.001-07:00

Negative Ethnicity And Its implications for Human Rights in North Eastern Kenya

2007-04-11T05:18:00.000-07:00

THE WAGALLA MASSACRE

2007-04-11T05:05:00.000-07:00

ON 10TH February 1984, the Kenyan Security Chiefs initiated operation bloodshed, the Kenya Government’s final solution to the Somali problem. On this day, the Kenyan Airforce supported by the military, the police and the Provincial Administration rounded up over 5000 men forced them into a disused airstrip at Wagalla and started slaughtering them one after another.
The rounding up of men was coupled with rape, assault and burning of houses. The target was a particular Somali clan, the Degodia. As the forces went around arresting people, they first politely asked them of their clan before descending on them. Informers who knew all the prominent men from the target clan accompanied the forces and pointed out to them the identity of the people they met. The traditional demarcation between Somali clans assisted the forces in their foray for their victims; Bulla Jogoo was naturally the first target. They arrested all the men, beating them to pulp before throwing them into waiting vehicles and ferrying them to newly constructed Wagalla Airstrip. All the houses in the area were burnt, some women were raped and the army took anything of value.
The operation against the Degodia clan had started on February 9 when the North Eastern PC, Benson Kaaria, ordered all those whose houses had been burnt down by security forces to leave Wajir Town. The rounding up however started on February 10 and at the end of the day 5,000 had been arrested. But when the ‘final solution’ was decided upon after a security meeting in Wajir town, chaired by Kaaria and attended by police and military personnel, the end result shocked the outside world.
Wagalla airstrip is a small airstrip situated 9 miles west of Wajir town. It is one mile in length and a quarter of a mile in width. It was intended for light aircrafts of civilian nature so that the non-military air traffic could be diverted away from the Wajir airstrip, which is situated in the forces camp. In 1984, Wagalla airstrip was newly constructed and was fenced with razor sharp, very high wire, which could not easily be scaled. The airstrip had one gate. The area within the fence is void of trees or even bushes, the nearest shade is over 500 metres away. The surface of the airstrip was made of compact gravel with very sharp edges. The runway was so white that it could reflect sunlight into the eyes of the people inside the airstrip. This was where over 5000 men were detained on the morning of February 10th, 1984. The days that followed more men were being brought while those inside witnessed horrors that they have never imagined.
Others had been tricked to go to the airport, ostensibly to welcome dignitaries.
Some of the men were tortured before being taken to Wagalla Airstrip. One such man was Hassan Sheikh Abdikarim, brother to the Secretary General of TBT Network. He was beaten to pulp and dragged to his house at Leheley Trading Centre and further tortured in front of his family members before being tied to the back of the army truck and pulled on the rough road to Wagalla. It was almost certain that he did not make to the destination alive.
Men were collected from all kinds of places. Civil servants were arrested on their way to work, some teachers were pulled out of schools and local council workers were captured as they carried out their duties of cleaning the town. They raided the mosques, removing sheikhs and their apprentices and the muezzins. They raided schools and detained teachers and subordinate staff, taking them to Wagalla airstrip. They raided water points capturing the men and the herd boys leaving the livestock roaming unattended. They got hold of and arrested a former senator, tortured him and threw him on the back of their car and drive off to Wagalla.
The operation was meticulously executed. Half of the town that were not members of the targeted community were not aware of what was happening, they could not believe when they were told that thousands of their neighbours were picked by the army and murdered. The targeted community was wiped out but the rest were left in peace.
A popular old man in Wajir, Haji Warera, was arrested on a Friday, February 10. He had just finished his morning prayers when a contingent of police and army men came calling on him. "I was hurled into the back of a lorry and taken to Wagalla," he said. At the Airstrip, he found thousand of people confined inside the compound.
At first, men were forced to strip, and lay on their bellies "Those who resisted to go nude were shot." On the following day, the security men poured petrol on some people and set them ablaze. One man who refused to go nude and was practically stoned to death is the late imam of Wajir mosque. He refused to comply with what he thought was a very odd order and paid with his life.
Mohamed Musa was tortured so much that he confessed to owning a rifle. He was very thirsty and his injuries were seriously burning him. He told the forces that he kept his gun in a well. They took him to the well and he went into the water took a cold shower and drunk his fill. He then explained to them that the well was too flooded for him to reach the bottom. Musa survived Wagalla and lived to tell the tale.
Throughout the four days, military lorries drove in from all parts of district bringing in more people. By the end of each day, hundreds of new men had been detained behind the chicken-wire fence. Sometime late in the afternoon, they were ordered to strip naked and lie prostrate on the hot murram in the scorching sun. They spent the night in the cold.
By Saturday afternoon, Haji Warera realized they would not to be released in a hurry. Some of the people were beaten badly by soldiers in a bid to extract information. "We were now very hungry and thirsty. I saw people drink their own urine. Some weak ones collapsed and died. Those who resisted the order to strip naked were shot outright."
Later in the afternoon of the fourth day, about ten lorries drove in to collect the dead bodies and the half dead. They were piled onto the vehicles and taken to the bush where they were left for hyenas. "I was among those whom security men mistook for the dead. "I found myself in Tarbaj." Warera was rescued by and Italian missionary, Anna Lina Tonneli
The events of the five-day ordeal still haunt Warera forever. He says he lost sexual desire and suffers hallucinations. "It can happen anywhere. I might be walking and I hear gunfire, screams and the stench of death. I then have to sit until the images clear."
Abdi Sheikh Bahalow, currently a politician with SPARK, was a primary school headmaster at the time, and one of the few who survived. He says that one Thursday night, security men came to his house twice at night and woke him up. It was only his TSC identification that saved him from arrest. The next morning, he was on his way to school when he was stopped by three soldiers who ordered him identify himself. "I am just a Kenyan, "he retorted. They left him to continue on his way to work. "I noticed that people had assembled in groups in the town while others were being shepherded towards the police station. I decide to follow them to the station to find out what was going on. I was arrested and thrown into a lorry and taken to Wagalla Airstrip where I found many other people."
Like everybody else, he said he was forced to strip naked lie on the hot gravel. It was an experience he never forgets. February is the hottest month in Wajir with temperatures rising to over 40 Degrees. He had no idea what it was all about and initially he thought it was an all -Somalia issue because the soldiers were taunting them, telling them to call on General Mahmoud Mohammed, then Army Commander, to come to their aid. But one thing that was very clear was that the general was in no mood to help these men.
The schoolteacher was lucky to escape from the ordeal after two days but not before he had witnessed people being clubbed to death while others were being shot for refusing to strip naked as ordered. " On the evening of the second day, there was an announcement to the effect that all civil servants should move out of the Airstrip. Some of them had collapsed and never heard the announcement. It was only after we conducted departmental head counts that we discovered that some people whom we had seen at the Airstrip were missing." When those civil servants left inside realized they were being set free, they made an attempt to move out but they were returned back by the security men and many of them perished. Among them, Bahalow remembers was Yusuf Mohamed of the Ministry of Health and Ahmed Adan, a driver with the Ministry of Public Works. Overall more than fifty-two civil servants died in the massacre.
Many of the people arrested were never accounted for. Rukia Abdullahi said her two brothers; Abdille Mohamed and Yusuf Jelle are still missing. She says they were arrested on February 10, in the operation and nothing was heard of them after that. It is believed that for every body that was buried, at least ten people were unaccounted for. Less than twenty per cent of those arrested can be accounted for.
Men were tortured one after another to death as others watched. According to eyewitnesses, at first they were whipped in turns by the solders until they were a mess of blood. Then they were suspended from a tree by their testicles and they were finished off using bayonets. This continued for three days and the remaining men bolted the high razor sharp fence and were sprayed with bullets. Over 3000 men jumped that fence but only a few made it to the nearby bushes. Bullets felled the rest.
