Of Rain and Raids: Violent Livestock Raiding in Northern Kenya

Abstract

In the face of the current focus on climate change, the question whether climate variations have effects on ethnic violence is addressed. This article shows the results of an empirical study on the relationship between violent livestock raiding and climatic conditions. The practice of livestock raiding causes large numbers of casualties in northern Kenya. While conflicts over scarce resources may be largely explained by drought conditions, population pressure, and access problems, livestock raiding is more violent during wet seasons, when pasture and water are abundant and when the livestock is in good health. The higher incidence of violent deaths during wet times hints at opportunistic behaviour of raiders.

Notes

 1. Nancy Peluso and Michael Watts (eds) Violent Environments (Ithaca, NY, London: Cornell University Press 2001).

 2. Robert Kaplan, ‘The Coming Anarchy: How Scarcity, Crime, Overpopulation and Disease are Rapidly Destroying the Social Fabric of Our Planet’, Atlantic Monthly 273 (1994) pp.44–76; Thomas Homer Dixon, Environment, Scarcity and Violence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1999).

 3. Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, ‘Greed and Grievance in Civil War’, Oxford Economic Papers 56/4 (2004) pp.563–95.

 4. Michael Todaro, Economics for a Developing World: An Introduction to Principles, Problems and Policies for Development, 3rd edn (London: Longman 1992), pp.200–01.

 5. Ester Boserup, The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: The Economics of Agrarian Change under Population Pressure (Chicago: Aldine 1965); Mary Tiffen, Michael Mortimore and Francis Gichuki, More People, Less Erosion: Environmental Recovery in Kenya (Chichester: John Wiley 1994).

 6. Michel Boko, Isabelle Niang, Anthony Nyong, Coleen Vogel, Andrew Githeko, Mahmoud Medany, Balgis Osman-Elasha, Ramadjita Tabo and Pius Yanda, ‘Africa. Climate Change 2007’ in Martin L. Parry, Osvalda F. Canziani, Jean P. Palutikof, Paul J. van der Linden and Clair E. Hanson (eds) Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Working Group II Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007) pp.433–67.

 7. Greater Horn of Africa (GHA) Food Security Bulletin 33 (April 2005), online at < www.fews.net/docs/Publications/East_200503en.pdf>, accessed Mar. 2008, p.1. This Bulletin was funded jointly by Famine Early Warning System, the World Food Programme, the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development, the Desert Locust Control Organisation, the Livestock Early Warning System, and the United States Agency for International Development.

 8. W. Roba Adano and Karen Witsenburg, Surviving Pastoral Decline. Pastoral Sedentarisation, Natural Resource Management and Livelihood Diversification in Marsabit District, Northern Kenya, PhD Thesis, University of Amsterdam (2004); Karen Witsenburg and W. Roba Adano, ‘The Use and Management of Water Sources in Kenya's Drylands: Is there a Link Between Scarcity and Violent Conflicts?’ in Bill Derman, Rie Odgaard and Espen Sjaastad (eds) Conflicts over Land and Water in Africa (Oxford: James Currey 2007) pp.215–38.

 9. Adano and Witsenburg (note 8).

10. Rene Gommes and Fabrizio Petrassi, Rainfall Variability and Drought in Sub-Saharan Africa since 1960, FAO Working Paper 9 (1996).

11. Not all districts in Northern Kenya show a similar rainfall pattern. Wajir, Mandera, and Garissa have experienced a slight increase in rainfall. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts a future increase in rainfall for East Africa until 2090. See, Boko et al. (note 6); Adano and Witsenburg (note 8).

12. For a review, see Peluso and Watts (note 1) p.10.

13. Paul Collier, Anke Hoeffler and Dominic Rohner, Beyond Greed and Grievance: Feasibility and Civil War (2006), online at < www.csae.ox.ac.uk/workingpapers/pdfs/2006-10text.pdf>, accessed 26 May 2008.

14. This figure is an average, counted as from 1960.

15. For an elaborate study on this, see Adano and Witsenburg (note 8).

16. Rika Mieth, In between Cattle Raids and Peace Meetings: Voices from the Kenya/Uganda Border Region, Paper presented at conference on violence, Nairobi, 18 May 2007; Kim De Vries, Identity Strategies of the Western Pokot: Exploring the Meaning of Livestock Raiding and Pastoralism, Paper presented at conference on violence, Nairobi, 19 May 2007; Dave Eaton, Revenge, Ethnicity and the Causes of Cattle Raiding in North-Western Kenya, Paper presented at conference on violence, Nairobi, 15 May 2007.

17. Kenya National Archives Nairobi. All the archival material used in this study is located at the office of Kenya National Archives Nairobi. They comprise: Marsabit District Frontier Affairs. 1960-1961-1962 NP.3/2/2/2; Marsabit District Frontier Affairs 1963 C.SEC.2/1/5/IV/; Marsabit District Annual Report 1962 DC/LDW/2/18/10; Marsabit District Annual Report 1969 and 1972 BB/3/69 and 73; Marsabit District Annual Report 1973 PuB 2404/181; Marsabit District Annual Report 1980 HT/17/99; Marsabit District Annual Report 1983: HT/10/100; Marsabit District Monthly Reports 1960–1966, Adm/15/7/4/60-66; Marsabit District Monthly Reports 1965-67, Adm.15/5/1/Vol.l/1/23–50; Marsabit District Monthly Reports 1970, Adm.15/7/4/60/4 and Adm.1515/66,68, and Adm.15/5/Vol.1/64; Marsabit District Security Committee Meeting, Minutes, 1973. BB/49/101; Minutes of the District Security Committee Meeting Minutes, 1974–1982 DEF/SEC/13/; Minutes of Marsabit District Special Security Meeting 1990, 1991; SEC.POL.2/5/9/4/VOL.III and IV; Minutes of the Marsabit District Security Committee 1992: SEC.POL.2/5/9/4/VOL.1V-V/; Minutes of the Marsabit District Security Committee 1993. SEC:POL.2/5/9/VOL.V/; Minutes of the Marsabit District Security Committee 1994–1995 SEC:POL.2/5/9/4/VOL.VI/(17)/93-94-95.

