Why Herders Won't Surrender Their Firearms Just Yet

Paru dans la presse kenyane de ce jour


A well-armed Samburu warrior watches as his herd of cattle grazes in Kirisia forest, 20km from Maralal Town.

When I appear in front of him, he picks up his G3 rifle that had been leaning against a tree trunk and holds it lengthwise to his chest.

I introduce myself and offer my hand in form of greeting. He stares at me with great suspicion, but shakes my hand.

He moves his feet a little, stands up and adjusts his gun, holding it tightly.

It takes many hours before the warrior finally accepts to be interviewed. He identifies himself as Wilson Lengilikwai.

We sit on the same tree trunk that his gun had been leaning.

Slowly, our conversation shift from nomadic life to cattle rustling, then to firearms. But when I ask him to talk about disarmament, Mr Lengilikwai, just like many other warriors of the north, is quite unconvinced about the whole process.

"How can the Government ask us to surrender our guns when we know very well that there is no security for us? If we give out our firearms, say today, who will protect us when the neighboring tribes strike? How about our stolen livestock? Who is going to return them to us?" Mr Lengilikwai talks with bitterness.

Like hundreds of warriors from Samburu and Pokot communities, Mr Lengilikwai views his weapon as a source of security, livelihood and a status symbol.

Cattle rustling

The availability of modern firearms among the pastoralists has led to the cattle rustling, which is largely fuelled by the fight for water and pasture. Road banditry and indiscriminate killings, even within families, is also part of the story.

According to Peter Katunoi, the divisional service officer based at Suguta Marmar centre, the illegal ownership of guns among the herding societies, especially the Samburus and the Pokots, has been strengthened by the Government's continued neglect.

"It is true that thousands of guns are in the wrong hands. But what are the pastoralists to do when the Government has failed to provide adequate protection to them and their livestock from outside attacks? Young warriors in these communities are left with little alternative but to take it upon themselves to be the protectors of the herds and their families," says Mr Katunoi.

The gun culture has become part and parcel of life among the pastoralists in the North Rift.

Most firearms owned by herders are cheap, portable, high-tech, easily obtainable, durable, need minimal maintenance and require little training to use. This means that even the youngest herdsboy can assume the status of warriorhood and join the ever-growing militia groups in the north.

The price of firearms has plummeted over the years.

According to a Pokot source, most guns are obtained in Isiolo Town. The price of a rifle is now only five cows, down from 14 in 2003. And to acquire an AK-47, one only needs two large bulls and a couple of smaller animals. A bullet goes for between Sh100 and Sh150.

Owning a gun among the pastoralists is no longer a secret. Many warriors in Laikipia and Samburu districts use the weapon to herd their cattle.

They argue that it is the only way to protect themselves from the "aggressive neighbouring tribes".

And despite abject poverty in the areas they live in, pastoralists trade off their livestock for weapons.

"I think the Government is to blame for its failure to implement serious disarming operations. Over the years, we have experienced partial disarmament, where some communities are disarmed and others are left armed. If it is disarmament, let it be done without favoritism" says Mr Samson Lekuye of Arsim village.

The level of illiteracy has also contributed to constant conflict among the pastoralists in the North Rift.

"It's very hard to convince uneducated person to stop cattle rustling. To them, it is like a hobby. They participate in the raid to achieve respect and dignity in their communities," explains Mr Joseph Lekolua, a local politician.

Some analysts believe that the disparities in sources of livelihood, as well as cultural beliefs, are also among the causes of tribal clashes in the North Rift.

Cattle rustling has also been attributed to poverty. The less privileged section of the community ekes a living out of charcoal burning, selling of firewood and sale of illicit brew.

Some high school boys from poor families are said to take part in the raids and road banditry to pay school fees.

The Government is planning to disarm pastoralists in a bid to reduce violent conflict and to restore peace. The two major hurdles that afflict Government disarmament programmes are limited budget and lack of organised cross-border disarmament programmes.

