On Thursday, February 4th, the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights — based in Gambia —  upheld a long-standing claim by the Endorois people of Central Kenya and Lake Borgoria against the Kenyan government. In 1973, the GoK (that’s Government of Kenya for those unfamiliar with this abbreviation) drove the Endorois away from the shores of their fertile and, unfortunately for them, picturesque lake with its hot springs, pink flamingos and wild game and enticed tourists in their place. The GoK also drove the Endorois away from the center of their spiritual life, the graves of their ancestors and the rich pasture for grazing their cattle and goats. They were forced into arid lands to watch their cattle die and to rely instead on international aid packages for survival. The GOK repeatedly turned down their requests to return and also to be compensated for their severe losses.

But this past week, the African Commission made a landmark ruling: the first of its kind in Africa to recognize the rights of an indigenous people to live on their ancestral lands, control its wealth and be compensated for any losses. The ruling adds considerably to the pressure that the GoK has been receiving internationally, from the US government to the United Nations, to respond to land claims and treat its people fairly.

And so, the Samburu, being stolen from, raped and murdered by the GoK’s police force, have some hope for the future. Not the immediate future, no and alas, but long term the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights should weaken the grasping fingers of the covetous Government of Kenya, as it tries to strike the Samburu aside with one hand and dip its fingers into oil with the other.

To read about the decision, see  the Human Rights Watch’s details report at

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/02/04/kenya-landmark-ruling-indigenous-land-rights

or the Voice of American’s

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/africa/Kenyan-Government-Ordered-to-Return-Land-to-Indigenous-People—-83640137.html

Interestingly, I couldn’t find details of the African Commission’s decision in any English language Kenyan paper on line.

Thoughts to ponder:

It’s difficult to say why Samburu East is facing so much pressure. Is it a coincident that oil drilling and a move to development of the region parrallel these constant attacks against the community?  Is it an effort by Somali, who have a deep and open opposition to the Samburu people and wish to overtake their land and resources (as well as those elsewhere across Kenya– See Mombasa and Tsavo), by empowering themselves to strategically seek positions of power?

What about their past involvement in lucrative wildlife poaching, the presence of a Chinese market (examine arrest records), the Samburu’s impressive and success in developing [nature] conservancies, stabilizing security and reducing poaching to nearly zero in the past decade? Paralleling these attacks was a huge surge in poaching here; 25 elephants butchered just prior to the Feb 09 attacks, 2 rhino just recently. Could there be illegal black market wildlife poaching, oil, and cattle trading cartels behind the scenes —land-based piracy—- similar to what’s happening on the Indian Ocean?

Does cattle raiding occur? Certainly, but historically not at this level or using these tactics. Usually, they are more similar to petty theft, do not use sophisticated weaponry (admittedly supplied by the Kenyan gov), lorries to offload cattle, and organized militias. Children are not commomnly kidnapped, hung and skinned. [The raiders] usually do not enter bomas at dawn to behead the familes asleep, as has been the case in Samburu East. It doesn’t seem to fit normal cattle raiding practices.

Is it due to drought and competition for dwindling resources?  Could it be an extension of post election violence?

What drives these attacks? Who is responsible? What are the hidden agendas? Are there other stakeholders, hidden from view, who may be allowing these attacks, if not encouraging them?  Some say, follow the money…. others say, look at the past.

This week’s operation is an attempt to disarm the Samburu in the name of securing the area. It began on Christmas Eve, an unusual date for a country that is on holiday for a full week around the Christmas holiday. The police agreed to delay this operation until Jan 20th, without violence, but began it early and violently, in violation of the agreements. Is this because on Christmas Eve women fled to avoid being raped, beaten and killed? Or are there other reasons?

But are all tribes being disarmed? If not, why not? Why would one tribe be left exposed and defenseless and their opposition not be? Are any being armed? Why? Some say for border control, but is that accurate?