With four thousand bodies in their hands the air force men panicked and started the biggest cover up operation of all time. They loaded the dead and the injured on to lorries and scattered them in area of more than 1000Km2. Some bodies were collected from as far the Ethiopian border while other were found at Habaswein Ewaso Nyiro River bed.
A rescue operation mounted by an Italian, Analena Tonneli and other social workers could only recover about 600 bodies. Several people helped in the rescue operation. Two of the rescuers hold a credible position in NGOs and a reputable university respectively. One of the men who were instrumental in the rescue operation eventually became the CEO of one of the most important parastatals in the Kenya. Josten Bjordal was an NGO staff member at the time and participated and helped in the rescue operation that saved so many. He eventually wrote a book about the incident, which is banned in Kenya to date.
Nomads found bodies scattered all over the bushes and buried them. Mass graves exist in many places in Wajir district. One such place is next to Wajir TB Manyatta right in the middle of town. Over thirty unidentified bodies are buried there. Others are Wagalla, El-noor, Samatar and Giriftu. The widows buried those bodies that could be identified in other cemeteries.
The government, fearing the fallout that will follow such heinous crime, declared Anna Lina Tonneli, the Italian lady, a person non-grata and gave her six days to leave the country. But the fallout that followed these massacre led to an international condemnation of the Kenya Government. Scandinavian countries like Norway cut diplomatic ties with Kenya over Wagalla massacre and the United Nations is known to have voiced a strong disquiet about the actions of the Kenya Government. The Amnesty International report of 1984 highlighted the Wagalla massacre as the worst actions of genocide nature to ever take place in this country. But the survivors and the families of victims never sought justice and the international community did not make its initial promise of seeking redress for these crimes good.
The question is, what leads to such extreme measurers of naked terrorism against unarmed and peaceful citizens?
To many these looked like hunting human beings for sport since there is really no explanation for such an action. This idea itself is not farfetched. The Kenya government forces have been meting extreme form of punishment on the Somalis of Kenya for a very long time without reasonable justification. In most cases it was more than just repression it was just sadistic and very sick act of persecution.
To others, it was a case of unchallenged impunity that has spilled out of control. Kenyan forces have been shooting, killing and blundering Somalis for so long, this might just have been the climax.
Some believe that Somalis themselves were behind the action. For record, at the time, the men at the helm of the military and internal security were Somalis. While others see connection to the perceived fear of Somalis by the Kenya government. Whatever angle you look at it, this was a nazi type extermination of a people. The connection to Somalia is also suspicious. A story commonly believed by the Degodia clan of the cause of their predicament is the conspiracy between Somalia and Kenya in executing this massacre. It started with a murder in Somalia of a Degodia man. According to the Somali law the penalty for murder is death but the Somali authorities released the suspect without charge because he was a relative of the former Somali president Siyad Barre. The suspect disappeared and went into hiding with the assistance of the Somali intelligence services. One of members of the Barre government was diplomat named Sheikh Yarrow who was from the same community as the murdered man. He insisted that the murderer be apprehended and the law allowed to take its cause but those close to the president objected and the matter caused much acrimony in the government. Before the matter could be settled Sheikh Yarrow was appointed as an ambassador to Europe and he left for his new posting. Barely three months later the ambassador was called back to consult with the president but he was tipped off by insiders that his life was in danger as he will be punished for embarrassing the president in the murder case. Instead of going back to the capital Mogadishu, Sheikh Yarrow flew to Addis Ababa and defected; forming the first Ethiopia based rebel movement against the Barre government. This precipitated a flurry of actions aimed at punishing the Degodia clan for betrayal. Kenya and Ethiopia host the largest concentration of this Somali clan and since Ethiopia was not on friendly terms with Somalia, Kenya was the natural ally that could be used to achieve the crude revenge against this small Somali clan. Kenya naturally had a real problem with its Somali population. Controlling them was a security nightmare and so mutual containment and bloody military operations were the strategies that Kenya applied over two decades. Somali clans were armed and at each other’s throats. Tensions were deliberately created through enhanced clan political loyalties and colonial borders. Negative publicity of the region in which the Somalis inhabited ensured that all sorts of crimes against humanity were committed. The area was ruled with an iron fist, emergency laws were applied and suppression and marginalization of the people was implemented as a policy.
In 1981, in a place called Malka mari in Mandera district, Kenya security forces raided a water point and captured about a 100 men, they collected these men ordered them to strip and lay face downwards. They then broke their skulls with rocks. The forces then went on rampage, raping every woman or girl on sight and looting the wealth. At around, the same time, forced evictions from Isiolo district using helicopters and army jeeps led to loss of life and livelihood for more than thousands families.
In 1982, Garissa residents woke up to terror of unprecedented proportions. They were arrested and confined to the perimeter fence of Garissa Primary School and forced to sit in squatting position for three days and nights without water or food. Some survivors narrate that they were forced to drink their urine to survive. The military meanwhile raped the girls and looted the shops. Finishing up the hopes of these poor people, the forces the burnt their houses. The following day the forces opened fire on a crowd of people killing hundreds and wounding many more. The Somali government protested very strongly and even threatened to go to war with Kenya if the operation continued. Kenya gave in to the demands and the military was called off after a few days.
In 1984, it was the people of Wajir’s turn to receive the punishment they seem to have escaped so far. A week before the Wagalla massacre there was a high level meeting between Kenya and Somali government and this meeting is romoured to have discussed the issue of the Degodia clan in Kenya. The meeting was followed by a series of meetings at national and provincial level. Benson Kaaria, who was the PC at the time, gave the final order for the execution of the operation. The Somali factor therefore is a strong hunch as to the motive behind the massacre.
The authorities are still lying about the incident. On one hand they admit that they killed 381 unarmed men in cold blood while on the other they were not willing to investigate and bring the perpetrators to justice or compensate the bereaved. But Wagalla will haunt this government to its end. The Minister of State in charge of national security under pressure from former MP Adan Keynan in parliament in 1998 admitted that Wagalla massacre took place and over three hundred people may have been killed. The problem with issues of this nature is that denial is the normal policy. At the time of Wagalla massacre it was difficult to actually present the truth. The local Degodia MPs at first were too powerless to stop what was happening. The two MPs did not anticipate that such a gross clean-up operation will take place and the murders will be of that magnitude. When they got wind of the situation they were being sought for questioning. But Khalif, together with Sheikh Ahmed, then a teacher at Sabunley Secondary School, escaped and, to the chagrin of the provincial administration, held a Press conference in Nairobi where they put the number of the dead at "more than 800."
As that was happening, Moi flew to the province and praised government officers and security forces in the region "for efficiency" and asked those with guns to surrender them.
Wagalla was being downplayed and the airstrip had been closed to all. Local chief Bishar Ismael Ibrahim, who had witnessed the deaths, was arrested and locked up for 57 days before he was dismissed. It was legal for the police to arrest members of the Somali community under the emergency law and detain them for 28 days without trial and re-arrest them for another 28 days. The Chief of Wagalla suffered jail time without charge for this period and when he came out without a job and with the knowledge that half of his people were dead.
In Parliament when, Khalif attempted to raise the issue, but was challenged to substantiate by then Vice-President Mwai Kibaki; the current president of Kenya who was also the head of the National Security Committee. He produced pictures of dead people as Tipis maintained that only 57 people had died during the entire operation.
Kaaria, who along with the Provincial Police Officer was quietly relieved of his duties, has a different recollection of events. Kaaria is the main perpetrator at local level but he still insists that he had nothing to do with it. And to prove its contempt for justice and for the victims of Wagalla, the government appointed him as a director of Kenya Medical Supplies Agencies in 2004.
