Truth report unmasks the Sabaot militia

The Sabaot Land Defence Force was formed by large landowners in Mount Elgon who wanted to maintain their grip on illegally acquired holdings, the truth report says.

The militia group was responsible for the deaths of more than 600 people and the displacement of 66,000 between 2006 and 2008 when it was crushed by the army.

SLDF, the report says, was born out of a group called Chepkurur and Korngotuny Community Based Organisation, which was formed around 2002. Its initial objective was to peacefully resist sub-division of their land in Chebyuk settlement scheme.

Its membership consisted of elders from the Soy clan who owned huge tracts of land in the scheme. This land was irregularly acquired in the 60s and 70s when the government started settling people in Chebyuk.

Members of the group included Mr Patrick Komon, the father of Wycliffe Matakwei, who was to become the military commander of the SLDF and Mr Jason Psongoywo Manyiror Tirop, a Laibon (spiritual leader).

Both owned more than 200 hectares and stood to lose the most in government efforts to formally resettle the landless, the report says. The report says these men were unapologetic about their hold on such vast tracts of land.

“The land belonged to my father. That is where I was born. It was not possible for anyone to go into that land because it was my grandfather’s land,’’ Mr Tirop, one of those arrested in the crackdown on SLDF, told the commission.

To make matters worse, the Soy land owners would have to share it with their Mosop (Ndorobo) clan rivals. For people like Komon and Tirop, it meant from owning 200 hectares, they would left with two hectares.

In March 2006, when survey was done and the government released, a final list of beneficiaries of the land, the report says, things reached a point of no return and SLDF was born.

“Once that list was published, there was no going back to a kinder, gentler time when differences might have been civilly discussed. As one witness put it, the list was an indication that ‘blood would now flow on Mr Elgon’.

A witness tells the commission that former Mount Elgon MP Fred Kapondi played a role in the formation of the militia group and that it helped in his election to Parliament in 2007. Mr Kapondi, who was arrested over the violence but freed when the state dropped charges, denies both claims in his testimony to the commission.

The reports says a delegation of the CBO travelled to Nairobi to lobby then MP John Serut to convince the government to halt its resettlement plans.

Mr Serut, himself a Soy but a vocal supporter of the land sub-division, ignored the delegation.

A member of the delegation told the commission: “So we talked to Hon Kapondi who was also in Nairobi. He was the one who gave us the idea of coming up with war – that may be we could fight our neighbours, the Ndorobo’’ .

The commission says there is no indication that Mr Kapondi had any formal involvement with the CBO in the initial months. However, given their status in the community as Soy elders, it is more than likely that Mr Kapondi was aware of them and their activism.

The report says soon after the Nairobi encounter, other meetings were held in Mt Elgon, including one at Mr Komon’s home.

In attendance were Mr Kapondi, Mr Benson Chesikak and Mr Nathan Warsama who were later elected councillors in 2007 and Mr Tirop, the spiritual leader. The report quotes Mr Kapondi as telling those at the meeting:

“You must fight so that the government can realise that your land cannot be taken away from you. Then, finally, you will be given your land.’’

Mr Kapondi has denied the claims in the report handed to the President.