Addressing Armed Violence in East Africa.pdf - Project Ploughshares

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Addressing Armed Violence in East Africa3. KenyaDue to the sensitive nature of this research, the photos in this chapter do not show people who participated in the research and do not depict exact research locations. Instead,the photos were selected from World Vision’s collection to show different scenes from life in Kenya’s North Rift Valley and World Vision’s work with communities there.14JON WARREN / World Vision
Addressing Armed Violence in East Africa3. Kenya3.1. Applying the Armed ViolenceLens to KenyaThe OECD-DAC armed violence lens will be used to analysethe results of interviews conducted in the North Rift Valley ofKenya. Capturing the security perceptions of armed-violenceaffectedpopulations was a key objective of the questionnairesused for interviews with people engaged with World Visionpeacebuilding programmes in Kenya. The introductory partof the questionnaire was intended to provide a people-centredsecurity assessment. We begin by summarizing the individualand community perceptions of security revealed by theinterviews. An arbitrary three-year timeframe was used in thequestions to determine people’s perceptions of whether violencewas increasing or decreasing over time.Affected PopulationsThe North Rift Valley area in northwest Kenya is one offive World Vision Kenya (WVK) operational zones. TheWVK work in the North Rift Zone deals with four districts– Turkana, West Pokot, Marakwet and Baringo (East Pokot) –and three pastoralist communities – the Marakwet, Pokot andTurkana. There are other minority groups in these areas.The predominant threat to peace in the pastoralist communitiesin the North Rift Valley is the armed violence associated withcattle raids. Stealing cattle was traditionally done by youngmen to secure a bride price or dowry. Stealing livestock andkilling someone from another community in a raid garneredfame in these cultures. Dances and songs celebrated the deathsof those killed during raids or fights. But the introduction ofautomatic weapons, primarily AK-47s, irrevocably changedthe dynamic of cattle raids as the number of people killed andinjured dramatically increased during raids and retaliatoryactions. Gun–related violence cuts across all districts in theNorth Rift Valley area, heightened by cross-border gun violenceand gun trade between Kenya and Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopiaand Somalia.One person interviewed provided a brief history of theintroduction of guns in the area:Thirty or 40 years ago the Turkana and Pokot raided eachother using spears and arrows. It was part of traditionalpractices, and sometimes a “friendly” activity. The firstguns were introduced in 1968. These were simple weaponswithout much power that could be purchased for 100cows. If you had a gun you could raid many communities.The pressure was there for everyone to obtain guns, andcattle raids became rampant. Guns flooded into the area.Raiding for cattle shifted to hunting humans and then tooutright banditry.Community-level interviews and focus groups were undertakenat specific sites where the Turkana, Pokot and Marakwet live.Violence between the Turkana and Pokot continues, withsubstantial numbers of deaths and injuries related to cattleraids, although in the last three years the number of raidsand the number of people killed and injured in those raidswere generally reported as decreasing. Between the Pokot andMarakwet, however, there is a functional and relatively stablePastoralists pass a motorcycle in the North Rift Valley region.15JON WARREN / World Vision
Page 1 and 2: AddressingArmed Violencein East Afr
Page 3 and 4: Addressing Armed Violence in East A
Page 15: Addressing Armed Violence in East A
Page 67 and 68:
Addressing Armed Violence in East A
Page 69 and 70:
Page 71 and 72:
Page 73 and 74:
Page 75 and 76:
Page 77 and 78:
Page 79 and 80:
Page 81 and 82:
Page 83 and 84:
Page 85 and 86:
Page 87 and 88:
Page 89 and 90:
Page 91:
show all

Addressing Armed Violence in East Africa.pdf - Project Ploughshares

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?