THE CHILDREN OF THE RIVER:

In July of 1993, I was transferred out of Mt Elgon National Park to lead one of the platoons of 'Charley Coy ' based at Baomo primate Reserve in Tana River District of Coast Province.  We had Uni-pots for housing and our hands were so full such that we only slept in them twice in a month.




The author and his team while preparing to cross Tana river by canoe to the east bank.



There were elephants in the reserve and some rare monkeys which were not found anywhere else in the country, such as the Tana river red colobus (Procolobus rufomitratus) and the  Tana river mangabey (cercosebus galeritus) .The Reserve was gazetted in 1978  solely to protect these rare species and to stop habitat loss and degradation due to human encroachment and the  rare monkeys occupied a 60km stretch of the lower Tana River from Nkajonja to Mitapani along the mighty Tana river.

Garsen center was the center of bandits who target roads in the district to rob motorists , and it was also the meeting point where every aspiring poacher met the seasoned ones for introduction and recruitment into the trade. Garsen was and still is the place where every poacher from Somalia will come to and recruit idle, readily available youth who would then lead them into the Tsavo National Parks where they believed that ivory could be collected in every river bed and where one could  always shoot down an elephant if he desired the fresh commodity straight from the source.

There were four ethnic tribes in Tana River; the Pokomo people who were fishermen and seasonal farmers whose life entirely depended on the Tana River waters and only planted their farms after floods, and they hunted the hippo,  the crocodile and sometimes they use snares to capture the elusive warthog when it came to the river for a drink and to cool off during the searing heat of the day. These were the people who were responsible for the destruction of the habitat of the endangered monkeys by cutting down trees the monkeys use for food and shelter to make charcoal and clear the under growth to make farms. The other tribes included the Orma , the werdhei , and the infamous Galjahel community who migrated to these parts not very many years ago from Somalia , and they are the link between the Somali poachers and the other tribes. 

The Pokomo villages dotted the western river bank from Hola which they preferred to call Laza, through Kone , emmauss, mikinduni, chalani, lenda, hadamphia, bondeni, duayo , bububu, to wenje just to mention a few. They became a great source of information to us because it was only through them that one could cross the Tana River. They were the river people and they had canoes for fishing and for transport. So we made friends with them and recruited many of them as informers.The other tribes hated them for this,  so we became their keepers and they gave us information on every person who requested their services to cross the river, either armed or not. This helped us in recovery of weapons from the local communities and to keep tab with every gang new or old in the entire Tana River basin.

Our data base on poachers was always updated and we hunted them at will. The highway gangs were few thus hard to monitor, but they always came back to Garsen village to chew miraa after every successful robbery and when they were high on the stimulant, they always tell their tales to willing listeners , and we always had friendly ears close by and one or two of them will be picked later that night for questioning , and we would almost all the time recover the guns they used and the goods stolen. An informer will take us to the victims house where we would knock and call the man by his name and tell him that we had a message for him from one of his men , and by the time he recognized us he would certainly cooperate. This became possible after we learned to use some tricks we perfected overtime and it has always worked  when the poacher realizes that we know where he hid his firearm, and at times we also mention the number of ammunition he has. 
This proved to be very effective and word went out that the KWS were only disarming and did not take prisoners such that there was total cooperation and trust in us to the extent that we were called as far as Masalani, Ijara and Bodhei to retrieve the surrendered weapons. We could recover up to 50 assorted rifles per month and the police loved it , for credit always went to them, but that didn't bother us for our wildlife remained safe, and the roads were free of banditry. The locals nicknamed me " Ibren", a name close to the angel Gabriel , whom they believed only visited at night with messages from God.

I was in Tana River for only three months before being transferred to Meru National Park and during that time we managed to recover more than 95 guns from the locals as surrenders, not to mention the many we retrieved from the ambushes we mounted on the two crossing of Hadamphia and Bondeni , and on the Sera and chuma mrefu cutlines. Idassa Godana ranch will always be imprinted in my mind due to the ugly incidents that we encountered there, and the Orma community of mnazini village gave me a farewell party when I was leaving and one of them gave us the following story as a parting shot to me and to welcome the new platoon commander, Mr Abdi Doti. 

