'Our' Cows Do Matter: Arguing for Human and Livestock Security among Pastoralist Communities in the...

‘Our’ Cows Do Matter [IHL Paper Series, Vol.1 No.1 Sept 2013]

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‘Our’ Cows Do Matter: Arguing for Human and Livestock Security among Pastoralist

Communities in the Karamoja Cluster of the Greater Horn of Africa

David-Ngendo Tshimba1

Abstract

Following the end of the Cold War, there has been a substantial increase in non-international armed

conflicts in comparison to international ones. Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALWs)

proliferation has no doubt contributed to sustaining many of these violent conflicts such that

disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programmes have generally been considered

an essential step in post-conflict reconstruction processes. Focussing on the Greater Horn of Africa,

this paper maintains that pastoralism as a way of life is a major factor in the proliferation of SALWs

and a complete source of livelihood for millions in this sub-region. Specifically, the paper delves into

the first and largest of the three pastoralist clusters in the region—Karamoja Cluster—which

includes the border areas of Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan, and Uganda. The ineffectiveness of the

governments of the Greater Horn of Africa to provide adequate systemic security to both human

and livestock in the Karamoja cluster remains an important rationale for these pastoralist

communities to acquire illicit arms, consequently used to commit gross abuses in violation of

humanitarian law and human rights. Ultimately, this paper argues for the need to embrace and

provide application of the concept of human and livestock security for pastoralist communities of

the Karamoja cluster so as to holistically attend to their security concerns within the cultural-

economical-environmental context of the region.

Key words: Small Arms and Light Weapons, Pastoralism, Security, Karamoja Cluster

1 The author is Assistant Lecturer and Social Research fellow in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at

Uganda Martyrs University and holds a MA degree in Sustainable Peace and Conflict Management from the

Department of Good Governance and Peace Studies of Uganda Martyrs University. He currently associates with the

African Centre for Security and Strategic Studies headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya and volunteers with the Global

Peace Festival Foundation – Uganda Chapter. Email: [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


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Introduction Countries which essentially comprise of the Karamoja cluster—Uganda, Kenya, South Sudan, and

Ethiopia—have had and still are susceptible to violence fuelled by easy access to arms. In Eastern

Africa, where the AK-47 machine gun has become the weapon of choice for insurgents, terrorists,

organised criminal syndicates and thugs alike, Ouko and Ahere (2012) maintain that thousands of

deaths have been attributed to the use and misuse of small arms and light weapons (SALWs) which

not only kill and maim, but also undermine all facets of security while diminishing the prospects for

economic development. Bevan (2008) too reports that a commensurate rise in armed criminality, in

which acts of violence are increasingly orchestrated irrespective of community norms on the use of

force, has severely impaired this region’s socio-economic development. In fact, since the 1970s as

Bevan (2008) further argues, cattle raids have escalated in lethality with the proliferation of modern

SALWs.

Conventionally, small arms, on the one hand, are defined as personal weapons that can be operated

by only one person. These include revolvers, self-loading pistols, assault rifles, submachine guns and

light machine guns. Light weapons, on the other hand, usually include hand-held under-barrel and

mounted grenade launchers, portable launchers of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missile system, and

mortars of less than 100 millimetre calibre.

Globally, international attention to the problem of proliferation of SALWs was catalysed by the

persistent campaign to proscribe anti-personal mines, starting in the late 1990s. In a bid to spearhead

a fight against the proliferation of SALWs in the Greater Horn of Africa, the Government of Kenya,

in 2000, conveyed a ministerial conference on illicit SALWs in the Great Lakes and Horn of Africa

sub-regions. The conference culminated into the Nairobi declaration (Nairobi Declaration on the

Problem of Proliferation of Illicit Small Arms and Light Weapons in the Great Lakes Region and

Horn of Africa signed on 15 March 2000) where 10 governments (Burundi, DR Congo, Djibouti,

Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda) pledged to work together to

implement a coordinated regional action plan to stem the proliferation of SALWs.

Pastoralist communities of the Karamoja cluster have both suffered and caused suffering due to

armed violence during cattle rustling, whether from within their national boundaries (in this context

Uganda) or across borders (Kenya, South Sudan, Sudan or Ethiopia). Having been utterly


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marginalised under the colonial dispensation and further isolated politically and economically in the

post-independence era, these communities do share characteristics of pastoralist poverty under some

harsh environmental conditions (Bevan, 2008; Nolasco & Munene, 2012; Farah et al., 2013).

