Have the climate wars of Africa begun?
Tales of conflict emerging from this remote, arid region of Kenya have disturbing echoes of the lethal building blocks that turned Darfur into a killing ground in western Sudan.
Tribes that lived side by side for decades say they've been pushed to warfare by competition for disappearing water and pasture. The government is accused of exacerbating tensions by taking sides and arming combatants who once used spears and arrows.
The aim, all sides say, is no longer just to steal land or cattle, but to drive the enemy away forever.
It's a combustible mix of forces that the United Nations estimates has resulted in at least 400 deaths in northern Kenya this year. Moreover, experts worry that it's just the beginning of a new era of climate-driven conflict in Africa.
"There is a lesson in Darfur," said Richard Odingo, vice chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a global scientific body that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore. "Every dry area has the potential to be a flash point if we are not careful."
Africa is no stranger to conflict: The continent has been rocked by war, ethnic hatred, post-colonial border disputes and competition for resources, including oil and diamonds. But as the deserts encroach in Sudan, rainfall declines in the Horn of Africa -- a 15% decrease is predicted over the next few decades -- and fresh water evaporates in the south, climate change is transforming conflicts and kicking old tensions into overdrive.
"Climate change amplifies and escalates vulnerability," said Achim Steiner, director of the U.N. Environment Program. "It doesn't mean that conflict is inevitable, but it's much more likely."
Scientific and anecdotal evidence is mounting that the changes underway here are more than climatic variation. Droughts that once appeared every decade now hit every two or three years. Icecaps atop Mt. Kenya and Mt. Kilimanjaro are evaporating, and Lake Chad has lost 90% of its water since the 1960s.
And Africa is getting hotter. Maximum temperatures in Kenya's Rift Valley and on its northern coast have risen by more than 5 degrees over the last 20 to 40 years, according to research by the group Christian Aid. Malaria, once rare in Kenya's central highlands because the weather was too cold for the disease-spreading mosquitoes, has become a major health challenge.
But conflict is perhaps the most alarming symptom. Violence is becoming deadlier thanks to population growth and the proliferation of arms. Thirty years ago, a few dozen tribal warriors with spears might have clashed at a water hole. Today rural communities are armed with AK-47s and even national armies are jumping into the fray.
In October, Kenyan soldiers clashed with Sudanese tribesmen conducting a cross-border cattle raid. This summer, the Ugandan military was accused of using attack helicopters against Kenyan herdsmen attempting to graze their stock in their country.
In Kenya, experts say, the violence has become as unpredictable as the weather. Faced with the extinction of their age-old livelihood because of what appear to be permanent changes in rainfall patterns, many of the 4 million Kenyans who survive by raising livestock are embroiled in a fight with one another and with herdsmen from nearby countries for the remaining viable land.
"The situation is getting out of hand and people are starting to worry about where all this is headed," said Mohammed Ahmed, a field officer with the British aid group ActionAid in Isiolo, where scores of people have been killed in recent months.
He and others say the violence this year has been more brutal and random than anyone can remember. Women and children have been killed, among them two women slain while collecting firewood in September.
Cattle rustling, which historically occurred after rains when herds were large, this year began for the first time in the midst of the drought, even though bandits had no pasture to keep the stolen livestock alive. In one recent attack, rustlers shot and killed several hundred animals when they realized they would be unable to escape with them.
That has led many to suspect that the motive isn't just to profit or restock herds; it's also to strike a death blow at the enemy.
"They want to force us to move off the land for good," said Romana Nasur, a member of the Turkana tribe who lost 65 goats during an attack in September.
"The first step is to make us poor."
The village of Gambella has long been a peaceful oasis thanks to a natural spring that enables year-round farming. It became a killing field in July, when scores of attackers, mostly Turkana and Samburu tribesmen, ransacked and destroyed more than 100 huts, shot holes in the water tanks and fled with several hundred animals.
The Kenya Red Cross Society said 11 people died in a nearby village during a similar attack this month.
Six people were killed during the daylong July raid and a schoolboy was shot in the leg while fleeing his classroom. Two-thirds of Gambella's 1,500 residents, all from the Borana tribe, are too afraid to return, said Abduba Serera, a father of eight and village leader.
"They want to scare us away to take our water," he said.
The Kenyan government has largely ignored the brewing crisis, dismissing it as the usual tribal clashes. But the drought has pushed Kenya's cattle-raising tribes to the point where they feel they have nothing to lose, experts say.