 " A long long time ago, there lived a man who was crippled and had no teeth to the extent that his wife did every thing for him. He would crawl to the bushes to relive himself , but he could only eat light foods and he depended on the wife to soften hard foods for him to munch and swallow . His wife was everything to him and he worshiped her for the kindness and dedication she had for him. But as fate has it, one day, the wife got very sick and died. The man was devastated and wept for many days and he cursed all the combined Gods of his people for letting her die and challenged them to also take him for he saw no future without her. Neighbors helped feed him but he refused to eat and opted to die, so the men of his clan came together and tried to convince him to remarry, but he could not believe that any other woman could equal his beloved late wife''.

"Eventually reason got the better part of him and he agreed to remarry, only this time, the wife was from another village and she was an orphan and had never been married. She came to his house with nothing, for she had nothing to offer, but she won his heart in a very short while.  No one has ever loved her, nor has anyone ever relied or looked upon her for kindness, but here she was , in a house she could call her own and a husband who depended on her for everything. She took him without reservations and nursed him like she would never do it again. She gave him everything, and she chewed hard dried meat then dipped them in gee before feeding him. She hunted for wild honey and  smeared all his helpings in the pure sweet jelly. The man saw heaven right at his door step and he proclaimed it to the rest of his brethren loudly . He wondered why his late wife took long to die. He asked God why he had allowed him to suffer that long under the hands of his former wife. He was in love for the first time."

We were told that the meaning of that story is that leaders were different and that each man had his or her way of doing things. Two people are never the same and that my success in Tana River might never be replicated by any other man . It means that the incoming officer would come work with the community and they would never compare his work with mine , and this helped him settle very fast after taking over.

It had taken me three months to win the confidence of the Tana River communities , yet I was not one of them nor could I even speak any of their languages but they learned to trust me, confined their secrets and their fears to me , and I listened , and I did what was expected of me , and they accepted me, and our work was made simple. They were simple societies which were looking for space to survive the harsh life they were subjected to , for they only chose it for lack of an alternative. My future with these people was cast in stone as our trust in each other was tucked deep in our dark hearts. I thank God for leading me to them , and for giving me a honest soul that made me fuse effectively with them. 

This relationship with the Orma community paid off a few years later during my tour of duty in the hostile Lamu District where buses where hijacked every day in broad day light between garsen and lamu and passengers robbed of their belongings with impunity. 

Deliberate attack on enemy camp

"If you give a riddle to a man, and he asks you for the answer , then the dowry paid for his mother was a waste". This is a Nigerian proverb that kept on popping up every time I thought of my then Director , Dr. Richard Leakey.  29 of us were recruited in december1991 and we started the platoon commanders course in manyani in January 1992.  Most of us had worked in different Government ministries, some as teachers, electricians , veterinarians and few came straight from secondary schools. I had worked with the Agriculture ministry, livestock division for six and a half years after graduating with a certificate on range management from AHITI Kabete  ( Animal Health and Industry Training Institute ) in 1984. It took us seven months to complete the course and on graduation Dr Leakey read us the riot act , and it sounded like we were being released in to a tunnel with only one exit, and that the whole world  expected us to stop poaching at all costs , and that it would be a sacrifice to conservation if we got  killed in the act. Dr Leakey was a very hard man to please, and we never asked him for answers. 

I was posted to Meru National park in October 1993 from the Tana Primate Reserve in Baomo where I ran rounds with a platoon of 30 men trying to stop high way robberies between Lamu and Garsen, and Garsen to Hola. A mouth full, but a story for another day. In early November , just one month in to my posting, 11 elephants were killed by poachers in Sarara, and Sir Richard had asked us for a quite Christmas . This was a silent order, but we understood it all the same ; that the good doctor wanted us to silence a gang before Christmas . We have always kept our promise, one way or the other. 