Culturally, the socio-economic livelihoods of these pastoralists revolve around the preservation and

welfare of their livestock, which essentially serves as the primary asset as well as source of

sustenance. Consequently, Nolasco and Munene (2012) argue that the prevalence of small arms in

this region is conspicuous: almost all households or homesteads in the region, in the aggregate, have

an arm or two. Furthermore, the ways of life of these pastoralist communities in the Karamoja

cluster are dictated by the severe weather patterns whereby temperatures often exceed 40 degrees

Celsius with annual rainfall, too meagre to support anything else other than conditioned pastoralism

(Nolasco & Munene, 2012). Hence, these pastoralist communities remain determined at all cost to

arm themselves in a bid to secure their ever-threatened source of livelihoods in face of raiding.

Incidentally, the loss of old arms due to either cattle rustling by other neighbouring pastoralist

communities in the region or government raids in attempts to disarm, spurs the demand for newer

ones, thus creating the fresher market for arms dealers whose supply results into illicit, ungoverned

or almost uncontrolled transactions. Besides, SALWs already in existence in this region by foreign

arms suppliers to either governments or rebel groups seem to move easily across borders. Therefore,

in a bid to ensure security of their livestock, pastoralist communities of the Karamonja cluster—

whether the Bokora, Dodoth, Jie, Matheniko and Pian among the Karimojong clan in Uganda; the

Toposa in South Sudan; or the Turkana and Pokot in Kenya—almost always resort to acquirement

of arms for protection against either potential neighbouring cattle rustling or government raids in

attempt to disarm them and so find themselves in a sheer insecurity deadlock.

Nonetheless, far from an unacknowledged account of efforts by different governments of this

region to pacify the Karamoja cluster and rid it from most of its illicit SALWs from pastoralist

community warriors as it seems to be the case today, this paper argues for the yet persistent need for

holistic human and livestock security beyond the apparent serenity provided by state security

apparatuses through the different regional governments’ application of the disarmament,

demobilisation and reintegration model among pastoralist communities in today’s Karamoja cluster.

Drawing insight from a documentary analysis of recent report publications (2008-2013) on the


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military as well as socio-economic developments in the Karamoja cluster, the paper explores some

of the drivers of insecurity (both perceived and real) in this region to date. Worryingly, the paper

further delves into the slow but bothersome persistent proliferation of SALWs among pastoralist

communities due to the deteriorating environmental resources in the region, coupled with recurring

communities’ clashes predominantly in north-eastern Uganda, south-western South Sudan and

north-western Kenya. Albeit massive governmental campaigns and exercises geared to disarm,

demobilise and reintegrate warriors of these pastoralist communities, the combination of the

oftentimes lack of synchronised regional planning and implementation of such campaigns and

exercises together with the almost conspicuous depletion of environmental resources due to the

increasingly changing weather patterns, simply exacerbate the state of human and livestock insecurity

in this region.

The paper ultimately maintains that while several large scale military-led operations as well as civil

development interventions have been undertaken to improve the living conditions of these

pastoralist communities, issues pertaining to both human and livestock security have not been

sufficiently been addressed. In its subsequent parts, the paper presents an anthropological argument

for human and livestock security, reading the socio-economic and environmental set-up of

pastoralist communities in today’s Karamoja cluster, and concludes with a set of reflections on how

the culture-economics-environment nexus could be tackled to resolve this long-standing insecurity

issue in the region.

Pastoralism as lifestyle

Pastoralism is a major factor and a complete way of life for millions in the Karamoja cluster.

Estimated to be more than a third of the region’s total population, pastoralist communities in this

region consist of three ethno-culturally linked clusters. The first and largest is no doubt the Karamoja

cluster which includes the border areas of Ethiopia, Kenya, the Sudan and Uganda; the second

cluster is the Somali cluster which falls in the borders of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia and the third is

the Dikhil cluster, which links the cross-border regions of Djibouti and Ethiopia (Mkutu, 2003;

Akabwai & Ateyo, 2007; Bevan, 2008; Farah et al. 2013).

