Behaviour change is the best bet to silence guns in the North

Attacks in Northern Kenya have become a wound that never heals but grows bigger and more painful.

Growing up as a child, I knew Northern Kenya is a no-go zone because of horrific stories that filled the news every other day. I would watch the horrific scenes on our television and listen to them on radio during primetime.

My view about that region was skewed to militancy, believing the main way of life was attacking and raiding neighbours.

"Can't the government just deploy all its security power in the area and deal with the 'bandits' once and for all?" I thought to myself.

This narrow, biased mindset changed when I began my career as a journalist in Turkana in 2016 and got a deeper understanding of the area.

For the almost three years I covered the region, I walked to distant and innermost places to report on raids, health, floods and drought.

I saw how people were thriving in that difficult environment through tech, tourism, businesses and livelihoods transition.

I have been in the frontline of covering raids, at times caught up in the middle of hostilities.

DANGER BECKONS

It is funny how journalists’ adrenaline pushes them towards danger when everyone else dashes away.

When Jeff Koinange alluded to this in a forum, it took me back to my experiences, where my conscience left me when the desire to tell the story would override my sense of the environment.

I have covered raids when they happened, as they happened and after they happened. I have witnessed deaths and sieges. I have travelled through highly volatile areas with non-existent roads.

My tiny ears have survived exploding from the sounds of uncountable gunshots. I have also covered peace initiatives deep in hilly regions of West Pokot and down the green valleys of Kapedo.

Through it all, one remarkable conversation I had in 2017 with one man made me realise the solution does not lie in the use of force by the government.

My colleagues and I from different media houses had gone to cover an attack in Lokori, which neighbours Kapedo, the area infamous for banditry attacks. Close to a dozen people had been killed.

When we arrived, some victims were already buried, and people had now gathered at the home of the last victim who was being laid to rest.

There were whispers and murmurs in the area that was now highly tense. Most people were armed, prepared for an eventual attack.

A man approached me, curious to know how the camera hanging across my shoulder works. He was about 6'2 in height, dressed in a very tiny pair of khaki shorts, with a jungle green faded shirt bearing an SPLM logo.

This was a common dress code among very many inhabitants. Some wore shirts, caps and shorts bearing logos of armies, militants or police from the neighbouring countries of Uganda, South Sudan and Ethiopia.

All have had their fair share of instability, hence serving as a source of proliferation of arms within the communities bordering the three international borders.

They acquired the clothing from their nomadic traverse, picking them from thickets or from victims they attacked as they snaked their way to greener pastures and waterpoints.

Others wore T-shirts and coats of some aid organisations in the area, while others had campaign T-shirts from as far back as the 1992 Kanu campaigns to as late as the 2013 Jubilee and ODM-Cord campaigns.

Hanging on his shoulder like my camera was an AK47, which he held by its belt in his right hand. On his head was a tiny, faded jungle green hat that looked too small for his head.

His left eye would close every few seconds. It is believed that most people with such a condition develop it from long-term use of guns, a belief I cannot verify but something I kept noting and observing.

I explained to him how it works and even showed him some of the footage I had taken. I handed the camera to him to take a few shots and he was very happy.

You could tell from how he laughed loudly and jumped in excitement when he could see the images through the viewfinder. Perhaps it ignited the same feeling he has when he sees his target in focus.

I used that moment as a conversation starter.

SWORN ENEMIES

I asked him how long he had held the gun, how many people he had killed and when he had first killed a person.

"The first day I held a gun was when I was seven years old. My brothers and I were herding our father's 'riches' when cattle rustlers from a neighbouring community attacked us," he said.

They exchanged fire, and the brothers managed to repulse their rustlers. Among the assailants who lay dead was one he had killed, and from then, he lost count of his victims.

The soft-spoken man with a shy smile said he was 42 years at the time (2017).

What was appalling in our conversation was the hatred he had for the neighbouring community. It seemed so deeply entrenched.

He felt he had to avenge them for the killings and theft that occurred long before he was born. He accused them of the deaths of his kinsmen but most importantly for "making them poor" through the constant raids.

He claimed the raids were the reason his community's livestock dwindled in numbers. He literally referred to them as "adui". And he swore to deal with them until his last day.

This perception of an enemy was shared by many other residents. They referred to the other community as so, whether they were talking about them in the context of raids or any other non-conflict context.

He said the raid was not committed by a few individuals. Rather, it was the doing of the whole community and did not just happen that day; even his grandparents suffered the same ordeal.  

Our conversation was cut off by a colleague who shouted that we should board the Land Cruiser and leave.

My newfound friend requested a lift to another village about 50km from where we were. He was not from Lokori, he had responded to the call for help in the fire exchange that engulfed during the raid.

We hopped onto the pick-up. At the front sat the driver and an MP. At the back sat three of my colleagues, my newfound friend and myself.

I sat directly across him on the wood benches that were temporarily fixed on the vehicle on either side.

Over our heads tied on the steel bar were three old sisal ropes sparsely distributed. You would hold on to one whenever the vehicle shook heavily from the rough terrain, as we found on our way back to normal society.

A few minutes later, when the car halted to a stop, my friend shook my hand and said, "Tutaonana suku ingine rafiki."

I smiled and said, "Tutaonana tena."

At that moment when our arms interlocked as we shook hands, I felt his hand was heavy. I imagined the uncountable number of people he had killed.

I imagined the little innocent seven-year-old boy forced to shoot at raiders who had attacked them in the grazing field to defend his father's herd.

ENDING THE VIOLENCE

It got me back to my childhood at seven, and all I knew was to go to school and watch cartoons. He had none of that experience. Nothing close to it.

My friend jumped down. Smiled back again at me and waved as the car started. He then turned and walked away.

As we continued with our journey, I thought maybe the recurrent deployment of security forces will not solve the problem. Rather, behavioural change should be promoted.

This partly explains why attempts to tame the insecurity in the area have failed terribly over the years. The government's response has always been reactive rather than strategic and sustainable.

The only time the government gets interested in the issues of the North is when there are high casualties, especially when its officers are victims or when there is economic gain, such as oil exploration, which has since stalled.

The government, in its reactive measure, comes heavily armed and invades people who all their lives have known no way of living other than by the gun.

To them, an exchange of fire is as nostalgic as watching Cartoon Network is to me. A gun is probably the only toy they have known to play with since childhood, and trying to hunt them down is like a game of hide-and-seek to them.

That's why the attacks, these days, seem to be a guerilla tactic between the security officers and the community.

Instead, the government should build schools, roads and hospitals as a means to promote integration. However, without tackling the root issues, these developments will be as good as dead capital.

There is a chance to find an amicable solution. It should start with behavioural change right from the mindset to actions.

My friend and others should be taught to view their neighbours as humans. And their neighbours should be taught the same. Only when that seed is planted in their minds and watered will there be peace in  Northern Kenya.

Faith Sudi is a communications specialist and multimedia journalist