External Conflict Escalation Among the Nilotic Pastoral Communities of Northern Kenya

Abstract

This article discusses the external dynamics that resulted in the proliferation of arms into Kenya in general and Northern Kenya in specific. The paper has two major arguments. First, during the cold war, there was an arms race in the region because of its strategic position. This resulted in the two superpowers, USA and USSR, to arm specific countries that were considered to be friendly to them. Second, the paper argues that beginning in the early '70s into the '80s and early 90s, a number of countries in the Horn of Africa experienced turmoil or civil strife. Political instability in Somalia made Kenyan Somalis able to obtain guns by volunteering to join the fight for the Ogaden in Ethiopia and then slipped back into Kenya. The current study found that the conflict in North Eastern Kenya is caused by scarcity of resources, economic and political marginalization, active resistance by pastoralist communities to assimilation, resource depletion, and demographic changes, and the growing availability of small arms and light weapons. Livestock has become the triggers and the medium for sustaining conflicts through cattle raiding for wealth accumulation and also for dowry payments. Modern technology has also become a clear instrument of conflict escalation. Pastoral communities in northern Kenya provide an excellent market for firearms. The study concludes that political instability in Somalia made Kenyan Somalis able to obtain guns by volunteering to join the fight for the Ogaden in Ethiopia and then slipped back into Kenya. The rivalry between Ethiopia and Eritrea led to an arms race between the two nations, where each country is involved in the massive acquisition of arms.

Governance characteristics and feelings of safety are associated with attitudinal success in community‐based natural resource management & conservation organizations in northern Kenya

“…In this region, livestock raiding has a traditional practice amongst many pastoralist societies. However, more recently, in northern Kenya (and neighbouring countries) the introduction and proliferation of small arms and the commercialization of raiding cattle has changed the nature of this activity and escalated conflict (Ltipalei et al, 2018b) This highlights the need to not only consider governance systems at the local level of a particular CBC unit, but also the need to consider the interactions that such units have with other groups, and the various connections that exist across the broader social and ecological landscape (Robinson et al, 2017;Walker et al, 2023). Ultimately the kinds of conflicts over land and boundaries described above are the result of a mismatch between the scale at which management and governance takes place and the nature of the social-ecological system.…”

“…In this region of Kenya, a particularly important issue is the insecurity created by conflict and competition between groups when resources such as water or pasture are scarce (e.g. Koubi, 2019;Njiru, 2012;NRT, 2020), and practices such as livestock raiding (Hendrickson et al, 1998;Homewood, 2008;Ltipalei et al, 2018aLtipalei et al, , 2018b. These issues, or other sources of insecurity, present challenges to the effectiveness of conservancies and could lead to community members feeling less satisfied with how their conservancy is performing.…”