Kenya has found it extremely difficult to control its perennial ethnic resource-based conflicts, especially in the Rift Valley and the arid North.

The latest ethnic clashes in Narok and Nakuru counties involving members of the Maasai, the Kipsigis and the Ogiek communities have been attributed to ongoing evictions from Mau forestland.

The fairly complex issues around age-old feuds, cultural practices, land use and politics at the centre of the ethnic flare-ups in the Rift Valley and northern Kenya require long-term solutions.

But the authorities can at least start by finding a way in law enforcement to limit the damage whenever the violence breaks out and stop the villages from turning into war zones for days or weeks.

GRIM PICTURE

In both Narok and Nakuru, several deaths and injuries, displacement of whole villages and closure of several schools were reported within the first two days of the clashes alone.

TV footage showed houses going up in flames even after large contingents of police officers had been deployed to the flashpoints.

The sheer magnitude of damage and the speed at which it was inflicted suggest a massive mobilisation of warriors for either the initial attacks or the retaliatory ones and availability of weapons to execute raids on short notice.

The grim picture that emerges from the clash-hit villages in Narok and Nakuru is that of ethnic communities living side by side in peacetime but massing warriors, stockpiling bows and arrows and having them trained on each other in readiness for the next attack.

TRIBAL WARRIORS

It mirrors the past clashes in 1992, 1997 and 2007/8 when similar attacks in the same areas and other parts of the Rift Valley led to a much higher number of deaths and uprooted hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.

Official inquiries into each of the previous episodes of widespread violence in the region documented recruitment of tribal warriors through traditional rites of passage ceremonies and oathing, and the use of bows and arrows as the weapon of choice.

The recurrence of the fighting, with the same old methods, suggests that the pipeline for warriors and flow of weapons remains open.

The standard law enforcement and conflict resolution practice of sending in officers to quell tensions and gathering elders under a tree to proclaim the return of peace isn’t working as well.

WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION

A sustainable solution appears to lie in weakening the ability of these communities to mobilise for war and arm themselves to the teeth.

As part of the fight against terrorism, it is believed that security agencies have enhanced surveillance on madrassas to prevent the possibility of the religious classes being used as recruitment avenues.

Circumcision boot camps in the Rift Valley’s bushes could be put under similar surveillance to ensure they are not producing warriors for raids against neighbours.

As for the bow and arrow, the State should just declare it a weapon of mass destruction in the Rift Valley and ban its ownership there.

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