Criminalise cattle rustling to stem vice

Last week, Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery organised a conference in Nairobi that brought together elected leaders from seven cattle rustling-prone counties.

Mr Nkaissery, a retired Major General, said a Bill would be tabled in Parliament to criminalise cattle rustling.

Cattle rustling has hitherto been regarded as an extension of cultural practices by some pastoralist communities, therefore people who drive away herds of cattle during the raids were not pursued as criminals and investigations ended once the stolen animals were recovered or compensation agreed.

Pastoral communities in arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs) of Kenya depend on livestock for their livelihood. But ASALs are characterised by temporal and spatial climatic variation, making availability of resources uneven.

Mobility is a key strategy used by pastoralists to efficiently utilise available resources, notably pasture and water. This strategy is being interrupted by a vicious cycle of livestock rustling and raids.

Pasture and water conflicts have long been part of the socio-cultural pattern of the pastoral communities in Kenya. The communal land ownership tenure system mostly evident in pastoralist areas provides an equal right of exploiting resources.

The lands are traditional tribal grazing areas, such that migration in search of pasture and water by one tribe into areas that belong to other tribes often cause conflict.

Besides, livestock movements into grazing lands and watering points that stretch into crop-growing areas also result in conflicts. Over time however, pasture and water around the settled areas steadily decreases, leading to emaciation and loss of livestock.

Traditionally, whenever scarcity of pasture and water or disease depleted a community's livestock, it often sought to replenish numbers through rustling.

The change in perception about how we should view rustling is a welcome move. The "bandit economy", a term used by the Cabinet Secretary, indicates the highest level of our security agencies is beginning to see the necessity to fight this perennial problem.

There was even a call by some leaders in the conference to declare cattle rustling a national disaster. In the last one year, hundreds of lives have been lost to bandits who kill without regard for life.

Take the case of the 60 or so officers killed in Baragoi two years ago and consider other fatalities that go unreported.

The "bandit economy" is no longer as a result of cultural practices alone. It is a blood trade where the rules of demand and supply are at play.

Views from the leaders in the conference indicated that cattle-rustling was now a form of organised crime.

The planning and funding of the rustling activities are organised by people who have commercialised this deadly activity.

Surprisingly, the security agencies claim to know people who are behind these activities, but sometimes avoid arresting them because they get released on bond and get back and revenge on the officers who arrested them.

The merchants of the "bandit economy" are systematic in their working methods. They are ruthless and shrewd. They stop at nothing, including disarming police officers or even killing them for their ammunition.

The cases in Baragoi in Samburu county and Kapedo are clear examples of the lethal nature of these merchants.

The security agencies now need to take cattle rustling more seriously since it is no longer the old form of cultural practices where communities raided each other for purposes of accumulating bridal stocks.

Today's cattle-rustling is a form of underground economy where people are making lots of money and in the course, sacrificing human life.

There is need to disarm all pastoral communities to stop this menace.

There are fears that in some regions there are more weapons in the wrong hands than security agencies.

In Isiolo and Samburu counties alone, people speak of thousands of guns in private hands yet these two counties collectively only have a few hundred police officers. Cattle rustling should be declared a national disaster.

All the security agencies, including the military, the General Service Unit and police service need to give the pastoral communities a grace period for the weapons to be returned. Those caught with illegal weapons after the grace period should face the stiffest penalty.

Those drafting the proposed Bill might also consider severe punishment for those who aid the practice. Another way is to adopt what has worked and use it as best practice because we cannot reinvent the wheel.

For example, in the counties of the former North Eastern Province, including Wajir, Garissa and Mandera, this practice has been eliminated through what is called Modogashe declaration. Locals introduced their own penalties for those caught stealing other people's livestock. Security agents can end the vice.