Endless Appetites: How the Commodities Casino Creates Hunger and Unrest

CHAPTER 7

Promise

By the summer of 2004, the farmers and villagers of Angata Barakoi had had enough of thieves from rival groups who would raid their cattle. So when bandits arrived one afternoon, Christina Chebi Ngogi's husband stood firm, refusing to surrender his 10 head of livestock.

Then the guns came out.

Christina didn't see her husband die. Most of the villagers were fleeing the bullets. Her brother-in-law watched helplessly as the thieves stole first the cattle, then her husband's life as he died of a gunshot to the head, as did others who resisted. The village wailed as children whose parents had seen them off to school came home as orphans. Christina was left with a family to raise and a farm to watch against thieves in a dangerous ...