DEADLY INVASION
Attacks on white ranches in Kenya have become regular, well co-ordinated
Even before they killed his father, Archie Voorspuy knew how violent the tribesmen invading Kenya’s ranches could be.
From a hidden vantage point, he had watched as armed men frenziedly ransacked a tourist lodge and farmhouse early last month on Suyian, the white-owned ranch on the Laikipia plateau where he worked as manager. He only just got away in time. Palpably angry as he recounted the details, Voorspuy seemed bewildered both by the ferocity of the attack and by the failure of the authorities to do anything about it.
Within a fortnight, Sosian, the neighbouring ranch his father Tristan had patiently turned from degraded wilderness into a thriving cattle farm and wildlife conservancy, would suffer the same fate — trampled by tens of thousands of cattle and vandalized by the armed men accompanying them.
Last Sunday, 24 hours after he had ridden out to survey some of the damage, the body of Tristan Voorspuy, a former British army officer, was finally retrieved by police.
“Tristan was shot three times, once in the head,” said Martin Evans, a rancher who had led the search for his close friend.
“He was totally unarmed. He went out on a white horse to be totally visible and he obviously thought he would not be attacked. But he was and that was it.”
The death of Voorspuy, 60, is the first of a white farmer since the invasions of Laikipia’s large, mostly white-owned ranches began last year.
Yet as horrifying as Voorspuy’s death has been for the farming community, few seem surprised.
Laikipia’s large ranches, with their tens of thousands of acres of carefully husbanded grazing, have always been subjected to invasions during drought.
But the invasions of the past few months have had such unprecedented ferocity that many suspect political orchestration.
Unlike in previous droughts, invading herdsmen and their cattle have been accompanied by armed and apparently trained fighters with endless amounts of ammunition. Spent casings seem to suggest some weapons are army-issued.
Farmers in Laikipia speak of a core of between 200 and 1,000 armed men, drawn primarily from the Samburu and Pokot ethnic groups, who are resupplied by vehicle and motorcycle and communicate on two-way radios.
“They are well organized, well resourced and clever in their planning — they are a militia,” said Maria Dodds, who has to wear a flak jacket to drive around her family’s 8,000-acre ranch after coming under repeated attack. It may seem extraordinary, but there is a growing belief that the Kenyan government has essentially lost control of swaths of one of its most important tourism, conservation and farming regions to a tribal militia so powerful as to seem untouchable.
Since the invasions began, as many as 20 people have been killed by the invaders, including at least three black workers.
The government response has been muted, although extra police were drafted into Laikipia late last month.
Every time officers mount an operation, they have been forced back by the invaders, who are superior in both numbers and weaponry.
Many in Laikipia claim that one of the orchestrators of the invasions is a local Samburu MP, Matthew Lempurkel, who is accused of stirring up animosities against white farmers as part of his bid to hold his seat in Kenya’s election this August. Some of the invaders have been photographed wearing “Vote Lempurkel” T-shirts.
The MP is also alleged to have used vernacular radio to tell his supporters falsely that the leases on the ranches had expired and that it was time for his people to reclaim their “historic” land.
Lempurkel strongly denies orchestrating the violence.
Yet many in Laikipia say the real source is an attempt by a shadowy cabal of powerful political and military figures to grab the region’s large ranches, although no proof has yet been offered for the claim.
“This is definitely much broader than (Lempurkel),” one rancher said, pointing to unconfirmed reports that the governor of a nearby region was preparing to ship weapons smuggled from Ethiopia to the invaders.
Uhuru Kenyatta, the Kenyan president, has been accused of doing little to intervene in the crisis, perhaps out of fear of alienating the Samburu and Pokot vote ahead of his re-election bid in August. But under mounting pressure, his government has begun to change tack. Two days after claiming that Laikipia had been pacified and was incident-free, the government conceded for the first time on Monday that the violence in the region was being politically incited.
It also said that local political leaders behind the violence would be arrested.
As night fell on Laikipia Monday evening, shooting was heard close to two white-owned ranches, while the proprietor of a third reported a fresh invasion onto his land. Few in Laikipia believe that peace is likely to return soon.
“They are regrouping and waiting in the wings,” one farmer said. “They will be back.”