Important supporting testimony verified that the Karama clan of Tigania and the Njia clan of Kangeta offer traditional sacrifices at Rumai and Turuka, hills aligned on the respective sides of the Karama/Kangeta border. The series of Njuri meetings thus verified the boundary according to historical criteria. Maps were drawn illustrating the position of important landmarks the elders had agreed upon.

But the Karama subsequently rejected the evidence and held to their claim. The Njuri Ncheke then decided to administer the Nthenge oath. The curse invoked by violation of this most potent of Meru oaths is greatly feared: on the appointed day the Karama failed to appear.  The Njuri Ncheke then ratified their earlier border agreement and petitioned the administration to formally mark the divisional boundary. The District Commissioner gave the solution his official imprimatur when he visited the site of the conflict later that year.

The Kya Mwitu incident identifies an intriguing mix of modern-traditional institutional dynamics. The original cause was the elevation of Karama from sub-location in Muthara Location to the status of Karama Location, which prompted Muthara clans to exclude the Karama from acquiring lower zone farms in what was formerly administered as Meru's Northern Grazing Area (NGA). The invasion itself, however, was encouraged by administratively appointed chief for Karama location and an elected member of local county council.

Though the Njuri Ncheke resolved the conflict where the local administration failed, hostilities remained under the surface. A Karama university student I spoke to conceded the legitimacy of the border, but insisted upon the Karama people's right to what they considered to be unused land on the basis of the high incidence of intermarraige between the two groups. The tradition of access to land through women relatives verifies the deeper roots of the incident.

The invasion, however, was an attempt to secure land for future expansion in the not yet settled margins of the Igembe NGA. This situation in turn reflects the greater land hunger associated with coffee cultivation in the Tigania highlands in contrast to the significantly higher returns to land and labor associated with Igembe miraa agroforestry in Igembe--where the population density in the more limited highland zones is higher. In this case, indigenous commercialization segued with Meru institutions to reinforce the cultural system's capacity for internal adaptation.

Another incident involving internal cultural dynamics indicates some of limits of indigenous mechanisms in the face of capitalist transition. To understand the 1995 Miriti miraa strike it is necassary that we return to the fasting changing local miraa economy.

Miraa plots may be harvested over eight times over the course of year. The steady but incremental cash flow is difficult to manage. This pattern of income flow combined with high domestic self-sufficiency and steady employment in the labor intensive marketing network to support unusually low differentials of income distribution. Igembe's egalitarian traditional social ideals support social consumption at the expense of capital accumulation, and 'cash money' generated by wholesale and retail sale of miraa has seen alcohol displace the social consumption of miraa at home.

Though Hopkins remarked that the Igembe are the one Meru section who did not consume beer on the order of other Meru sections, through the early 1990s the Igembe quaffed beer in ever-increasing quantities. At the same time small farm agricultural intensification and expansion of markets has fueled the impression of unlimited informal sector opportunity while dampening general demand for education, especially in the late commercializing areas of Ntonyiri Division.

Miraa marketing generates fluctuating networks of micro economic organization that has mitigated against the emergence of internal economic diversification including the rise of a patron class. Individual traders have accumulated considerable resources, but until recently a host of factors encouraged Igembe investment in property and businesses outside the Nyambenes, and the diversification of agriculture for the most part into tea and lower zone farms in their home areas. Depicting how the limits of this agrarian success story only became apparent three decades into the miraa boom requires that we return to the Somali factor.

Somalia's President Syad Barre ostensibly banned miraa in 1981 for legitimate reasons of national development. In retrospect, however, the ban can be seen as a calculated move to take the lucrative commerce in miraa away from perceived political opponents and allow illegal importation to continue under the aegis of individuals identified with pro-government clans. Later pro-Barre clans were allowed to operate militias equipped with small arms whose importation was financed by conservative Arab states. Access to miraa must have been one of the privileges conscripts enjoyed.

Events prior and subsequent to the collapse of Barre's government in January of 1991 produced two outcomes that boosted Somalia miraa consumption to unprecedented levels: the growing flow of refugees to Kenya, Ethiopia, Yemen, and Europe; and the rise of clan militias into the vacuum left by state collapse. Refugees inside the camps and outside took to chewing miraa in order to pass the ennui and discuss ad infinitum the situation that had overtaken their society. Warlords fighting for control over the limited resources available in the environs of Mogadisho found importing miraa a source for funds and incentives for the technicals battling to advance their political objectives.

This catalyzed far-reaching consequences back in the Nyambenes. Isaaq exporters who had already begun to send miraa in small quantities to London responded as demand expanded apace with the growth of England's Somali refugee community. The Isaaq were only one part of the new class of Somali miraa agents supplying the growing markets in Somalia and Kenya's Northeastern Province that settled down to business in Maua and Eastleigh. The considerably higher returns per unit of export miraa allowed them to penetrate Igembe-controlled supply networks. Initially this propelled the miraa boom to new heights, but over time it served to cut out traditional Igembe middlemen and replace them with their own agents, and to siphon off profits that formerly circulated within Igembe.

The practice of renting miraa plots furthered Somali ascendence in the Igembe reserve. The practice of renting miraa farms for an agreed upon number of mainga, or harvests, had been growing over the 1980s. Some of the reasons mentioned above fueled the situation where many farmers found themselves temporarily unable to meet new demands for cash. The household head caught out in these circumstances enter into contracts exchanging X number of mainga harvests for cash advances (usually equivalent to half the market value of the miraa). The overheating local economy made it easy for Somali agents awash with capital to secure these agreements.

The Igembe responded by pressuring the administration to ban Somali agents from the rural interior. The administration complied by dictating that Somali agents could only pick up their orders in places along the tarmac road between Kangeta and Maua, but the ban proved unenforcable, especially in the presence of Somali cash inducements to officials and the police. In any event their Igembe compradors went about their business unencumbered. To make things worse, once in control Somali traders and the ethnic cohorts that flocked to Maua in their wake became extremely arrogant in their dealings with the local Meru. Individuals who reported abuses like physical beatings for late delivery to the police could find themselves incarcerated instead.