The patrol team pursued the bandits who killed a government official and abused several women on the Marsabit-Moyale Highway in earnest, and they followed the bandits trail for most of the morning while it was still cool for days can be hot here, very hot indeed, and they needed water, but they had little of the precious liquid and they knew that they had to save what they had. So they sipped from their water bottles when they stopped for short rests between runs, and they came across empty water jerrycans dug from the way side, and they knew that the guys they pursued were veterans and that they had planned their route out well. They had buried water  on the route in intervals of five kilometers apart, which meant that they could walk the whole day without rest if they had to. But they were heavy from the loot they carried so they were slow. On the second day the rangers saw a man seated on a hilly outcrop and he had a binoculars and he was watching the path where the rangers were following.

The patrol team had also spotted our plane, and so did the bandits, for the man they saw with the binoculars was scouting the path and watching the plane at the same time. The team needed food and water, and they knew we had all this in the plane, but contacting the plane would alert the bad guys and that was not acceptable. So they hid in the bushes and we failed to see them for the second day in a row. The man spotted on the rock took time just siting there and this gave the rangers confidence that they must have reached their hide out. So they also waited and watched him till sun set when he eventually came down and disappear  from view. By this time only one man was awake , the team was over exhausted , really hungry and very thirsty . The team leader urged them to move closer to the hide out after dark, for by this time the bandits had started a fire and some were singing. They were home and very comfortable for no security personnel  had reached this parts for years. We were later informed by the inhabitants of Losesia village that the last team of GSU soldiers who ever reached those areas were wiped out by bandits and that two of them have never been seen. Not even their bodies.

The team formed their rear base 500 meters from the hideout and two rangers were picked to go spy the other camp. Took them a while but when they came back their report raised spirits of the whole team. They confirmed that they had the right group and that they were not keeping any sentries, and that they were already going through the loot. The team had two options, to attack at that particular time ,or wait till morning. They discussed options and they all agreed to mix things in the morning. One was because they needed rest and second was they did not fancy night clearance . Soldiers who are not on suicide missions will never vote for night clearances after a contact. So they settled on a deliberate attack, and  men were given duties. 

Two rangers went up the rock as a cut off unit, two groups of two men each were placed meters apart in the center of the area as the killer group and the other two were placed far right on another cut off. They formed a carve like formation, but they decided to sleep at the rear base due to exhaustion. The officer needed to map out the grounds for the attack, so he chose two men and they crawled to within fifty meters of the enemy camp and could have gone further but for the lack of cover. They were too close to the enemy camp that they could see their faces from the glow of the camp fire, and heard them talk about the evil things they did to the women. Some of them came to within reach of the rangers to relief themselves and some to hide the looted goods. The men held their cool and crawled back to the rear base satisfied that they had the right group and that they were to be eliminated without second thoughts.

All units were in place by four o'clock in the morning, and waited for the good morning that took ages to come. They did not have to wait for the sun to rise, because one of the bandits woke up and went in to prayer. Something must have touched him , or the animal instinct in him must have triggered a nerve , for the man started kicking his sleeping companions and tried to reach for his gun, then all hell broke loose , Four G3 rifles in the killer group opened up as one, and the cut off unit on the far right freed their compressed FN magazines in union. The only group who had orders to hold fire was the one on the rocks and they obeyed the order. The noise was satisfying to the shooters but something else to the receivers on the far  end. Three of them managed to raise their heads then met the volley and died without seeing their killers. One of them was shot on the left leg but somehow managed to limp through the flying lead, naked, and was reported the only survivor . The fifth guy was injured but managed to run in to bushes below the big rock outcrop. 

Firing stopped for the men to reload and an order given to hold fire, but one of the rangers on the top of the outcrop shouted position of the injured man and in the process exposed him self and almost paid for it. The injured bandit released a short bust and one round creased the scalp of the ranger , throwing him flat on to his back. One of the rounds also hit the rock where he was laying and debris hit his left eye puncturing the cornea. The team below leveled on the bandit and he must have been hit fifty times, for when we later saw him, he did not have a head, and his upper side looked like a sieve.