That number given by Tipis has remained the official figure and when the Government finally decided to talk about it, William Ruto, an assistant minister in the Office of the President, said that only 13 people were shot dead and that 381 had been detained for screening. He explained that after the killings "no action was taken since there was no criminal activity."
The only thing Ruto admitted on behalf of the Moi administration was that "security standards were flouted" during the operation.
The testimony of witnesses who survived a massacre tells a different story. The international community got the facts through different sources including a report by Amnesty International and Special rapportour to the UN Secretary General and the current Attorney General of Kenya Amos Wako. Scandinavian countries like Norway put diplomatic pressure on Kenya to explain Wagalla massacre and the United Nations is known to have observed a minute of silence for the victims of this atrocity. The Amnesty International report of 1984 showed the extent to which Kenya has deteriorated into tyranny and contempt for the life of human beings.
But within government circles, the Wagalla has been hushed and there is little official information on what really happened. There is however a substantial evidence to prove that the former government officials could not live with their conscious. In 1992, former president Daniel Moi apologized to some Degodia elders and attempted to set up a trust fund for the survivors and their families. Letters of appointment to the trust fund board are available as evidence of admission what happened at Wagalla. In 1994 at a reconciliation meeting in Garissa, former Minister of State in charge of Internal Security, Hussein Maalim apologized for what happened and claimed that even though he consented to the operation, he did not gave the order to kill people. Maalim also wrote an apology letter to former MP Abdi Sheikh Mohamed to the effect that he was sorry for the direction the events had taken and it was not his intention to massacre innocent people.
After NARC took over in 2002 there was so much hype about the issue and the government finally decided to accept what happened as a case of genocide. Kiraitu Murungi, the minister for justice and constitutional affairs says, " the Wagalla massacre which actually qualifies to be genocide under international law is a case in point". Victims and government officials were afraid to share what they know, hiding behind the veil of secrecy that surrounded the massacre.
It is hard to really learn any lesson from a massacre of that kind.
First, Wagalla Massacre bred fear and hatred. People began despising their neighbours and the other Somali clans. Suspicion and mistrust became the normal practice. As the people whose lives were chattered started rebuilding their lives, they wanted nothing to do with either government or other Somali clans. The Degodia clan in particular felt defeated and betrayed by other Somalis of Kenya and as they nursed their wounds and tried to take care of the large number of orphans left behind they were seething with anger and frustration. Somali clan conflict being what it is, Wagalla massacre was the beginning of the end of any unity and cooperation between the Somali clans of North East Kenya. It was the opening up of the last bastion of defense, the last frontier from which Somalis of Kenya must either fight back or be condemned to humiliation in isolation. It brought to fore, issues that had hitherto been kept at the back burner. For instance, the fact that the succession war was never resolved and its ramifications still haunt the Somalis whenever they are. Kenya government has never trusted the Somali population in this country. The government wanted the land but never the people and they have proved it with the genocidal actions that followed each other from 1981 to 1984. The other fact that came to the fore is that although the Somali separatists respected the ceasefire that was negotiated by Kaunda and Egal, the Kenya government continued preying on the innocent population as part of the punishment for wanting a separate state. The government also hoodwinked the Somali clans into a mutual containment policy whereby Somali clans celebrated the massacre of one of their clans as a victory to their side. That is why the other Somalis never protested when their friends and neighbours were being slaughtered by the Kenya armed forces
Secondly, the most visible lesson from Wagalla Massacre, is that bad governments actually last. If Wagalla had happened in a democratic state where there is respect for human life then many top leaders of this country today will have been in jail or been executed for their crime. In this case crime has actually paid off. In fact, the victims of Wagalla are still voting in the government that committed against them on act of genocide. Fear of what might happen if they openly oppose the government of the day is the driving force of politics in this province. The fact the Somalis still voted with the retreating KANU regime underscores the level of intimidation and fear that has crept into the daily lives of the people.
Former Minister of State in-charge of Internal Security, G.G.Kariuki who in 1981 presided over the " cleanup" operation of Garissa where hundreds of people lost their lives said when asked to explain what happened, "Although some houses were burnt down last night some people and property destroyed, our policemen must be commended for their restraint and the way they conducted themselves at a time they were hunting for the armed Shifta bandits who killed the four civil servants. As I was on the plane, I saw many houses were burnt down, but that was because our security men were chasing people armed with sophisticated weapons. On an occasion like that a gun does not choose a target". In 2001, G.G.Kariuki wrote a book "Illusions of Power". To the dismay of those who were victims of his ruthless actions, G.G does not even try to set the record straight about his role. He asks nonchalantly, "Why does the Government refuse the occasional demands by the people of North Eastern Province for an independent investigation regarding the Wagalla massacre of February 1984, or a similar incident in Garissa in 1981 as well as others committed in the name of the Shifta wars?" Is G.G a liar who believes his own lies or is he at war with his own conscience and unable to admit to the truth because of fear and also feels that by asking questions he can at least live with his nagging inner self?
Perhaps the biggest lesson learnt from Wagalla Massacre is that it’s difficult to entirely succeed hiding the truth. The writer of this book was 6 years old in 1984, the entire membership of TBT Network were between 4 and 6 years old then. But it is hard to forget Wagalla when every football team was made orphans whose fathers perished in Wagalla. Anyone who thinks that Wagalla is under the carpet is fooling himself. It is impossible to suppress the truth, especially if such truth is so hot an issue. The current Kenya government and that of the past will like to forget what happened, they would like to form a commission of inquiry, pay the ardent supporters of the Wagalla cause and kill the issue once and for all. That will be an impossible undertaking for them and for any future government of this country. Wagalla is a rallying point for a community that has lost everything to Kenya for a period of four decades. It is the point from which we will fight for every small injustice that was meted upon us. It is the point from where we shall bring about unity and peace among Somali clans and it is the point from which we shall dismantle the barriers of steel and concrete that was erected between Somali clans by the government. Wagalla massacre is an opportunity for us to hold some of us criminally responsible for inflicting upon a community of people irreparable damage, for betraying us to the Kenyan government more than once and for leading us through a path that led to darkness and doom. Wagalla massacre is a chance for us to reconcile between ourselves and come up with a mechanism to strengthen the bonds that have weakened due to the dependence on a government that sees us as strange and bothersome people. We cannot accept a quick solution to Wagalla massacre unless it is in the interest of all the Somali people living in the North East.
The responsibility for this massacre squarely lies on the government of the republic of Kenya but individuals who initiated this bloody massacre must also be put to the dock to answer for their crimes. Those in the Kenya armed forces hierarchy starting with the commander in-chief who was the president, the chief of general staff, the air force commander, the commander at Wajir airbase, the provincial commissioner, the district commissioner, the provincial security committee, the district security committee, the minister in charge of internal security and any other individual who was in such a position as to influence the atrocities at Wagalla airstrip has questions to answer. Most of them are in fact guilty of genocide, which is a crime against humanity.
New lessons from Wagalla should be learnt. First of all individual responsibility cannot be abdicated for collective responsibility. The soldiers were on order by the government but they carried out the massacre so meticulously that it seemed they actually enjoyed such grisly murder. The entire platoon that was involved should be investigated and punished for their crime, their commanders should be handed over to the UN tribunal and prosecuted for genocide, the security chiefs must be taken to court and anyone who was involved in anyway should be held criminally responsible for Wagalla massacre. This country cannot continue to behave innocently unless such an action is initiated.
Lastly, I hope such calculated ethnic cleaning activity will never take place in Kenya again. For if we allow such a thing to happen, then the reality of Wagalla will have been lost to us.