The process is also attributed to serious human rights abuses where women and girls are gang-raped and innocent children and the elderly killed in such operations.

Jeunes filles Samburus, lors des danses tradtionnelles effectuees a l'occasion d'un mariage

United Nations launches Sh5.3 bn food appeal for Kenya

Article paru dans la presse kenyane de ce jour

The United Nations is seeking Sh5.3 billion to deal with food shortages occasioned by expensive farm inputs and post-election violence in Kenya.

The World Food Programme – the UN agency concerned with food security in the world – has appealed for the funds to feed 1.2 million Kenyans, a fraction of them victims of the conflict after the disputed results of the December 27 elections. “We launched an appeal last week for $84 million for operations in Kenya throughout the year,” said Mr Marcus Prior, the agency’s spokesperson for East and Central Africa.

The appeal follows an assessment last month of the violence that claimed at least 1,200 lives and displaced 350,000 others in parts of Rift Valley, Western and Central provinces.

“We did look at the planting season but it’s rather too early to make an assessment. Obviously, there has been disruption (in planting) in the Rift Valley Province,” he said in reference to the region, largely considered Kenya’s food basket but which was scoured by chaos last January. “We will carry out (another) assessment later in the year.”

The appeal comes as the world is facing a food crisis that WFP executive director Josette Sheeran calls the “silent tsunami” in reference to the tidal wave caused by sea quake and that often kills scores of people and causes damage worth millions of shillings.

Reports from parts of Africa, Europe, Asia, and South America show that food scarcity is causing civil strife. The shortages result from expensive agricultural inputs (such as fertiliser) caused by escalating oil prices, and a move by the developed world to divert grains to make ethanol (the inexpensive alternative to petroleum).

“It’s more profitable to make fuel (from maize) than to make food,” says Dr Juma Mukhwana, the executive director of Sacred Africa, a non-governmental organization involved in food security and commodity exchange prices in rural Kenya.

According to the Centre for International Cooperation’s Alex Evans, “global food prices have risen by 80 per cent in the last three years”. In Kenya, the shortages are evident in the doubling of prices of essential foods, including milk, flour and rice.

Yet the country’s problem is worsened by the post-election fighting that displaced more than 100,000 farmers from their land to camps, according to Mr Paul Mbuni, the chairperson of the 8,000-member Kenya Society for Agricultural Professionals (KESAP).

“There will be a drastic decline in production of maize and wheat,” said Mr Mbuni. “We expect a maize shortfall of eight million bags this year.”

As authorities worry over the shortfall, reports indicate that Kenya’s strategic food reserves are getting depleted fast as the Government feeds the 350,000 people displaced by the election conflict. “Of course the fact is that since January when clashes began, the Government has accessed a lot of food to the IDPs,” says Mr Kipserem Maritim, the spokesperson of National Cereals and Produce Board, the country’s grain store. “This has impacted on our reserves.”

According to Agriculture minister William Ruto, the country has 3.5 million bags reserved at the NCPB for emergency. This is enough to feed the country until August, he said four days ago.

Kenyans consume 32 million bags of maize per year. Last year, 36 million bags of maize were produced meaning there was a surplus of about 4 million bags.

Now the Government seeks to mop up the extra grain still in farmers’ hands. “We believe there are farmers out there holding onto food. We are appealing to them to bring it to us because we have the infrastructure and facilities to preserve the grain,” Mr Maritim says. As yet, the board cannot quantify the maize still held by farmers. However, the response to the appeal has been “low” says Mr Maritim.

Commodity prices analysts say the response could be poor because maize farmers may be disposing of the produce to agents who are paying better than the Sh1,300 a bag offered by the NCPB.

Salvage crops

At the same time, the Government has no plans to import cereals to counter the looming food shortage in the country, the Saturday Nation has established.

Instead, the Agriculture ministry is pegging hope on unharvested food crops in Kenya and neighboring Tanzania.

“We expect maize harvests from Tanzania in June and from parts of Rift Valley and Western provinces in July,” said permanent secretary Romano Kiome.