18. Report of 1969 (note 17) p.4.

19. Report of 1973 (note 17) p.3.

20. Report of 1970 (note 17) p.2.

21. Report of 1970 (note 17) p.1.

22. Report of District Security Committee (DSC) of 1979 (Min. 40/79 Matters arising:ex. D.S.C. Minute 36/79 b) (note 17) p.1.

23. Report of Meeting held in the District Commissioner's Office on 23 June 1975 (Min. 31/75) (note 17) p.1.

24. Report of 1976 (meeting in 1976: Min. 25/76 Stock Raids) (note 17) p.2.

25. Security Committee Meeting Report of 1981 Ex. Min. 85/81 Shifta activities (note 17) p.1.

26. Report of 1981, Min. 21/81 on Stock Raiders (note 17) p.2.

27. Security Report of 1981, Min. 26/81 of Joint D.S.C. meeting (note 17) p.4.

28. Adano and Witsenburg (note 8).

29. Henrik Urdal, Demographic Aspects of Climate Change, Environmental Degradation and Armed Conflict (New York: Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations Secretariat 2008).

30. See also Aaron Bobrow-Strain, ‘Between a Ranch and a Hard Place: Violence, Scarcity and Meaning in Chiapas, Mexico’ in Nancy Peluso and Michael Watts (eds) Violent Environments (Ithaca, NY, London: Cornell University Press 2001) pp.155–85, here p.157.

31. See Günther Schlee, ‘Taking Sides and Constructing Identities: Reflections on Conflict Theory’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 10/1 (2004) pp.135–56; Eaton (note 16).

32. Eaton (note 16); Mieth (note 16); De Vries (note 16).

33. Uri Almagor, ‘Raiders and Elders: A Confrontation of Generations among the Dassanetch’ in Katsuyoshi Fukui and David Turton (eds) Warfare among East African Herders (Osaka: Senri Ethnological Studies no. 3 1979) pp.119–44.

34. Narrated to Mieth by one of the Pokot informants (note 16) pp.29–30

35. Marsabit District Security Committee Files: C. Sec. 2/1/5/IV/494 1963, p.2.

36. A result mentioned by Eaton (note 16), and a similar remark echoed by the Human Security Report: Human Security Centre, Human Security Report 2005: War and Peace in the 21st Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2005) pp.148–50. This report reported even a decline in the number of armed conflicts. Accordingly neither has incidents per year widely increased over time in the last 50 years, nor have wars become more deadly than before.

37. Kennedy Mkutu, Guns and Governance in the Rift Valley. Pastoralist Conflict and Small Arms (Oxford: James Currey 2008); Mustafa Mirzeler and Crawford Young, ‘Pastoral Politics in the Northeast Periphery in Uganda. AK-47 as Change Agent’, The Journal of Modern African Studies 38/3 (2000) pp.407–29. Both studies do not compare kill rates of the present with the past, neither do they have quantitative data on death causes in the present compared to the time prior to the proliferation of firearms. The claim that violent killings have increased because of guns is still lacking statistical evidence.

38. Interview with Worosa Dambala, Marsabit, July 2008.

39. Yaq'a is a month in the Gabra calendar, which is based on lunar cycles. The lunar months do not always coincide with the Gregorian calendar. Yaq'a does not always fall in the rainy season, but when it coincides, this will be a particularly propitious time for raiding (Paul Tablino, The Gabra: Camel Nomads of Northern Kenya (Nairobi: Pauline Publishers 1999)).

40. Interview with Hilary Halkano, Marsabit, July 2008.

41. Adano and Witsenburg (see note 8).

42. Michael Fleisher, ‘Kuria Cattle Raiding: Capitalist Transformation, Commoditization, and Crime Formation among an East African Agro-pastoral People’, Comparative Study of Society and History 42/4 (2000) pp.745–69.

43. A cattle raider, quoted in Fleisher (note 42) p.750.

44. See also Joshia Osamba, ‘The Sociology of Insecurity: Cattle Rustling and Banditry in North-western Kenya’, African Journal on Conflict Resolution 1/2 (2000) pp.11–38.

45. Fleisher (note 42) p.747.

46. David Anderson, ‘Stock Theft and Moral Economy in Colonial Kenya’, Africa 56/4 (1986) pp.399–416.

47. Eaton (note 16).

48. See also James Bevan, Between a Rock and Hard Place: Armed Violence in African Pastoral Communities (UNDP 2007), online at < www.undp.org/cpr/documents/…/AV_pastoral_communities.pdf>, accessed Nov. 2009.

49. Richard Waller, ‘“Clean” and “Dirty”: Cattle Disease and Control Policy in Colonial Kenya, 1900–40’, Journal of African History 45/1 (2004) pp.45–80.

50. Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1999).

51. Halvard Buhaug, Nils Gleditch and Ole Theisen, Implications of Climate Change for Armed Conflict (Washington: The World Bank, Social Development Department 2008), online at < http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTRANETSOCIALDEVELOPMENT/Resources/SDCCWorkingPaper_Conflict.pdf>, accessed 21 Apr. 2008.