A report by the Transparency International released Thursday ranks Kenya 154 out of 182 countries that were surveyed on the Corruption Perception Index.  Their overall score improved only a fraction of a percent from last year, despite a zero-tolerance campaign by the current government administration in Kenya.

Two Samburu elders who were beaten and arrested during a week of police violence against the Samburu people in Laikipia, Kenya, have been released. Police also released the Samburu people’s cows, goats, and sheep that survived last week’s police round-up and impoundment.  Samburu people report, however, that many of their animals were lost in the bush during the chaotic police round-up or possibly attacked by wild animals. Police were also seen roasting and eating some of the livestock.

A Samburu community’s fight to retain their land and grazing rights on a property known variably as Kisargei, Elan Downs, or Kabarak Farm in Kenya’s Laikipia district turned violent over the weekend as Kenyan police attacked the community, killing at least one Samburu elder and confiscating the community’s cows and goats, an estimated 10,000 animals.

A film called “Conservation’s Dirty Secrets” spotlights the alleged role of the African Wildlife Foundation in the brutal evictions of Samburu pastoralists in Kenya over the last three years. British film maker Oliver Steeds interviewed evicted Samburu elders and filmed their burning dwellings as Kenyan police attempted to arrest his Samburu guides. A Kenyan court is currently hearing the Samburu eviction case (see updates posted on this website).  

Samburu pastoralists who were forcibly evicted from lands in Laikipia
district that were owned by former president Daniel arap Moi are preparing
for their day in court. A judge in Nyere will hear their case on June 7, 8,
and 9.

Cultural Survival has raised funds to support the legal work by Nairobi
lawyer Abraham Korir Sing'oei and to pay travel and lodging expenses so that
Samburu victims and witnesses can participate in the trial.  Samburu human
rights worker Richard Leiyagu wrote on behalf of the community:  "Thanks for

Samburu families who are suing Kenya’s former president Daniel arap Moi celebrated a small but significant victory in a Kenyan courtroom May 12, when their lawyers persuaded a high court judge to allow them more time to prepare their case. 

Six high Kenyan officials have been charged by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) with crimes against humanity for their part in violence that left more than 1,000 people dead after the disputed 2007 presidential election.  Of the six, two men exercised direct authority over the Kenyan police who carried out 405 extrajudicial killings.

In late November, hundreds of heavily armed policemen forcibly evicted 300 Samburu families from ancestral lands that former president Daniel Arap Moi had purchased in a land-grab typical of his administration. Police chose a Friday “market day” for their attack, when the men were away and only women, elders, and children were in their homes.  Fanning out across the 17,000- acre Eland Downs Ranch, police burned the Samburu families’ homes to the ground, along with all their possessions.  

In response to the abuse of Samburu people by Kenyan police that was documented by Cultural Survival, a Kenyan organization has initiated trainings for police who are sent to Samburu East district. Michael Tiampati, national coordinator of the Pastoralists Development Network of Kenya, reports that many of the police officers “ are ignorant because of stereotypes…They are transferred to this area and they want to convert pastoralists to suit their imagined ‘civilised’ society.

According to a report issued by the Samburu Women for Education & Environment Development Organization (SWEEDO), Kenya’s new constitution “is a clean break with the past and provides several avenues for the pursuit and strengthening of Indigenous peoples’ personal and collective rights.” 

In a historic constitutional referendum on 4th August, 2010, sixty-eight percent of Kenyans who turned out to vote supported the proposed new constitution.

In the last two weeks, there have been further incidents of police brutality against the Samburu people of northern Kenya. Following Cultural Survival’s investigation and publication of our report, police have not inflicted more military-style assaults on entire Samburu villages like those of 2009 and January of this year.  But we are receiving reports of apparently random beatings meted out on Samburu men.