ASSEMBLY OF EVIDENCECategories of evidenceOral evidenceThere is an enormous mount of evidence to be collected in order to build a case against the perpetrators. Wagalla massacre left too many victims on its way. There are those who saw what happened as bystanders because they come from communities other than the target community. They are victims because of the trauma left by what they saw during and after the massacre. There are survivors of the massacre who escaped with their life, those who were released from the Wagalla airstrip because they were civil servants or school children. The rescue teams organized by various groups who helped collect bodies and bury them in mass graves have important perspective in their statements. The families of the victims who died in the massacre are also important both as witnesses.1. Statements by survivorsAffidavits by survivors will shade light on exactly what happened in the Wagalla airstrip. There are thousands of survivors who were able in one way or another able to escape the carnage that occurred at Wagalla.Firsthand information that explains the event can only be given the people who were inside the whole event. While collaborative evidence can be collected from the rest of the oral evidence categories, the most important and most admissible evidence will be a consistent description from the survivors of the massacre. Their submissions will form the basis on which the whole case will stand. The rest of the evidence will be of a collaborative nature.The Wagalla massacre is a 21-year-old affair, so many detail have been lost due to the trauma and the ensuing neglect. Some people may have blocked the whole issue out of their mind. Others refuse to discuss and usually see it as too important to warrant discussion and wonder why people will want to trivialize such and issue by bringing it to public scrutiny.When Willy Legg, a doctor, J. J. Moyo, a social worker and Dina Kituyi, a psychologist visited some survivors of the massacres they were overwhelmed by the extent which people have endured the pain and how raw emotions still came to the fore every time the issue was discussed.Comparing the accounts of different survivors and putting it in the perspective of the whole issue can only bring out the real truth. The extent of brutality can also be gauged from what the survivors experienced and what they suffered. Some survivors still recall the faces of their tormentors and that is a way of building a case against the perpetrators. The testimonies of survivors is readily available and can be collected very easily if and when required except where survivors have succumbed to old age or the injuries that they suffered at the hands of their tormentors.The potential for coming to terms with the state of affairs as it occurred and moving on is also enhanced if testimonies from this group is collected without adversarial cross examination initially.2. Statements by families of victimsFatuma is a survivor of the 1984 massacre where over 4,000 civilians were murdered, two of whom were her brothers. She states that’ until the state tells her who was responsible, she feels disgraced to be a Kenyan citizen.“To date I cannot comprehend. The person with whom my siblings and I were dependent upon for my education and liveli hood had been killed. All members of the family stopped attending school. The married one had 4 children and his wifewas expectant. I now provide for the lastborn’s education who is now in form three.”She concluded by adding that the media did not cover the state managed killings and consequently very few Kenya’s know of it. She sought to understand why so many people were killed and their families left in impoverished. She would like to seek justice by bringing those responsible to book. Fatuma wanted a Commission that would address justice concerns and she stated quite clearly that she was not ready fro reconciliation until justice had been obtained by her and her family. Thereafter she may be able to reconcile not just with the security forces that she holds responsible for her suffering but also other Kenyans who she feels were part of the conspiracy of silence that engulfed the issue for the last twenty-one years.The above testimony is that of a family member of victims who saw what happened to her brothers and whose pain is personal and real. Such statements are available as evidence and are admissible in court if the person saw his relative being taken away by the Soldiers.A selected section of family members of victims could be interviewed initially as sample and later as part of the wider research project. The interviews will be recorded on tape both audio and video. This is necessitated by the fact that most of mothers and fathers who lost their sons and daughters are too old and may not survive any longer. At the moment, the following survivors and victims have been identified: -An old woman who lost two of her sons and who has lived through the loss.She hopes that one day some form of justice can be reached and some form of consolation can be given to her through reparations to the family. She hopes that at least she will be alive to see someone take responsibility for what happened. Although just hypothetical at this juncture, there are thousands of these kinds of people all over the place.A mother who lost her husband and brought up her kids under hardship.These are the kind of family members who have passed through the worst forms of hardships in the last twenty years. Wagalla massacre left over three thousand widows and especially the areas occupied by the Degodia clan in Wajir town there was social change because of the fact that many families were headed by women. The suffering of women was phenomenal and unparalleled in every way. Collecting testimonies from this group can bring this suffering and will also act as collaborative evidence in cases where the existence of the victim is contestable because no record of him exists.3. Several women who went insane because of losing their husbands.Mohamed Elmi was walking in Wajir Town few days after Wagalla massacre and suddenly a women who was going on her way ahead of him burst out, jumping up and down and tearing her clothes into pieces. She practically shattered into pieces right in front of him, went completely crazy and lost all sanity. She probably is still crazy because none of those who became mad at the time actually regained their sanity. Cases of madness because of trauma were so many and especially markedly higher among young mothers. For those who lost it, their children had to be brought up by relatives and as they retreated into their own “safe” world, they had to completely neglect their primary responsibility to their children.This group is not competent to give any form of evidence because of their state of mind; they are not of sound mind and the law treats them like children, but they are a form of evidence in themselves. The fact that they exist means that something must have happened to them that altered their state of mind and led to their madness. It is a pointer to the extent, which the society has suffered and can be used in gauging the level of reparations that can be termed as adequate.4. Two boys who lost their father in the massacre and who have so far completed college.Today something has changed. The orphans whose fathers were killed at Wagalla have matured and despite the harsh terrains of life they had to endure some have made it while others are holding on. This