De Lame (2005) insightfully wrote that as early as the turn of the twentieth century, anthropological

writings revealed the importance of cattle for many African peoples. Many cultural anthropological

research projects devoted to specific groups have analysed the functions of livestock and of


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transactions involving it. In a particularly interesting text, Lame (2005) notes, Herskovits applied the

theory of Kulturkeis to East Africa. He proposed boundaries for the area over which the following

characteristic series of cultural traits are distributed: “cattle as wealth, cattle as the only acceptable

dowry, cattle as the proper animals to be used in ceremonies or at special feasts, cattle associated

with distinct sex and occupational taboos, special milk customs, these all have a distribution which is

very similar” (Herskovits, 1926, p. 653 cited in De Lame, 2005, p. 320). In the most parts of Eastern

Africa where his cultural anthropological fieldwork was conducted, Herskovits emphatically noted

that the ‘cattle complex’—important as it is today—must be regarded as a cultural layer

superimposed on an underlying agricultural stratum. Over and beyond the rather sterile controversy

around the economic rationality of herding, facts remain: quoting Kuper (1982), de Lame (2005)

reports that in the area studied by Herskovits—the Greater Horn of Africa—farming is

economically more important but herding holds greater prestige.

Within the parameters of Uganda’s national boundaries, Karamoja is a semi-arid region, located in

the north-eastern part of Uganda. It shares borders with Kenya on the East and South Sudan in the

North; and comprises seven districts; namely, Abim, Amudat, Kaabong, Kotido, Moroto,

Nakapiripirit and Napak. The population is estimated at around 1.1 million according to the Population

Secretariat of Uganda’s Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (2008). Pastoral

livelihoods are dominant and agriculture is practiced in very few areas. Uganda’s Karamoja area has for

long experienced insecurity, harsh climatic conditions and depletion of livestock population due to

both anthropogenic cattle raids and non-anthropogenic attacks by diseases. Blamed for insecurity are

interethnic conflicts, cattle rustling and use of illicit arms. A recent report by Mercy Corps published

in April 2013 reiterates that Uganda’s Karamoja has long been characterised by poverty,

underdevelopment, and pervasive insecurity in the marginal drylands predominantly inhabited by

pastoralists. While cattle raiding has characterised the relationship among the Karimojong sub-clans

for many generations, in recent years, however, raiding has become increasingly violent, given the

accessibility to illicit SALWs (Mercy Corps, 2013).

Communities consisting of the Karamoja cluster are fundamentally nomadic pastoralists. They

essentially keep cattle, and to some extent, sheep, camel and goats. Due to the number of animals

kept and the nature of pastures as well as the climatic conditions in the sub-region, these herders are

forced to move around with their stock in search of more pasture and water. Hence the name


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‘nomadic pastoralists’ or ‘mobile pastoralists’ (Nolasco & Munene, 2012). Their movements are

definitely unrestricted to one area or country. They even move more freely into and out of

neighbouring countries such as South Sudan, Sudan, Kenya and Ethiopia, rendering internationally

recognised state boundaries virtually non-existent to them. These movements are of the major

sources of misunderstanding and armed conflict between them and their neighbours.

The culture--environment--economics nexus

It is argued that the situation in the Horn of Africa sub-region continues to be deplorable due to the

absence of environmental security-related infrastructure combined with inadequate levels of

awareness of the socio-economic dimension of predominantly pastoralist communities dwelling in

the sub-region.

Firstly, cultural practices among these communities such as the high demand for the so-called bride

price (dowry) coupled with diminishing stocks due to drought and the practice of livestock rustling

encourage the acquisition and use of illicit small arms. In 2002, Mkutu noted, a young Karimojong

man from a poor family in Uganda was expected to pay 30 cows as bride price on average and 60

cows if one were from a rich family; while among the Jie, bride price was as high as 130 heads cattle

excluding the small stock such as goats (Mkutu, 2003). Other cultural aspects include initiation rites

into adulthood which must be undergone through, amidst so many other rituals, the mounting

successful livestock raids. Furthermore, the lack of planned viable economic opportunities coupled

with political marginalization of pastoralist areas (Bevan, 2008; Mercy Corps, 2013) oftentimes

translate into the fact that pastoralist communities must struggle to ensure their survival. With the

commercialization of raiding which entails funding of raids and purchasing of raided stocks by

wealthy business people, the raided stock is hence used to supply urban markets with beef products

for economic gains (Mkutu, 2003). This simply exemplifies the extent to which a culturally grounded

practice (cattle rustling) can take and indeed takes an economic dimension whereby raided livestock

does enter into the food supply chain for a profit-making business.

