Peace champion: Ex-chief succeeds in silencing guns in Narok

Julius Kormoto ole Maki is a household name in Trans Mara West Sub-County.

Here, Mr Maki is revered as a peace ambassador, having spent the past two decades uniting warring communities in the broader Narok County.

For his invaluable efforts, he has been recognised by two Heads of State.

In 2012, the 70-year-old Maki was awarded the Head of State Commendation (HSC) by former President Mwai Kibaki.

In October 2019, the retired senior chief was feted by President Uhuru Kenyatta during Mashujaa Day celebrations in Mombasa.

He was, particularly, honoured for contributing to peaceful co-existence of different ethnic groups in Narok County.

Peace mission

His peace mission began in 2002, after his retirement from President Daniel Moi’s government.

“I became a chief in 1982 after serving as a primary school teacher for about a decade,” said Mr Maki, whose first appointment was as chief of Uasin Gishu East location, now known as Shankoe Location.

He was promoted to the position of senior chief in 1994, after he successfully stopped bloody ethnic fighting between his Maasai community and the neighbouring Kisii over cattle rustling and land.

He recalls an incident in 1997 when a chief inspector of police serving in the General Service Unit was killed near Nyamesocho along the common border.

He said the Kisii and the Maasai had fought all night long and the GSU was called in.

Chinkororo

The Kisii fighters, he claimed, brought in their dreaded Chinkororo and within no time, two GSU officers were killed, one of them a chief inspector.

The killing of the security officers prompted then Nyanza provincial commissioner, the late Wilson Chepkwony, and his Rift Valley counterpart Yusuf Haji, to convene a crisis meeting at the border, where they asked the Kisii to surrender the guns they had taken from the slain officers.

Speaking to the Nation at his Trans Mara home, Mr Maki said one year after retiring as senior chief, members of his Maasai community were embroiled in bitter inter-clan clashes that claimed many lives.

“The Moitanik, Siria and Uasin Gishu clans fought a lot over land. Police for a long time tried to stop them but were unsuccessful and some of them were killed in the skirmishes,” recalled Mr Maki.

It was then that he joined two other two chiefs from Siria and Moitanik clans and brought together a group of elders, locally known as ‘traditional chiefs’.

Highly feared

“These elders can curse and bless and they are highly feared,” said Mr Maki.

“When one of the morans dropped dead just after arriving on the battlefield against our advice, the rest immediately put down their arrows and spears.”

Mr Francis Olesinoni (Siria) and Mr Joseph Tasur (Moitanik) teamed up with ole Maki to end the year-long war in 2003 and are among those who were feted by President Kibaki.

“In 2016, we helped end a two-year-long war at Pimbinyiet between the Maasai and Kipsigis communities,” said Mr Maki.

“We appealed to the local communities to surrender the firearms that were being used to propagate the fight along the Kilgoris-Emurua Dikirr border. About 100 firearms and nearly 300 rounds of ammunition were surrendered to the government by locals. Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i received them,” he said.

“That was one of my greatest achievements,” Mr Maki said.

“We saved our people from the usually crude forcible disarmament.”

Waiting for NLC

He says the National Land Commission (NLC) promised to sort out land issues in the border region but four years on, that is yet to happen.

“Government officers should stop taking people for a ride and keep their promises.”

On the recent Nkararo border war, Mr Maki says there is a silver lining as communities have agreed to lay down their arms.

He has also been instrumental in stopping skirmishes between Kuria, Kisii and Maasai communities.

“I am yet to physically receive the second award,” he revealed.

“But my name was among those President Kenyatta listed in his Mashujaa Day speech.”

[email protected]