group of family members endured the hardships that resulted from the single parent families or orphan conditions. Some were able to access education and have done well for themselves while others lost everything and are now still reeling from poverty and indignity. The members of this group are not important as evidence of the massacre itself but the effects of the massacre on the past, present and future of the society. Their submissions could also be used in determining the level of loss suffered by families.These cases were selected because of their gravity and it is possible to collect over one thousand names of survivors and their families. The interviews will be recorded and documented as evidence to be presented to court or an international tribunal.3. Statements by eyewitnesses: local eyewitnessesThere were very many witnesses to Wagalla massacre. Many of the people who saw what happened and who were not particularly targeted are ready to testify and say the real truth of what they saw. After the initial jubilation occasioned by clan animosity, the people found out that their neighbours and friends have perished and in fact there was no one to either compete with or to spur with. All that remained were women and children and the survivors who were too scared to be interested in the competitive clan politics among Somali clans.The eyewitnesses from other Somali clans other than the targeted clan, including civil servants and former military officers are willing to provide oral evidence. This evidence is important for confirmation and corroboration.4. Statements by independent eyewitnessesIndependent eyewitnesses at the time are mainly Europeans who were working for various charitable institutions. Some of them participated in the rescue mission that helped many of the survivors and collected the bodies of the dead for burial. These include two teachers who were attached to Sabunley Secondary School, several who were working with NGOs and those who got reports from the field and who were attached to diplomatic missions.Written evidence1. Government reportsThere is no movement of government resources without records. Troop deployment at the time must have been recorded somewhere and the other resources must have been accounted for. The government has already accepted that there was a security operation and the operation was grossly abused. The new government agrees that Wagalla massacre was in fact genocide.There are records available of the various meetings that took place before the massacre. There was a meeting at national level attended by members of the National Security Committee in Nairobi where the idea of punishing and killing the people of Wajir was extensively discussed.Another important meeting took place at the Provincial Headquarters of North Eastern Province and this meeting brought together members of the Provincial Security Committee. Yet another meeting was held at Wajir Town and was attended by all Members of District Security Committee except the Members of Parliament from the targeted community who were barred from attending.Government records are also show the fact that over 52 civil servants actually deserted their job on a single day on February 1984; there was no reason for these men to leave their job unless they all died. These fifty-two men are the number of civil servants who perished in Wagalla.An investigation was carried out by a police investigator, Stephen Amaratia and recorded all that happened at Wagalla. Although such investigations are likely to be doctored, they are useful in establishing the pattern of events at the time. The policeman who carried out the investigation has insinuated that his report was accurate at the time of filling and correctly showed the events as were recalled by witnesses.Government reports also show that Anna Lina Tonneli was deported from Kenya in the days following the massacre.Government reports also include the Hansard, which records parliamentary proceedings. The reaction of parliamentarians when the late Ahmed Khalif brought to their attention the gross inhuman actions of the Kenya Armed Forces was that on nonchalance and indifferent indignation. In his ubiquity and genteel brutishness, Mwai Kibaki, the then vice-president of Kenya, demanded that Khalif be given chance to substantiate his allegations. The evidence the late Khalif presented to parliament, which included photographs of dead people, is still recorded in the parliamentary record.The statement by Ole Tipis, which explained away the actual actions of the Security Forces, is also part of the evidence that can be used to collaborate the gravity of the matter and it’s effect on the local population. This statement does not specifically deny that there was an operation but gives figures of people killed which was stated at the time as fifty-seven. Fifty-two of this figure were only civil servants, another four hundred men were identified as dead, there are thousands unaccounted for to-date. The fact that Tipis does not deny the operation itself makes his statement an important piece of evidence.The government information office has recorded the matter in detail and photographs and other essential records are available.2. Amnesty report of 1984The annual report of Amnesty International detailed the Wagalla massacre and took issue with the government for gross violations of human rights. The weight of this report is not necessarily it’s factual accuracy but the acknowledgement that serious human rights violations warranting condemnation from international organizations had occurred. The real facts of the matter can be distilled from the various bits and pieces of evidence that exist independently.The authors of the Amnesty report can appear as witnesses and explain the basis on which the report was filed. They can also shed light on the reaction of Kenya on the whole issue.3. UN report by Amos WakoAmos Wako, the current Attorney General of Kenya, was a Special Rapportour to the UN Secretary General and was concerned with issues of reporting arbitrary and summary executions. Mr. Wako wrote a report about Wagalla massacre for the UN and admits that his report was extensive and critical of the Kenya government.As evidence this report is important so long as Wako is the AG in Kenya and he will be the one to provide defense to the government in a court of law. This report is available in the UN Library.4. Condemnations of the massacre by International CommunityImmediately after Wagalla massacre occurred many in the international community were outraged. They condemned what they saw as blatant disregard for human life. Over 19 countries were united in their disgust with what they termed as genocide. The most vocal in this action were the Scandinavian countries specifically Norway. The U.K and Canada accorded refugee status to those fleeing Kenya for fear of further repression.There are records of these condemnations and the basis on which they were drawn up. This5. Lists of the deadThe names of those who died in the massacre and who could immediately be identified were collected and preserved. Currently there are over four hundred names who are known but the least has been increasing as more people come forward with new names as the available names are circulated.The identity of the victims can be verified by crosschecking them against the records of the Registrar of Persons or through the sworn affidavits of those who knew them.Initially the names were collected through the elders of particular families and later published in the media. For instance there was a list published in the press in the early nineties and a list has also appeared on the Kenya Somali Community in North America website. An appendix of these names appears at the end of this book.6. Media reportsThe Kenyan media was hostile to issues concerning the Northern Frontier Districts until the emergence of multi-party democracy in 1992. The story about Wagalla was given a complete black out by the Kenyan press at the time of the incident but various other media outlets adequately covered the story.