Human rights abuses have become a regular feature of the conflict between Laikipia Maasai demanding the return of their ancestral lands and the paramilitary General Service Unit (GSU) of the Kenyan Police force.
The conflict started on August 14, when Laikipia Maasai drove thousands of animals into fenced-off ranches to pressure the return of 1 million acres of land following the expiration of a controversial lease signed by a Maasai leader and the British government in 1904. According to AllAfrica.com and the East African Standard, the GSU responded with guns, leading to the death of 70-year-old Ntinai Ole Moiyare.
A visit on August 28 and 29 to Laikipia’s central division revealed a systematic crackdown on Maasai throughout the region—even outside the leased lands—to end support of those Maasai calling for the return of the land.
Maasai residents of Laikipia said that at dawn on August 29 they saw a convoy of 10 police land cruisers and a truck combing the area in search of Maasai who have settled outside of treaty lands.
"We were driving bridal animals to my friend’s future wife’s home at Ngare Ng’iro, when we met the police and they told us, ‘You are the people who are giving us a headache,’" said the would-be best man on condition of anonymity. "I responded, ‘How could we have done that while on our way to a wedding?’ They attacked me, I ran off, and they threw stones at me hitting and injuring my hip and hand."
"The GSU came this morning," 76-year-old Ole Kiopiri, the father of the groom-to be, said later that day. "I pleaded with them to let us go on to the ceremony but they bundled my young son into a police vehicle and drove off toward Nanyuki. It is true that men my age are being arrested, and all I would like to say is that we do not need anything from anybody, we only want our land back."
Mary Kiloku of Kimakandura said that she was raped by GSU officers on August 22. "I ran and fell and he caught up with me and raped me," she said. Kiloku explained that in her attempts to report the matter to the police post at Naiborr, she was turned back with kicks and slaps.
Mary also said that during the police raids, some 112 goats and sheep were confiscated but only 36 were returned. Their demands for an explanation, she said, fell on deaf ears. "The police told us to go to parliament in Nairobi and lodge our complaints there."