The rangers went to clear the scene and the first thing they saw almost spoiled their success ; laying there between two dead  bandits, was a bazooka tube, and it was loaded. A squeeze on the trigger would have spelled doom to the rangers, and there were two spare shells close by. They also recovered three AK47 rifles and all the loot. The team cleared the scene, picked some water and cooked food which the bandits did not need, and moved out of the area for they feared that the gun fire might attract other unwanted evils. By mid day, some rangers were so tired that they could not move, so they took cover in a thicket to rest and three of the strong ones volunteered to walk to the losesia village which was the only known center in the vicinity to seek for help, and this they did , and the chief with his home guards carried water to the team, and that explained the police uniform I saw when we eventually found the gallant men while flying in our spotter plane.

The officer who was leading the team is Dr. Francis Lesilau who is currently a Senior Assistant Director , and the corporal was Lmwate Lenguro who is now a Warden Two and three of the rangers are assistant wardens including  Mr. Lotir who was injured and he lost the eye permanently.

PATROL TEAM RESURFACES:

 

It was police work, ok , but we in WPD; (wildlife protection unit ) don't deal with CSR projects , that is for our sister department , the Community Wildlife Service . Ours is security of wildlife and protection of all our stakeholders , and we were just too good in its execution in that every Kenyan who cared to accept knew our capabilities, and in return we got all the information we requested from the local communities and more.

There were two things we came to believe due to our daily encounters with the bad guys, and every ranger will agree with me ; (1) that when an elephant is killed and it falls on its front legs, like he is not on its side but died trying to get up, and (2) when we get to a scene and establish that a victim was abused , like one was defiled, or say raped, then we know that we will succeed and pursuit is eminent and executed with maximum speed. I have always known that , that must have been the most driving factor which made one of my most experienced officer and NCO rush in to a lead without proper preparations. Remember they were scrambled out of camp simply because all other strapped up units were not in the vicinity . They had dry ration for only two days, and they had to borrow a mobile hand set from the second group who reached them late. They also got two rangers on attachment from the same unit to boost their number to six rangers , the corporal and the officer.

The Rangers knew  that they were now more than 12 hours late , for the bandits must have started out before 1800 the previous evening, so they needed to be swift and therefore all heavy gear was shed, and boots were exchanged for speed. They all knew that they were chasing five people whom were all assumed armed and dangerous , but the trail they left behind was huge and would have been visible from the air. 

They had looted three vehicles that single day, and had to reach their hide out before sorting things out. So they were slow. The first day was uneventful. but the Rangers reported where the bandits stopped to cook tea and some of the un wanted ware drooped off. The Rangers reported their position in the evening and then went in to defensive positions for the night.
The team failed to report the next morning, and by mid day, I had to move  to Isiolo Samburu Complex Station in Archers Post to be close to action. That evening , with the service of one of our huskys and a super cub from Lewa Downs, we flew a total of seven hours between the two planes trying to locate my men but we completely failed to see them or the bandits for that matter. I had informed Nairobi of the on going operation , but I could not tell them that the men did not have food and that their radio must have gone off. You don't tel Langata of your misgivings, not even when you were not involved in planning, no, you will get the pink charge sheet for incompetence and might loose a weeks pay for your troubles. So I kept my cool, but I prayed and I cursed, and I failed to sleep.

Another plane was scrambled out of one of the sister ranches and we flew, from Sabashi hill. We did straight lines ,transecting all that God forsaken lands to Koom, Kauro, Sereolipi and Losesia. We landed to refuel and drew more strategies , then flew some more, but we failed to locate the team.

 By mid day the third day, the other two planes withdrew for other duties, while i and my pilot friend sweated our butts off, scratched our scalps and eventually decided to go give the un thinkable ; to report the lose of a patrol team, officer included. We both knew what it spelled to us , but we also knew that we had to call in reinforcement and that search and rescue was eminent . 

The pilot executed a turn towards our fate and then we both sported smoke and shouted at the same time. Without talking, we flew low, actually very low, for at times I thought we were going to hit the taller trees, but I could not complain for my mind was doing other things. We flew straight in to the smoke and there , we saw them, and they were alive , and they were waving. But they were not alone, for I saw three men in police uniformed carrying white jericans , and our men were scrambling to drink from this jericans . We circled them then dropped them the radios and some food stuffs and that is when they gave us their tale, and this they did,  I listened and I laughed because I was sure that I was not going to face a court Marshall  for the disappearance of the patrol team, not just yet. 

