Militianisation of resource conflicts: the case of land-based conflict in the Mount Elgon region of Western Kenya

In: ISS monograph series 152

Abstract

The land conflict currently playing out in the Mount Elgon District can be traced back to the colonial policy of alienating African land to create room for white settler farms. In the case of the Sabaot community, their ancestral grazing land on the extensive plains of what is now Trans-Nzoia District was taken away from them in the early 1930s without compensation. Not only did this alienate the community from its means of livelihood, but the dispersal patterns of the displaced members also heralded a process of intra-community differentiation and rivalry that fuels the current conflict