Kakamega Forest Reserve.

Kakamega forest is a National Reserve which is managed by the Kenya Wildlife Service. In 1993 I was requested to send in men to arrest charcoal merchants who had invaded the forest.The warden in-charge of the reserve  had only three rangers and he lacked transport. We had never been there before so two rangers from the reserve joined our patrol. Back then there were no roads in the reserve, so we packed our back packs with dry ration which would last us for three days. 
All other self belongings were packed into the vehicles which then were driven and parked in the park head quarters. We were twelve in total and we walked slowly for in most places we had to cut our way through in the forest thicket.  I have led patrols before in Mt Elgon forest for many years but it was totally difficult to walk in the kakamega forest as there were no big game which could open up paths. 
So we were forced to use machetes to clear paths and this took almost all our time. We managed to cover only five kilometers that first day before it rained and we were forced to make camp.

We were used to ants, but the kakamega ants were big and were everywhere. They did not bite but they got into our nerves for they found their way to our food, our clothing and eventually into our eureka tents. They were quite a nuisance , and though they were running away from the tormenting rain , they had no business coming to us.we expected them to go climb trees. 
We had a sleepless night and we could not light fires due to rain, so we covered our bodies with the tents and prayed for the sunrise which took long to appear. We could not make tea that morning but we took biscuits and gulped them down with water then we started from where we left the previous evening. 
By midday we came to the only river that cuts across the reserve and it took us time to find a place to cross it for it was swollen and had no bridges. We found a huge tree that had fallen across the river and two men had to clear the branches and make some foot holds before we eventually trooped over it to the opposite bank. 
30 minutes after crossing the river, we smelled smoke and we heard someone singing, so we stopped and sent in two rangers on Reece missions . It took them one full hour but they established that there were two camps and they saw only six people who were very relaxed for they were sure that no security men have ever reached these depths before.
 We consulted and it was agreed that due to lack of sleep the previous night, we could not guarantee the safety of the prisoners during the night so we chose to enjoy our sleep and do the rest in the morning. So we let them be, and we slept without posting sentries for the first time in many moons.

We were up before sunrise and found occupants of the first camp still asleep. The three were roped together and tied to a tree where we posted two rangers to guard them then we proceeded to the second camp which was a kilometer away. The paths between the two camps were well used meaning that they have been there for a long time and this was confirmed by the explanation given to us by the occupants of the second camp.
We heard them shout to each other in loud voices which told us that they were not in the same place. One man was seated near a burning tree while smoking a joint.We could not see the second man for he was in the bush probably fertilizing the forest floor , so we waited until he emerged still trying to tie his worn out belt.
 The guy in the bush was explaining to the one seated at the fire that they were sure to harvest three bags of charcoal every day for the next three months from the burning tree. We later realized that they had cut down a mature Elgon Tick tree whose trunk took six of us to circle while holding hands.  It was quite a shame to see a monster of a tree like that being felled for charcoal. Elgon Tick tree has some of the very hard timber in the world and it must have been there for over a hundred years.

The two men we arrested refused to tell us where the third member had gone, so we ambushed the camp and waited for him to come. We waited for more than three hours and when he finally came he took us by surprise , for he refused to surrender and attacked the rangers with the machete he was carrying. 
The man rushed the armed men while welding the sharp weapon above his head and did not heed the warning shots fired at his feet. 
The rangers shouted at him to stop but he kept on coming giving us creeps and hints that he was possessed.He tried to cut off the head of the lead ranger but he ended up cutting the FN rifle the ranger was using to block the  blow. 
The rest of the group , me included , did not wait to see who the man would try to behead next,  so  we all raised our weapons and opened up on him. He stood there shaking for a whole minute , gazing at us with his mouth wide open in disbelieve. I failed to see his eyes for there were bullet holes all over his head and by the time I called for a cease fire, his own mother would never have recognized him. He was quite a site, and he was in a mess, I felt sorry for him.

We dosed the fire and destroyed the kilns, then forced the guys we arrested to dig a shallow grave and bury their dead before we tied them to each other and marched them towards kakamega town. 
It took us two hours to reach the town and we booked them at the police station where we recorded statements on the  dead man. The police were amused when they saw the rifle cut and warned us never to try and arrest such people .  
They told us that the weed they smoke was not the normal one , and they always mix it  with other additives . Well,  he met his match that day and though we might have cut short his supply here on earth, he might as well get plenty more where he was heading to , but of course that also depended on where he was destined for.

We patrolled the forest for a whole week but never managed to arrest any more timber poachers, for  word had gone out that the Kenya Wildlife Service rangers were in town and not the Normal game department rangers from the kakamega station they were used to, and whom lacked muscle. 

