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ALL AFRICA NEWS AGENCY (AANA) BULLETIN No. 43/02 (b)
November 4, 2002

All Africa News Agency
P. O. BOX 66878 NAIROBI, KENYA.
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AANA Bulletin
Editor - Mitch Odero

Bulletin APTA
Acting Editor - Silvie Alemba

Kenyans To Hold Elections Under Old Constitution

NAIROBI (AANA) November 4 - Kenyans will go to polls on December 27, 
following the dissolution of the Eight Parliament by President Daniel Arap 
Moi on October 25, the chairman of the Electoral Commission of Kenya ECK Mr 
Samuel Kivuitu confirmed here last week.

He said the president announced the development in conformity with powers 
entrusted upon him by section 59 (2) of the country's Constitution, adding 
that the information had been gazetted.

  He further added that an estimated 10,451,657 Kenyan voters were 
scheduled to take part in this exercise, where they will elect president, 
parliamentary representatives as well as civic leaders (councillors).

The country's last general elections were held on I997	when an estimated 
8, 967, 570 Kenyan voters took part the country's second general elections 
held under multiparty system, introduced in 1991.

Following this development, it is now confirmed that the country would go 
to polls under the old Constitution, as Moi's dissolution of the Parliament 
has disrupted the current on-going review process on the country's 
Constitution.

Moi, who has all along been very critical of its work, told the public that 
the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission CKRC would stay dissolved until 
the Ninth Parliament comes into existence early next year.

But this was not well received, and more so among politicians, lawyers and 
religious circles many of who questioned the legal validity of the 
president's statement.

There was widespread contention that the Constitution did not empower the 
President to dissolve the Review Constitution Commission. The critics said 
the review process was instituted by an Act of Parliament and that only 
through it  could it be dissolved.

CKRC Chairman Professor Yash pal Ghai, one of those who were nerve-touched 
by Moi's action, dismissed reports that the Commission has been dissolved, 
observing that no one has powers to make such a move.

He noted that the review process was a statutory organ formed through an 
Act of Parliament. The commission can only be dissolved when a new 
Constitution is in place, said Ghai..

Attorney-General Amos Wako, while addressing the issue, seemed to have 
contradicted the President, by stating publicly that CKRC was still intact 
and that the commission can only be dissolved through enactment of a new 
Constitution or repeal of the Act that set up the Commission.

But as he spoke, 15 opposition political parties under the main opposition 
political parties alliance, National Rainbow Coalition, signed a Memorandum 
of Understanding  (MOU) with the faiths-led Ufungamano Initiative 
undertaking to "support and pursue a process leading to a new Constitution" 
by June next year.

Reported by Osman Njuguna

  SPECIAL   REPORTS

A Lesson In Cattle Rearing: A Tale Of Two Cultures

MAASAILAND,Kenya (AANA) November 4 - A hundred years ago, the United States 
government subdivided the pastoral land in Arizona, New Mexico in the hope 
that freehold ownership of land would spur growth in its livestock industry.

True, the beef and diary industries are some of the most productive in the 
world, but cattle people in the region now say that their source livelihood 
faces a serious threat as result of the overuse of the land.

A century since the fragmentation of the land into small individual 
holdings, the Malpai people, the natives of this arid and semi-arid state 
want the their government to allow them to manage their resources in the 
same way the Maasai and the Fulani herdsmen of the sub-Saharan Africa do.

The American cowboys visited Kenya recently with a view to learning from 
the Maasai and the Samburu pastoralists how they have been able to manage 
their ecosystem, despite many centuries of climate-related disasters.

The Kenyan and American indigenous communities, whose economic activities 
are basically pastoralism, want present legislation in their two countries 
to revert to communally-owned land systems to protected the ecosystems in 
the arid and semi-arid land from further deterioration through 
fragmentation in favour of sedentary farming.

The two pastoralist communities are also exploring possibilities of 
starting exchange programmes to enable them to complement other's skills in 
the management of the ecosystems, livestock and supplementing their income 
by investing in ecotourism and indigenous culture.

During their visit to Kenya, a group of cowboys  - the Malpai Borderland 
Group - from Arizona, New Mexico, visited the Maasai in southern Kenya and 
the Samburu pastoralists of northern Kenya.

They sought to learn from them how, besides livestock-keeping, they have 
been able to keep their culture relatively unadulterated by Western 
influences. Maasai culture is an important ingredient in the tourism 
industry, or as it has become to be known, culture tourism in Kenya.

The cowboys, led by the president of the Malpai Borderland Group, Bill 
Miller, said that, after a century of overuse of their land following 
subdivision into smaller parcels, their land and cattle had become less 
productive, unlike those owned by their Kenyan counterparts.