"It's a recipe for a major disaster," said Choice Okoro, humanitarian affairs officer for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, noting the prevalence of AK-47s and other arms in northern Kenya. "We are seeing a militarization of their livelihood."
Okoro said it was a mistake to assume that tensions will abate if the drought ends. "It's different now, and it's alarming," she said. "It's not going back to normal anymore."
Sudan's Darfur region is perhaps the best example of what can happen when Africa's climate-related conflicts are mismanaged, exploited or left to fester. Desertification in northern Darfur over the last 50 years drove herdsmen south, pitting them against farmers. The Sudanese government is accused of exploiting the conflict by siding with the herdsmen, mostly of Arab tribes, and giving them virtual immunity to attack farmers, mostly non-Arab tribesmen.
More than 35,000 died in the fighting and at least 100,000 more died in the subsequent humanitarian crisis, according to the International Criminal Court. The U.S. has described the attacks as genocide.
Most climate-related conflicts in Africa have been localized, but experts warn that "climate wars" between neighboring countries could be on the horizon.
"If there will be any wars, they will probably be over water," said Odingo of the climate change panel.
Potential hot spots include the Nile River, which is the source of rising tensions between Egypt, which uses most of the water, and countries such as Sudan and Ethiopia, which are fighting for bigger shares.
Likewise, a new Ethiopian dam is causing the water level to drop at Kenya's Lake Turkana.
Odingo said he is confident that African governments will keep their heads and work together. But in Kenya, the government is accused of aggravating the violence through a series of questionable decisions.
In February, security forces raided a Samburu tribe stronghold, seizing more than 12,000 head of livestock and redistributing them to rival tribes. Government officials said they were trying to rectify previous thefts by Samburu raiders, but Samburu leaders alleged government bias. They launched retaliatory attacks.
The government has also armed the tribes, handing out more than 2,000 rifles over the last year to untrained "reservists," tribal leaders and government officials say.
The guns were intended to help remote villages defend themselves, but elders say that the government gave preference to certain tribes and that the weapons are being used in offensive attacks.
"The government is not being neutral," said Lawrence Ewoi, a Turkana leader. He said his tribe received only five of the 300 rifles recently distributed in Isiolo. "Now the other tribe is using the guns against us."
Mohamed Abdi Kuti, a Kenyan parliament member from the Borana tribe, denied that his tribesmen got most of the weapons around Isiolo, but he agreed that the spread of small arms was dangerous.
"There is a plan to recall all the guns because it's getting out of hand," he said.
But experts predict that few will heed the disarmament call.
Kuti said climate change had made tribes more susceptible to political manipulation.
"Because of the drought, people are desperate and they're willing to do anything," he said.
"It's easy to thrive on people's weaknesses."
edmund.sanders @latimes.com
One in a series of occasional articles about the effects of climate change on people around the world.
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has asked judges to allow him to launch a formal investigation into post-election in Kenya.Click here for photo - Moreno-Ocampo, left, has been carrying out his own investigation since February last year [AFP] - with thanks to Aljazeera.net
The ICC said on November 6 it would consider a prosecution request to investigate suspected crimes against humanity committed during the clashes, which left at least 1,300 people dead.
"There is a reasonable basis to believe that crimes against humanity within the jurisdiction of the court were committed," Luis Moreno-Ocampo said in The Hague, Netherlands, on Thursday.
"In particular, crimes of murder, rape and other forms of sexual violence, deportation or forcible transfer of population and other inhuman acts."
The violence broke out after Raila Odinga, now prime minister in a power-sharing government, accused his rival for the presidency, Mwai Kibaki, the incumbent president, of winning the December 27, 2007 poll through widespread fraud.
Hundreds of thousands of people were forced from their homes as the violence raged.
Investigation
Moreno-Ocampo has been conducting a preliminary investigation into the clashes since February last year and said during a visit to Kenya last month that he wished to pursue "those responsible".
This is the first time that the ICC prosecutor has sought to open an official investigation on his own initiative, one of three ways in which a case can come before the international court.
Other cases before the court had either been referred by countries that have signed up to the court's founding Rome Statute or by the UN Security Council, as in the case of the conflict in Darfur, Sudan.
Elizabeth Evenson, counsel in the international justice programme of Human Rights Watch, said: "The ICC is a court of last resort, and when national authorities are unwilling to act, it is supposed to step in.
