In the past we had shifta, the feared bandits of northern and north eastern kenya. They were as much bandit as the pokot. mungiki at the height of notoriety were gangsters. panga wielding Islamic party of kenya IPK youth wingers at the height of notoriety were hooligans.
we now have well defined terrorist manual in kenya. what has changed? dorobo thinks its the race and social class of the bandit’s target. the pokot focuses on peasant cattle herders from neighbouring communities and remains a bandit or the more respectable raider. we will never see a dramatic arrest of pokot raiders on their way to taity or kapedo conducted by special forces. it seems you attain terrorist status if your victims are of reasonable wealth and if they belong to non-african races, and you get assured if you specifically seek israeli and american targets. also if you target modes of travel especially the airplane and train, you earn that title. no doubt anti-terror operations are well funded but why not devote the same resources and urgency to deal with highway robbers, cattle theft, poaching and hit and run drunk drivers?
Resources to neutralize terrorizing parties are based on their capability. Pilot raiders have limited capability and are dealt on one by one. A terrosist in the city demands huge and immediate attention because he can kill hundreds in minutes.
M7 was way ahead of you before the courts came crushing on his parade. He assumed and I liked this, that if you committed a crime using a gun you were to be tried in a court martial and not in civilian courts. If you wielded a gun you were either a militant or in the military. Court Martial in Uganda is no joke.
The same should be applied here. Pokot wakinaswa wanawekwa ndani awaiting court martial or they be treated as terrorists. Just like other terrorists, a gun wielded by a pokot terrorists might not kill 100 people in a day but by the time it is retired it’ll have killed many as every season the terrorists will use it kill say five people, next time he kills three… There is no difference, in my opinion.
why are the mafia not classified as terrorists? There was a time Osama and the Mujahedeen were seen as freedom fighters when they were fighting the soviets and later became terrorists while fighting uncle sam. the Mau Mau were once a terrorist organization till the status was repealed by kibaki. and they were as terrorist as they come. the 'kalenjin warriors’or chinkoro of the PEV/land clashes fame, are they or aren’t they terrorists? going by @uwesmake definition, are we not being taken for a ride by american mongols?
Hao watu hapo juu wako na shida gani na Pokot. Terrorism is basically based on the doctrines of a particular group. Pokot we got no doctrine that commands us to kill, maim or whatever. We simply raid livestock for our own survival. Whatever happens in-between is neither here nor there. Pokot sio terrorist Pokot ni respected cattle rustler’s. Watu waheshimiane aisee. Ni hayo tu
Pokot traditional religion is the source of their terror doctrine. it has radicalizing elements where children are kept out of school to take up musketry lessons. , and they fall below terror radar just because they inhabit arid border regions far from nairobi. The threat is ever grwoing Pokot have diversified to harassing owners of conservancies. they obviously have upscaled threat beyond the traditional peasant herders to moneyed whites. fortunately for them, those whtes are too bantu-nized and lack strong links to america or israel.
why arent south american drug gangs not considered terrorist? why do we cal them drug cartels, just because they dont target the israeli embassy but peasant rival drug dealers? doctrine? there is a weird cult of death in south america that is rooted in a bastardized catholicism that is used to bind members of cartels the way radical islam, mungiki or yakuzi to death. dorobo’s point is we are allocating inordinate resources to an imperialist-driven security agenda and left raia to suffer ancient threats that receive half hearted attention.