IDPs should be resettled in a peaceful environment

Published on May 24, 2008, 12:00 am

By Dr Kiplege Zochin

Resettling displaced persons in Rift Valley requires a sustainable mechanism for peace building and conflict resolution which may entail participatory strategies.
The efforts should involve the affected communities and their leaders. We cannot afford the consequences of forced resettlement.

Dialogue should be initiated in all affected areas. Chiefs and their assistants, councillors, church leaders and local elders should be involved in the peace talks. Each group should be encouraged to express their fears and suspicions.

Forced settlement will not work. It was recently reported that IDPs felt the Government was coercing host communities to accept them back. This was confirmed last week when IDPs who had been transported back to their farms in Burnt Forest returned to their camps. Mr Julius Nderitu, an IDP from Rukuini farm in Uasin Gishu District, reportedly said the situation on the ground forced him to return to the camp.

"You cannot force your way into enemy territory without reconciliation. Now they think we want to forcefully go back there, yet it is the Government that wants us to," he said. And Archbishop Cornelius Korir of Eldoret Catholic Diocese called on the Government to pursue dialogue.

Agriculture Minister, Mr William Ruto, concurs. He recently visited the IDPs at the Eldoret Showground accompanied by some Rift Valley MPs. He is reported to have told the victims to move only when they were ready, and that they should not be forced out of the camps.

The different communities should be brought together to discuss how they can co-exist without suspicion. It should involve striking deals on issues of mutual interest that cement their relationship. Their resolutions should be documented through minutes for future references.


Peace-building and conflict resolution

The proceedings of such meetings should be made sacred through prayers led by traditional and religious leaders. The local administration and humanitarian agencies can come in as facilitators.

Everybody’s participation in peace-building and conflict resolution will help protect the remaining limited resources. This includes human lives and infrastructure. Reconstruction is therefore an expensive undertaking.

We should build peace through initiatives that ensure destruction does not happen again.

Aid agencies have a crucial role in conflict prevention. This entails early warnings, grassroots peace building and networking with responsible decision-makers. The challenge of putting in place preventive measures to conflict is a fundamental global concern.

Two functions are expected of humanitarian and aid agencies. First is to give early warnings before a conflict erupts or escalates.

Second, they should engage the community in a gradual process to change attitude, perception and biased beliefs through education workshops, conflict transformation and conflict resolution.

Early warnings imply proactively taking part in actions that counter a plausible conflict. An aid agency working in a particular area needs to be on the alert, regularly making analyses of the political and social situation.

The challenge, therefore, is for these agencies to design strategic engagements to prevent conflict.

During last year’s election campaigns, the Government and peace agencies should have expected any eventuality, including inter-ethnic violence. They should have taken corrective measures to avert the post-election skirmishes.

This also puts into sharp focus the Government’s own early warning systems, through the National Security Intelligence Service.

There is need for present and future coordinated efforts towards conflict prevention.
We need sustainable peace-building and conflict resolution.

-The writer (ronzochin@yahoo.com) is a management consultant in Nairobi

http://www.eastandard.net/commentaries/?id=1143987132&cid=15