The Malpai Borderland Group, is one of the most influential groups in the 
US, which for the past 10 years since its formation, has tried to justify 
the future of livestock economies, rangeland and wildlife had been degraded 
by subdivision of land.

Miller said that Arizona, with only one rain season, is one of the driest 
parts of the US. The ecology is comparable to livestock rangelands in 
Kenya, which have in recent years experienced extreme weather conditions. 
In 1997, the El Nino rains resulted in flash floods that killed many 
pastoralists and cattle in Kenya's dry lands.

The following year, the country's arid and semi-arid regions experienced 
prolonged drought that, again, resulted in the death of cattle. According 
one of the leaders of the Shompole Maasai Group Ranch, which hosted the 
American cowboys during their visit, the loss of livestock necessitated a 
diversification of their sources of income.

With the assistance of the African Conservation Centre (ACC), said Katenya, 
the group has invested its financial resources in bee keeping, ecotourism 
and culture. "In the eight months we have in existence, our organisation, 
which has a membership of 1,500, has earned KShs 1 million (about US 
$12,500) from the lodges we have built on our 62,000 hectare ranch," said 
Katenya.

Arizona, like most parts of northern and southern Kenya, is arid and its 
economic mainstay is cattle keeping. Also, like their Kenyan counterparts, 
the Malpai herdsmen were once nomadic, roaming with their large stocks of 
cattle over the rangelands in search of water and pasture during the dry 
season.

To overcome the pasture and water deficits caused by prolonged droughts, 
the Malpai pastoralists, whose agricultural technology more advanced, now 
use grass banks to offset the pasture deficit. In these banks succulent 
fodder is harvested during the rain season and stored for as long as five 
years.

While the technology ensure supply of fodder during the dry season, Miller 
says it strains the land in the sense that it does not allow the grass to 
regenerate and provide a protective cover to the soil, which during the dry 
season is exposed to erosion. The land is now desolate after heavy use of 
artificial fertiliser to plant pasture.

The Maasai move with their animals to areas with grass, thus allowing the 
grass and other plants to regenerate. Most part of Kenya's rangelands, save 
for cattle-grazing, are largely virgin.

"When the land on which the Malpai rear their livestock was divided into 
small units of about 100 acres and fenced, the holding capacity of the land 
was compromised through overuse of the ecology," said Dr David Western, 
director of the ACC.

Western, a former director of the Kenya Wildlife Service, said that Maasai 
too faced a similar threat owing to rapid population growth and a shift in 
the country's land management systems towards freehold.

Land in Kenya's rangelands, which also host the country national parks, is 
held in trust by the government for the nomadic communities. These regions, 
which make up about 85 per cent of the country's landmass, are gradually 
being turned into ranches to encourage sedentary farming.

Katenya said that in the event of a repeat of the recent extreme weather 
conditions, the pastoralists would lose their main source of livelihood. 
The semi-arid ecology in Arizona, said Miller, had resulted in the 
degradation of the land; the quality of life and now the cowboys are no 
longer able to manage their resources during the dry spells.

The wild fire-prone Arizona state, he said, experiences frequent shortages 
of pasture, which had necessitated the establishment of grass banks, which 
Miller says would be important to the Maasai cowboys, whose livestock die 
in large in dry seasons.

"We have come to share our experiences with the Maasai who have been using 
their land resources for hundreds of years, to learn how they avoid 
droughts, manage their livestock under extreme ecological conditions and 
the impact of land subdivision into smaller units," he said.

The one area of the Maasai lifestyle that fascinated the Americans was the 
former's indepth knowledge of the ethno-veterinary. The Kenyan 
pastoralists, through experience, have been able to use herbal medicine to 
treat their livestock and themselves.

The Maasai have not had access to government health facilities since 
independence owing to their nomadic lifestyle and also their aversion to 
sedentary farming. Planners in Kenya have often argued that the wandering 
nature of the pastoralists had undermined the government policy of taking 
services closer to the people.

Today, says Katenya, pastoralists have lowest rates of education in Kenya 
because the country's lows and policies target then population that 
practise sedentary farming.

Western, who facilitated the meeting of the two pastoralist groups, said in 
that in Kenya, "once open range and large ranches are being subdivided and 
sold off to farmers and commercial developers as the livestock industry 
weakens".

He adds that as pressure on natural resources intensifies, "land 
fragmentation and degradation are just as threatening to the migratory 
wildlife herds that typify the rangelands and savannas".

The Maasai will visit Arizona in April next year. The campaign by radical 
ranchers and conservationists from the US and Kenya is funded by the United 
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation to explore the 
possibility of enacting laws that will protect the delicate arid and 
semi-arid ecologies the world caused by fragmentation of land in fragile 
environments.

Reported by Pedro Shipepechero