The miraa complex of this century developed along the lines of Meru age-set organization. Warriorhood transmuted into entrpreneurhood, and capital earned by these warrior entrepreneurs financed their progress through subsequent stages in the life cycle. At any given time a specific age-set is prominent in retail marketing. The Miriti are the economically active traders during this specific 12-15 year juncture.

The worsening position during this decade prompted several concerned traders to organize a traders association. They set about calling a strike against miraa exports which commenced in late January, 1995. Age-set councils still actively meet in Igembe, and age-set dynamics remain generally remain strong in the Nyambenes. The strike, although effective at first, foundered due to several reasons. The timing which coincided with the beginning of Ramadhan to the day, the one time when many habitual consumers forego consumption, was extremely poor. More important, the strike was the brainchild of Nairobi based traders who had neglected to promulgate their strategy among their rural counterparts.

Although miraa supplies were initially reduced to a trickle began increasingly surreptiously and strike-breakers began to operate openly after several days. Even so, the meeting called between the Igembe actors and their Somali competitors went forward. The meeting, chaired by the local administration, allowed each side to air their grievances. The main weakness of the Miriti activists was revealed by the position of Igembe producers who stated that the Somali pay slightly higher prices than their Meru affines. The meeting, which went on for several days, did sensitize the Somali to the building resentment, and they quickly took measures to rectify the problem.

Public opinion scored the first round to the Somalis, business as usual resumed, and relations have remained on an even keel during the aftermath. The more significant import of the event may lie in the fact that it brought frictions into the open, and was the first step towards institutionalizing dialogue among parties having shared economic interests. It may mark the rise of a new kind of synthetic local institution harmonizing differences among ethnic groups operating within what has been an informal economic sector guided by internal cultural structures.

The Nyambene exemplar highlights problems of the emergent African capitalism. Recent developments in Igembe reveal this indigenous capitalism to be as ruthless and relentless in the face of cultural structures and institutions as any of its global predecessors. The initially adaptive confluence of indigenous culture and agrarian commerce in the Nyambenes is wholly consistent with what Illife describes as easily achieved precapitalist-capitalist syntheses. Fast moving changes since the early 1990s push it to a new threshold, revealing the less visible limits of this Igembe synthesis. Extrapolating from their coevolutionary history leads to the hypothesis that the problem is not conflict, but the lack of conflict over past decades. In this sense the predicament highlighted by their Somali dilemma may be just the wake up call Meru's exuberant agroforesters needed.

The competition for scarce resources thesis provides a sufficient but unsatisfactory explanation for the contemporary situation in the NFD where pastoralists battle state security forces, down military helicopters, and the normal security mechanisms have proven wholly inadequate for preserving peace. The environmental crunch variable should therefore be viewed as a constant to be factored together with other internal and external determinants of violent group conflicts. These include the matrix of national and regional politics, international events, donor decisions, and other macro variables influencing the increasingly chaotic state of the African countryside to the State.

Examining the nature and pattern of regional trade, in contrast, helps fill in the picture of the social space from which the state has been receding over the past decade. In this section first we fill in the picture, and then sketch in the details of trade and conflict as they vary across the northern region.

Livestock in general, and cattle in particular, are by far the north's main producer commodity. Before discussing cattle markets several comments concerning livestock production are in order. Small holder agriculturalists owning cattle have benefitted from considerable research and development like the small holder dairy initiative promoted by Kenya's vetinary department. Large-scale ranchers have also realized considerable benefit from private and institutional breeding and research. Relatively little technical work has been directed towards pastoral livestock production in comparison. Formal interventions have concentrated on infrastructural supports and organizational schemes intended to facilitate sedentarization--including attempts to engineer pastoralists out of livestock production altogether.

The failures recorded along the way has finally led to recognition that traditional pastoralism is still the most adaptive and resilient form of land use and production in ASAL (arid and semi-arid lands) areas. Northern Kenya provides over half of Kenya's animal protein requirements, and the demograhic-economic equation favors growing future demand for pastoral products. Commercial livestock production, however, should not be viewed as an end in itself, but as a means for promoting economic diversification.

Pastoralists nevertheless face formidable obstacles to development. They entered the modern era marginalized and have been exploited as much as they have been ignored since independence. Large areas of pasture have been alienated as parks and wildlife reserves, and lodges built on strategic water sources. The situation is made more difficult by the lack of infrastructure, education, medical facilities, water, and most other prerequisites for meaningful economic progress. After numerous false starts donor, NGO, and missionary efforts have made a start towards rectifying some of these problems; and while the current policy regime designates market production as the primary engine for development, prospects for outside investment are at best remote.

Politically, pastoralists are the least empowered segment of Kenya's population. Endemic violence and limited opportunities for social intercourse has done little to allay the natural mistrust existing between pastoral warrior societies and the country's agricultural majority at independence. International factors are equally important for understanding the pattern of regional insecurity. British willingness to administer the Northern Frontier District was pure self-interest based on its value as a buffer zone. The value of this spatial function, more than livestock or other economic resources, designates NFD social stability as the key objective of state policies.

The northern tourist circuit has become an important contributor to national coffers, reinforcing other factors underscoring the need to maintain security in the country's pastoral rangelands. Since creating extensive wildlife reserves was done at the expense of pastoral subsistence economy, improving productivity in the livestock sector is critical to the north's economic and political viability. Different angles on the pastoral dilemma all come back to the central importance of livestock economy, which highlights the position of cattle at the intersection of group conflict and criminality.

Cattle marketing, except for the quarrantine and disease control measures brought to bear on animals leaving the northern region, has long been a laizzez faire affair. The location of inspection and certification facilities in Isiolo make Kenya's 'Gateway to the North' the primary gateway to the south for livestock. Cattle marketing continues to follow traditional routes that channel most of the north's cattle destined for Nairobi through the district. The other major network leads from outlying areas to Garissa, and to Mombasa via Lamu or Garsen.

