(RESEARCH DONE IN 2009; A COMMUNICATION)
By: Patrick Devine, PhD
Background
The Turkanas and Dassanechs are nationals of Kenya and Ethiopia respectively. These multi-ethnic nations have undergone and still are undergoing development changes since the mid-20th century. Such change usually leaves behind some individuals, groups, or sections of the national population. The above ethnic communities have been left behind by the change in question. These pastoral neighbouring communities live in a very harsh physical environment where they are exposed to the vagaries of climate/weather and their consequences – drought, occasional floods, famine, preventable ailments, livestock epidemic diseases and deaths, in the face of resource scarcity. These communities live in a region that is quite remote from capital cites which, of course, are the centres of national polity and economy. The region includes a large territorial area of 14,000 square kilometres usually referred to as the Ilemi Triangle, whose ownership is contested by countries which surround it, namely Kenya, Sudan and Ethiopia. The contest of ownership is particularly explicit between Kenya and Sudan. Ethiopia’s claim of ownership is implicit, so to speak, and stems from the claim, if not fact, that the territorial area of the Nyangatom ethnic community which is Ethiopian includes a small part of the Ilemi. The Ilemi region is utilized by both the Turkana and Dassanech for the pasture irrespective of claims and counter-claims of its ownership. By and large there is no state presence manifested by provision of political public goods. Overall, there is no de jure administrative authority. This is an enticement to intercommunal violent conflict – Turkana-Dassanech in this case – with Ilemi and its environs as the platform. The foregoing constitutes the background (the exogenous variable in the language of path analysis) of Turkana-Dassanech conflict as depicted in this research communication.
Read the whole publication in the HIPSIR Peace Dialogue Journal, Click the link below.
http://hipsir.hekima.ac.ke/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Peace-Dialogue-Issue-19.pdf
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See also:
https://shalomconflictcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Copy-of-SCCRR-Report.pdf
https://shalomconflictcenter.org/briefing-paper-no-2-an-analysis-of-turkana-dassenach-conflict/
