The 1969 the Nandi Hills Declarations authored by Joseph K. Mitei challenged the Kenyatta government of settling non-Kalenjin’s at the expense of the former owners to land that belonged to the Nandi that had been taken by the white settlers (Daily Nation, 1969). This meeting held in Nandi Hills was championed and attended by radical political leaders who were upset about the invasion of other ethnic communities who were considered to be outsiders in their ancestral land (Oyugi, 2000, p. 7).
In 1991/2 the Luo-Nandi ethnic conflict which broke out coincided with the introduction of multiparty politics in Kenya, although according to oral history, the two ethnic communities have been at loggerheads since time immemorial and this has been established…show more content… The conflict between the Luo and Nandi communities is credited to the agitation of the introduction of political pluralism in Kenya. Oyugi (1998) believes that the 1991/2 ethnic violence was due to the manipulation of Kenyans by those who were in leadership as they rallied support for the competition of power and wealth. He credits the roots of ethnicity in Kenya to the divide and rule card which was played by colonialists. Some of the policies pursued by the colonial regime fostered group manipulation which birthed primordial thought patterns of thinking about other ethnic groups. A prime example is the mass migration of communities to give room for white settlement in fertile land in Nandi, Laikipia, Kiambu, Bungoma, Kisumu and Nyeri. Such a policy polarized ethnic groups and fostered ethnic violence in the early 1990s in the Rift Valley, Central and Western parts of Kenya during and after the 1992 multiparty elections. During this period the Kalenjin, Maasai, Turkana and Samburu (KAMATUSA) tried to forcibly drive out the Luo, Kikuyu and Luhya ethnic communities who they accused of denying them a chance of acquiring power and land in their land (Oyugi, 2000, pp. 7-8). As the tensions along Kisumu and Kericho counties intensified and concentrated along the borders, “The Luo community felt that the police sided with…show more content… Deeds such as cattle rustling/raiding have for a long time been part of the traditional culture of the highland Nilotic group and other pastoralist groups in Kenya. Such traditions causes friction between neighboring communities and causes cyclical conflict. In the Borana, Pokot and Gabbra communities, cattle raiding is rampant because a number in those communities find it is esteemed to raid other communities. In other instances, before one got married they had to raid cattle from neighboring community. In some some communities, immediately after initiation, cattle raiding was mandatory. Once the cattle had been stolen, one acquired a higher status. Such traditions embedded in a people’s culture erodes peacebuilding efforts, increases suspicion and mistrust and weakens ties with neighboring communities (IADC, 2009). Among the Luo and Nandi communities cattle rustling has contributed to the persistent conflicts in the region. The Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) postulates that the intermittent ethnic clashes between the two communities in Muhoroni region is due to cattle rustling/livestock theft, unsolved land grievances and political disputes. Due to the high number of internally displaced people in the region and also the houses and sugarcane farms which were burned down in 2012, the KHRC decided to conduct research in the Kisumu- Nandi county region. Tinderet and Muhoroni were identified as hot spots. In the Tinderet