One riddle of the security situation is that conflict and insecurity rarely disrupt the cattle trade itself. Animals are still driven as far as Nairobi on the hoof. Though trekkers consider security and theft are a concern, the fact that small teams of lightly armed cowboys escort large herds of cattle indicate it is not a major problem en route. Herdsmen have long recognized the potential for conflict at permanent water sources.

Schlee describes an incident illustrating how relationships among groups interacting over time is used to manage the kind of conflicts arising over access to natural resources like water and pasture. The incident was occassioned by the need for Rendille to seek pature outside their home territory.

Schlee then discusses the complex relationships, and perceptions of relationships like the in reality slender association between Saale and Sanle clans among Rendille and Ajuran, manipulated in this case to provide a mechanism bridging the conflict. He explains the how principle of clan lineages is integral to conflict resolution in an earlier passage:

Apart from linking a few dozen or hundred people in one ethnic group to another small group in another, such inter-ethnic identities of clan or lineage serve another purpose in the arguments of those who appeal for inter-ethnic peace: by the multiplicity of such binary relationships and the many indirect relationships they imply...they convey a general sense of relatedness...and in northern Kenya, where human solidarity traditionally is not extended to non-relatives, people who are deaf to the laments about the shedding of human blood in general might yet be shocked at the idea of inadvertantly killing a clan brother.

I have witnessed (and employed myself) use of kinship, fictive kinship, and even fictional kinship to mediate disputes. It is not, however, essential. In many instances cattle in transit are allowed to water before local herds in order to reduce the possibility of friction flaring into violence. As during the precolonial era, some forms of commerce is apparently accorded special respect. Then again, cattle are clumsy form of booty; bandits typically ambush traders on their way home in the case of animals transported by lorries. Much of the region's internal instability is nevertheless a function of violence resulting out of strategies for capturing livestock.

Cattle Rustling and Banditry

Guns are the most important new trade commodity in terms of regional impact. We identified firearms as an input market in the introduction because weapons have always been a primary technological accessory to eastern Africa pastoralism. Guns were one of the new commodities introduced by expeditions organized on the coast. Lamphlear has observed that older type of guns did not change the balance of power among Ateker groups, and their appearance was not as influential as new forms of military organization.

The spread of the AK-47 during this decade, in contrast, has intensified conflict within the larger region. Guns have also made it more difficult to separate conflict from criminality, yet the region provides numerous examples of counter-intuitive developments accompanying the spread of firearms. One would logically expect, for example, that the districts bordering chaotic Somalia would be the most effected by its internal instability. But Mandera has probably been the most peaceful district in northern Kenya while spatially central but culturally diverse Isiolo may be the most violent in recent years.

Differentiating group cattle rustling and banditry turns on the cultural precedent of the 'raid or be raided principle' of territorial competition. While raids between groups always target the victims' animals, they pave the way for territorial expansion and assume a political dimension in numerous instances. Modern firearms are an essential adjunct to production under these circumstances. Guns abet group expansion in a manner suggesting, at least in terms of our historical model, that cattle are their technological predecessor.

The introduction of modern weaponry into northern Kenya is a direct outcome the post-independence Shifta conflict. Access to guns grew out of the linkage between the abortive war of Somali self-determination and the banditry which replaced it. Darod Somalis in particular were able to obtain guns by volunteering to join the fight for the Ogaden, and then slipped back into Kenya. In some cases AWOL Somali soldiers did the same. Over the 1970s and 1980s the level of banditry in northern Kenya, Tana River, and Lamu directly mirrored episodes of instability in Somalia.

For a time shifta bandits were able to operate safely in Northeastern Province by manipulating ethnic loyalties. Kenyan Somalis suffered the consequences in the form of state repression and the general terror occassioned by anti-shifta campaigns. Attitudes shifted as the bandits began to prey on local Somalis as well, catalyzing a domino effect where Kenyan Somalis started invading Isiolo to recoup their losses. Banditry was predominantly associated with the Somali until the collapse of the Somali state began to flood the formerly politically controlled markets for guns. This and the numbers of firearms percolating into Kenya from southern Ethiopia and Sudan made acquiring a modern rifle much easier than before. Their impact, however, has varied across districts.

Garissa: Commercialization of Banditry

The greater part of Garissa District is inhabited by Ogaden clans, part of the larger Darod confederation, whose historic presence is relatively recent. The Darod connection made Garissa the epicenter of shifta in Northeastern Province, and the base for predatory attacks from Isiolo, Meru, and Kitui to Tana River and Lamu districts. The social banditry of the 1970s has evolved into a considerably more professional enterprise driven by commercial forces.

That clan-based raiders still range across the landscape clouds the fact that larger problem is well-equiped Somali highwaymen that prey on livestock, lorries and buses, and small market centers. There are several factors that qualify Garissa District as the main enclave for these modern brigands. The largest is the political connection: the role of General Mahmoud Mohammed in squashing the coup attempt of 1980 was rewarded with high positions in the government for family members and new opportunities for their close associates. Many of his Ogaden clansmen were recruited into government service, the army in particular.

Garissa town has subsequently flourished, the district prospered relative to other pastoral areas, and the influence within the state administration insures a degree of protection for some businessmen dealing involved in smuggling and other illicit activities. Trade from Somalia passing through Garissa made Liboi the most notorious border town in Kenya, closely linked to the flow of weapons and other contraband since the government collapsed in 1991. These changes contributed to the changing nature of shifta.

Once the province of desperadoes and outlaws driven to indiscriminately revenge wrongs on civil servants, informants report that shifta banditry is now financed by well-connected trade barons who recruit from the pool of retired army personnel and school leavers--a new class of professional and sophisticated highwaymen. Shifta raids north of the Tana, for example, were previously assumed to be primarily the work of Somali nationals who employed Boni hunter-gatherer middlemen as guides. Banditry in Lamu District now attests to how it has evolved into a more commercialized criminal strategy internal to Kenya.

