TIGblogs - Sean Amos

Story by NATION Team
Publication Date: 2/27/2008

Professionals, traders and politicians from central Kenya contribute money to protect their community in case of confrontation if Annan-led talks flop while elders secretly gather, arm and reinforce thousands of young warriors in remote parts of Rift Valley in preparation for war, NATION investigations reveal

By NATION Team

On February 15, a group of professionals, business people and politicians from central Kenya held a secret meeting in Nairobi to discuss the post-election violence.

The closed-door meeting addressed a wide range of issues, from displacement of members of their community, to resettlement, help for traders who had lost investments in the violence and how to protect the community from attacks in future.

The climax of the meeting was a fund raiser apparently to help internally displaced people living in camps across the country.

By the time the meeting ended, Sh4 million had been raised and given to the coordinating committee.

This was one in a series of similar private meetings in which huge amounts of money have been raised, which the leaders say is to sustain the IDPs and help them go back to their farms where they will have to start life afresh.

Prominent businessmen and industrialists have been contributing between Sh500,000 and Sh1 million to this effort.

Those living overseas

Sitting MPs whose constituencies have been hosting internally displaced people have been attending the harambees or sending money. Also targeted for contributions are professionals from the community.

Those living overseas have been sending in money to the meetings which have so far taken place in Nairobi, Juja, Naivasha and Meru.

Sources told the Nation that at least Sh34 million had been raised in Nairobi, with some of the meetings taking place in an exclusive private members’ club and others in Westlands.

From Nairobi and Central Province to the Rift Valley, Nyanza and Western, communities in Kenya are looking inwards, retreating to the villages and mobilising resources, preparing for an eventuality that is too grave to contemplate.

The consensus across the board is that should the Kofi Annan efforts to resolve the presidential elections dispute fail, a new round of violence will break out in many parts of the country.

Some are warning of a more serious confrontation from the conflict that has so far left 1,000 people dead and some 350,000 displaced. “If the peace talks collapse, there will be war,” an elected opposition councillor in Eldoret, told the Daily Telegraph newspaper of London recently.

According to a report carried by the paper, an army of young warriors is being secretly armed and reinforced in remote areas of Rift Valley, preparing for war if the country’s knife-edge peace talks fail.

Elders here have organised thousands of men into militia units, each split into marksmen, foot soldiers, armourers, drivers and cooks.

“If Mr Kofi Annan cannot bring us an acceptable solution, men will fight and there will be shedding of blood,” said “Andrew”, 29, a militiaman who spoke to The Telegraph in Iten.

“That solution cannot include Mr Kibaki as president.”

He described how elders gathered hundreds of men at a time in clearings deep in the arid, unpoliced Kerio Valley below Iten, preaching war.

Such gatherings have in the past only been called to organise defence against cattle rustlers.

Now they have an alarming new function, linking the 11 sub-clans in the region to plan a united offensive to secure their land.

Elders have given each man a role — some are “sharpshooters” because of their skills with bows and arrows. Some, like Andrew, are drivers.

“I went from village to village collecting weapons, arrows, bows and spears, which I took to the frontline,” he said, describing his involvement in January’s fighting in Eldoret.

“Others took lorries filled with fighters. Others carried food cooked by our women to keep the fighters strong.”

“William”, 24, a teacher, said his job was to hammer house nails into arrow heads, many of which are dipped in poison concocted from roots and leaves.

“There were three in my team and we were making 1,200 arrows a day,” he said.

Since the Annan peace talks started, the war machine has slowed and fighters have been told to wait for orders.

“We are ready if they call us again, we are adding more arrows,” said “Peter”, a village butcher.

“We tried to have our voice heard at the ballot box, but they ignored us. We tried to protest peacefully, but the police shot us and tear- gassed us.

“It is very dangerous for people not to listen to us. Now we are ready to fight to the end,” he told the paper.

In Nairobi, one of the leaders who has featured prominently in the fund-raising meetings is a former parliamentary aspirant in one of the constituencies in Nairobi who after losing twice in his quest for Parliament has settled as a business person.