A key question is who caused the region to become unstable and why? Prior to this there was a great deal of security through the conservancies in that region and their antipoaching units, which is well-documented to have greatly reduced crime of all sort. Yet, they were the first disarmed by the police in Feb. ['09] before they began operations against these very same communities. At that time, there were [police] operations ‘to recover stolen cattle.” 6000 [cattle taken by police]??? For 200 [reported to the police as stolen]??? Even the ones I purchased and had receipts for? Those we legally purchased for orphans and widows, also receipted?

Ever since [the theft of these Samburu cows by police], this relatively quiet and unnnoticed area has been strife with violence and death. At that time, every visible cow present was taken and driven to other markets, leaving these people with no ourside source of income, food (protein and liquid) or savings, as it is a livestock economy. Why would a government do that as a drought looms, knowingly pushing theie citizens into famine and not responding with alternative sources of food, water, transportation, or assistance? Some feel it suggests passive genocide, others ignorance, indifference, or retaliation.

Every person has a right to certain fundamental human rights, such as food, freedom from fear, the right to protection, and so on. When one people [or] group has these rights denied, all humans are threatened.

We ask the media of Kenya and throughout the world to take notice of the complex events happening in the Samburu East and the tragedy that is befalling the Samburu people. Meanwhile, you in the media and you others who simply want to understand what is happening to the people and why, please go to this blog’s sister, news site, www.samburuwatch.org, and find out what has been happening in recent days as the Kenyan police once more move in on the Samburu people.

… and no, it is not a nice gift — they’re attacking Samburu homes again. 

When I got back from spending Christmas weekend with my family and checked e-mail, I had a several moments of panic as I saw that the police had scheduled major, “disarmament” raids on East Samburu villages for Christmas Eve. Women were fleeing into the night to avoid anticipated rape. Then I read later e-mails and let out a sigh of relief. Press coverage and other light shown on their plans led the Kenyan police to announce that they had postponed the police visits to search out and disarm any “illegally armed” Samburu until January 20th. I sat back and planned a detailed post to Save Samburu for later.

And then I found out yesterday that the police have just attacked without notice. Samburu are reporting with news of beatings, thefts and removals of young men. Soon we may not hear what is happening: the police are taking people’s cell phones too. One e-mail tells of the fear in people’s voices as they anticipate the police coming to their manyatta (home).

At least three people are dead from one attack, that we have heard of, and police have taken away another three moran, the young men charged with protecting the tribe. While I have not been to Samburu or met any of the people personally, I feel that I know individuals. Samburu are asking friends outside the area if there is any food to spare.  Young men have been brutalized and even an elderly Samburu man (80+ years) has been beaten.

Human beings should not have to live like this.

Please, Ricky and any other Samburu (and others) reading this blog who are getting news: post your comments here so that the world can know what is happening. We must shout loudly so all can hear. But, if you have any worry for your and your community’s safety, be careful how you identify yourself. Your lives are precious to the world.

Or should I say, selling Samburu hand work to everyone I can this Christmas. That’s what I’ve been doing the past few weeks, first at the very successful Cultural Survival weekend bazaar two weekends ago and then this week at my day job at Action for Boston Community Development. And people have been buying, along with listening and caring about what is happening to the Samburu far away from Massachusetts in Northern Kenya.

The Cultural Survival Bazaar was a mad house of preparation, printing photos of both happier days in Samburu and also the terror of last February’s police attack and cattle theft, as well as later atrocities too, all to hang where buyers could see what’s been happening. Late on Friday night, I was opening bags of Samburu beaded bracelets, carved wooden bowls, spoons and animals, carved gourds and decorated picture frames.  I was pulling everything out of  these woven, straw handbags donated by the woman at a market who sells beads to the Samburu there. When she heard that KARE was bringing back goods the Samburu had made for us to sell in the States for food money, she went back to her shop and brought out eight handbags for the famine relief.

I don’t know how much money we have made off the sales yet, but it is in the hundreds of dollars. Cultural Survival has done four weekend bazaars (we only had enough goods for one), involving hundreds of great vendors. All actual purchases were done at the one, Cultural Survival cash register. They are still sorting out how much each vendor gets. By the way things were flying off our small table, it’s real good. 

