At least
109 lives have been lost and 13,000 more displaced. Thousands of livestock
slaughtered and property destroyed. Schools have been reduced to shells of
their former selves. Welcome to Tana Delta!
The region
has literally been turned into a bloodbath by primitive raiders who pounded the
innocence and tranquility of Tana Delta, leaving in their wake a trail of
destruction and agony. Police officers,
the men and women supposed to ensure our security have been butchered by the
daring raiders. The statistics are grim. These attacks can be equated to acts
of dare-devils. Otherwise how do you explain it when people are butchered in
broad daylight and the attackers retreat to the forest, with an apparently
overwhelmed police force, helplessly watching?
This
bloodbath has elicited claims of political instigations that for some political
reasons, the Pokomo, Tarbei and Orma communities have been played off against
the other. This conflict that has so far
turned deadly beyond the wildest of imagination to the entire nation, started
off as a tussle over grazing land and water resources for some livestock. However,
what followed is a massacre where at least 50 people were killed in a single
night! Since then, the killings went on unabated till the deployment of the
dreaded paramilitary police wing, the General Service Unit, GSU. But did the
executive have to wait until a hundred lives were lost?
As a
country, we have proved to be poor students of history; students who never
learn. Past ethnic have never taught us any valuable lesson. As a result the
inter-ethnic knives have once again been strewn out, this time round with devastating
results. All the questions must be answered and right answers given, failure to
which we must brace for a repeat of this.
It is
now evident that small arms are scattered all over in the wrong hands. These
were used to primitively butcher innocent children, women and men. The disarmament
process must be expedited and these arms confiscated. Our security forces and
the executive must stop this hard talk and instead walk it. It cannot be
business as usual when some Kenyans are primitively killing each other. Deployment
of the GSU to help quell the menace is only a short-term measure. We must endeavor
to cure this for the long-term.
We must
help de-marginalize these regions and stop treating them as though they are not
part of this country. Efforts must be made by the government, politicians and
all Kenyans of goodwill to make our Orma, Tarbei and Pokomo brothers feel as an
integral part of Kenya. Alongside other pastoralist communities in North- Eastern
province, they must be provided with an economically viable means of benefiting
from the livestock that they so much treasure. Education must be allowed to
penetrate into these communities. These are key to putting to an end these primate
acts of cattle-rustling and raiding that have already claimed thousands of
lives. In the 21st Century, these acts should be unheard of. We cannot
afford to achieve Vision 2030 in urban Kenya while leaving marginalized regions
to wallow in the dark!
It is
chilling to note that in less than a month the Tana Delta clashes have claimed
more lives than the dreaded terrorism has in the past one year. Our defense
forces are out there in Somalia crushing out Al-shabab while ethnic clashes
threaten apocalypse at our own backyard! This should not be allowed to happen.
No comments:
Post a Comment