SUMMARY
The Sabaot Land Defence Force SLDF was a militia created in late 2005 by Wycliffe Kirui Matakwei and became the main actor in the Mount Elgon conflict. (see Mount Elgon Conflict under additional info) Mount Elgon is a mountain and a district in Kenya’s Western Province, inhabited by several ethnic groups. The dominating ethnicity is the Sabaot which account for 60% of the district’s population. The group, which is part of the Kalenjin tribe-family, is divided into two sub-tribes: the Soy (also called the Semek) and the Mosop (also called the Ndorobo). These two sub-tribes stem culturally from one community, but are geographically separated, which led over time to diverging lifestyles resulting from different environmental living conditions. The Mosop have their homelands in the moorland in the northern and higher part of the district and make their living by herding and foraging in the forest, while the Soy settled on the lower slopes in the south of the district and are mainly agro-pastoralists. In numbers, the Mosop account for about 20 % of the Sabaot, while the Soy make up for the remaining 80 %.
The causes of the Mount Elgon conflict trace back to 1971, when the government started to relocate the Mosop from their homelands in order to protect the moorland, which constitutes a precious water catchment area. Until 2006, three big resettlement plans were implemented (Chepyuk I, II and III). A series of factors such as poor preparation, lack of deeds of ownerhsip and corruption led to dissatisfaction among the Mosop and envy from the Soy. Along with a general ethnicisation of politics and landownership in Kenya, the envy and feeling of neglect by the Soy led to young Soy men starting to defend their land with arms, quickly culminating in the creation of SLDF. Despite the name, SLDF was largely Soy dominated, and its original targets were Mosop and moderate Soy. But quickly, state institutions and the local government were also targeted. By mid-2007, SLDF became the dominant military and political power in Mt. Elgon district, also winning the Mt. Elgon part of the nationwide elections in December 2007. The methods used by SLDF were extremely violent, such as killing of family members of candidates considered to be hostile to SLDF, extortion of taxes from the civilian population, forced recruitment into their army as well as torture, rape and killings of civilians.
SLDF was internally composed of three wings. First was the military wing which was led by Matakwei despite the fact that he had little previous military training or know how. Second was the spiritual wing headed by Manyiror. The spiritual wing fulfilled a series of important function and was crucial for the inner coherence of SLDF. Third was the political wing, allegedly led by SLDF’s self-proclaimed spokesman John Kanai. The political wing tried to justify SLDF’s actions by for example invoking historical injustices. However, it is noteworthy that SLDF had no clear political program, nor followed a specific political ideology.
SLDF ceased to exist in the late spring of 2008, after being militarily defeated by the Government. Matakwei himself was shot to death by the military on 16 May 2008. By that time, SLDF is suspected to have killed a total of 600 to 800 people, most of them civilians, and to have tortured thousands. Yet the exact numbers are not known, and estimates vary significantly.
SLDF has been involved in the non-state and one-sided categories of UCDP organised violence.