In the second instance, Farah et al. (2013) have argued that one of the ways that environmental

factors contribute to conflict (armed violence by proliferation of SLAWs) is through interaction with

social, political and economic factors as well as the attendant issue of mass migration. Mass

migration stresses the environmental quality and natural resources as people compete for resources.


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This is particularly the nature of conflicts in the region of the Karamoja cluster and more specifically

pastoralist conflicts which form the more prevalent types of conflict in the region.

As argued by Farah et al. (2013), scholars of environmental conflicts, natural resources and

environmental diplomacy, including Lester Brown, George Kaplan, Daniel Schwartz and Singh

Ashbindu, propose that conflicts over resources can be as a result of scarcity, abundance or

management. Scarcities arise as a result of environmental stress, mismanagement, high population

growth or unfavourable climatic factors and can occur in a number of ways:-

• Where demand for natural resources exceeds supply and as such the resources cannot meet the

needs of the people;

• Where natural resources have been reduced as a result of degradation; and

• Where access is restricted or is unequally distributed.

In each of the above cases, conflict arises as the grassroots compete for the scarce resources

available to them and/or their rights, or access to exercise control over these resources, especially in

the case where they have been marginalized. Abundance, nevertheless, refers to a situation where a

country or a community is naturally endowed with resources, over which there is conflict.

Claims over rights or access to and/or control over these resources combined with one or more

socio-economic as well as political factors to elevate friction are what ultimately contribute to

conflict over natural resources.

Lastly, in spite of the government-spearheaded programmes in terms of both military- and civil-led

campaigns and operations to curb cattle rustling with the aid of SALWs, conflict and insecurity

which affected and continue to affect the livelihoods of the Karimojong have persisted, if not almost

seemingly omnipresent, in some areas. The 2008 report by the Population Secretariat of Uganda’s

Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development indicated that poverty affected over 80%

of the population; food insecurity was suffered by around 70% of the households; under-five

mortality was at 174/1000 births (National-137/1000); maternal mortality at 750/100,000 (National-

403/100,000); access to health services was around 24% (National - 72%); sentinel surveillance

indicated 3.5% HIV prevalence rates among pregnant women; access to safe water sources was at

30%; illiteracy at 89% for women; primary school attendance at 43%, with completion rates ranging

between 6-10% for primary level education.


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In addition to these statistical data, Mercy Corps (2013) recently reported that although from the

past recent years state security forces have ensured serenity in Karamoja area, cattle raiding

continues to take lives, undermine livelihoods, and discourage both development and private sector

investment in the area. What is even more disenchanting is the fact that as traditional power

structures kept eroding overtime in the midst of proliferation of SALWs in the region, socio-cultural

norms that once moderated raiding have consequently dissolved, and raids are thus increasingly

carried out by young men for their own personal gain (Mercy Corps, 2013). Worst still, the

contextual vulnerability of the Karimojong communities compounded by inadequate educations and

health services which further dwindles chances for a knowledge-based economy as well as

alternatives to challenges of pastoralist lifestyles. These challenges ensue from depleting agricultural

and land resources owing to harsh climatic changes as well as demographic pressures on the natural

environment. Eventually, not only are pastoralist conflicts ensuing from both socio-economic and

environmental contexts localised within the boundaries of a state but given the mobility of

pastoralists, they also oftentimes have the potential of being trans-boundary in nature.

Proliferation of SALWs: an insecure securitisation

Unless embargoed by an international regime, states have the right to export and import SALWs to

protect their citizens. Nonetheless, in isolated security situations, some communities have resorted

to illegal ownership of SALWs to ‘protect’ themselves from enemies from within and outside their

communities, especially in cases where the state is slow in responding to their protection concerns

(Ouko and Ahere, 2012). It is argued that the ineffectiveness of the governments of states in the

Horn of Africa results into the provision of inadequate security—if not non-existent—to protect

pastoralist and other marginalized communities from potential cattle raiders from neighbouring

communities (whether from within a state or outside the boundaries of that state). More often than

not, such shortcomings of state security forces to provide human and livestock to these pastoralist

communities have translated into a major reason that encourages these communities to acquire illicit

arms.

