Kenya's disarmament drive and the Pokot tribe

FACTBOX-Kenya's disarmament drive and the Pokot tribe
12 May 2006 01:09:07 GMT
Source: Reuters

More May 12 (Reuters) - Here are five facts about Kenya's Pokot tribe, one target of a nationwide government drive to disarm pastoralist tribes responsible for bloody livestock raids.

* Kenya's Pokot are a nomadic tribe with a reputation for violence caused by years of rustling cattle from neighbouring tribes. Other tribes in Kenya do the same, and raids can spark revenge attacks that spiral out of control. At least 80 were killed in one such battle between the rival Borana and Gabra tribes in northern Kenya last year.

* What started out as traditional banditry with strict rules of engagement turned into modern warfare with an influx of automatic weapons that first came from Uganda in the 1970s. The flow has been replenished through smuggling from Somalia, Sudan and Ethiopia.

* The roughly 350,000 Pokot live in the lower part of Kenya's northern Great Rift Valley, a largely arid land of soaring peaks and dusty, dry plains near the Ugandan border. Experts say there are about 50,000 illegal guns in the area where they live.

* The Kenyan government in recent weeks sent soldiers and police with heavy weapons into the bush to forcibly disarm the Pokot and other armed tribes across Kenya's remote north as part of an operation called Okota -- meaning to collect in Swahili.

* The Pokot, like others in Kenya's long-neglected north, live in a land where electricity, water and grazing land are scarce, development is minimal and security is almost non-existent. Many say they need the weapons to protect themselves until the government can assure their safety.

(Writing by Bryson Hull in Nairobi)