But it’s the people I want to talk about who came to help: Lynda , a student of ours, stayed all Saturday afternoon though not feeling well; Jodi , who has been to the area in Kenya, taught us all about the traditional beadwork, the meaning of the colors and how to wear it; and Jon T, an author who heard about the Samburu situation and KARE. He flew across the continent to come meet KARE and Cultural Survival.

A few days later folks at ABCD, where I work, started asking what Samburu stuff was available, because most hadn’t been able to make it to the Bazaar. So I hauled in more beaded bracelets, gourds, necklaces and spoons, all in the few remaining handbags. I laid them all out on a little table in Libby Ellis’s office: she was sick on Sunday when she had hoped to come give a hand in selling. She’s going to be writing grants for KARE and the Samburu to get money to improve things. She bought some bracelets for her daughters for Christmas, eyed the handbags and persuaded Vernette to get one for her trip to Jamaica. Lisa from downstairs, who wears bracelets she got in Uganda, tried on lots more bracelets and bought a beaded crocodile for her friend. Chris, my boss, bought the magnificent, beaded rungu (a wooden warrior’s club) which I have been extolling to people since the Cambridge Carnival in September. She also took home information on the tragic situation in Samburu. And more people came, looked, and bought. 

I don’t know how much it all adds up to. At the last moment, Libby succumbed to the final, big handbag and the little, carved hippo wood bowl. As I was packing what was left up and wedging it into by backpack next to the empty tin of shortbread (which I’d baked for folks in the office this morning), my unfinished Christmas knitting and books for two nephews, Libby stood there stirring a little black and white bone-handled spoon in a little black and white carved gourd and commenting how well they look together. I offered them to her for half price and she happily added them to her stash of gifts.

I don’t know what it all adds up to, the ABCD money is folded carefully in a corner of my wallet. I’ll count it later. Right now it is Christmas Eve. I’m home and awaiting friends coming for dinner. I need to finish my sister’s scarf, write up an mitten IOU for my mom (even without selling Christmas, I always over predict what handmade projects I can finish in time)… and I just realized that there are some beaded bracelets, a carved hippo bottle opener, four little rattle drums and two small handbags left. I think maybe I will buy some for my own gifts to give!

Merry Christmas to all, be you in Kenya, Uganda, Sweden, Morroco, Massachusetts, British Columbia or anywhere in the world. I want you to know that people are buying, people are listening and people are caring about their fellow human beings.

…And a pleasant update: I found out from Cultural Survival last week that we sold $1456 worth of Samburu work and my efforts at ABCD have netted $300 and still counting as my boss eyes buying a few more spoons and…. All this goes straight to food for people.

What I mean is:

This weekend, Dec. 12 & 13th, the Kenya Aid and Relief Effort (KARE: that’s me and others) are selling goods that the Samburu people made and asked us to sell for them. KARE and the Samburu people’s good friend and ally, Cultural Survival, offered us table space at their annual Cultural Survival Holiday Bazaar. We’ll have beaded bracelets and necklaces, carved spoons and bowls, beaded belts and woven baskets, as well as museum-quality Samburu pieces such as women’s wide, beaded neckbands, warriors’ clubs and other cultural pieces. All the proceeds will go to Samburu famine relief and legal funds.

“Where’s that going to be and can I get there?” I’m glad you asked. Just like the Cambridge Carnival we sold Samburu goods at this past September, the Bazaar is in Cambridge, Massachusetts (in the US). Specifically, we’ll be at:

Harvard University
Center For Government and International Studies Building-South
1730 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA.
10am to 6pm
* FREE Parking Available on 7 Felton St., Cambridge, MA. 02138* 

Here’s a link to Cultural Survival for more information:  http://www.culturalsurvival.org/bazaar/cultural-survival-bazaar

If you follow the link, right next to the bazaar date & location details is a picture KARE gave to Cultural Survival of a weeping Samburu woman and the sentence “Should a government be able to kill women and children just to make room for an oil well?”

Cultural Survival is hard at work mounting a legal campaign charging Crimes against Humanity due to the thefts, rapes, and murders of Samburu. KARE’s table will be right next to Cultural Survival’s Membership Table at the bazaar. Please become a Cultural Survival member and/or donate to them. KARE is helping them raise funds for the Samburu legal campaign too.

