There has been bloodshed, many lives have been lost along
the Pokot/ turkana boarder, many schools have been closed down due to invasion
by communities along the border line, in this case Turkana and Pokot.
A lot has been reported on cattle rustling and killings,
just this month alone hundreds of lives have been reported, others shot while
looking after their livestock, others while attending their small firms and
even innocent travelers along Kitale- Lodwar Road. Another incident occurred at
the notorious Kasarani plains adjacent to Lomelo settlements where a Kenya
Police vehicle transporting KCSE national exams to Kapedo was attacked, the
officers shot and the vehicle burnt to ashes.
In November 2013 bandits from Pokot held hostage GSU
officers providing security at Lorogon Village which is adjacent to Turkwel
Gorge. About 300 armed youth could even allow even the helicopter of the Rift
Valley police boss to land to handle the disputes, they almost brought it down.
Among many other, killings along this boarder line have been
rampant. Even as this is happening our leaders have never been united to defend
our people, we do not have to wake up and plan warfare, we cannot fight, kill
and cattle rustle the whole of our life. We need peace, we need to trade with
our neighbors, we need to intermarry amongst ourselves, and among other things
we will forever share the boarders and therefore need to accept this fact and
try manage the situation at hand. We need peace
Although as much as Turkana has been doing peace meetings
and more specifically the Lokiriama Peace Accord, we have always concentrated
our efforts towards making peace with the neighbors bordering us at the west
and North, nothing tangible as ever been geared towards south turkana; maybe
the intervention need to be changed or something!
Monies have been allocated by National and County
Governments. Many NGOs working in Turkana County have put more efforts and even
funds on peace initiatives. They have worked in some areas and not in others
especially along the South and East boarder line. But little efforts have been geared
towards the south and east, and therefore little results have been realized, in
fact none.
It is time we go south and do more peace initiatives; we
have seen ourselves going to Moroto in Uganda, Ileret, Kapoeta in Sudan,
Nadapal, Omurate in Ethiopia, we have made peace with these neighbors from the
said regions, we should therefore put more emphasis on peace initiatives with
our neighbors in Pokot.
However it can also be that in the small way we are
influencing peace, that we are not using better interventions, we might have
failed in some methods and therefore might need to change and use other avenues.
I know and the whole world knows Turkana people love peace; we have always
initiated these processes, the reason why people here live harmoniously and
work with people from other tribes.
Finally, our heritage needs protection from consequences
that come with insecurity, we will lose our dignity as a peace loving people if
we engage ourselves in wars and cattle rustling, we will chase away potential
investors who have in the recent past been surveying, we will close schools
along the borders and our war against illiteracy would have failed a great
deal, our small scale farming activities in such areas as Katilu, Nakwamoru in Turkana
South, Morulem, elelea and katilia in urkana East. Our food basket will drop
immensely and people will die of hunger.
Peace is the foundation of development; we won’t expect to lose
our ground on establishing a resilient Turkana County in the future.