While acknowledging dwindling food stocks in the country, Dr Kiome said cereals in Canada, America and Australia were also selling at high prices. It will, therefore, mean the Government will have to exhaust all options possible before it can seek international imports. “We are keen on cross-border imports; it will be cheaper this way,” said the PS.

Early this week, the Agriculture minister raised the red flag and said local food reserves could only last until August. This means Kenyans risk starvation in coming months if no decisive measures are taken soon. Already residents in some parts of Rift Valley like Samburu and West Pokot districts are experiencing food shortages.

The Government has laid down strategies to ensure productivity of food crops already in farms is enhanced while still facilitating planting of others. Farmers are set to be given top dressing (CAN) fertilizer to salvage crops planted in April.

Internal refugees

Since the onset of long rains in February, the Government has distributed 350 tonnes of free seeds to internal refugees. “We are also seeking a way in which Kenya Seed Company can reduce seed prices by around 40 per cent,” said Dr Kiome.

The PS further said the ministry had also distributed 21 tonnes of fertiliser to farmers especially in Rift Valley and assisted in ploughing 4,000 acres for free. “We are also helping them get farm tools. So far we have given them 14,000 tools,” said Dr Kiome.

Maize and rice production was high in the last five years, but the gains made were reversed by post-election chaos. “About 3.5 million bags of maize were either burnt or destroyed during the violence hence the deficit,” says Dr Kiome.

Saut d'un morane (jeune guerrier Samburu) lors d'une danse traditionnelle

Kenya food security outlook

Food security is deteriorating for households throughout Kenya. A poor October to December short-rains season in most pastoral and marginal agricultural areas has decreased pasture availability and reduced household access to food from on-farm production. Food security has decreased for normally food-secure households in Rift Valley, Nyanza, and central and western Kenya following the adverse effects of the post-election crisis since late December 2007, which disrupted production and trade and displaced farmers, business persons and casual laborers. About 830,000 people currently require emergency assistance.

From July to September, calmness is expected to return to the conflict-affected areas of the country, allowing trade to increase and some displaced households to return home. However, food availability will be below normal due to disruptions in planting activities for the 2008 long-rains harvest. Additionally, the long rains are expected to be poor in northern and eastern pastoral and marginal agricultural areas of the country, further depleting pasture availability and limiting household production, causing an increase in the number of households that are highly food insecure.

In the worst-case scenario, the poor performance of the long rains will extend to the northwest and southern pastoral areas, leading to localized extreme food insecurity. The political crisis may not be fully resolved, causing further reduction in the 2008 long-rains harvest and a significant increase in food prices in the third quarter. The food security of displaced households will decline further, as many would be unable to leave camps to access their livelihoods, and host families would no longer be able to continue housing IDPs due to the erosion in their own purchasing capacities. The number of people requiring emergency assistance could increase to 2.4 million.

lien : http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/satelliteimages/120893991062.htm

PLAN DES ZONES AFFECTEES :

http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/imagerepository/satelliteimage/120893990827__orig.jpg

http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/imagerepository/KE_food_april.pdf

Ce collier est actuellement porte par la jeune epouse le jour de la celebration du mariage traditionnel qui dure trois jours chez les Samburus, au moment de la pleine lune.

Dans quelques regions reculees du District, il est encore porte quotidiennement, mais c'est une coutume en voie de disparition.

Recouvert pour la circonstance de l'ocre rouge.

Society - Exposed: Where all your money goes

Lu dans la presse kenyane de ce jour


The most expensive item on my pay slip is not food, transport, school fees or beer. It not even those things over which the governor of the State of New York recently lost his job. The most expensive item on my pay slip is the government of the African Republic of Kenya.

First, the government takes an outright one third in direct taxes. If I spend my whole salary on goods and services, it means, taking into account 16 per cent VAT, 46 per cent of my salary goes to the government. Keeping in mind that there are many more taxes, it is safe to assume that I work 14-hour days and hand over two-thirds of my pay cheque to the government.