Mukunumbi is a small mainland settlement that is home to a number of Swahili traders who formerly owned large herds of cattle. These animals are transported by sea from nearby Mokowe or by road. It has repeatedly come under attack during the last ten years. There was a period several years ago when Somalis sold large numbers of cattle at unusually low prices to Swahili eager to reconstitute herds diminished by raiders from the interior. Over the following year, however, virtually all of the stock and many other animals were stolen in a series of well-organized attacks. The implication is traders with excess livestock simply transfered cattle to lush areas of the coast as a temporary holding ground.

This and subsequent predation that reduced formerly wealthy Swahili cattle traders to small shopkeepers and farmers also effectively reduced competition in the Mombasa market, now dominated by traders based in Garissa. A similar pattern is discernable in Tana River District, where local Swahili claim recent raids are calculated to drive out the Swahili-Arab traders who originally pioneered commerce in this remote area. This reveals a new aspect of shifta calculated to abet the expansion of larger ethnic trade networks originally financed by cattle sales.

The anonymous quality of the raiders and dispersed distribution of traders disguises the reality that this criminality is still embedded in ethnic competition. Conflict resolution in these circumstances is a unambiguous matter of state security--which has proved inneffective despite large numbers of army and security personnel posted to the area.

The Orma inhabitants of the adjacent hinterland, in contrast to commercially-oriented Swahili ranchers, are completely dependent on cattle. Orma resistance has galvanized after years of more "traditional' shifta attacks. They adopted the tactic of hot pursuit when raided, and have been able to recover their stock through effective use of their larger numbers, even when they do not possess equivalent firepower.

This and the shifta fatalities incurred by attacks on the Orma has significantly discouraged raiding over the past several years. Professional bandits, like hired soldiers of fortune, simple shift their energies elsewhere when the risk factor becomes to great. Despite long-standing negative associations of banditry with ethnic Somalis, it is Garissa's Kenyan Somalis who are now the main victims of highway robbery.

Ever since the British demobilized their calvary by banning horses as weapons, the Borana have been on the receiving end of their neighbors aggression. Northeastern Province's increasingly commercial banditry has made it necessary for their neighbor's to the east to acquire modern weapons. That the Boran did not do this earlier requires explanation.

One reason is linguistic and economic: purchasing guns through the greater Oromo network extending into Ethiopia was obviously more difficult and expensive during the Mengistu period. Another explanation lies in the more subsistence- orientated economy of Boran and Samburu cattle herders, and their comparatively low level of economic diversification. Also, most of the ethnic groups occupying the area bisected by the Isiolo-Moyale highway (Isiolo, Samburu, and Marsabit districts) are historically linked in some way, and have relied upon the state for protection against external threats. The spread of automatic rifles in Isiolo and environs has therefore occurred in the context of ongoing group competition for resources.

The odd shape of Isiolo District reflects its haphazard creation by the British, and it has been contested turf ever since. Most of the District was Samburu land during the distant past, and Chanler's 1893 map indicates the Somali were already established in the eastern portions. It was given to the Borana in exchange for Wajir, which was turned over to the Somali on the British premise that their expansionary behavior could be better managed by consolidating and confining them within one contiguous block. The colonial adminsitration had a difficult time doing so, and since Kenya independence the district has experienced continuous ethnic jostling.

The state response to the outbreak of shifta aided long-term Somali expansion by reducing the Isiolo Sakuye to destitution by shooting their camels (on the pretext they were Somali accomplices) and by placing the Borana in camps, which had similar results. In matters of grazing pastoral logic abhors a vacuum. As a consequence, the mixed camel/cattle/small livestock Ogaden economy and Degodia Benadir camel-abetted expansion has exerted constant pressure to expand into unoccupied fringe areas whenever ecological and other conditions diminished their neighbors' herds.

Further north, the historically lower level of competition between conservative camel and cattle-based systems apparently still reduces communal friction among these cultural groups. Degodia Somali acquisition of vigorous Benadir camels at some point in history as explanation for their steady encroachment at the expense of the 'conservative' Ajuran camel system also tallies with the precolonial model. The diffusion of guns throughout Northeastern Province accounts for Degodia pressure on Borana pastures as well.

Conflicts among historical neighbors still remain amenable to mediation. Borana relations with the Samburu have been generally stable, while clan elders and administrative arbitration has been adequate to keep hostilities with neighbors on the Somali boundary within reasonable limits. Turkana raids on the Samburu's western flank have followed the same pattern. Conflict in this area thus falls within the raid-or-be-raided tradition of maintaining buffer zones category.

During the 1990s the Borana acquired weapons facailitating counter-raids across their border. This led to a politically-brokered non-agression pact of sorts with the Degodia several years ago, and the active peacemaking efforts of the current crop of pastoral parliament ministers reduced other Boran-Somali grazing-raiding conflicts, while defensive aggression has largely neutralized the Garissa Somali threat to Isiolo during the last two years. Access for weapons have therefore restored a measure of parity. But the delicate equilibrium achieved after decades of instability has been offset by Samburu acquisition of modern weaponry.

The Samburu purchased their guns from the Borana, ostensibly to defend themselves against Turkana incursions. But during 1996 they attacked Degodia encampments of Degodia who had shifted into Isiolo in search of pasture, reportedly to preempt potential Somali expansion into their grazing lands.

People were killed and the Somali's claimed compensation but negotiations bogged down in the presence of recriminations and high levels of political noise. The Samburu were willing to agree to cease hostilities, but they were not willing to pay compensation as they considered the score to be even at this point.

Neutrality in the presence of third party aggression can also advance one's cause. The Borana remained aloof from the negotiations. This self-interested neutrality angered the Samburu, who later attacked the Borana in Merti, killing sixteen people. The usual macchinery for mediation involving clan elders, elected representatives, and the district administration was activated. The MP for Isiolo South expressed Borana sentiments when he said that guns were new to the Samburu, who apparently did not realize the potency of their new toys. He advised them they should go practice on wild animals before raiding people. The Borana later revenged the attack, stealing substantial cattle while making a point of not shooting people. The Somalis also retaliated later that year.

