SUMMARY

During the 1970s, the Mursi experienced drought, famine, and a growing demographic pressure and by the end of the decade, this caused an eastward move by sections of the group into the Mago Valley, inhabited by the Ari. Initially a small group of about 100 people set out for a favorable spot in the valley, with plenty of virtually untouched forest for shifting cultivation and the highland market center Berka only four hours walk away. A delegation was subsequently sent to talk to the nearest Ari, who voiced no objections to the arrival of the Mursi. However, anthropologist David Turton who has lived in the area long argues that the Ari had no choice but to welcome the new arrivals given the latter’s superior military capacity, and that both groups knew this.

Over the following three years harvests were plentiful and more Mursi migrated to the area. During this time of plenty, relations between the two groups were peaceful, but this changed when inadequate rainfall led to a poor harvest in 1983. Tensions arose when the Mursi stole honey from the Ari, in order to sell it back to the Ari in Berka. The Ari also accused the Mursi of stealing maize, coffee, and axes from their houses, as the latter past Ari villages on the way to and from the market. These tensions eventually resulted in a party of Mursi women being ambushed by a number of Ari as they were on their way back to the Mursi settlement from Berka. However, this time it seems as if more violence was avoided through a meeting between the two groups.

Relations remained strained between the two groups after the 1983 incident and during the 1990s there were two major outbreaks of violence. Both these incidents followed the same patters, with a single Mursi being killed in the vicinity of an Ari village, after which retaliatory attacks were carried out by the Mursi on Ari settlements nearby. The first major episode of violence, which took place in 1991, was resolved by the authorities brokering a meeting between the two groups, at which compensation to be paid by the Mursi as well as the return of stolen property was discussed. However, after the 1999 violence this traditional method of conflict resolution was not utilized. Instead of brokering a meeting between the two groups, the authorities simply demanded that the Mursi men responsible for killing between 30 and 40 Ari men, women and children hand themselves over to the police, stating that until they had done so the Mursi were not allowed to trade at the markets in Berka and Balamer. After this followed a long, complicated process of which the end result appears to be a stalemate between the two groups.

The non-state conflict between the Ari and the Mursiis first included in UCDP data in 1991. In May of that year a Mursi man was shot and killed on his way to the market, and in the retaliatory attacks that followed some 50 Ari were killed.