We took a different route out on our way back and we went through Bungoma to Malakisi where we zeroed our weapons at the police range grounds before checking into the Cheptais wonder land for active engagement .

Nakwamoru incident. South Turkana National Reserve. 1993

 Charley coy, had its head quarters in Cholim on the slopes of Mt Elgon, which was 27 kilometers from Kitale town, but it had platoons based in Kaberua on the western side of the mountain taking care of the new Mt Elgon district to cheptais, and the whole of Kapsokwony.  The second platoon was based at Sarmash which was at the boarder of Turkana and Pokot , but was latter moved to Lobokat. There are two National Reserves here; the South Turkana National Reserve  which starts at the Wei Wei river near Kainuk, to the Kerio river as its eastern boundary. The second is the Nasalot National Reserve which is found between the Wei Wei river and the Turkwel river which emanates from the now Turkwel hydro electric dam. 
The platoon also takes care of the Rimoi and the Kamnarok National Reserve towards the south. There has ever been a resident herd of elephants numbering 200 between these two reserves which are threatened by the ever increasing population of people migrating from the high mountains raising from both sides of the reserve.

South Turkana is surrounded by the Loturuk mountains and the Kailangon hills to the east, and has pure plains of Kaadengoi ,and Kaakong which are teemed with all types of wildlife during the rainy season before they take refuge at the towering mountains during the dry spell. 

Two incidence took place here during my tour of duty ; one was the Nakuamoru killings , and the weiwei poachers. 

Reports were received from the local people that an elephant was killed near the Nakuamoru rock, and the reserve Warden who was based at Sarmash decided to take his own PAC ( problem animal control unit ) without informing the WPD ( wildlife protection department ) rangers based at Lobokat to arrest the situation. It is important to note that PAC rangers are trained to deal with human wildlife conflict , but the WPD group are more conversant in security management and are more equipped to handle security complexities . The warden took four rangers and visited the scene where they found many people cutting away meat of the dead elephant, and for reasons best known to them, they opened up fire on the group and killed two of them on the spot. 
They were then led to where the tusks were hidden and they decided to arrest the two people who took them to the loot. The team then proceeded to Lobokat to report their success and recorded it in the OB, ( observation book ) and they wrote a radio message to be transmitted to Nairobi as required, then proceeded to Lodwar police station to commence prosecution.

The HF ( high frequency) radio had a microphone problem thus the rangers failed to dispatch the written message but the company command in Cholim was informed through the VHF radio and this prompted my need to drive more than 200 kilometers to verify and confirm the incident. I got to Lobokat in the night and after repairing the microphone the written message was transmitted and we retired to bed. 
Early the next morning I visited the scene and found the dead elephant , then we were led to the two bodies and we placed them together in a makeshift grave and buried them. We then patrolled the Turkwel basin and went back to meet the OCS (officer commanding station ) at the Kainuk police base and he was shocked to learn that two people were killed by our rangers. We failed to understand the actions of the warden and I had to call him to come and explain his actions. 
We later learned that the officer was advised by his able sergeant to do what they did. They even tried to erase what they had written on the OB and they also destroyed the radio message form they had early written. What they failed to know is that the message had already been transmitted to Nairobi and was latter used against them. The officer and the Sargent were arrested and charged for the murder of the two alleged poachers. The case took one year and the two were latter acquitted for lack of witnesses and evidence.

In the weiwei incident , rangers on patrol came across two people skinning an antelope they had previously killed and they opened fire upon seeing the rangers. The patrol shot back and one of them was gunned down and the other injured but managed to shoot his way through. A Kalashnikov was recovered with 80 rounds of 5.56 mm and this were taken to the Kapenguria police station but the police  refused to keep the gun at their armory claiming that the local community ( Pokot ) would overrun the station looking for the gun. 
We took it to our main armory in Cholim . The next day there were demonstrations in Marich pass by the Pokot claiming that KWS were their enemies and that they should be moved out of their land. They declared that they would shoot every KWS person on site and that grenades should be fired at our vehicles. Such threats are never taken lightly mostly when they are issued by the Pokot .

 I immediately assembled two full sections together and drove straight to Lobokat to reinforce the platoon. I  had five vehicles and a total of 45 men to face the challenge and I wanted to show off my strength , what we call show of might, to see if I could force the community to the table.  
For two days we traversed the entire place, from Tot to Sigor to Lomut , Chesogon and back to Marich pass without interacting with anyone.  At the police road block in Marich pass , I left a message for the senior chief, that the ball was now in his court and that he should plan for us to meet. He requested us to meet the next day at his place.