These clashes still represented a manageable variation on localized conflict up to this point. But he severity of the attacks as presented in the press, coming after a series of violent conflicts to the north, created something of a national uproar. The most publicized event was a massive raid by a large contingent of armed Turkana that continued to receive exposure after fleeing raiders holed up in the remote Suguta Valley shot down a helicopter carrying the Samburu District Commissioner.

Local clashes making national headlines receive serious administrative attention. The government machinery went to work, but it appears the raids on the Samburu were exaggerated and the damage blown out of proportion. One inside source even said the pictures of burnt manyattas that featured in The Standard were faked.

This last observation illustrate the problems arising when grass-roots sources on up who regularly distort information are amplified. Local and national politicians exploit raiding and rustling between communities for their own purposes, while the state elite exploits these politicians to advance their own aims. Localized conflicts become proxy battles fought on different levels of the system. The cattle connection camouflages the political interests served by voices within the government who maintain that cattle rustling is a way of life in certain parts of the country.

Indirect competition and shadow boxing in various socioeconomic domains is a well-established technique for forestalling public confrontation in Kenya. Antagonists will knowingly tolerate fictionalizing to establish common ground for negotiation, as the anecdote about the Rendille-Somali conflict illustrates. This example of indigenous information massaging to promote conflict resolution, however, stands in direct contrast with on-the-ground information problems that impede public security.

Because cattle rustling is a team enterprise, the victims always identify their attackers in ethnic terms, but conceal their own violators. This obfuscates the already fuzzy border separating criminality and political violence, complicating law enforcement. Opaqueness and the manipulation of information on higher levels is a dangerous game that sometimes perpetuates reciprocal raiding and long-running local conflicts. It becomes even more dangerous game, however, when it assumes an international dimension, as the repression of Ethiopia's Oromo demonstrates.

Ethiopia's state policies of decentralization and regional autonomy disguises the Tigrean political leadership's methods for enforcing their domestic hegemony. Though Oromo are appointed to head regional administration in their home areas, the real decision-making power resides in the military units attached to the district headquarters. Tigrean control of local commerce in these areas is the more serious problem. The government waved duties and taxes on imports for the northern region, citing the need for reconstruction after their long struggle against the Mengistu state. The flow of these goods throughout the country, however, has allowed Tigrean merchants to take control of local economies, marginalizing the Oromo and other potential ethnic threats to the government.

The net outcome is greater ethnic polarization under the guise of democratic governance, with attendant ramifications for northern Kenya. Formerly vibrant trade across the border has stagnated, and the formerly friendly ambiance joining Moyalew Kenya and Moyale Ethiopia has evaporated. Rising Oromo nationalism in Ethiopia is complemented by a corresponding sympathy for the concept of an independent Oromia in Kenya, and claims that Ethiopia has used traditional enemies of the Borana to extend their anti-Oromo campaign into kenya under the guise of raiding.

The Burji are agriculturalists from the southern Ethiopian highlands that sttled on Mt. Marsabit in 1923. They have parlayed their agricultural production into a formidable commercial enterprise spanning Nairobi, Marsabit, Moyale, and the Ethiopian interior. Where Borana-Oromo trade has been frozen, they continue to import Kenya manufactures into Ethiopia and transport of cattle out to more lucrative Kenyan market. Land issues in Marsabit that place Burji-Borana relations on testy footings for some time erupted in violence during late 1996. This was followed by a spate of particularly brutal 'shifta'` attacks on the Isiolo Marsabit road. to incidents of violence. The trucks that came under attack were exclusively Burji, and the raiders are believed to be Borana.

Relations between Kenya and Ethiopia have been on an even keel for over three decades, even durring the Ethiopian revolution and the radical Afro-Marxism that followed. This is no longer the case as the consolodation of Tigrean-Eritrean condominium in the north poses a serious threat to ethnic equilibria in the south. The call by Kenya's deputy speaker of the house for compensation from the Ethiopian government for Kenyan deaths marks a significant shift in scale from local pastoralists claims for the same some months earlier. In the end state manipulation of ethnic subnationalism has curtailed the small-scale regional trade essential for reinforcing private sector linkages that offset dependence on subsistence strategies.

The modern Turkana situation highlights the larger regional influence on local security and conflict. The Turkana were the first pastoral group to promote a shift from tribal warriors to a professional militia, a development culminating out of changes instigated by political prophets. These modern warriors achieved an impressive record of battlefield success during the early years of colonialism, but they eventually self-destructed in a destructive orgy of internal plundering once neutralized by an enhanced British response.

After independence the revival of armed raiding established ngoroko (cattle raider) alongside shifta as part of the new Kenyan vocabulary. Ngoroko subsided during the post-Kenyatta era with the influx of aid resources and developers who virtually made Turkana the ward of international agencies and NGOs. This coincided with the Moi government's strategy of incorporating Rift Valley tribes into the ruling coalition, which created the informal KAMATUSA (Kalenjin-Maasai-Turkana-Samburu) Nilotic alliance similar to the role of the Bantu GEMA (Gikuyu-Embu-Meru Association) during Kenyatta's rule.

Before commercial trade made rifles available in Kenya over the past several years, government enforcement of gun controls placed Kenyan pastoralists at a considerable disadvantage vis a vis their counterparts living across the Ugandan, Sudanese, and Ethiopian borders. The Turkana were not able to carry weapons like their enemies in neighboring countries could, yet the state could not insure security of borders either.

This made the Turkana, especially the more 'domesticated' southern population, particularly vulnerable to traditional antagonists like the Karamoja, Toposa, and Murille, and other non-traditional raiders based in Sudan. To make things worse, political exigencies accompanying the leadup to political pluralism in Kenya left them highly exposed to raids by their traditional but now armed Pokot enemies operating under the protection of their hawkish cabinet minister, the Hon. Francis Lotodo.

Until recently Turkana's national politicians have been a passive lot not inclined to make noise about their constituents predicament in parliament. This led the Turkana to abandon their dependence on the national government. They started looking north to Lokitaung instead, rearmed, and started giving as good as they got, as the following account illustrates.