"Today's announcement shows that the ICC prosecutor can and will act on his own in situations of serious crimes."
The Kenyan government has yet to act on the recommendation of its own inquiry that a special tribunal be set up to investigate the violence.
Moses Wetangula, the Kenyan foreign minister, said earlier this month that Nairobi would assist any ICC to investigation, but was committed to a "local solution".
In July, Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary-general who helped broker the power-sharing deal between Kenya's leaders, sent the ICC a list of names of key suspects that is believed to include senior government officials.
Luis Moreno Ocampo, a graduate of the University of Buenos Aires Law School, is currently in private practice in Buenos Aires, where he specializes in corruption control programs for large organizations. He also serves as an adjunct professor of Penal Law at his alma mater.Click here to see Dr. Moreno Ocampo's books listed on Amazon.co.uk
Mr. Moreno Ocampo played a key role in the trials related to Argentina's democratic transition.
He was the assistant prosecutor in the trials against the military junta (1985), and in the trials against the chief of the Buenos Aires Police (1986).
When he served as District Attorney for the Federal Circuit of the City of Buenos Aires from 1987 to 1992, he was in charge of the trials against the military responsible for the Falklands [Malvinas] war (1988), those who headed the military rebellions in 1988, and prosecuted many large public corruption cases.
He has worked with both the Inter-American Development Bank and the United Nations, aiding governments to establish systems to control corruption.
He was the co-founder of Poder Ciudadano, a non-governmental organization which promotes citizen responsibility and participation.
Mr. Moreno Ocampo is a member of the Advisory Committee of Transparency International, a world-wide organization that reduces corruption in international business transactions; in addition he serves as its President for Latin America and the Caribbean.
His publications include In Self Defense, How to Avoid Corruption (1993) and When Power Lost the Trial: How to Explain the Dictatorship to Our Children (1996). He has developed methods to teach law and conflict resolution through a daily television show called Forum.
Books › "Luis Moreno Ocampo"Front cover of Dr. Moreno Ocampo's book.
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Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, reacts to the court's decision to issue an arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir, the President of Sudan. Al-Bashir is accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Category: News & Politics
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(Nairobi) - The National Electoral Commission has canceled arrangements which made voter registration easier for Sudanese citizens living in Kenya.Click on National Election Commission label here below to view related news and updates. Cross-posted at Sudan Watch.
Earlier this week, the NEC had decided that a valid passport or a student ID was enough to enable people to register. People without a valid passport were able to register if they were accompanied by a witness who could vouch for their identity.
However, speaking to Sudan Radio Service on Thursday in Nairobi, the Sudanese ambassador to Kenya, Majok Guangdong, said the Embassy had received a letter from the NEC which set out the new registration requirements.
[Majok Guandong]: "Yesterday, we received a letter from the National Electoral Commission indicating that the procedures should follow the law, which states that a person should be Sudanese, 18 years and above, holding a valid Sudanese passport and a resident permit. People who do not meet these requirements will not be able to register."
Ambassador Guandong fears that fewer people will register following the announcement of the new requirements.
[Majok Guandong]: "I think the number of people will definitely reduce because there is no flexibility and the people who will turn out will be just those who meet the new requirements. I am expecting that the numbers of Sudanese coming to register will drop considerably."
He urged Sudanese citizens living in Kenya to continue to participate in the voter registration exercise.
(Nairobi) - Voter registration requirements for Sudanese living in Kenya have been eased to make it simpler for them to vote.UPDATE on Thursday 16:16 PM GMT UK Nov 26 2009:
The Sudanese Ambassador to Kenya, Guandong Majok, described the new conditions to Sudan Radio Service on Monday.
[Guandong Majok]: “A Sudanese student who is 18 years old or above must have a valid passport and a student ID. This is considered as one of the conditions you should have to register. Regarding parents who are here with their children in schools, we have agreed that the mother should have a valid passport and have one of her children enrolled as a student in Kenya. This will enable her to register. We also formed a committee with a chief and people who know the members of the community because there are Sudanese who have been here since the war and after the peace agreement they got Sudanese passports and they live here. We also formed a committee between the Sudanese community and the embassy so that they can act as witnesses for people they know and these people will be allowed to register with their witness.”
There has been a marked increase of people going to register following the announcement of the new requirements.
Kuol Nyang Kuol is a registration officer at the Embassy. He spoke to Sudan Radio Service on Monday.