Political circles

Also said to be heavily involved is a business person with wide connections and who is known to be influential in business and political circles. These are the lead mobilisers who organise venues and contact members of the community for the harambees.

According to sources familiar with the initiatives, some of the money raised is meant to buy arms for self-defence. It is not clear the kind of weapons being stockpiled but our source said there had been talk of acquiring guns.

We established that the community’s militia is already in place and each member has a machete while there are other weapons being kept for them, which nonetheless no one is willing to disclose. The militia comprises mainly groups of youth who have been mobilised and lectured to defend their people should they be attacked.

At first, the Mungiki militia volunteered to help their kinsfolk who were being flushed out of the Rift Valley since they appeared defenceless.

They are said to have been the force behind the ruthless killings in Nakuru and Naivasha where about 100 people were killed.

The youths are being mobilised in the urban centres and upcountry where the exercise is being carried out by selected elders who have been picked to do the work having been involved or witnessed similar tasks during the Mau Mau war.

Signs of serious mobilisation taking place among the young people are evident from the casual talk in the villages in Central Province.

“Keep your weapon closer to you so that when the whistle is blown you are ready to defend your people” is a common phrase in the area.

Professionals who have in the past been known to be aloof in causes such as those championed by groups as Mungiki have this time round become the brains behind the militia groups.

They are assisting them by equipping them with organisational skills and generally preparing them for the anticipated war.

In other words, they are now the intelligence arm of the militia as well as funding the operations. Those who have retired after working with the armed forces have been instrumental and are offering their services in the spirit of community patriotism.

The justification for having such a militia to protect the community, the leaders, say is because when violence erupted in the Rift Valley, the attackers seemed to have been well organised and coordinated.

“Houses were burnt down, reducing our people to paupers while the police watched as property was looted and destroyed by organised gangs, yet these people had voted overwhelmingly for President Kibaki who also remained silent during the bloodshed,” said one of the organisers.

“We are not sure whether it will happen again. But we must be prepared in case we are attacked especially when we go back to our farms.”

In the North Rift, where many people are keenly following the talks at the Serena Hotel, residents are hoping for the best while preparing for the worst.

Renewed violence

In the streets of Eldoret Town, there has been talk that news of Mr Annan’s plane departing from the country without an acceptable political settlement will immediately throw the region into renewed violence akin to that which broke out after Mr Kibaki was declared president on December 30.

“If it turns out that the talks have failed to offer us a favourable solution, we will unleash all that we have prepared over the recent past to soldier on with our protests,” an elder and opinion leader in the area said.

Investigations by the Nation revealed a worrying development in which terror gangs, and the post-election violence itself, have assumed a life of their own far beyond the control of local political leaders or government.

In Uasin Gishu, the name of a local school has been changed from Ngarua to Kipnyigei primary school. The former name is associated with Central Province while the new one is local to the area.

International level

The school has a new motto too — “Success through war”. The authorities are yet to take action.

The situation here is not helped by reports of an arms racket at the international level, where guns are reportedly smuggled into the North Rift from neighbouring countries of Uganda, Sudan and Ethiopia for onward transmission to urban centres such as Eldoret and Nairobi.

This is being done ostensibly for local militia to arm themselves ahead of any fighting that could break out in case the mediation talks collapse.

Militia in the Rift Valley are thought to have a new impetus in arming themselves following claims that Mungiki sect members have been mobilising in the region.

“We are aware of plans to arm Mungiki to unleash violence on us. We cannot sit back and wait for disaster but are doing all we can to hit back in the event their evil plans come to pass,” said an Eldoret man.

Although most residents of Uasin Gishu, Keiyo, Nandi North, Nandi South, and Eldama Ravine were not used to arming themselves with guns, that has now been possible thanks to the alleged Mungiki threat.

Some militiamen have got money from the sale of cattle stolen from fleeing victims of the violence.

The situation is not much different in Western Province as uncertainty pervades towns and trading centres which were rocked by the post-election chaos, with reports of fresh attacks being planned by youths.

Rumours of the impending attacks began circulating after it emerged that the mediation talks on the disputed presidential results between the Government side and their ODM counterparts were headed for a stalemate.

