Visit the Samburu KARE booth if you’re in Cambridge, MA 9/13
It’s almost midnight: I just took the last of 15 pounds of Scottish shortbread out of the oven. I have the potatoes mashed for potato bread, the cornmeal, molasses and butter mixture ready for Anadama Bread (a New England speciality) and, oops, no applesauce for the applesauce-oatmeal bread.
I’m baking. We’re baking: colleagues from my day job, students from my Cambridge College courses, friends and students. And the Samburu have spent much of the summer beading, carving, drawing, crafting with all the passion of hope: all of us in preparation for the big Cambridge International Carnival (www.cambridgecarnival.org) this Sunday, Sept. 13th in Kendall Square of Cambridge, Massachusetts (just across the river from Boston, Massachusetts). The Carnival attracts over 100,ooo people each year. This is BIG!
KARE will have a Save Samburu food and craft booth there. Come by and find us on Sunday from noon to 7:00 pm. Talk with us, buy food, buy beadwork, donate. KARE for your fellow human beings… and SaveSamburu!
POSSIBLE SYSTEMIC ANNIHILATION OF SAMBURU PEOPLE
KTN’s ‘Blood for Pasture’ feature – see Tina Ramme’s wall in facebook – on insecurity in the Isiolo and the neighboring Samburu and Turkana habited regions, is hogwash. It is pure hot air – clever and manipulative attempts by moguls of tourist enterprises in this region to exploit reporting acumen of promising journalists of the likes of Allan and Mohamed to portray ordinary pastoralists (originally displaced from the best grasslands to pave way for game parks, reserves and tourist lodges) as outlaw – ‘bandits. Lest anyone forget, lodges and parks sit in rich grasslands and water points hence the locals now drive their grass and water starved livestock for survival. Raw selfishness and insensitivity is what entrepreneurs of these lodges are all about.
Needless to say, an unholy alliance has developed and is now growing in leaps and bounds between corrupt and inept public servants, tourist facilities’ magnets and some gullible media personnel. Most people in these areas no longer ask for government protection for their lives or property. They have been left to fend for and protect themselves from the criminal elements in their midst. How does one fail to deduce complicity of government officials in the malady that cattle rustling have transmuted?
Imagine government officials and security forces having crystal clear knowledge of over 3000 herd of cattle raided from Samburu East for example, and driven towards Isiolo. One would expect that the natural reaction of a responsible government is to intercept it, but alas, nay, these minions of impunity have other designs. This is not to mention tens of families, folks who have daughters only – not even a single son to join the truly criminal gangs of bandits – simply impoverished as hundreds of their cattle were forcibly driven from their manyattas by security agents. This in the name of compensating neighboring communities, victims of crimes committed eons ago by their tribesmen! Truly astonishing.
It is unfortunate that lives were lost – not only in Isiolo, but also in Samburu East and Turkana’s Ngare Mara areas in the past months due to fights for survival due to ravaging drought, famine and lately compounded by evil machinations of opportunistic politicians.
All life is sacred and equal, whether it is of a Turkana, Samburu or Borana for that matter. Besides several victims, adults and in particular, four children (two Samburu and two Turkana) were killed in a bizarre manner – skinned alive, butchered and killed as if in a rather ritualistic mode. Interestingly and curiously, none of these sad, sordid events attracted the attention of flamboyant, Rambo-wanna-be KTN’s Mohammed and Allan.
In comes the media, in scenes seen in movies of barbaric epochs. Mohamed purports to thread through a grave yard stopping at the edge of freshly dug, unmarked graves and glancing at a sheet of paper as if to verify a list of names? i.e. alleged victims of alleged Samburu ‘’waasi’’ (rebels). One wonders whether this is not propagandist attempt to lure the ‘government’ to come and stop these inter-tribal fights – by killing more innocent people! And enriching themselves through state sanctioned cattle raids, rendering greater population destitute.
All these unfortunate events portend a more disturbing unfolding scenario where a people, a community are clearly systematically annihilated. The almost conspiratorial silence and inaction the GOK is treating this matter leaves one wondering what their motive is. GOK’s callous handling of the plight of its citizenry (in Samburu and by the way, other pastoralist areas) begs the answer to the question – ‘What next for a decimated population (at the end of the day) that depends solely on famine relief donations’?
GOD HELP US!