For instance, the Turkana in Kenya have a common cultured practice of gun ownership arising from

the need to protect their livestock from incursions by their neighbours the Pokot and Samburu in

north-western Kenya; The same does apply for the Karimojong in Uganda; the Toposa in South


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Sudan and the Merille in Ethiopia. They equate their circumstances to living in a cave, surrounded

by hostile neighbours and without protection (Mkutu, 2003). Arguably, governments in the

Karamoja cluster have been unable to effectively battle the persistent inter-pastoralist conflicts in

which illicit arms use is common. In many cases, the response to livestock raiding by the law

enforcement agencies was oftentimes slow, ineffective, sometimes overly forceful or non-existent

(Mkutu, 2003). With regard to human security, Bevan (2008) reported that with a SALWs death rate

approaching 60 per 100,000 of the population, Uganda’s Karamoja is one of the world’s most armed

violence-afflicted regions. In line with livestock security, Bevan (2008) further argued that tensions

that arise among pastoralist communities are often prompted by competition over pasture and

water, in addition to traditional practices of raiding cattle from rival communities. In Uganda, for

instance as Bevan (2008) argues, the Dodoth of Kaabong District cite the Jie of Kotido District as

their principal adversaries; they [Dodoth] also include the Turkana of Kenya as another prime threat.

In the same vein, the pattern of conflict among the Karimojong’s sub-clans have remained complex,

switching quickly between fragile alliances and outright war; the situation is always made worse by

the Pokot and Turkana from Kenya, who enter into the fix whenever drought afflicts the Kenyan

side of the border (Bevan, 2008).

Unique as its case may be, Uganda has periodically engaged in coercive disarmament of its

pastoralist populations in the Karamoja area, which is home to the Bokora, Dodoth, Jie, Matheniko,

and Pian sub-clans. Early campaigns in 2001 and 2002 led to the recovery of at least 10,000

weapons, though many (about 8,000) were reportedly reissued to warriors who had been recruited

into Local Defence Units (LDU) and Anti-Stock Theft Units (ASTU) (Government of Uganda,

2007). Early isolated successful cases of the forceful disarmament exercise carried in 2001 and 2002

notwithstanding, due to a weaker state security apparatus, the physical security—let alone human

security—of the previously disarmed pastoralists was compromised, thus forcing such vulnerable

communities to re-arm through illegal means, something which in turn attracted high handed

response from the government forces. In the same breath, Bevan (2008) reports that SALWs are

found out to be the only source of security for warring communities in Karamoja; without provision

of adequate security by the state of Uganda SALWs will continue to play a central role in providing

community protection. Correspondingly, such acquirement of SALWs for securitisation of

community and livestock perpetuate insecurity.


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Furthermore, as the integration of the warriors (from pastoralist communities) into the local defence

units (LDUs) was both ineffectively planned and implemented, these warriors deserted their units

and resumed raids and counter-raids and caused insecurity in the region. What remained even more

ironic with respect to the fight against the proliferation of SALWs in this region was the fact that a

plethora of armaments (both light and heavy) were not only used but even exchanged hands in the

very fight against SALWs in this region. At the time of his reporting (2008) Bevan too alluded to this

when he affirmed that the Karimojong acquire weapons from southern Sudan (now South Sudan);

on the domestic illicit market in Uganda; and, notably, from members of Uganda’s security forces.

