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We don't forget Easily
By abdi omar
My grandfather died an old, bitter blind man. He was very poor only
living in the memory of the past days of plenty. He was not always
like that. My late mother told me that in 1965, she was herding
their camels with her sister and the camels were grazing on the
plains both sides of the road from Nairobi when suddenly the Kenya
Army arrived, took positions and started firing at the animals. My
mother and Aunt hid themselves in a bush and had no choice but to
watch the animals felled by bullets. By the time the solders were
finished, 300 camels were dead. The girls escaped being defiled by
God’s grace because the army did not see them. My grandfather became
very bitter and in the grief lost his eye sight. These burgers had
reduced him to a beggar.
At about the same time, my paternal grandfather was so concerned
that his eldest son may be tortured to death and advised my father
to run off to Somalia. When, he was leaving the homestead and within
an earshot of his father, the Kenya Army arrived and the slap rang
in the bushes like a bell. My father ran back to see what happened
to his father and found his father tied to a tree being whipped and
knew he had to run. He lived all his life knowing that he could not
save his father from such gruesome treatment. Those were my
grandfathers.
In Mansa, two hundred kilometres North of Wajir town a very old
couple who were bedridden and who could not walk but were being
ferried by a camel’s back were caught doused in petrol and set a
blaze. Their son escaped and now the grandson and narrates the story
like it happened yesterday.
Our grandparents lived through such naked terrorism and some
perished in them. For our parents they had to watch worse scenarios.
In 1981, in a place called Malka Mari in Mandera, Kenya security
forces raided a water point and captured about a hundred men. They
collected these fellows, ordered them to strip, lie down face
forward. The army then broke their skulls with rocks. They didn’t
want to waste their bullets on this scum of the earth. The forces
then went on rampage raping every woman or girl on sight and
blundering and looting the wealth.
In 1982, Garissa residents woke up to terror of unprecedented
properties. They were arrested and confined to the perimeter fence
of Garissa Primary School and forced to sit in squatting position
for three days and nights without water or food. Some survivors
narrate that they were forced to drink their urine to survive. The
military meanwhile raped the girls and looted the shops. To finish
up the hopes of these poor people, the forces the burnt their
houses. The following day the forces opened fire on a crowd of
people killing hundreds and wounding many more.
In 1984, it was the people of Wajir’s turn to receive the mass
murder and humiliation. Two of my own uncles and aunts husband were
killed in this massacre. Over ten men from my own extended family
either perished in the massacre or lived to tell its tale. Wagalla
was a classic Nazi type extermination of a people. First they
collected the men at the same time raping the women and burning the
homes. Then they shepherded their victims to a disused airstrip nine
miles from Wajir and kept them in a high razor sharp fence. The
first day over five hundred people were killed, some were bayoneted
to death after they refused to strip naked, some were doused in
petrol and burned to death. Others were shot point blank without any
explanation. The killings continued to the second day but on this
day they were beating men to death. On the third day, hunger and
thirst felled more men and the hot sun took its toll on the old and
the we ak. The sun here could fry an egg and the cold at night could
freeze water. When they couldn’t handle it any longer, men bolted
the fence, broke out and ran helter-skelter into the nearest bushes.
Over three thousand men jumped the fence but few actually made to
the nearest trees. Most were hit on the back of bullets and died
instantly. Few men escaped. With over four thousand dead or injured
in their hands, the forces loaded the bodies into Lorries and spread
them all over the Northern Kenya. An area over ten kilometres
squared. Social workers led by an Italian nun were able to rescue
about six hundred people and collect some bodies. Most bodies were
buried in mass graves all over this side of North Eastern. The
humiliation is to-date; the government actually admitted killing 381
innocent, unarmed men and is talking about it like they were just a
herd of sheep. No one was arrested and charged with is genocide.
Massacres did not stop with Wagalla. They still continue. In 1998,
at Bagalla on the border between Ethiopia and Kenya, 187 people were
killed by the OLF. The most painful part in OLF has offices in Kenya
and is actually supported by the Kenya government. The absurdity of
the situation lies in the fact that the Somalis gave up the
secession struggle, the choice to be like the OLF fighting Ethiopia,
the war against Kenya and this government has let OLF Massacre them.
There is an assumption gaining ground in this country that the
people of he NFD are great supporters of the establishment. The
actual story is different. The people of this area are suspicious of
the government; they are scored to death about it. In fact, just
like an over hunted animal, they are hiding in a corner lest they be
massacred once more. They are not unaware the hardships they endure.
They have not forgotten the fact that they have been violated for
far too long on any pretext. They were labelled shiftas and bandits
and treated with impurity.
The truth is that the victims of the violations have not seen any
concerned authority to punish the perpetrators and they still feel
unsafe to talk about it.
Whenever I hear Kenya MPs ranting about the Sudan’s oil being
tainted by blood, I wonder if they have the moral authority to
interfere in the internal affairs of Sudan. The Khartoum government
is fighting an armed struggle by the SPLA and any killings that take
place are assumed to be a result of a protracted war. The Kenya
government has too much innocent blood on its hands; the Pro-SPLA
MPs are just a group of hypocrites trying to mask the holocaust of
the Northern Front Districts. The people of North Eastern Kenya gave
up the struggle for secession but they were massacred anyway. I
sometimes wonder if the continuation of armed struggle would have
resulted in a better predicament than the situation today.
The unfortunate incidents that occurred in North Eastern for the
last four decades may seem too distant or frail to other people of
this country but to us who were born and raised in such chaos it
feels painful. We have been too quiet, too subdued or too submissive
but that is over now. We do not forget that two generations of our
parents lived in a hell on earth. We cannot forgive crimes that were
calculated to humiliate us and we are not ready to move on unless
the mistakes of history are corrected.
Some people have suggested that there be a Truth and Reconciliation
Commission so that the truth can be investigated and brought to the
force. It is a good idea but it has flaws that will immediately
threaten the success of such a move. For instance, the aim of the
commission will be to indemnify those who confess to crimes and ask
for forgiveness. Some of the crimes are not forgivable. The
commission will be put in place by an establishment that either
directly perpetrated genocide or supported it actively or passively.
Finally, the majority of the killings, blundering and rape were
committed in order to weaken their victims to submission. Accepting
indemnity for human rights violators is part of that submission.
There is strong support for the current constitutional reform to
redress the wrongs committed against the Somalis and other
minorities. A people can be party to a constitutional reform if they
were party to the constitution that is to be reformed. Only free men
can negotiate and affect their destiny. Prisoners in a colony cannot
be party to a contract as a constitution. As far as NFD is
concerned, it was an illegal occupation for the last forty years,
and it cannot be party to the current or any future law formulated
in this country.
Kenya had the chance to make Northern Frontier Districts as part of
itself. It had the chance to influence the sovereignty of NFD in its
favour but Kenya chose to treat the North as an appendix. As doctors
say, if the appendix bursts it is removed and never replaced; the
body can do without it. NFD is an attachment to Kenya that it could
do without. The only solution to the problems of the North is to set
it free. The people of NFD have had enough of colonization and this
time they must divorce themselves of the fear that has griped them
for so long. They must ask for independence and disassociate
themselves from Kenya. Only then will the spirits of those massacred
at Wagalla, Malka Mari, Garissa, wagalla and other hideous bushes
that have not be baptized, rest in peace. Only the will some of us
feel free and safe as those who burnt our grandfathers alive and
shot our fathers dead, raped our sisters and defiled our aunts and
mothers will not lead us into the same cycle
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