And again, innocent Samburu and others are killed, raped and mutilated. 

It’s been a bad few weeks in Isiolo and other areas of Samburuland. At dawn Sunday, Nov 22 Kenya Police returned to the Lurora, Loruko and Lokumai areas and continue to beat, rob, and rape the Samburu people in those communities. Several people have been hospitalized with injuries. The “disarmament” operation [carried out by the government] —of only one tribe– seems a coverup, giving the police opportunity to act yet again with impunity. Survivors’ testimonies are being recorded.

… and the Samburu continue to tell the world what is happening to them. G. S. e-mailed back:

“It was the saddest morning again where Samburu awaken up by the music of bullets and see death on their eyes, I thought fighting was within the communities, I was shocked to see police, GSU uniforms, all over the village in Loruko in Isiolo district. It is samburu again??, government against citizens, live bullets pointing poor,innocent women and children.  I saw one dearth in my naked eyes, a dead woman in her bed lying and the head is off after thousands rain of bullets in her head. Saddest thing —  I saw a very young innocent child was sucking, not knowing  what happening. I took her picture but my heart and pain not allow me to take other bodies’ pictures and attached above show some of the heart breaking pictures. It is not fair because disarming is not that of killing women and children. They disarm Turkanas in Ngaremara but not a single bullet shot out? Why in Samburu always? We spoke with chief. He will come with some reporters. [I'm] not sure if they come at all.

thanks  

L. G.

[Note: I revised some spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors where the more standard, English wording was clear to me, but left other sections alone. Roxanne]

And here are some of the more stomachable pictures that G. took this saddest morning. The last is the most graphic I dare post here for the unsuspecting to view, but he forced himself to photograph the woman dead inside the manyatta, her home, in more detail too. 

[I'm sorry: I can't seem to insert G's images here at the bottom of the post, where you can more easily decide what to look at and what not. I will try again later to see if I can move them to the bottom here without deleting all images. Roxanne

Ah, later on in the evening, after multiple tries, I managed to relocate the photos to below.]

Villagers getting wounds tended

Manyatta shot at by police

Bullet hole in Manyatta: closeup

Bullet shells: closeup outside manyatta wall

Wounded man outside aid station-closeup

… please do so yourself!

In March, when the Kenyan police attacked a community in Samburu East,  the Samburu there called out for help but received no response from their government pledged to protect them, they turned to the human rights organization, to help get Samburu voices and situation heard. Cultural Survival fights to protect the rights of indigenous peoples world over. Theirs was the only organizational voice which immediately gave the Samburu and KARE a hearing. And within days, CS had posted the first alert on their website, www.culturalsurvival.org, pointing their finger directly at the Kenyan government.

This week, many meetings with KARE and publications later, the Samburu appear once more at the top of Cultural Survival’s mind and website. Kenya (as a prior, British colony) and the other Commonwealth nations begin their annual meeting this Friday Thursday, November 26th. That’s the day after Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. 

The Commonwealth’s Secretary General has invited people to share their concerns with him: please click on the link below and follow Cultural Survival’s lead. Tell him the Kenyan government must stop killing its own citizens, the Samburu of Northern Kenya.

Can you give the Samburu something to be thankful for too?

http://www.culturalsurvival.org/take-action/urgent-action-alert-stop-killing-and-starvation-samburu-people-kenya

Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga is logging the miles, traveling from continent to continent promoting Kenya, and its s0-called economic and human rights “development”. He was at Harvard last month, as detailed below (Sept. 19th) and this past Friday in Stockholm. The excellent and informative website Diaspora Kenya, has picked up on KARE’s questions to Odinga while speaking at Harvard, and added its own, sharp comments and queries on the Samburu, human rights and democracy. Please see what Diaspora Kenya has to say:

“Open letter to Prime Minister Raila Odinga during his visit to Sweden on October 23rd 2009″:

http://diasporakenyan.se/2009/10/20/re-open-letter-to-prime-raila-odinga-during-his-visit-to-sweden-on-october-23rd-2009/