“It is significant to note that at this juncture, the local press gave the genocide no prominence. In fact only one of the local dailies carried a very brief news story over the massacre. In general, the Kenya press behaved as if nothing had happened, and if it were not for the International press, the world would not have known what happened at Wagalla. I wish to give my salutations to BBC Radio, Duetchewelle of Germany, Radio South Africa, Voice of America, and the American press in general, Radio Tehran etc for the wonderful coverage of our press conference. The African press generally was not helpful. Even Radio Mogadishu of the Somali Democratic Republic, which would have given the matter great attention in normal circumstances because of the ethnic dimension of the massacre, did not do so, probably because the ailing regime of that time in Somalia was trying to mend fences with Kenyan authorities as a matter of survival. I also wish to pay my tribute to the United Nations for remembering the victims of he massacre in one of their sessions.” The late Ahmed Khalif Mohamed, Former Minister for Labour.7. Books, at least one book.Wagalla massacre did not attract many Kenyan writers or researchers. As expected the issue just gathered dust without interest from Kenyan researchers but there was interest from the international community. A former NGO staff member and one of the rescuers at the time of Wagalla committed his experiences to paper in a little book titled “Wagalla Massakren”. The book is Norweigian language and is banned in Kenya even after the Moi regime was defeated at the polls.George Monbiot, the Guardian Columnist also wrote about Wagalla massacre in his book “No Man’s Land” on in formation supplied by Mohamed Elmi of Oxfam and others. The book although no so accurate factually is part of the evidence that can be used to corroborate the other stories from other sources.The play “In the eyes of the Miaow” by Abjad Xudayi is a recreation of the events following Wagalla from perspectives of those who were left behind; the women and children. This play can be used to gauge the magnitude of the massacre and it’s effects on the vulnerable members of the society. Termed as “a play whose main characters are dead” by Professor Kivutha Kibwana, the play shows the helplessness of the situation from the viewpoint of uninterested but involved pet.8. A letter of admission from former minister to a former MPThe best kind of evidence is one in which a person incriminates himself. The is evidence whereby a former powerful minister in charge of security portfolio wrote to a colleague of his, a former MP admitting to the fact he ordered the operation but did not anticipate that a massacre will be the end result. He regrets what happened andAccording to a popular and highly respected source the same minister admitted to this state of affairs in front of a reconciliation committee of elders in 1993. No formal record of this is available but witnesses can attest to the accuracy of this admission.The late Ahmed Khalif was particularly concerned that the importance of this evidence may not be explored. He also wanted the concerned minister to clear his name.9. The appointment letters to the trust fund proposed by president Moi in 1992Before the elections of 1992, the then president Daniel Arap Moi called the Degodia elders and apologized to them. He also asked the District Commissioner of Wajir to set up a board for a trust fund for the families of the victims of Wagalla massacre.The trust fund was never to be, but the letters were issued to several elders and professionals. This letters act as a piece of evidence pointing to the fact the even the president admits to having committed this crime of genocide.10. Letters by the Local Government Union asking for help from the head office.Of all the departments affected by the Wagalla massacre, the Wajir County Council was the worst. They lost seven of their workers and twenty-two houses belonging to their staff members were burnt. In an effort to assist the families of the victims, A. A. Samatar, the Branch Secretary of Kenya Local Government Workers Union, wrote two letters to the head office of the Union asking for contributions. He did not mention the fact the members died in Wagalla but he unsuccessfully sought assistance for their families.These letters establish the facts about the sudden disappearance of more than fifty-two civil servants from their stations between within four days in February 1984. The letters are reproduced in full at the end of this book.Pictorial evidenceHundreds of black and white pictures can be collected from various sources.1. Photographs of the incident by government agentsPhotographic evidence of the event is available from the government information office. The photographs have been confirmed to be still safe and available as evidence. The photos show various scenarios from the security forces arresting people to dead bodies. These pictures are a source of confirmatory information on the recollection of survivors and witnesses. They also form an objective and identifiable action that cannot easily be refuted in a court of law.2. Photographs by the rescue team led by Anna lina TonneliThere were photographs mainly of dead bodies and mass graves taken by a team led by the late Anna Lina Tonneli. These photos can be traced to various individuals who have been keeping for safety. These photos will also be used to paint the real picture from the perspective of independent observers and by linking them with the photos from the government information office validate the claims of witnesses.Forensic evidenceMass graves are already known to exist in several places at Wajir town and around Wagalla airstrip. Mass graves will be identified and marked, photographed and filmed so that their existence is undisputable. Digging up of mass graves will be the job of the specialized forensic experts needed to establish them as evidence.1. Exhumation of bodies and examination by specialistsThe Argentinean Forensic Anthropology Team led by Dr. Luis Fondebrider have shown interest in carrying out exhumations of the bodies in the mass graves to try and determine the cause of death. This will help establish the supporting evidence needed to show the gravity of the situation and also act as original evidence relating directly to the victims.The Independent Medio-Lego Unit is ready to provide technical and financial support to the team of experts.2. Examination of chemical contents of soils where bodies were burnt or dissolved by chemicalsThere are places where the bodies of the victims actually disappeared into the sand because the military had poured some chemical onto the bodies in order to hide the evidence. Examination of the soil content of the area will reveal the type of chemicals and the difference in the soil chemical content unless such chemicals were biodegradable