The Attack on the Didinga

The Turkana have died in great numbers over the past decade. Now we have a leader who speaks out on our behalf (Turkana South MP Francis Ewaton), and we place our interests before KANU, whose leaders were only interested in using us. We started looking to the Turkana in Lokitaung who have never given up Turkana ways when we got tired of being attacked by others, including the Pokot who steal our cattle, and take some of them to Tugen. When we raid them back, government helicopters came and massacred our people as they drove the cattle back.

So people started buying guns from Sudan, which enable us to go after the cattle we have lost over the years. The Turkana raided the Pokot last year, but hid the cattle; four hundred men with AK-47s disguised themselves among rock outcrops. When the helicopter came, they fired all at once and it crashed.

During the last dry season a large number of Turkana from this area, maybe a thousand men--most whom had rifles, got together and trekked to Sudan. The Didinga are just like the Turkana. Though they are not many, they too raided us during the recent past. We walked and walked, and arrived near Didinga Hill late at night. We quietly surrounded their settlement without alerting them, then, during the hour before dawn, we started shooting into their midst.

We shot and shot and shot without regard for bullets, which are cheap these days. They never had a chance to fight back, and the whole place was covered with blood, lots of blood! When the sun came up we moved in and took their cattle. It was everyone for himself, and each person drove his cattle back to Turkana by themselves, and following different routes. I got four heifers, but some people didn't get any. I made it back to my father's place (outside Lodwar), gave him one and sold the rest. Afterall, I am not a cattle herder myself.

The story reveals several reocurring themes of modern cattle raiding: the role of unemployed youth and non-pastoralist raiders; disenchantment with the government; indiscriminate killing not sparing women and children; and acquisition of commercial resources.

Little in the way of ethnic ideology or Turkana nationalism figured in general discussion of the local situation. Other than an indirect reference to age set influence, this raid's organization appeared ad hoc and motivated by an opportunism legitimized by the violence inflicted upon the Turkana during the recent past.

Lokichoggio, the small town near the Sudanese border serving as the logistical base for the United Nation's Operation Lifeline Sudan, also supports a small commercial sector and expanding informal settlement. Didinga agro-pastoralist inhabiting an ecologically favorable micro-niche now produce foodstuffs including onions, tomatoes, and even miraa for this market. One can only suspect that the measure of prosperity naturally converted into cattle is what prompted the raid.

It is hard to talk about development working to prevent this type of conflict. For several decades Turkana has receive international development assistance that even the most benevolent Kenyan government could not match, including a new tarmac road that the government did provide. Though most of these grand schemes failed miserably, they did reduce considerably the district's isolation, and may yet appear benign compared to the gold rush now in progress.

Lately Oxfam and the governments of Kenya and Uganda have collaborated to implement a well-informed and innovative program to reduce the weapons fueling Turkana-Karamoja raiding. Its success has been repoted widely. During the intensifying drought conditions of 1997 both sides somehow reacquired firearms suddenly and resumed hostilities. But guns may not be the cause in any event. Several months before the Pokot laid seige to Kainuk, the trading center on the border of Turkana and West Pokot Districts, for three days running. Two security people were among the causualties. The Pokot have raided Kainuk many timers, but never terrorized the town for more than a few hours. Moreover, for reasons best known to themselves, or perhaps to make a point, they left their guns behind and used bows and arrows in their place.

Up to this point we examined how the role of firearms as inputs into cattle production and trade has reinforced the commercialization of criminality. The cultural context of criminality has catalyzed further acquistion of guns for defense and territorial expansion. Enhanced firepower has increased the incidence of inter-group violence, and swelled the ranks of bush criminals previously limited to Somali shifta and ngoroko rustlers once prominent in Turkana areas.

Now we look at the third category of markets by returning to miraa in order to assess the impact of social consumption. Miraa distribution is an efficient business famous for its record of surmounting barriers that deter other forms of trade. Its status as an indigenous social commodity highly valued by pastoral peoples allowed miraa traders to pass through bandit infested areas.

Informal protocols formerly governed the relationship between shifta and miraa transporters, who carried extra miraa and cigarettes for any shifta who might stop them en route. Other Meru traders moving between the Nyambenes and the NFD at worse expected to be peacefully robbed when a raised rifle on isolated roads signalled them to stop. The driver and passengers would then abandon their landrover and possessions to the highwaymen, who took what they wanted and disappeared back into the bush. With the indiscriminate violence accompanying the rise of commercial banditry these protocols have broken down. Still, traders only started shipping miraa to Wajir, Mandera, and other distant towns by plane when forced to by administrative edict.

Khat-chewing technicals waging war in Mogadishu brought miraa into the international spotlight. Western media labelled miraa a drug of war, and assistant Secretary of State, Cohen, described them as khat-crazed Rambo's getting pumped up for evening raids on McNeill-Lehrer News Hour. First impressions are important. US Customs recategorized cathine as a controlled substance in order to halt the small quantities of miraa finding its way into North America's Somali, Ethiopian, and Yemenese communitie. Some Western European governments restricted it as well, not because of the cathnine or its pharmacology, but because of the nuisance created by Somali traders clashing over shipments arriving at airports.

Back in the Horn of Africa, however, miraa was finding new acceptance among the Westerners as well as Somalis enduring the chaotic conditions in the war zone. Physiologically, Catha edulis discourages physical exertion. Labor-intensive miraa consumption typically induces chewers to clump together and verbally expand for hours across the full spectrum of social topics. Associating miraa with Rambo-esque behavior is tantamount to labelling Toyota (maker of the Landcruisers Somali warlords converted into battlewagons) a defense contractor. Mutual dialogue between users and critics over miraa's role among the urban poor, medicinal properties, and links to criminal activity will only become productive when its detractors recognize it as a dependent variable in most situations.