“Three questions to PM Raila on his visit to Stockholm”:

http://diasporakenyan.se/2009/10/22/three-questions-to-pm-raila-on-his-visit-to-stockholm/

And do you know what continent Odinga visited between North America and Europe? Asia: specifically China, in order firm up Kenya’s ties with the country. As the Kenyan Daily Nation put it on 10/17/09, “Kenya looks to the orient to grow economy.” Odinga said his choice was China or Qatar for building a road to export oil.

http://www.nation.co.ke/business/news/-/1006/673482/-/if9uvbz/-/index.html

Last month the Samburu people of Losesia lost 3000 heads of cattle atop the loss of friends and relatives themselves. I just heard that some of those cattle have been found at a cattle market: 14 to be exact. No, it doesn’t replace the lives of brothers and others lost (See September 17th and 23rd for some wrenching accounts) but retrieving those cows is a hope, a piece of happiness amidst the fear and gloom. They have been brought back to the small, local town and soon will be re-united with their owners.

Go to the top of this page/blog and you will see how it feels to have your cattle torn from you. The women weeping are watching, last March, as the Kenyan police rounded up their cows, loaded them on lorries and drove away, forever. Cows are more than the Samburu’s bank account and food, they give you standing in society, are cherished, cosseted and sung over. Cattle are needed for weddings, to pay for university and more. They provide pleasure and sustenance in the present and hope for the future. 

For a few, a small portion of normality has just returned home. And that is something to give thanks for.

[Below is a letter to the organization, GenocideWatch, which Dr. Stephen Katz wrote last month. I corresponded with him and asked if I could post it on the Save Samburu blog. He revised it slightly to clarify and emphasize his point that the government should remember that tourism are what bring money into Kenya. Since he wrote this, the Kenyan government has excitedly announced its plans to drill for oil in Samburu territory. I fear that tourism and oil will be on a collision course.

Roxanne]

 
Dear Genocide Watch, 

 

I am a professor in Canada who has worked in East Africa in the past, particularly with the Samburu people of Kenya.  The Samburu are a peaceful pastoralist group who manage, with their brilliant ecological skills, to subsist on a cattle economy in the dry regions of the Rift Valley in northern Kenya.  Samburu guides are also invaluable resources to Kenyan tourist enterprises. Indeed, the Samburu have innovated ways of life that are models of how wildlife preservation and human habitation can and should co-exist in Kenya. 

During the past year there have been several life-threatening developments that have occurred in Samburu country:

a) A persistent and serious drought, which means no rain for pasture, which means no milk production for cows and no food for the Samburu, and about which little assistance has been provided. 

b) Massive and violent cattle raids carried out by Borana and Somali raiders, who have automatic weapons and have been hauling away Samburu cattle by the thousands in trucks into Somalia (presumably to be sold to middle-eastern buyers).  This would be the equivalent of a terrorist group coming into a typical N. American community and stealing all the money, food, medicines and valuables and leaving the residents to die. 

c) The complete collapse of state or police protection of the Samburu and, with each attack, increasing evidence that some of the police and those in authority are actually colluding with the raiders or possibly benefiting from the raids.  Medical response to the Samburu have been non-existent, both in terms of treating those wounded in the attacks and those dying of malnutrition.  Children have been abducted and killed deliberately by the raiders to terrorize the Samburu.

All this adds up to genocide in the opinion of the observers in Kenya, my colleagues and the reports by the Samburu themselves.  They are being systematically killed off and possibly caught in the web of international politics between Kenya, Somalia and the Western world.  Some of us have worked to contribute money and contact members of both the Kenyan and Canadian governments, but the more international voices that can be heard to oppose the destruction of the Samburu, the better. 

And to all those tourists who are interested in visiting or returning to Kenya, please remember that the vitality, beauty and uniqueness of the game reserves and traditional cultures which give you such pleasure and vision are largely based on the economies, ecologies and arts of life of Kenyan pastoralists, like the Samburu.  Your tourist dollars should be going to a state that maintains and celebrates such peoples, rather than looks the other way as they are being destroyed. 

Dr. Stephen Katz, Trent University, Canada.