IT IS THEREFORE IMMORAL TO SEE SOME sub-literate thug strutting around spending all that money and having no respect for me, the man who has to work to keep his mistresses in expensive underwear, his children in good schools and the gas tanks of the juggernauts I have bought him full of fuel.

If this government does not spend our money with more care and show us more tangible benefits for it, including a tax cut, I shall be among the first to join a middle class revolution against it.

So you can imagine how excited I was by a story in the Daily Telegraph published under the headline “Kenya’s cabinet soaks up 80pc of the budget”. It was based on an interview with Mwalimu Mati, former director of Transparency International and head of the Mars Group, who campaigns against corruption.

“Kenya’s expanded new government,” the story read, “will spend 80 per cent of the entire national budget on luxury vehicles, inflated salaries for ministers and general running costs, a local anti-corruption group claimed on Wednesday.

“Of Kenya’s annual budget of £5.4 billion, more than £4.3 billion will go on 93 ministers and their government’s general running costs. Only £1.3 billion will be left for roads, schools and hospitals for Kenya’s 38 million people.”

For a moment there I thought the paper was reporting that 80 per cent of the budget this year will go to buying and maintaining Hummers. Don’t sue me, but I think the report is looking at the two halves of spending that the government does, recurrent and development. Recurrent are the expenses paid over and over, including wages and fuel for Hummers. Development is, well, development.

Not satisfied, I probed a little more and came across a document Kenyans should see. It is called Quarterly Economic and Budgetary Review; the most recent covers the last quarter of 2007 (You can find it at http://www.treasury.go.ke). It tells you what the government spent your salary on. In general, the government spends very little money on development. The bulk of the resources of this country go to debt payments and government expenses. That is why it is so nonsensical to create a government of 42 ministries, complete with 50 assistant ministers and of course 42 permanent secretaries. It’s flushing money down the chute, just to keep Moi-era politicians happy and away from the throats of poor villagers.

The books of the government for the last quarter of 2007, that is June to December, were actually not bad, I hate to admit. Sh167 billion went to recurrent expenses against only Sh64 billion for development. But this is generally good given that the previous year expenditure on development was just about half of that.

Secondly, the government has either become a little more frugal, or ministries are asking for more money than they have use for. In general, during that quarter the government spent Sh21.9 billion less than it expected, which is a good and bad thing depending on what was supposed to be done and wasn’t.

THE RECURRENT EXPENSES ACCOUNT was underspent by Sh52.5 billion, which is very good, assuming that this was a saving rather than things not getting done. The development account was overspent by Sh30.5 billion, which is a good thing, provided all that money went to development. Problem is, I don’t know that it was. The ministry of Finance alone overspent its development budget by Sh36 billion, and until I know what the money was spent on, it is impossible to render judgment. Given that only Sh64 billion was spent on development in that quarter, half of it was absorbed by the ministry’s overexpenditure, which is mighty suspicious.

Two important things: The government owes Sh836.4 billion, half of it to foreigners. Foreign debt service for the quarter in question was close to Sh9 billion.

Another thing is that the entire recurrent budget does not go to juggernauts; in that quarter, Sh10 billion was directed to uses that the government claims are intended to fight poverty which, I guess, is a good thing.

I suggest that we all watch this government like a hawk. It must spend money with care, and it must identify the priorities that have direct effect on our lives. Wherever I talk to people, the message I get is that the country will go back to the days of big deals and big looting. We need to keep an eye on this.

KENYA: Plus d’excuses pour ne pas utiliser de préservatif

Quand la musique bat son plein, que l’alcool coule à flots et que les hormones sont en ébullition, se procurer un préservatif n’est pas forcément la première chose qui vient à l’esprit, jusqu’à ce qu’il soit trop tard : les boutiques sont fermées et les préservatifs ne tombent pas du ciel.......

LIRE LA SUITE DE L'ARTICLE : http://www.irinnews.org/fr/ReportFrench.aspx?ReportId=77797