Miraa, as noted earlier, generates an easy-going attitude towards social intercourse that identifies its social consumption as facilitating multicultural interaction. Weir devotes an entire volume to analyzing its integrative effect in Yemen's tribally and socially stratified society. Krikorian and Getahun note its role in promoting social connections across religious, ethnic, and class lines in Ethiopia. Miraa consumption certainly encourages the same in Kenya, and social opposition has softened as it spread out of the Swahili-Somali ethnic ghettoes to embrace the nation's greater social diversity.

The Njuri Ncheke derived legitimacy miraa enjoys in Nyambene society in part mirrors its salutary influence in deliberations aimed at resolving conflicts--characteristics that have seen informal miraa baraza evolve as nodes for arbitrating communal conflict in many other places. Councils like the Njuri administered justice through a process aimed at arriving at consensus. All the representatives of disputing parties were allowed to speak, the council then adjourned to discuss earlier precedents and details relevant to the dispute. In the case of doubts the process was repeated.

British administrators keen on incorporating the Njuri into local governance found such long proceedings exasperating. Justice to them, was supposed to be speedy and determined through precise evidence bearing on the case. Indigenous African justice, in contrast, used elders to 'cool'the disputants and manipulated procedure in order to give the parties in conflict time to settle affairs among themselves. In many instances the third party ruling was made only after the failure to due so.

When resolving conflicts is the order of the day miraa gatherings function according to a similar dynamic. Miraa draws individuals from different cultural groups discussed here together in camps, towns, and cities. These mixed fora are common settings for political debates that proceed in the same manner, third parties intervening to cool the discussion when it becomes to heated. Catha edulis is part of the complex of social change that convert traditional enemies on the range like Somali and Borana into allies in other settings.

Miraa facilitates information flows at the same time it reinforces social relations. This has seen miraa join Islam as one of the north's ranking social institutions promoting social ties that can transcend ethnicity. Not suprisingly the main opposition to miraa comes from within the Muslim community. The most common interpretation of Islamic sharia categorizes miraa as makruh, neither illegal nor approved. The more fundamentalist position is that miraa is haram, or forbidden. This was the stance of Iranian agents operating in Mombasa who launched a concerted anti-miraa campaign waged in mosques and in their publications during the early 1980s. The campaign had little impact on consumption, though it may have wakened many local Muslims up to the hard-line realities of the Iranian revolution. Miraa discourse tends to reinforce Muslim identity, and serves as a barrier against alcohol in modernizing situations. In this sense miraa is associated with a more secular and practical Islam buffering the appeal of radical religious ideologies among Kenya's historically marginalized Muslim communities.

Reversion back to Islamic order in areas of Somalia can only be viewed as positive against the backdrop of post-state Somalia's brutish anarchy. Not only miraa, but cigarrettes are banned in Ikhwan controlled areas along the Kenya-Somalia border, where controls on the carrying of guns in public has contributed to restoration of order and law. This has encouraged the trade underpinning social peace in Mandera, and cross-border disputes are now often settled along indigenous, i.e. Islamic principles.

Several months ago raiders killed a shopkeeper in El Wak. The deceased clan elders lodged a suit against their counterparts in Somalia, demanding the offenders be handed over. This happened, but the locals did not turn the accussed over to the Kenya police. Instead the case was tried locally, and the joint jury of elders decided upon a large fine. This was paid, the offenders were returned to the custody of his clan, and the money paid to the widow and children of the decease should be able to support them in place of the nurdered husband. It case of this kind establishes a gichiaro-type bond facilitating the resolution of future conflicts.

Trade helps bind such communities together over the long-term, and that miraa is chewed on the El Wak side of the border points to the future direction of coevolutionary change most likely to stabilize the region. There are many examples of this kind recommending that Western donors relax their rigid opposition to Islam as a radicalizing and anti-Western influence, and tailor their policies according to local developments and the complex variables influencing them instead.

Trade generates competition and conflict, but also reinforces mechanisms of conflict resolution. Market-driven economies are thus associated with more democratic governance where conflict is rationlized and transferred to economic arenas. Political rules governing the socioeconomic system are set by governments and the legal superstructure of the international economy. Indigenous conflict resolution is geared to work within the local system of checks and balances. Modern conflict resolution, in contrast, involves centralized structures, external legal principles, and policing from above. Neither working alone represents a solution to the insecurity in the north. We can, however, assume that the social and political environment will select for complementary components of both as socioeconomic transition proceeds.

The parallels between adaptive indigenous technology and techniques and African governance that continues to defy convential political wisdom extends the ITK paradigm to indigenous conflict resolution (ICR). On the ground mediation requires intimate knowledge of the circumstances and the ability to improvise and fine tune solutions. The reconfiguration of indigenous systems within exotic political orders operating within artifical boundaries nevertheless deems ICR a rather problematic proposition.

In general, we can state that ICR is effective where pre-exisitng structures or linkages exist. The Njuri Ncheke was able to settle the conflict at Kya Mwitu on the basis of historical evidence. It was not as effective when the Tharaka from the lowlands on the other side of the Nyambenes invaded Igembe in 1995, probably because the historical connection (on the njuri level) was not as strong, and because there appeared to be high level political input on each side.

Managing conflict under conditions of social diversity and economic inequalities is not a matter of prevention, but one of damage control and containment within the local arena they occur. The example of the Igembe-Tigania hostilities notwithstanding, Kenya's ongoing administrative sub-division that is reshaping district, division, and location borders along ethnic and clan boundaries will probably facilitate such compartmentalization of local conflicts.

In this case study, though the overall impact of trade is positive, its significance for regional conflict varies according to commodity and market structures. Free markets for weapons have promoted trade through the commercialization of raiding, and not the modernization of livestock production. Gun markets support the evolving parity among groups also reinforce the shift from group conflict to predatory criminality. As indicated by the Somali and Turkana examples, what initially begins as a form of social banditry eventually turns into an internal pox on the land and its people. At this point in time it has effectively put large areas of northern Kenya off-limits to herders and traders alike.