Once more, the escalating insecurity following the disarmament campaigns in 2001-2002, attracted a

formal response from the government in which the Uganda Peoples’ Defense Forces (UPDF)

adopted a more aggressive approach to disarmament in the region, from April 2006 and continued

into 2007. A combination of heavy-mounted machine guns, assault rifles, and grenades were used,

sometimes with excesses, in various parts of Karamoja area. Many human rights organisations,

including Human Rights Watch (HRW, 2007) reported that the campaigns included mass beatings,

unlawful killings, torture, arbitrary detention, and the destruction of property. In its report titled

“Get the Gun!” published in 2007, HRW documented that resentments of the UPDF flared among

the Karimojong and resulted into reprisal attacks of various kinds and magnitudes to the extent that,

in retaliation for the arbitrary killings associated with cordon and search operations near Kotido

Town, Jie warriors killed the Commanding Officer of the UPDF 67th Battalion and a number of

soldiers in late October 2006 (HRW, 2007). By and large, the resulting losses on both sides

(government forces and community warriors) simply underscore the need for embracing the need

for and application of human and livestock security in Uganda’s Karamoja in particular, and the

Karamoja cluster in general.

In view of the pastoralist communities in Karamoja area, the Government of Uganda officially

designed a DDR-like programme called the Karamoja Integrated Disarmament and Development

Programme (KIDDP), aimed at effective disarmament in the area. Supported by the resources from

the national budget and from the international donor community, the overall goal of KIDDP until

2010 was to contribute to human security and promote conditions for recovery and development in

Karamoja area. The programmed interventions aimed to achieve this goal through the


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implementation of a comprehensive and coordinated disarmament plan to enhance peace-building

and development in the region (Government of Uganda, 2007).

The objectives of the KIDDP have been (i) to empower the Karimojong to harness the potential of

their natural resources and support economic diversification interventions in Karamoja with a view

to reducing reliance on livestock as a means of living; (ii) to promote sustainable utilization of Gum

Arabic and related dry land products for improved livelihood and biodiversity conservation; (iii) to

secure the land rights of communities in order to encourage sustainable utilization of natural

resources; (iv) to support interventions to improve the viability of pastoralism in Karamoja; and (v)

to facilitate the resettlement and rehabilitation of people affected by natural disasters and armed

conflicts (Uganda Government – KIDDP, 2007). Successful accounts of the KIDDP

implementation notwithstanding, the programme however failed to capture the underlying issues

causing proliferation of SALWs in a systematic manner. What is even more problematic is that the

implementation of this policy ensued from these objectives inevitably contradicted the lifestyles’

patterns of the communities to whom the policy was directed. While the KIDDP could be regarded

a nascent initiative based on integrated security- and development-enhancing strategies, Bevan

(2009) still argues that the result of forcible disarmament measures not only made disarmament a

more contentious issue, but even impeded the very implementation of the plan.

As mentioned earlier, it was after frequent episodes of insecurity in Karamoja area that the

Government of Uganda undertook a forceful disarmament exercise during 2001-2002 in order to

address the problem of illicit arms. Within a short time from the beginning of forceful disarmament,

around 10,000 illicit guns had been collected. However, there were complaints of high handedness

by the military that led to slowing down the processes and when re-launched in September 2004, the

campaign was not executed simultaneously throughout the area. This meant that while one village

had handed over its illicit arms, another still possessed theirs. The groups that retained their illicit

firearms could easily raid the disarmed ones (Akabwai & Ateyo, 2007).

The Government of Kenya, on the other hand, launched a series of military-led disarmament

programmes among the Pokot and Turkana in seven districts of the North Rift region. The process

proceeded in three phases:(i) Operation ‘Dumisha Amani’ (maintain peace), a voluntary and non-

coercive weapon collection initiative that promised increased security and amnesty from

prosecution of community warriors; (ii) Operation ‘Okota I’ (Collect Phase I), which entailed the


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forceful disarmament of communities that did not cooperate during the earlier phase; and (iii)

‘Okota II’ (Collect Phase II), a development intervention designed to improve economic conditions

in previously armed and insure areas in order to reduce incentives for illicit arms possession (Edaan

of Riam Riam, 2007). The pastoralist communities in northern Kenya—the Pokot, Turkana, and the

Samburu—have remained obstinate in surrendering their arms to the authorities. Nolasco and

Munene (2012) underscore that a major reason for this resistance has been the communities’ lack of

confidence in the authorities to offer security to them and their treasured livestock. This lack of

confidence in the government authorities to offer security against their perceived longstanding

traditional enemies has curtailed co-operation among the actors in the disarmament exercises, more

especially the warriors.