I give you their story tommorow. — feeling excited.

Elimination of the Isiolo/Marsabit highway gang::

We had elephants to take care of. The Buffalo's of Kinna and the Sabarwawa lugga were killed for meat , and giraffes fell to home guards bullets , not to mention the friendly forces ; the general duty police ( GD ), the Alfa papa , ( AP ) and the general service unit ,( GSU) who actually supplemented the game meat with the dry rations ( compo 10 ) and called the fresh delicacy ; compo 11. We had to contend with all this headache for we were conserving flora and fauna in and out of the protected areas.

I was the company comander in charge of bravo coy , and our LOE ( line of exploitation ) was from Kora national park through Meru National Park, the whole of Samburu, Marsabit to Sibiloi national park. It was a hand full, but we had courage , and KWS HQ was alive to our needs and the Director was at hand to actually talk to field commanders on radio when need be, boy we were on top of the world. We had Richard Leakey as Delta One, and he moved mountains . We had a job to do.

We did not shy away from cattle rustling cause the local communities gave us information on both Wildlife herds and poacher movements, so we frustrated rustlers. Road banditry was police work but some how we were always the first to reach the scene and rescue situations, and the police loved us for this, cause the credit would always be theirs.
One day we received report of people stoping and robbing motorists on the isiolo Marsabit road, near sabashi hill ,but we failed to report fast for I did not have a motorized unit near by, but by 1700hrs a report came in that a government MOW vehicle has been hijacked and the officer in charge of roads in Marsabit district has been felled. It was latter reported that there were six passengers on board and they were all women.

We pulled out a unit from the special operation unit based in isiolo . One officer, a corporal and four rangers rushed to the scene and what they reported was shocking. There were two deaths, and all the women were abused . The normal vocal officer was so furious and shocked with the brutality of the attackers to the extent that he could not explain his intentions to me on radio.

The police failed to reach the scene before night fall so our men had to secure the place till morning. A second team reached them some times past mid night. In the morning they found the foot prints of the bandits heading east towards koom and it was then decided that it was no longer a police business but our own. ... . — feeling wonderful.

MT. ELGON EXPERIENCE:

Some times back, in 1993 while I was the company commander in charge of Mt Elgon National in western Kenya, the Uganda wildlife authority requested us to help transport radio masts across to their side of the mountain cause they bought them on our side of the boarder.

We engaged 30 local casuals and a section of 12 of my rangers to escort and guarantee security. The only transport we had was our old Isuzu truck inherited from the WCMD ( wildlife conservation management department ) which ran the old anti- poaching unit that presided the KWS. It's registration number was GK 460 l. We all trooped in to the truck and started the slow meander up the mountain towards the Koitobos peaks.

Took us more than five hours to get to the end of the small path we called a road, and unloaded the steel masts. There were six of them, thus five casuals each, and then we started the real climb on foot , through melting streams of frozen dew, past the magnificent peaks of Koitobos , then we went down treacherous valleys with steep rock walls and narrow slippery animal paths which were hard to maneuver with the three meter long masts.
It took us time to get to the bottom and to the Maji Moto corner which was the rendezvous point. We waited for two hours for our wildlife counterparts to appear but eventually we realized that they were not coming and that we had to get to our transport before night fall. One of the rangers suggested that we shoot in the air just to alert the Ugandans before we left, so we cracked some thunder flashes and started the climb back our domain. Every ranger was advised before the operation to carry a rifle sling and I did not ask why, but when we got to the mountain top, it was very cold that we could not hold our guns , and had to rub our hands together, stick them between any place in our bodies to look for warmth, and boy, I prayed that no crazy bandit or poacher would shoot at us, for I knew that I would not have touched the G3 rifle held by the sling on my shoulder, not even to save me.

We got to camp past midnight, and most of us were treated for frost bite the next day in Kitale and got sick leave for a week. The Ugandans wrote to us latter to inform us that they had send in a group to meet us, but they got scared by our number and the fact that it was the first time they saw KWS rangers in desert fatigues, and that we spoiled things more when we cracked the thunder flushes.

I was 31 years old that time.