23 October 2008
Nairobi — Kipkelion borders the districts of Molo (at Kuresoi), Koibatek, Nandi South, and Uasin Gishu. This is a volatile region, which has borne the brunt of clashes in recent times.
The district commissioner for Kipkelion, Aden Gedow, (Commission Witness No 68), testified that although the area was largely peaceful in the run-up to the 2007 General Election, there was considerable tension resulting from the spill-over effects of the bordering Kuresoi, which experienced considerable violence before the elections.
Further, the events in the neighbouring Molo District, where displaced persons and victims of land clashes had sought refuge, had a spill-over effect, and elicited ethnic passion in Kipkelion and the desire to retaliate, adding to the tension.
Hotspot areas
DSIC reports indicate that prior to the elections, leaflets warning Kikuyus and Kisiis to vacate Kipkelion were circulated at Fort Ternan within Chilchila Division and Kasheen.
When leaflets appeared, the DOs of the areas in which these were found held peace meetings involving all the communities.
However, according to Gedow no politician had made inflammatory speeches during the campaign period, a fact he attributed to the homogeneous nature of the ethnicity of the candidates contesting elective offices.
The Hotspot/Flashpoint report issued by the NSIS for the week ending September 28, 2007, predicted that election related violence might exacerbate misunderstanding between the traditional hotspot areas in, among other places, the Rift Valley.
Specifically, it was reported that the "area bordering the Kisii districts and Rongo, Rachuonyo, Bomet, Kericho and Transmara would continue experiencing hostilities following the recent Nyamarambe skirmishes."
Armed with bows
The reports of the NSIS for the week ending October 19, 2007, indicated an escalation of the situation noted in the previous report when it said that "along the Kericho, Nyando border, tension persists between Kipsigis and Abagusii communities within Sondu area that has led to several houses being set ablaze by marauding Kipsigis youth armed with bows and arrows.
"This follows political incitement by some Kipsigis leaders coupled with the perception by members of the same community that the Kisii were not reciprocating their hospitality despite settling in their area.
"The ensuing clashes have left several people injured, seen an exodus of Luo and Kisii kinsmen from the area for fear of further Kipsigis raiders..."
The NSIS fortnightly intelligence report for the period ending October 30, 2007 narrated that "the Kipsigis-Kisii acrimony remains explosive following utterances by some political leaders in Sigowet Division of Kericho District that Gusii be rooted out of the division."
The report for the week ending on November 23, 2007, the last before the elections, spoke of a further increase in tension in the Sondu area as a result of threats of attacks by the Kipsigis on Kisiis who had returned to Sondu after the earlier eviction.
The Commission learnt that the post-election violence at the Borabu/Sotik border was in part the result of conflicting territorial claims by the Kipsigis and the Kisiis.
Witnesses testified that the Kipsigis consider the land comprising Borabu District to be part of their ancestral land and the correct boundary between their district and Kisii to be some way into the Kisii side, at a place called Metamaywa.
First occupants
We heard from Samuel Omweri, a community leader and a former member of Parliament, that the Kisii refute the claim by their Kipsigis neighbours and have a territorial claim of their own against the Kipsigis.
According to Mr Omweri, the Kisii claim that they occupied not only Borabu but also all the area up to a place called Kabianga, which is now a part of Kericho District.
They claim that Kabianga is, in fact, a Kisii name and that the name is evidence of the fact that the Kisii were the first occupants of the area.
The Kisii assert that they lived on the land up to the rivers Sondu and Oyani to the south and that they were evicted from these areas in 1946 to make room for the settlement of soldiers returning from the Second World War in Ethiopia and the Uasin Gishu Maasai, who had been moved from Trans Nzoia.
As a result of being pushed out of their homelands, the Kisii found themselves being administered as part of what was called Sotik west during the colonial period. During this time, the Kipsigis and the Kisii were part of Nyanza province.
However, the Boundary Delimitation Commission acceded to a request by the Kipsigis to join with Nandis to form the "Kalenjin Alliance" in the Rift Valley (the areas covered by Sotik West, Kipkelion and Londiani), while the Kisii remained with the Luos as constituent ethnic communities forming Nyanza Province.
Former DC for Borabu Asha Katheri Kiva told the Commission that the Kipsigis hoped that through the post-election violence, they would drive their Kisii neighbours out of Borabu and establish what they consider to be the correct boundary between the two communities.
The Commission heard that this was not the first time that the Kipsigis had violently asserted their territorial claim against the Kisii.
They did so throughout the early years following the establishment of the settlement schemes for the Kisii in the 1960s and that as part of this, there was fighting between the two communities in 1964 and again in 1969.
More recently, there was election-related violence in 1992, 1997, and 2002 also provided occasion for the violent assertion of this territorial claim.
The Commission was further informed by Ms Kiva that rivalry, which from time to time broke into war, between the Kipsigis and the Kisii is an ancient phenomenon, predating the establishment of the colonial state that, on both sides, this rivalry has been passed down through folklore from generation to generation, on both sides.
The Kiliku Committee traced the conflict between the Kipsigis, the Maasai and the Kisii to the post-colonial arrangements in relation to land.
The splitting of the country into white highlands and native reserves was one of the practices of the colonial state.
At independence, the white highlands, partly forming the present border between the Kipsigis and Kisii, were apportioned between the Maasai, Kipsigis and Kisii communities and, under the facilitation of the Settlement Fund Trustees, members of the three communities bought land formerly owned by the departing settlers.
Disputes over land
Members of the Kisii community, who had a higher population density, settled in larger numbers in the area than the Kipsigis and the Maasai.
The Committee noted that the Kisii had initially moved into the area through settlement schemes, but lately they had done so through direct purchases and leases. These factors explain the significant presence of the Kisii in Bomet and Narok districts.
In Kipkelion, according to the Kipkelion DSIC (Kipkelion District Security and Intelligence Appreciation No 1/2008 held on January 18, 2008) reports, the clashes underlie a history of ethnic animosity and hatred caused by disputes over land, which the Kipsigis claim to be their ancestral land, but which was appropriated by the European settlers in the pre-independence times, and later sold to members of other ethnic groups.
The Nandis also claim that River Kipchorian, which traverses the district, is their true boundary with the Kipsigis and is part of Tinderet.
The problem manifests itself in an ethnically polarised environment and the land issue having been politicised.
This explains why heightened clashes have almost always coincided with electioneering periods, with the question of displacement of the "indigenous" Kipsigis being the reason for much political agitation.
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