The Sunday Letter

2006-11-19T04:34:00.000-08:00

What a tragedy?
There are tragedies that defy explanations. For the past few days rain has been pounding this part of the world. Flood waters have cut off villages in many areas in the neighbouring province of the Coast. Wajir and Mandera district are now cut off from the rest of the country. In a singe day last week there were more than fourty trucks stranded on the road between Wajir and Garissa. The river looked menacingly threatening like it has become suddenly too bloated with rage and about to burst its banks. Many people knew if the river is left to its own and to natural sources, it will quell its fury without much fuss. Farmers though they were safe and had no reason to suspect that something was about to happen.
On Thursday afternoon a car mounted with loud speakers moved around town warning people to move away from areas prone to flooding. The warning was not given to the two main media houses that broadcast to Northern Kenya. The warning only reached those who heard it. The farmers on the rural areas on the bank of Tana River upstream had no idea about the warning. They say they did not hear it and so they did not prepare for it.
When Kindaruma gate was opened the flood water rushed downstream like tsunami. It took the water a few hours to reach Garissa Farms and the devastation caused is a headline for a media that was never told about the warning.
Northern Kenya is not known for farming. The people here are herders. They keep livestock of all sorts except pets like cats. They are not known to endure the hardships of picking hoes and Jembes and digging up the ground for food. Everyone in the political establishment and policy makers knows that Northeastern Kenya depends on relief food. The people here have never been able to become self-sufficient in food production.
Nobody is aware or many people ignore that these assumptions are deceptive. That there are hardworking fellows who dig the ground, who plant crops, irrigate them and take care of them over a period of years. Some of the plants take years to mature. Some of these hardworking people have become settled in their farming and make an active living through farming. They feed themselves and take their children to school through the sweat of their brows. They toil daily to ensure they live a life free of relief, handouts and bursaries. They grow the cereals, fruits and vegetables that feed the Garissa town and export the extra to down Kenya. They are independent of government and agencies. They have their cooperatives that manage the common resources of cooperatives like the generators that pump the water to the farms, the chemicals that are sprayed the chemicals to the farms. They are a model for the future food security for Northeastern Kenya. Since I am taking of past tense, they were a model for food security for this province.
These pockets of prosperity in a sea of desperation are no more. The farms were swept under the raging waters of the River Tana. The water released from the Seven Folks Dam upstream. The dam provides electricity to the city of Nairobi and those cities and towns on the national electricity Grid. The dams do not provide electricity to Garissa town which depends on the unstable diesel generators that make electricity a precious commodity. While the benefits are ripped by the big cities the destruction is wrought to the farmers of the lower Tana.
There is a tragedy here, beyond the death and destruction. Beyond the fact that the problem is man made. The tragedy is the same scenes are repeated every. It rains and floods and the dams release their water and death and destruction become persistent. This problem has defied any comprehension. Why do the authorities release such mass overflows from their dams without giving any notice to the population? Why do the farmers go back to the flooded areas every year to start all over again? Why is the water not being used for irrigating areas far from the river? What has the government done about this problem? What have the people do about it?
Tragedies abound in our land. If it rains, it floods. When dry period arrives drought ravages the land. This has not been sufficient enough to mobilize people to cooperate and work towards a solution.
Now there is a cry everywhere. People are stranded on top of trees and roofs. There are people who drowned and others whose fates are unknown. These are the poorest people. Poor people have the same problems whoever they are. In traditional Greece the rich lived on top of the hills and the poor downhill. In today's world the rich employ environmental specialists when building their dwellings while the poor build on the remaining space when the rich have taken the prime land. The poor end up living on the shores of the river and the marshy land in the swamps. Tragedies always affect the weakest and the poorest in every society. The rich have their common tantrums but mostly they are unscathed by floods downstream.
Even wildlife is trapped by the floods. Antelopes, monkeys and birds have taken refuge in a local school. Elephants and crocodiles were trapped by the water along with the people in a small escapement along with people.
This is a tragedy. This will not be the last though; such tragedy was there before and will be there again. The challenge is there a lesson learnt?

The Future of NEP-Autonomy, independence or a poor stepsister of Kenya

2006-11-17T09:00:00.000-08:00

The topic I wish to touch on is very controversial and sometimes dangerous. It may lead to a misunderstanding with others and general lack of response from others because of fear of being labelled dissident.
The future of NEP has been hanging in the balance for a period of more than forty years. There has been no improvement in infrastructure, no improvement in social amenities and no maturatuion in politics. That is why our debate has been centred on poverty, lack of education and poor leadership.
The people of NEP took up arms in 1967 so that they can determine their own future. They tried and almost succeeded. The victory was robed from them through the British machinations, Somalia's lack of proper leadership and the cunning Jomo Kenyatta with the separatist Mohamed Egal of Somaliland taking his own interest above the grand Somalia agenda. I am not a believer of Grand Somalia, but I don't have much faith in being a Kenyan either. The agreement was for the separatists to give up their quest while Kenya will give the region accellerated development. The rebels kept their part of the deal but Kenya has yet to honour that agreement. It is time to revisit history and demand that past treaties be honoured.
The neglect of the region in terms of development was compounded by the constant insecurity caused by the government, the clan borders established by the British and reinforced by Kenya and the Massacres. In three years between 1980 and 1984 alone more than six thousand people were killed by the Kenya security forces. The human rights abuses did not end there. By 1988, Somalis were carrying two ID cards; one to proof that they were Kenyan Somalis and the that they were Somalis.
Although the democratic space may have opened up in Kenya, nothing much has changed in NEP. Like the slaves who went set free did not know what to do with it the people from NEP seem to be frozen in time. They have failed to agitate for any betterment of their circumstances.
NEP therefore is at crossroads. One way leads to the status quo, being in Kenya as a province and as the title of this peace says, a poor stepsister. The second way leads back to 1967 and return to shifta war. The last road leads to an autonomous state or region within Kenya which can determine the future of it's internal affairs. I am against the status quo, it gives me no benefit as a citizen of Kenya and and resident from NEP knows that there is no Kenyanness just that we are pretending to be Kenyans. We as a people have not accepted being Kenyans and Kenya will never accept us.
I am not a warmonger and will not advocate for return to arms. The current political state of the world does not respect any form of nationalism by Muslims. A quest for independence will require perseverence and acceptance of a long struggle which will lead to death and destruction. Civil war is not an option in a region that cannot feed itself.
The third option is the most reasonable path to follow. It will lead to many changes in the structure of the administration in the region. It will mean a form of self government that respects the Kenya government in the overall structure but adheres to local laws and norms. The region will have an elected governor who will effectively the president of the region. There will be a regional parliamnet which passes laws that affect the residents of the region. There will also be district councils headed by elected mayors which will ease the administration at the very local level. The regional government will manage all the social amenities including education, hospitals, judiciary and the local economy.
The basis for this proposal is that there seems to be no proper direction of the NEP. It seems to be moving in circles and the dangerous thing is that it is losing manpower to Kenya. All elites have left the region looking for jobs in Kenya and abroad. All school leavers are also leaving the region for schools and colleges and sometimes just to idle in Nairobi. The elected leaders have built their mansons in Nairobi and have no contact with the local people. Those who are left in the region are illiterates and old people. The regional administration is left to the provincial administration who have no stake either in the success or failure of the region.
The economy of Northeastern is based on livestock. Livestock is not taxed and generate no revenue for the government at face value. The goverment has no reason to improve the livestock economy, that is why KMC was actually built in Nairobi at the first place and the infrastructure like roads for moving livestock products is non-existent. A regional goverment will have to tax livestock holdings and insure that the economy based on animals thrives.
The failure of the education system is largely due to the aggregate nature of it administration. The authorities have no capacity to customize education for the circumstances of a particular region. Their approach is one size fit all and it is not working at all. A regional goverment will have to make the educational needs of the region a priority with little burden from the wider Kenya as a country. Solutions will have to be developed to ensure that the education system works.
The clan system is perpetuated by the government for political reasons. The fact that the widely discreditted and heinous clan borders have come back and are being enforced by the provincial administration against the law of the country points to this fact.The current constituencies are demarcated based on these clan borders and political tension and clan wars are constant in the region. A regional goverment with autonomy will give all the clans a platform to cooperate rather than compete. The cutting off from the central government's udder means survival and economic development will have to take priority more than clan brinkmanship. NEP people will have to cut off their chivalry, put back their swords in to their sheaths and start digging with their hands in order to be able to build a viable region.
Finally, leadership is not being given a chance now. There are too few avenues of leadership hence only those who can provide the nightly miraa to the clan electoral members can become leaders. You are sure this writer will never have a go at leadership in the region because he cannot provide the miraa or comes from a small clan or has a radical ideas that might just lead to cutting off the power of the older generation. A regional government will give a lot of people a chance to serve and this might just produce the leader we have been waiting for forty years now. The regional government may have to prove itself. It may have to be efficient, kill all avenues of coruption, create employment for its people by creating a thriving regional economy and will to provide a just system that respects the rights of the people.
I have enumerated the need for regional autonomy in NEP. I have a few ideas on how to achive it and will put them down soon.