[Kuol Nyang Kuol]: “From November 10th until Sunday, only one or two people came during the whole day but today, as you can see, there are more than a hundred people.”
The voter registration process, which was to end on November 30, has been extended to December 7.
(Nairobi) - The Embassy of the Sudan in Kenya launched its voter registration campaign in Nairobi on Monday to register Sudanese living in Kenya for the upcoming general elections in Sudan.
The move follows concerns by Sudanese living in Kenya last week that they may not be able to take part in the elections since Kenya was not included in the list of countries that was circulated by NEC last month.
Speaking at a press conference in Nairobi on Monday, Ambassador Majok Guangdong said the Embassy will also facilate the issuing of documents to enable Sudanese in Kenya to register for the upcoming elections.
[Ambassador Majok Guangdong]: “The Sudanese in the Diaspora have the right to participate in the presidential elections which are going to be held concurrently with the other elections such as those for the president of GOSS, the national assembly, the state governors, state legislative assemblies, and the southern Sudan legislative assembly. The National Elections Commission has decided to open a registration centre in 14 countries outside Sudan, including Kenya, which hosts the majority of the Sudanese Diaspora in East Africa.”
Voter registration will go on for the next ten days.
The ambassador said the Embassy will also facilitate ways in which Sudanese living in other parts of Kenya will be registered. However he said that the process may be different for people living in refugee camps.
[Ambassador Majok Guangdong]: “We are also considering opening registration centers in Nakuru and Eldoret; this will take place in the course of next week so that we give our citizens there the opportunity to exercise their right to vote in the coming historical elections.
The question of Kakuma, we need to make an assessment. Most of the people in Kakuma are refugees and we assume that they may not have valid documents. We are also appealing to the Sudanese citizens who have no documents to come to the embassy and get valid documents to qualify for registration.”
He called on Sudanese in East Africa to come out and register in large numbers in order to be able to exercise their right to vote in the elections.
From: Security Council ReportCross-posted to Ethiopia Watch and Congo Watch and Sudan Watch and Here is a copy of an email received
Subject: Peace & Security Council Report
12 November 2009
Readers of Security Council Report may be interested to know of the recent launch in Addis Ababa of a similar publication designed to provide monthly information about the work of the AU Peace and Security Council. It is called the "Peace and Security Council Report" (To access the November 2009 edition you can click here).
Peace and Security Council Report is produced and published by the Addis Ababa office of the Institute for Security Studies of South Africa. Security Council Report has assisted ISS with the development of this concept and it is pleased that ISS has taken SCR's Monthly Forecast as a model. We are pleased to have been able to help.
You are able to subscribe to regularly receive the Peace and Securty Council Report by clicking here.
Further details may be obtained from the programme directly at:
Peace and Security Council Report Programme
Institute for Security Studies
PO Box 2329
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Tel: +251-11-372-11-54
Fax: +251-11-372-59-54
_______________________________________________
Security Council Report
One Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza
885 Second Avenue at 48th Street, 31st Floor
New York NY 10017
Tel: 212.759.9429 • Fax: 212.759.4038
contact@securitycouncilreport.org
www.securitycouncilreport.org
From: Security Council ReportCross-posted to Ethiopia Watch and Congo Watch and Sudan Watch and Uganda Watch.
Subject: Peace & Security Council Report
12 November 2009
Readers of Security Council Report may be interested to know of the recent launch in Addis Ababa of a similar publication designed to provide monthly information about the work of the AU Peace and Security Council. It is called the "Peace and Security Council Report" (To access the November 2009 edition you can click here).
Peace and Security Council Report is produced and published by the Addis Ababa office of the Institute for Security Studies of South Africa. Security Council Report has assisted ISS with the development of this concept and it is pleased that ISS has taken SCR's Monthly Forecast as a model. We are pleased to have been able to help.
You are able to subscribe to regularly receive the Peace and Securty Council Report by clicking here.
Further details may be obtained from the programme directly at:
Peace and Security Council Report Programme
Institute for Security Studies
PO Box 2329
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Tel: +251-11-372-11-54
Fax: +251-11-372-59-54
_______________________________________________
Security Council Report
One Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza
885 Second Avenue at 48th Street, 31st Floor
New York NY 10017
Tel: 212.759.9429 • Fax: 212.759.4038
contact@securitycouncilreport.org
www.securitycouncilreport.org
