The Reporter (Addis Ababa)
Yelibenwork Ayele
15 December 2007
The six day-long pastoralist meeting in the Somali Regional State last week was held in a strictly pastoralist fashion. Participants both from the highlands and pastoralist lowlands had to sit on grass mats under acacias.
The meeting drew 550 participants from all over the 52 woredas of Somali's nine zones. Other participants included development agencies, NGOs and the UN, pastoralists from the Oromia and Afar regional states as well as Somaliland and Kenya.
The agendas of meeting were chosen based on research findings about the lives and viability of pastoralist livelihood, conducted by UNOCHA-Pastoralist Communication Initiative, which also facilitated the meeting. Is pastoralism sustainable? A discussion held among the Ugases, clan leaders of Somali, on the problems of pastoralist life pointed by the research prior to the meeting came up with three priorities as a focus for deliberation.
The first was the issues of peace or causes of conflict. The culture of peaceful coexistence is disappearing, said the elders. It was pointed out during the meeting that the causes of conflict were politics, banditry and border disputes caused by administrative boundaries that are not clearly defined. A similar type of problem was caused a few years ago between Afars and Isas, a Somale clan. The Isas moved into Afar territory when drought struck their land. The Afari received them with the agreement that the Isas would return when it rained on their land. But the Isa broke their word. "They claimed that the land belonged belonged to God. Therefore, they would not depart," said Ugas Mohamed, who brought the leaders of Afar and Isas together on the last day of the meetings and reconciled them.
The anti-pastoralist pastoralists
The next was the issue of recognition and survival of the pastoralist way of life in the 21st century. Sultan Mohamed Hassen Ghebaba, coordinator of the discussions, pointed out that the problem when the Derg regime was in power was that pastoralists were hardly recognized as citizens. The government recognizes that pastoralist have the same constitutional rights as the farming community. January 25 has been set aside as a national pastoralist day.
The current threat to pastoralism, however, seems to come from education. Even though pastoralists are the main suppliers of livestock in the country, school syllabus contains very little lesson on raising cattle. "Modern education is making children from pastoralist families anti-pastoralist pastoralists."
The last was the establishment of pastoralist institutions. Participants stressed the importance of establishing a pastoralist institution on a ministry level. The conference selected a committee of 15 people, one of them a woman, entrusted with lobbying for the establishment of the institution.
The representatives from Oromia, Afar, Somaliland and Kenya were invited to listen to pastoralist problems in the Somali region and share how they solved the same problems when they met in their own region.
Among the attendants of the pastoralist meeting in Hudet, over 600 km from Addis Ababa along the road to Moyale, was Oray Adan Hussen, a Somali pastoralist woman living in Kenya.
Oray lives in Wajia district in the north-eastern part of Kenya over 300 km from the Ethiopian border. It has electricity, faxes, internet and telephone.
Oray was a teacher for 13 years but now it has been ten years since she opened her own school. She says her aim was to improve the standard of education of the girl child. In Kenya there are different levels of school like district, provisional and national schools.
For the last four years Oray's school has conducted the grade 8 exam for the national school in which the girls showed they could do as well as the boys. "Sometimes, they were even leading and there has not been one year when a girl has not gone to the national school."
At the same time Oray is the women peace coordinator in Wejia. She had come to the pastoralist meeting to share experiences with the Ethiopian pastoralists on conflict resolution.
"This is a pastoralists' meeting. Wherever pastoralists live they are the same. I have come to see how far the Somali, Afar and Oromos have reached in solving their conflicts and sharing the experiences that we had before them." She said that Kenyan pastoralists called Wajia, her district, mother of the peace. They come to Wejia to seek knowledge and experience.
In Wojia, when there is draught, pastoralists fight because of shortage of pasture and over the little water that is around them. Sometimes the cause of conflict might be politics or land. "But, at last, proposals for peace came from a lady who thought of visiting together and finding solution for our problems." If people were fighting over pasture, why could they not just think of something else to avoid that conflict?
"Is the pasture too little? If so, in future how can we have a grazing area that can be preserved during the drought? This is the solution we came up with. In areas with plenty of grass and little water, the government and NGOs bored water wells which are reserved for the dry season. It seems this has reduced the conflict."
The Ajurioan and Degodian pastoralists in Kenya had a conflict because of land. The Ajurians believed the land was theirs. But they welcomed the Degodian community. "When a new community settles in your area, you don't expect them to be idle. There will be creation of people and, of course, children are born, they grow and the families will be larger." When the land is too small to support the growing pastoralist population, a fight starts. Then, the government and the two clans sit together and resolve that the land be divided between the two.
Women had taken a great role in conflict resolution among Kenyan pastoralists. The women formed a group realizing that at the end of the day it was women who lost everything. "It is like manufacturing something and that thing is no longer of use. If your sons, husbands and uncles are killed in local fights, then your manufacture is wasted. These men would do better in life than in death." That was why they sought to bring peace in their home district.
In Wejia there were youth gunmen who used to lay in wait in the bush, attack and rob passersby. One of them is now the district commissioner's driver. "We try to give such young men some money to help start their own business. Today you will not see any youth in Wejia carrying a gun. An idle mind is the devil's mind. So we make sure that the youth go to school or find employment. For example, I have hired about 30 staff in my school. This is a small contribution, but valuable."
"We normally assist people who are displaced from conflict areas. We have formed our own organization and have an office. We are supporting displaced families through the NGOs and strong support from the government."
Resolving cases of rape
Kenyan pastoralist women sit with government officials and discuss issues of rape. There used to be a traditional way of resolving rape issues whereby the lady's family was given 50,000 shillings, as compensation, from the rapist's clan. "But now we have decided that cases should go to court. Because, at the end of the day the lady is traumatized, there is the same man out there, let loose to rape another lady. We have seen that the traditional way was not effective. Anybody who rapes a woman should face the court so that he can be sentenced to 20 years or 15 years or for life."
The pastoralist women advocate education for girls. "In our community, girls never used to go to school. We have observed that whenever a boy and girl went to school, both of them completed college and got jobs. It is girls who always stay at home to help parents whereas the boy starts his own life. We have come to understand that girls perform as well as boys at school even with their extra responsibilities at home. So, that is why we are encouraging parents in our community to take their children to school. And that is why I opened a school for girls."
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