SUMMARY

The one-sided violence carried out by the Sabaot Land Defence Force (SLDF) against civilians took place in the context of the larger Mount Elgon Conflict. Mount Elgon is a mountain and a district in Kenya’s Western Province, and home to several ethnic groups, out of which the Sabaot is the largest one, accounting for 60% of the district's population. The Sabaot, 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). The Soy account for 80% of the Sabaot, and traditionally live in the southern, lower part of Mount Elgon, while the minority Mosop life in the northern, higher areas.

In 1971, the government started to relocate the Mosop from their homelands further south close to the Soy 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 ownership, and corruption led to dissatisfaction among the Mosop and envy from the Soy. Along with a general ethnicisation of politics and land ownership in Kenya, the envy and feeling of neglect by the Soy led to that young Soy men started to defend their land with arms, quickly culminating in the creation of SLDF. Despite the name, SLDF was largely Soy dominated, and in the beginning mainly targeted Mosop. Later on, state institutions and the local government were added to the list of targets.

The SLDF's main one-sided activities were directed against the Mosop, but also the families of local politicians considered to be hostile to SLDF were targeted. This strategy allowed SLDF to win the Mount Elgon part of the national elections in December 2007, since many of their candidates could run without opponents.

While in the initial phase, SLDF could rely on voluntary recruitment and support from the Soy, this support-base faded over time. As a result, the organization started to use forced recruitment, and to collect “taxes”. This led to that SLDF increasingly also used violence against the Soy whose interest they claimed to defend.

SLDF was known for its brutality, and the organization's atrocities against civilians included the killing of children, organized rape, and different forms of torture. SLDF furthermore used to mark civilians who did not fully comply with them by chopping off one ear.

SLDF first became active as a one-sided actor in UCDP data in 2007, when the one-sided violence resulted in at least 25 civilian deaths. The threshold was reached on 31 December that year when the group killed 22 civilians in the village of Kimama.