Trade presumes production, and to paraphrase Ndege's conclusion in his surveying of Kenyan pastoral development during this century, the development of range livestock production is reducible to the expansion of agriculture. It should suffice to say that Kenya's agriculturally oriented post-independence governments have not prioritized pastoral development.

Ecological research and anthropological evidence now confirm that traditional pastoral transhumance is the most adaptive land use for ASAL regions. It may be as ironic as unfortunate that the kind of state initiative directly responsible for Kenya's prosperous small holder coffee, tea, and dairy production have fallen victim to SAPs just as the sector appears to be reaching the threshold of implementing viable technological innovations and social programs. The scope for achieving similar results through private sector input is at best limited; the prospects for local NGO-international research sector collaboration to enhance production are considerable, but the resources for doing so are limited.

Colonial administrators often admired their pastoral wards, but grossly misunderstood the nuances and more subtle underlying dynamics of pastoral cultural systems. Development agencies operating in marginalized environments saw problems through their own specialized filters, and together with the government adopted inflexible methodological approaches to the 'pastoral problem'. Other advocates of ITT development have at times come under the influence of their principals' cattle fetish. This analysis suggests that although livestock are the northern region's primary economic resource, animals are not necessarily the key to economic growth. This is based on the balance between environmental carrying capacity and demographic growth, internal sectoral trends supporting large herd owner dominance, and problems associated with the commercialization of banditry likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

Optimizing production though desireable, stabilizing production by minimizing the effects of drought is a more realistic goal. Under these circumstances it is highly unlikely that the livestock sector can generate either the income generation or income distribution necessary for regional development to take off on its own. Even the prospect of rising livestock prices over the foreseeable future is not likely to counter demographic pressures on existing resources.

It may be that conflict within the livestock sector has actually accelerated urbanization and economic specialization that would have otherwise occurred more slowly. Half the population of Isiolo District now resides in Isiolo town. Other formerly small administrative-commercial outposts in NFD have mushroomed into large towns. Historical examples of coevolutionary syntheses versus monocultural dominance favor the prospect of progress catalyzed by the human resources, commercial linkages, economic potential, communications, and other factors concentrated in these urban nodes.

In the presence of poor educational performance and limited acquisition of skills, however, many pastoralists poised to become economically active will face the choice between safe but low paying employment, like providing for others security, or the considerably riskier but more remunerative criminal options. These vectors highlight the fact that there is no substitute for effective state security. The prospects for trade generated economic activity are considerable, though this will likely depend upon the expansion of commodity circulation into the wider regional shell including portions of Siomalia, Ethiopia, and Sudan. Without skillful political guidance on the part of national leaders this may be problematic.

Many analyses of ethnic conflict trace blame to the state. The state is invariably culpable by virtue of government action or lack of action in some cases; simply by virtue of just being there in others, and as of late, by virtue of not being there. This theoretical approach assumes the state is both capable of and responsible for policing the populations within national borders, and defending the nation against external threats. Africa's cultural diversity makes this more difficult, and national borders that divide ethnic communities more so.

State enforced security has tended to created as many problems as it solved in the north. The record of state policing in the NFD has led to a consistent record of repression and human rights abuses perpetuated on all populations of the north. The record of home guards has been better, and dovetails with many pastoral victims view that employing their own people represents the the best option for effective police protection. Free circulation of modern rifles has achieved similar results, but creates new problems both in respect to reinforcing centrifugal ethnic proclivities and through the implications for urban crime.

British colonial policy sought to contain Somali expansion by consolidating the Somali within one contiguous block. They demobilized the Borana calvary by banning horses, which they defined as as weapons. In the process they undermined indigenous conflict control predicated on intersecting orbits and periodic contact among groups, and were unable to maintain the Somali line.

Today's condition still require the threat of deterrence provided by a police presence. Though experienced police officers who have served in the area maintain that with proper equipment and moral-boosting support the force is capable of ensuring security, a shift in this direction is not likely to happen in the near future. When the states on Kenya's borders stabilize, a well-planned police dragnet across districts and ethnic groups may be able to sanitize the region of weapons. Until that time the police will have to rely on current ad hoc approach.

During his tenure as Kenya Police Commissioner the recently retired Shadrack Kiruki advocated society-police cooperation as the basis of more effective law enforcement. Examples highlighting internally regulated group relations that bypass the state legal institutions highlighted by developments in Mandera District project this policy a step further.

Such indigenous dynamics belie Laiten and Fearon's (1996) observation that ethnic cooperation often prevails over the potential for conflict in Africa. The authors outline two pathways of inter-group equilibria relevant to the problem at hand. In-group policing maintains peace by subjecting individual violators upsetting inter-group equilibria to internal control--the other group defers to the violator's own people possessing more accurate information of the "opportunists" to balance relations. The spiralling regime of group equilibrium is based on the mutual costs incurred by provoking deterence.

Traditional conflict resolution conforms with these models. Ethnicity and its sharply defined social boundaries is positive in the internal control context requiring dense social networks provide intelligence. Outside deterrence in the northern Kenya, however, has worked mainly to punish the innocent. Both models highlight the importance of information, and neutral mediators whose access to information from both sides engenders trust among conflicting parties.

Three sets of actors are critical for police-community cooperation to work along the these lines these lines in Kenya. Local MPs are the key middlemen who can either mediate or amplify the 'noise' created by incidences of individual and group transgression.; district administrators, especially district officers, who in this author's humble experience are generally competent and dedicated grass-roots administrators committed to their work; and the area's ranking police officers (OCPD, OCS, et al).

The majority of northern MPs are conscientous peacemakers stressing information over noise. All three groups are vastly under-compensated for the responsibilities they shoulder, but the police who stand in the line of fire most often are also under-equipped and poorly housed. The head of the Marsabit County Council equated police lack of transport and support to "a lion without teeth; the columnist John Githongo's observation that "we treat them like animals and they do the same to us" sums up the latter problem. Toothless lions prey on the disadvantaged and weak. Taking action to rectify these demoralizing conditions are the logical first step in any policy to stem the flow of blood and increase the circulation of goods.