TWO MORE PEOPLE DIE AS THE MAASAI-LUO  TRIBAL CLASHES FLARE UP AGAIN ALONG THE RONGO-TRANS-MARA BORDER AREA

Reports Leo Odera Omolo In Awendo Town

Two people were killed on Sunday morning and scores of others injured, while dozens of houses were torched in fresh tribal clashes, which flared up along the Rongo-Trans-Mara border.

Those killed were shot with arrows, but there are unconfirmed accounts of eye-witnesses, who alleged that some of the combatants from the Massai side of the border were armed with guns.

An administrative chief on the border location is among the scores of people said to have been arrested and taken into police custody on suspicion of incitement.

Chief Samson Ole Mutet of Olontury Location in Trans-Mara district, according to the Migori OCPD Eric Mugambi, was picked up at his home on Monday night, by a team of CID police from Migori, and taken into police custody.

This is the second tribal flare up this year in the area near Angaga border trading center, which is bordering Kamagambo, South of Rongo district. The first skirmishes occurred three months ago. The dispute was over the burial place for a Luo man, who had purchased land on the Trans-Mara side of the border, and settled there with his family for close to 45 years.

The Nyanza Provincial Commissioner, Francis Mutie, last night confirmed the arrest of the Chief, and said the administrator would soon appear in court on charges of incitement.

The Chief, whose location is lying along the borderline separating the two Provinces of Nyanza and Rift Valley, is alleged to be the architect of the frequent clashes between the two communities over land issues, even those  matters which had already been dealt with by courts and resolved, or are in the process of being sorted out in a court of law.

Speaking at his Rongo office, the area D.C, Mr Antony Osiya announced that a public rally aimed at reconciling the two communities will be held in the affected border area on Wednesday. The meting will be attended by the two P.Cs, one from the Rift Valley, and the other one from Nyanza Province. Also expected at the meeting are the D.Cs from Trans-Mara and from Migori and Rongo districts.

The administrators will be joined at the rally by the two MPs representing the two constituencies, Hon Dalmas Otieno, the Minister for Public Service, who is also the Rongo MP, and his Kilgoris counterpart, Hon Gideon Konchellah, on the Trans-Mara district side of the volatile border. The two MPs are on record for having preached for peace in the area, and asked their constituents to co-exist in harmony.

The latest clashes came hardly two months after the first incident in which two men lost their lives. It was sparked by an issue involving the burial site for a Luo man who had bought a farm in Maasai community about 40 years ago, and had settled on the piece of the land with his family.

The Maasais, on the alleged incitement by their Chief, insisted that the deceased could not be buried in his homestead, and this forced his family to exhume the already buried body, which was later buried elsewhere.

 In that particular incident the two Luos succumbed to the injuries inflicted on them when they were shot with poisoned arrows by the Maasais in a surprise night  attack.

In that incident, close to 16 houses were torched and several mature and immature sugar cane, worth thousands of shillings were also set a blaze and burnt down to ashes.

In the latest flare ups, more than 40 houses were set ablaze, plus immature sugar cane of unknown quantity in the field burnt.

The Rongo D.C. said a contingent of the crack General Service Unit {GSU) were rushed to the border area near Angaga, Nyamaiya, Sikawa and Ochodororo markets to supplement the patrol team of regular and administration police teams, which were already on the ground.

At the same time, the chairman of Awendo Town Council, Mr Johnson Omolo Owiro, has appealed to the government  to solve whatever the cause of the problem is. He said the government has the means and the ability to resolve the land issue once and for all. He appealed to the residents of both sides of the border to refrains from actions which border on crimes.

Coun Owiro’s appeal came amid unconfirmed reports that youths from the Rongo side of the border were regrouping and mobilizing themselves to stage counter-attacks by way of blocking all the roads linking the two districts to stop the Maasais from visiting marketplaces and trading centers on the Luo side of the border.

The youth also had planned to block the access and feeder roads used by tractors from the nearby Awendo based SONYSUGAR factory from transporting mature cane crops from Trans-Mara district.

One unidentified youth leader was heard saying that if the tractors from the Maasai side of the border were stopped from delivering the raw cane to the factory, this would paralyze the area economically and bring the belligerent Maasais back to their senses, so that they could stop uncalled for attacks on the peace loving Luos living on the Rongo side, and even those who bought land on the Maasai side, and settled their families there.

The district produces a lot of sugar cane, which the Maasai farmers deliver to the  nearby Awendo based white sugar factory, earning members of that community millions of shillings annually. The Luo youths want to hit the Masaais economically by blocking all the roads linking the area to the sugar factory.

The senseless attacks, according to those privy to information on the ground, are not politically motivated, but occur out of greed and selfish individual interests, on the land transactions between members of the two communities. The Maasais are said to be fond of changing their minds after voluntarily selling their land to members of the neighboring communities who are more enterprising in farming. These neighboring communities, after buying the land, immediately turn the newly acquired land to intensive food production, in contrast to the Nomadic lives of the Maasai, who are cattle herders.

The problems with the Maasais exists, not just with their Luo neighbors, but also between the Maasais and the Kisii, Kuria and even the Kipsigis who crossed into the Maasailand from Kipsigis land, and settled in Trans-Mara district. This has become the source of security problems in the area almost every year.

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