Land Lords and elites of yesterday can suddenly become beggars! Militia groups can take over and occupy the prestigious place that was once a preserve of the land Lords.

How land Lords can suddenly disappear and war Lords appear can be explained by peaceful societies that suddenly explode into anarchy. Such a scenario became apparent after the December 2007 elections in Kenya.

As I walked through Kericho town in the western part of Kenya, I noticed that few people were in town, unlike the days before elections. But what caught me unaware, and I suddenly felt I was in the middle of a dream was a lady I knew to be coming from a land lord family, begging.

When my eyes caught up with hers I was embarrassed and did not know how to behave. She was not embarrassed herself. She sat by the corner of a supermarket that had since been sealed off by heavy steel sheets because of the violence that had engulfed the area the previous weeks. I noticed a few coins in a tin, placed directly in front of her. As if by instinct, I excused myself and hurried along. The scenario created by this incident is a testimony of how quickly societies can degenerate into anarchy and militia groups takes over. This may signal the disappearance of elites and princes that rule with decency, though many times, with indifference to the unfortunate masses.

Only a few weeks since Kenya exploded after the December 2007 general election, new militia groups sprang up. In Kericho, Kenya, a self-styled militia group is said to have sprang up, intimidated tea and multinational flower companies and managed to have their way. There were sources close to the multinational companies that say management had to send away employees from a community perceived to be an enemy of the immediate community and employ members of the militia group. The militia group is reported to have burned vehicles belonging to the managers from the community that was send away. The militia group had their own grievances. They said that their forefathers were expelled from the farms to open way for expansive tea farms. Due to diversification flower farms have sprang up in some places where tea had first been grown. The group demanded to be employed and the management had no choice but to employ them to avert aggravating the situation. Failure to employ would have mean factories going up in flames. It was a reverse of roles.

In anarchy, war lords may command and landlords gracefully obey! The crisis that faced Kenya immediately after elections caught the entire security and policy planers off-guard. On some Kenyan highways, passengers were pulled out of vehicles and killed in the glaring eyes of camera and the police. A frenzy of mediation and intervention activities by the international community and some Kenyans helped to quickly bring back sanity. Otherwise Kenya would have gone the way of Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

By Samwel Kipsang