Incidentally, such disarmament campaigns also increased the insecurity of some groups at the

expense of others. In the southern part of Turkana, for instance, neighbouring Pokot and

Karimojong communities repeatedly attacked the Turkana who had voluntarily disarmed. The

assurance from the Government of Kenya for their protection had not materialised as promised

(Edaan of Riam Riam, 2007). Many members of the Pokot community therefore fled to Uganda in

order to avoid having their weapons confiscated. The Turkana were unable to relocate, leaving them

exposed to Pokot warriors, who returned from Uganda with newly acquired illicit arms.

The disarmament exercise launched in May 2006 was the largest in Kenya and covered at least seven

districts in the North Rift (north-east of Kenya), occurring at the same time as Ugandan army led

disarmament in the neighbouring pastoralist communities in the North Rift (Nolasco & Munene,

2012).Compounding the situation, Kenyan military personnel reportedly tortured and abused

civilians who refused to surrender their weapons voluntarily or did not divulge information

concerning armed community members. In the course of these disarmament campaigns, civilian

populations also rapidly lost confidence in the exercise, more so when they discovered that they

would not be adequately compensated for their surrendered weapons. Pastoralist populations, long

used to repressive interventions from the state, interpreted the disarmament process as yet another

repressive effort to undermine their communities and limit their freedom of movement (Edaan of

Riam Riam, 2007).


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Between December 2005 and May 2006, the then Government of South Sudan, through the Sudan

Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA), administered a coercive civilian disarmament campaign in

northern Jonglei State. The campaign was initiated at the request of communities who needed to

negotiate access to cattle camps. This sought to remove weapons from local pastoralist groups,

primarily the Luo Nuer, many of whom perceived it as a political crackdown. The history of

animosity between the Nuer and the Dinka, who have dominated the ranks of the SPLA, may have

compounded this suspicion. Young (2007) observes that from the beginning, the initiative

encountered resistance from the Luo Nuer ‘White Army’ militias—semi organized groupings of

armed young men who protect cattle and conduct raids on neighbouring tribes. In the course of the

disarmament programme, more than 3,000 weapons were collected, and an estimated 1,600 White

Army and SPLA soldiers were killed (Small Arms Survey, 2007).

In light of the mounting casualties under the SPLA-led arms recovery effort, the UN acted quickly

to promote peaceful disarmament elsewhere in the state. A Luo–Murle Peace Agreement, based on

an April 2006 ceasefire, provided a starting point. According to the Small Arms Survey (2007), the

campaign netted some 1,200–1,400 functioning assault rifles, machine guns, rocket-propelled

grenade launchers, and mortars by the end of August 2006. Although the disarmament could not be

described as ‘voluntary’, no lives were lost as a direct result of the exercise. The UN subsequently

undertook a third disarmament exercise in Jonglei to reduce weapons stocks among the Murle, a

tribe that had hitherto not participated in the arms recovery campaigns but feared locally.

Splinter groups and opportunistic individuals acted as spoilers, and disarmed residents of

neighbouring Akobo County were explicitly targeted during the campaign. The SPLA, which had

committed to providing buffer zones to protect disarmed communities during the arms recovery

process, did not deploy any troops until the end of the dry season in May. More problematic still,

under the assumption that the Murle community still had a large stockpile of small arms, the SPLA

continued to threaten to carry out a forcible disarmament campaign (Young, 2007). Despite the

recovery of thousands of weapons, security remained elusive for many who participated in the

Jonglei disarmament campaigns, while raiding did not diminish at any time during the disarmament

exercise (Small Arms Survey, 2007).

To be sure, illicit small arms among these pastoralist communities have also been used to commit

gross human rights abuses strongly prohibited under international human rights and humanitarian


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law. These are evident in both pre- and post-raid situations. More often than not, weapons have

been used to facilitate systematic rape and war crimes by spreading a reign of fear. In such contexts,

it is common to find women and girls raped at gun point while men (most especially the young

ones) are sometimes abducted at gun-point and forced to work for their attackers. At the time of his

reporting, Bevan (2008) wrote that SALWs in this region play an equally offensive role as they do a

defensive. Furthermore, violations of human rights in the case of flight against the proliferation of

SALWs are not only perpetrated by armed civilians, but are also prevalent during forceful

disarmament exercises undertaken by governmental military forces in the region. According to

Bevan (2008), military-enforced disarmament initiatives in Karamoja have destabilised an already

volatile security and involved torture and extra-judicial killings.