I took  one section to the meeting but  left them at the police lines and walked alone , without even a pistol to their meeting. You see, I am a nomad just like this people , and I know that stupid courage , and naked boldness , has great impact to them , and it is a pure sign of manliness and everything else associated to courage. I was only a boy to them , light skinned and very slim, and my actions took them by complete surprise , and they gave me the floor to explain things, and this I did very well,  for all those who were facing the other side simply because they disliked me , turn around to look at me,  and those who were laying down as they normally do when they don't like the speaker or the topic, rose up and listened, and when I eventually sat down, they did not talk for a very long time, and when they did , it was only to request me to walk back to my men , and that they would contact me latter. 
 On our way back to Kainuk , we found the man we had injured previously , and his foot had a big gaping hole and that the wound had turned septic and he was dying. We drove him to Kapenguria hospital for treatment then we informed the police. The simple act of taking this man to hospital rather than killing him was passed to all corners of the Pokot lands and it changed their perception towards us over night. 

A delegation of elders was sent to meet us two days latter at Amolem, and our differences and misunderstandings  were solved to date. My gamble bore fruits and the Pokot and the Turkana communities agreed to work with us in developing the two Reserves of Lobokak in Turkana district, and Nasalot in Kapenguria district. The wardens office has since been moved from Sarmash to a site very close to the Kengen Electric Power Company and the Lobokat base now has permanent ranger houses. 

THE SPOILS OF A MOUNTAIN GOD

My first posting was to Mt elgon national park way back in 1992. Elephants and all other wildlife associated with a big forest were found in this park , but it had something else unusual ; tribal clashes. The communities around the park were ripping each others throats and the authorities did not seem to mind it at all. But i had to secure the park from the marauding gangs who had to go right through the park to steal from each other. The Sabaot tribe stole from the Bukusu who were a sub clan of the greater Luhya tribe, and the Wagisu monsters came out of Uganda to help their cousins the Bukusu. The Bukusu did not have guns, but the other two were citizens of both  Kenya and Uganda and they had access to guns and dual citizenship , and they were fearless and merciless . They could kill without blinking.

The forests of Mt Elgon was very thick and hid very many evils , and we needed to get in to the forest to solve some riddles  and in the process crush some beliefs , such as trying to prove that the Wagisu were cannibals. The police department believed in such myths and they refused to take part in any operation planned or even thought off anywhere inside or around the forest. We walked into enemy ambushes plenty of times and we lost personnel, and many people were injured and almost all were direct hits on the buttocks. Don't ask me how that was possible but if you ever get the chance to hike in those forests then maybe you will know why. we took it positively and talked about it jokingly, and made fun of the guys who got hit , and we never ran away from the forest, in fact we could not work anywhere else in a better way. we learned to work in small groups of four men each,  and we were very effective , and deadly. In the park we  had hundreds of refugees driven away from their farms , and they were killed like chicken by the bandits, and we had a duty to protect them. This outfit was first identified as * FERA * and they were fighting the Ugandan government, but their accomplice in Kenya latter became the famous Sabaot land defense force, ( SLDF ). 

It was not normal for a day to pass without hearing gun fire those days, either friendly or enemy, and there was one particular time that we failed to hear gun shots for a week and we were all uneasy, and i had to call all the teams together and one officer was asked    to shoot in to the air and we cheered and this settled our sugar levels to minimum. Cattle rustling was a daily activity then, where the agriculture development cooperation ( ADC ) grade cows were stolen and later sold like hot buns in neighboring Uganda . The park was used as a conduit for years and we tried to stop it by ambushing all known routes in the forest but the area was too big and the plant called stinging nettles got into our nerves. We eventually took our patrols to the moorland and waited for the cattle that high up and this paid dividends. We completely crashed the rustling rackets and the ADC managers of Transzoia will attest to this, and my men were sold livestock products from these farms at half price for our efforts.

I was born to a nomadic tribe in the northern frontier thus rustling was a normal way of life to us. I lost many family members to cattle rustlers to the extent that death did not scare me any more. Guns were common to my people and  this helped me greatly when i was trying to bond with the teams in Mt Elgon. I fused in very fast with them, and I was grateful , for though it was baptism by fire, it helped prepare me for the rest of my tour as a security warden. 

In the beginning i didn't know enough to be scared. The thing about a bullet is , you cant see them. All you can do is hear them. And until you connect the sound of a bullet with someone dying , you don't have enough sense to duck. That is exactly what kills most people in the early stages of combat. They hear a shot , they stick their head up , and they get killed. until you have actually shot someone or been shot at yourself , it doesn't really sink in. It really sunk into me in Mt elgon. I knew those bullets could kill me , so i kept my head down. and i said *oh my God* . This is real , and i survived.