The Failure of the Education System in NEP

2006-11-17T08:58:00.000-08:00

I am a product of the education system in NEP. I studied in a school in a village nine miles from Wajir town. At the time we were suffering from three problems: Lack of books, lack of classrooms and lack of reason for going to school. My first classroom was a chicken house constructed for experimentation of a poultry project. I first learnt how to write Somali before I could construct English sentences and we wrote letters to one another in Arabic lettered broken Somali. For those young brats then, it was not clear why we were in school at all. The parents did not help either; they had no idea why they were sending us to school. There was a dire lack of schoolbooks. We were sharing books in groups of five. Most of our teachers were untrained volunteers who were using their instincts to give us instruction; they had no training in teaching young people anything.
I was lucky I survived the mis-education of NEP and qualified to attend a national school. Three of us from NEP joined the school and we were scared stiff and embarrassed by our unrefined language and our lack of awareness about anything. Our focus was to see if we will manage to hold our place in the class. Despite coming through the quarter programme and having very low marks, we were among the best students in sciences and languages. One of us won the junior award for sciences and another was among the top in mathematics. We saw that there was nothing to it and once exposed to the same level of resources and teaching we were able to compete with everyone else.
Then I had a perception-changing journey in Ukambani in 1994. I saw schools typically like ours; no windows, no library, and tattered children with parents who barely understood why they sent their children to school. I was really taken aback by what I saw.. Greater Machakos schools looked liked schools in Tarbaj and Bute and nothing better. A year later Turkana district was the first in KCPE overall ranking. Turkana is not comparable to Wajir and Mandera in terms of development yet it was doing so well in terms of education. I started wondering why the schools in NEP were doing so poorly. I had no answer.
In 1999, I was one of the editors of The Pioneer, The Journal of North Eastern Province Students Association. On the inaugural copy of the magazine, we did an extensive article about the KCSE results for 1998. We looked at rankings, subject performance and historical performance. What we found was shocking. In one school, more than 85% of the students had an E in mathematics. Essential subjects like English and Sciences were no better. We asked why the parents were paying for such poor service and we recommended that Wajir Girl's Secondary School to be closed indefinitely. Nobody listened to us. The malady we reported in 1999 is continuing. There has been no clamor about the bad results. There is nothing anybody has none so far that seem to have an effect.
Five years later, I attended a conference at Garissa in which educationists, government and NGO's were deliberating on how to share the huge aid contribution to the improvement of schools in the region by USAID. There was a lot of talk about the best way to improve the schools but there were no radical ideas. The huge money on the table was informing most of the ideas. The same day the results of KCSE were released and it was as usual disastrous. They participants looked a little embarrassed by were already salivating on how best to benefit personally from the bad performance. There were many PowerPoint presentations made but I heard no radical ideas and no honest evaluation from any of the people assembled until the representative from Arid Lands Resource Management Project stood to speak. The speaker admitted that there is no solution to the problem. He said most of the suggestions being advanced were just suggestions and nothing more and most of them have been tried before. He said nobody knows what the problem was, and until the problem is identified and isolated, there will be no valid solution. It is the example that he gave that startled me. He said there was a headmaster who applied to him that the school was doing badly because there are no books. ALRMP equipped the school library with the relevant books. The students performed poorly in the subsequent examination. The headmaster explained that the school had poor classrooms and more classrooms were built by the organization. The performance went further down. Now he said the headmaster wants ALRMP to install solar system for lighting and the organization is doing it. The speaker said he hoped the grades would not go further to the dogs.
What is ailing the education system? Lack of books, learning materials, teachers and classrooms? Maybe for some schools but not for most schools. Most schools in NEP are average by the standards of all schools in Kenya. Some schools have better resources than others but perform dismally. I have no answers to these ailments but I believe there is a problem with the whole system. The system is designed for communities with wider access to communication mediums like newspapers and TV. It tests exposure to the wider society and not exclusion from it. It is also heavily in rote learning academy type education where aptitude is not necessarily important but ability to cram and recall. The systematic breakdown of the whole society is also affecting the performance of students. In 1992 when we were sitting, our KCPE exams we were hearing gunshots and burials were taking place around us of people killed in inter-clan warfare. The corruption in the system affects who is promoted, transferred, demoted or rewarded. Teachers are not appointed on merit but on clan basis and personal performance is not a factor in anything. Food donated by FAO and UN to schools have never reached the schools; they are sold in the markets by the same parents who send their children to those boarding schools. It is a case of slaughtering a stolen cow to feed the poor. There NGO's bringing billions of shillings into NEP every year but we are yet to see their impact in any sector.
What is the solution? More money? More teachers? More books? More conferences? All these seem to be not working. This is where I will throw in my two cents. The CDF has a lot of money nowadays. They have been using schools as their primary target of misappropriation. In one school, they repainted a wall and in the accounting for the funds, they reported that they constructed two classrooms. In another school they say they built a laboratory, friends of mine went around the schools but could not find any new laboratory anywhere in that district. In one constituency, some crooks in conjunction with signatories to the account removed more than 8 million shillings from the CDF account for themselves, the MP says he had no idea such a fraud was happening. CDF money will do nothing to improve the schools because it will not reach them.
What therefore is to be done? Solving the problem of education has to be tied to the general problems in NEP. The first place to start is to address the corruption that is diverting resources from schools, hospitals and other public amenities. NGO's and CDF must be made accountable. Miraa and Kuber must be banned near schools. Parents must ask for better services from schools and must boycott any school that does not perform. Educated people who understand the implication of failure of educational system must staff local councils. A lot need to change and the change must be wholistic.
The problem of attitude towards education is increased by the fact there is no expectation or ambition on the part of the learners. This needs to change. Peering and mentoring are one way of doing something about attitude but in a time when there are educated people left in NEP as all of us are in down Kenya or outside NEP, there are no mentors left.