The Horn of Africa has been a stage on which a lot of devastating wars have been fought, the most notable current ones being the ongoing Darfur conflict and the crippling war in Somalia. As these armed conflicts continue to attract a lot of media attention, other conflicts especially pastoral conflicts in the arid and semi-arid lands have until only very recently been largely overlooked even dismissed as insignificant local unrests in marginal areas.
Having evolved from culture-and- practice related activities localized conflicts involving pastoralists here can no longer be played down. Besides being commercially engineered some pastoral conflicts have become larger-scale, more frequent and more intense outright wars responsible for displacement, injuries and deaths of thousands of people.
There are an estimated 20 million nomadic pastoralists who mostly occupy the arid and semi-arid lands in the Horn and East Africa. As an entity pastoralists here probably form the largest group of civil militants. It is difficult to give accurate figures because not only do pastoralists occupy insecure areas, they also migrate, sometimes across international frontiers. These nomads are estimated to be in possession of five million firearms. Civil militarization has been fostered by a number of factors such as transhumance, regional insecurity (Darfur and Somalia), commercialization of livestock, forced migration (because of climate change or armed conflict) that has increased competition for dwindling natural resources especially water and pasture and poor governance. Given these conditions, the proliferation of light arms and ammunition has been flourishing.
In recognition of the growing problem of civil militarization, governments in the region have been implementing two main strategies: arming homegurads and other security agents and disarming, sometimes forcibly, the pastoralists with the aim of reducing the number of localized and cross-border conflicts. Yet these efforts have often been criticized as being ill-thought, piece-meal initiatives that have generally failed to achieve concrete results and lead to real changes such as increased security in areas occupied by pastoralists.
It is against this background that Inter-Governmental Agency for Development, a regional body made up of Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Djibouti facilitated an intergovernmental conference on disarmament in Entebbe (Uganda) last year where calls were made for the adoption of improved approaches toward disarmament. At the moment many disarmament campaigns are not working because disarmed pastoralists are neither provided with alternatives nor protected from armed attacks by other groups. They thus resort to acquiring more and deadlier arms.
Although most of the existing attempts to address civil militarization in pastoral areas are yet to bear fruit, there have been a few positive stories.
Recognising the link between pastoral conflict, insecurity and underdevelopment, Tegla Lourupe one of Kenya's reknown female marathon runners initiated a programme that promotes peace between Turkana and Pokot pastoralists in northwestern Kenya. She is Pokot. The pastoralists who participate in the Tegla Lourupe Foundation are sensitized about the need for peace to achieve individual and community development. Once sensitized these pastoralists willingly surrender all their arms. They are then empowered in various ways; for instance they could be given a small loan to establish a farm or be enrolled in the foundations’ school and trained to become athletes or peace ambassadors. Conflict situations sometimes provide opportunities for peace. Governments, humanitarian agencies and individuals could adopt approaches such as the Tegla one that link development to peace.
Romosh
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