The uneasy calm in the affected towns has given way to tension as the youths began emerging at trading centres and warning of attacks if the Annan-led negotiations did not resolve the political crisis facing the country.

In Vihiga and Emuhaya districts, tension has remained high at Chavakali, Majengo, and Luanda and Mago markets.

Traders at the markets said the youths have been confronting and turning away “outsiders” and threatening to deal with them if they did not leave.

Carry out attacks

It was, however, difficult to establish whether politicians are directly involved in mobilising the youth and funding them to carry out the attacks.

In the previous attacks, the youths barricaded parts of the Kakamega-Kisumu road crippling transport.

They set up illegal road blocks and stoned vehicles and extorted money from motorist.

Trading centres on the Kakamega-Mumias road are teeming with groups threatening mayhem should the mediation talks collapse.

In Maraba and Lurambi, some of the well to do families who were displaced from their homes have hired police officers to protect their property hoping to return when the situation normalises.

In Maraba, the youths have been attacking homes in the dark and demanding money from their victims who include locals.

The situation is, however, different in Kisumu where there doesn’t seem to be any coordinated effort to unleash violence. In this town, which experienced some of the worst protests after the poll results were announced, has mainly witnessed spontaneous violence from mainly idle youth. Apart from clashing with security officers they have also be known to target some roads which they block and harass motorists.

“The riots in Kisumu, although sparked by the disputed elections, have mainly been associated with jobless youth and thugs who have used the crisis to target business people and other well-to-do residents in the pretext of looking for outsiders,” said a Kisumu resident who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals.

Security situation

In Kisii, tension has continued in the Borabu-Bomet border with sporadic incidents although the situation has improved.

But unlike the case in Rift Valley, Western and Nairobi, the armed Kisii youths known as Chinkororo who had been mobilised to fight at the border had retreated home after the situation improved.

According to sources on the ground, leaders and wananchi in the area are not keen to be involved in armed conflict with their neighbours because they feel it may endanger the lives of the many people from the community living outside the home region.

“We decided to hold back our forces for fear of endangering our people who have settled in the Rift Valley and south Nyanza.

“In any case we don’t understand why people who voted for the same party are fighting,” said a newly-elected MP from Kisii who chose to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the issue.

As the country continues to divide along tribal lines, it has emerged that the involvement of prominent personalities and the elite in arming and preparing their communities is as a result of the near collapse of the security situation in many parts of the country.

This has given way to organised gangs to rule through threats and extortion.

Illegal road blocks are common on roads leading to many centres in the Rift Valley, Nyanza and Western Province. Here vehicles are inspected and passengers forced to pay “taxes and fines” from motorists – whether local or not.

At the beginning, the roadblocks were conceived to be checkpoints where occupants of vehicles were vetted about their ethnic backgrounds.

“Passengers were being asked to show their identity cards to ascertain their ethnic backgrounds. If they came from other ethnic groups than the local residents, then they were beaten up,” a tout in Eldoret said.

An elderly man from Koibatek District was recently stranded in Nakuru Town after spending Sh1,200 in fare and “taxes”, According to the elder, the extortionists fix a specific sum for women and men before they are allowed to pass through the road blocks.

Outlawed sect

Although the number of road blocks has gone down to pave the way for the Annan talks, the road blocks emerge immediately a sign of failure is detected.

Huge stones and logs on either side of most roads in the North Rift region are usually returned to close the passages as soon as youths read an unwelcome sign from the Annan team.

And then the extortion begins.

Such was the case recently when Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister Martha Karua criticised Mr Annan over his remarks over the likelihood that a grand coalition between ODM and PNU could be established.

In cases where the owner of a vehicle could not be verified, drivers were promptly asked to show the log books. Companies using vans to deliver goods to the affected areas are now sending drivers who can speak the local dialect to enable them to pass the barriers.

In Uasin Gishu, rumours about the presence of the outlawed Mungiki sect members fuelled the roadblocks menace.

“We were told that they were coming to take revenge. Because of this, we were afraid but also determined to ensure our safety,” said Mr Ben Kirui.