In a nutshell, the increasingly conspicuous presence of arms (by either state security forces or

pastoralist communities themselves) in a bid to securitise the region from potential armed cattle

rustling ironically turns out to worsen an already bad situation: much more insecurity and violence.

Perhaps, a solitary focus on human security without the required level of awareness of and

determination for livestock security within the socio-economic as well as environmental context of

pastoralist communities in the Karamoja cluster would always remain futile.

Securitising cattle and human life: a conclusion

Most areas of the Greater Horn of Africa where pastoralist communities nomadically live are

characterised by aridity and semi-aridity. While the land is too arid for any rewarding cultivation,

with low and infrequent rainfall, the health of livestock—on which human welfare in the context of

pastoralism greatly depends—is adversely affected.

Through the dry season or times of drought, pastoralists are forced to relocate their cattle in search

of water and pasturelands. They set temporary cattle camps (or Kraals) to keep livestock from

wandering off and to safeguard them from perennial raids by bordering pastoralist. Ironically, as

Nolasco and Munene (2012) documented, it is mostly when they are non-permanently settled in

these places (Kraals) that armed raids are inevitable.

Due to the fact that the proliferation of SALWs has sustained many of these violent conflicts,

disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) programs have oftentimes become an

essential part of conflict transformation. Nonetheless, disarmament campaigns in this region have


15

been more of reactive than proactive exercises, and are almost always conducted only when there

has been an increase in cattle rustling, banditry and related conflicts among these pastoralist

communities. Hence, there is need to create a fuller and more elaborate systematic approach to the

SALWs issue; an approach that is sensitive to conflict dynamics and works to promote both human

and livestock security within pastoralist communities.

Consonant with the urgent need to make disarmament campaigns among raid-ridden pastoralist

communities work effectively, this paper recommends that in lieu of beginning with disarmament,

followed by demobilization and then reintegration (DDR), the model could instead start from the

last stage of reintegration, followed by demobilisation and then disarmament (RDD). Borrowing

from the understanding of Nolasco and Munene (2012), reintegration therefore becomes

sensitisation, peace-building and persuasion of the pastoralist warriors to shun away from any armed

cattle rustling and reconcile with their culturally-framed enemies. The implementation of the RDD

model in lieu of the DDR perfectly responds to the whole question of “sustainable reintegration” of

the attackers as one that inculcates in ex-combatants a sense of social belonging and provides them

with a long term stake in communities’ economic development, thereby providing powerful

incentives for ex-combatants to continue their civilian lives by working backwards from the

reintegration process through the self-generating will to disarm and therefore sustaining a long-term

demobilisation.

Additionally, it is important that a lot of interest and effort be vested into other actors rather than a

situation where the state alone exercises monopoly over security concerns. Adequate information

(including advanced but easily accessible technological security systems and devices) on the role of

citizenry (at the very grassroots’ level) in protection other than community policing would go a long

way in enabling states’ efforts in advancing safety and security. In the same vein, once tracked, the

recovery and return of stolen livestock becomes essential to preventing retaliatory raids and so

breaking the cycle of violence.

Lastly, in tandem with the recently adopted text of the United Nations’ Arms Trade Treaty in March

2013 to which SAWLs apply, the end result should be a situation where production, supply and use

of SALWs can be effectively controlled, and eventually tagged and tracked electronically for

purposes of monitoring their movement. While it may never be feasible to implement a total ban on


16

SALWs, it is nevertheless possible for governments of states of the Greater Horn of Africa, in close

coordination with a myriad of stakeholders, to put in place stricter agreements as well as follow-up

mechanisms for their implementation such that SALWs may be out of reach of their abusers, thanks

to prevention of illicit transfer and diversion. Ultimately, if it could be postulated that pastoralist

communities resort to arming themselves illicitly such that they may be able provide the much

needed security to their much desired livestock in face of either custom-driven or environmentally-

induced attacks, it therefore becomes safe for any actor involved conflict transformation in the

Karamoja cluster to consider freeing the livestock first and foremost from imminent threats—

whether by raids from other human enemies or by exhausting environmental resources—in order

for peace to be imagined and sustained within such communities.


17

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