Conflicts are a common feature in the traditions of most pastoralist communities in Kenya – cattle raids, pasture skirmishes, water disputes. But as importantly the traditional life-way also provided mechanisms for addressing and resolving conflict. The modern-day legal system has weakened these traditional mechanisms, but the new administration polices and laws are themselves so weak and the areas involved so remote that conflict continues. The Ilkerin Loita Integral Development Programme (ILIDP) has encouraged traditional conflict management mechanisms to resolve a number of localized conflicts.
Land issues are emotive and always have potential for generating conflict. The Purko and Loita Maasai have a long-running conflict relating to the actual boundary separating the two communities. It has subsided for the moment, but during severe droughts open conflict cannot be ruled out.
Natural resource use is another major sore point. Like most pastoralists, the Loita Maasai depend on natural resources like water, salt licks and pasture that are based on collective use, ownership and management. During times of severe drought competition for these resources leads to competition at varying levels of scale and scope, with different clans sometimes coming into direct conflict with one another as they compete for pasture and other resources.
Mobility is essential to cope with and manage drought. During drought the livestock are moved to the highlands and this has brought the Loita of Kenya and Tanzania into direct conflict with the Sonjo of Tanzania, sometimes resulting in the deaths of people on both sides. Another result has been the proliferation of illicit firearms. Owing to the remoteness of the conflict area and the lack of infrastructure, neither the Kenyan authorities nor their Tanzanian counterparts have been adequately informed of the conflict or inclined to deal with it, and so it goes on and affects development gains.
At an individual level, conflicts of interest also raise difficulties. Ilkerin Loita Integral Development Programme (ILIDP) has grown from being a small, missionary-led project to an autonomous organization with a broad mandate backed by social relevance and legitimacy earned as a result of community trust. This has made ILIDP a strong, relatively powerful institution that controls a considerable amount of resources and commands respect from the Loita community.
But there is at least anecdotal evidence that certain individuals would want to get control of the organization in order to use it for their own selfish and ulterior motives. They have always failed to achieve their objective, but their pettiness is a source of annoyance and an attempted distraction from the issues at hand.
Strategies and Approaches
Despite their ongoing cultural transformation, the Loita have retained a considerable amount of their traditional and social institutions. The Loita Council of Elders has been very instrumental in conflict resolution, applying traditional mechanisms to address conflict and its effects.
Where the conflict involves ILIDP, the elders receive and address all the criticisms directed at the organization. The Board of Governors of ILIDP and the Council of Elders have given individuals who have issues or complaints against the programme to bring them to the fore at Board meetings and also in public barazas.
Conflicts are a common feature in the traditions of most pastoralist communities in Kenya – cattle raids, pasture skirmishes, water disputes. But as importantly the traditional life-way also provided mechanisms for addressing and resolving conflict. The modern-day legal system has weakened these traditional mechanisms, but the new administration polices and laws are themselves so weak and the areas involved so remote that conflict continues. The Ilkerin Loita Integral Development Programme (ILIDP) has encouraged traditional conflict management mechanisms to resolve a number of localized conflicts.
Natural resource use is another major sore point. Like most pastoralists, the 