Kenyan cattle herders defend ‘necessary’ land invasions
They claim poor rains have forced them to cut fences
Nairobi – Close by a narrow, rickety bridge in Kenya’s central Laikipia highlands, two herders sit on a blistering-hot rock next to the muddy trickle of the Ewaso Nyiro River to explain why they routinely break the law, invading private land to graze their cattle.
“The reason we go there is not to grab the land, we go for pasture, nothing else. The white settlers are the ones who call the police to attack us,” said Lemerigi Letimalo, a 28-yearold Samburu herder.
Violence has spiked in Laikipia this year, with smallholder farms and huge ranches alike invaded by armed herders, leaving dozens dead and uprooting hundreds more.
A government-ordered security operation has so far failed to quell the unrest, which some blame on drought and others on politics.
The victims of the incursions are mainly black Kenyans living on small patches of farmland as well as white landowners whose properties often run into tens of thousands of acres, dredging up long-festering resentment over land ownership.
The March murder of British rancher Tristan Voorspuy and the April shooting of Italian author and conservationist Kuki Gallmann are among the most high-profile acts of violence.
But the young Samburu “morans” – the warrior age set that ends with marriage – sitting by the river at Crocodile Jaw Bridge consider that they are the victims of the weather, of greed and selfishness, and of state violence.
They said poor rains have forced them to cut fences in search of grazing land, accusing ranchers, farmers and conservationists of protecting their own livelihoods at the pastoralists’ expense. They also accused security forces of unfairly targeting them.
“When we go grazing in there we get attacked by police. We don’t go in there for war or planning to stay, we just go in to graze until there are rains back at home,” Letimalo said, offering a rare insight into the Samburu herders’ side of the story.
He admitted to illegally grazing the 50 cows and 200 goats that he is responsible for on other people’s lands. But Letimalo recognises neither the term “illegal herding” nor the law itself, which he described as “for the landowners”.
“When there’s drought, a fence means nothing to me. We blame the whites for bringing the police who attack our cattle and kill our people,” he said in the local Samburu language.
Fellow herder, Lokimaniki Lekaal, 30, agreed: “Despite the law, we have no option. We cannot sit around and watch our animals die of hunger.”
A glance at an aerial view of Laikipia shows the stark difference between the green of wellmanaged, fenced-off private land and the dust bowl free-forall of the over-grazed rangelands. Too many people with too much livestock have rendered the rangeland unlivable for the growing population, a situation exacerbated by climate change. But in the immediate struggle for survival, talk of long-term planning or better land management is a luxury Lekaal dismissed.
“When all the grass is finished we will die. It is up to God,” he said. Until then he will keep his cattle wherever grass can be found. The two men insisted that drought is the reason they herd livestock onto private land and denied any suggestion their actions are politically motivated as Kenya heads towards elections on August 8.
Nevertheless, local MP Mathew Lempurkel, a Samburu, has been charged with incitement over Voorspuy’s murder, while a politician in neighbouring Baringo county was similarly charged over arson attacks on Gallmann’s estate before his own murder in May.
Moran culture plays a part too. Young, unmarried and often uneducated – neither Letimalo nor Lekaal went to school – the herders revel in aggressive displays of machismo and pride themselves on not backing down from a fight.
Landowners and herders alike complain that a late and half-hearted government security response has made matters worse.
‘ ‘ When all the grass is finished, we will die. It is up to God