African Affairs Advance Access originally published online on July 28, 2006
African Affairs 2007 106(422):47-70; doi:10.1093/afraf/adl002
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Small Arms and Light Weapons Among Pastoral Groups in the Kenya–Uganda Border Area
Kennedy Agade Mkutu is a former lecturer with the Kenya Institute of Administration and is currently a consultant with Peace and Conflict Transfomation.
Recent decades have seen an escalation in interethnic resource conflicts and banditry among pastoralists in the Kenya-Uganda border region, fuelled by a growing number of small arms. State management has been largely unsuccessful and often counterproductive in reducing numbers of small arms. The creation of paramilitary institutions in rural Kenya and Uganda are an example of how legal arms are entering communities and intensifying the conflicts further. Understanding the sources and mechanisms of arms acquisition is a significant step in curbing the violence. The main sources and routes, and the current costs of arms and ammunition are provided. More important however is to appreciate the complex reasons behind the demand for small arms. Relationships with states, alienation of pastoral land, cultural issues and questions of livelihood are all examined, using empirical evidence collected by the author between 2001 and 2005.
1. Interview with Rev. John Lodinyo, pastor of Baptist Church, Kiwawa, 31 May 2001. The officer-in-charge of the police noted that the number of Pokot looking for pasture had increased because of the dry spell in the district at the time.
2. Mustafa Mirzeler and Crawford Young, ‘Pastoral politics in the northeast periphery in Uganda: AK47 as change agent’, Journal of Modern African Studies 38, 3 (2000), pp. 407–30; Action for Development of Local Communities (ADOL), ‘The Karimojong response to disarmament: six months later’, (Unpublished report, ADOL/Pax Christi, Netherlands and Kampala, 2002); Kennedy Mkutu, ‘Pastoralist Conflict and Small Arms: The Kenya–Uganda border region’ (Consultancy for Saferworld, London, 2003).
3. Interview with former resident district commissioner in Kotido, 2 February 2003.
4. Interviews with victims of small arms injuries including a 15-year-old victim in Kanwata, Karamoja, 2001–4.
5. How the figure is arrived at is unclear: see ‘Disarm them’ East African Standard <http://www.eastandard.net/hm_news/news_s.php?articleid=28071> (30 August 2005).
6. Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBO), ‘National Population and Housing Census’, (Government report, Kampala, 2003).
7. For details, see David Anderson, ‘Stock theft and moral economy in colonial Kenya’, Africa 56, 4 (1986), pp. 399–416; Richard Hogg ‘The new pastoralism: poverty and dependence in northern Kenya’, Africa 56, 3 (1986), pp. 319–32; Kennedy Mkutu, Pastoral Conflict, Governance and Small Arms in the North Rift, Northeast Africa (University of Bradford, Unpublished PhD thesis, 2005); Kennedy Mkutu, ‘Pastoralist Conflict in the Horn of Africa’ [Consultancy for African Peace Forum (APFO)/Saferworld/University of Bradford, 2001]; Derrick Belshaw and Joshua Malinga, ‘The Kalashnikov economies of the Eastern Sahel: cumulative or cyclical differentiation between nomadic pastoralists’ (Unpublished report, Development Studies Association, South Bank University of East Anglia, 1999); Suzette Heald, ‘Tolerating the intolerable: cattle raiding among the Kuria’ in G. Aijmer and J. Abbink (eds), Meanings of Violence: A cross-cultural perspective (Berg, Oxford, 2000), pp. 101–21. Bruno Novelli, ‘Karimojong Traditional Religion’ (Comboni Missionaries, Kampala, 1999); Augusto Pazzaglia, The Karimojong: Some aspects (Camboni Missionaries, Bologna, 1982).
8. Kennedy Mkutu, ‘Armed Pastoralist Conflicts and Peace Building in Karamoja: The Role of Gender’ [Consultancy for Netherlands Development Agency (SNV), Kampala, 2005].
9. Interviews in Karamoja, various sources, 2001–4.
10. ‘50,000 guns in wrong hands, says Michuki’ Daily Nation <http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category-id=1&newsid=56059> (29 August 2005).
11. Belshaw and Malinga ‘The Kalashnikov economies’.
12. Mkutu, Pastoralist Conflict, Governance and Small Arms; Anderson, ‘Stock theft’; Natalie Gomez and Kennedy Mkutu, ‘Breaking the Cycle of Violence: Building capacity for development in Karamoja, Uganda’ (Consultancy for SNV/Pax Christi, Kampala, 2004); Mkutu, Armed Pastoralist Conflict . . . the Role of Gender; Ton Dietz, Pastoralists in dire straits: survival strategies and external interventions in a semi arid region at the Kenya/Uganda border: Western Pokot, 1900–1986 (Instituut Voor Sociale Geografie, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Unpublished PhD Thesis, 1987); National Council of Churches of Kenya/SNV/Semi-arid Rural Development Project (SARDEP) ‘Pacifying the valley: an analysis of the Kerio valley conflict’, (Report NCCK/SNV/SARDEP, Nairobi, 2001).
13. Heald, ‘Tolerating the intolerable’; Michael Fleisher, ‘Cattle raiding and household demography among the Kuria of Tanzania’ Africa 69, 2 (1999), pp. 238–55.
14. Mkutu, Pastoralist Conflict, Governance and Small Arms.
15. John Sislin, John Pearson, Jocelyn Boryczka, and Jeffrey Weigand, ‘Patterns in arms acquisitions by ethnic groups in conflict’, Security Dialogue, 29, 4 (1998), pp. 393–408.
16. Mkutu, Pastoralist Conflict, Governance and Small Arms; Mkutu, ‘Armed Pastoralist Conflict’.
17. For example, the first time I interviewed the Honorable David Pulkol, the former external security officer for Uganda in 2001, he was on a campaign trail.
18. Kotido, Panyangara, Nakapelimoru, Kachire, Moroto, Loputuku, Lokitelekapes, Lokitelebu, Kalapata, Losilang, Kanwat Iriri, Namalu, Kangole, Nakiloro, Amudat, Karita, Kotido, Rupa, Musasia and Kampala in Uganda and Kapenguria, Kachiliba, Alale, Nauypong, Kiwawa and Kunyao in Kenya.
19. KIA is the senior institution for training upper level policy makers in Kenya. I worked there from 1997 to 2005 (colleagues administered the questionnaire whilst I was on sabbatical).
20. This consisted of officers based in finance, home affairs, transport, the judiciary and foreign affairs.
21. Communications with Philip Gulliver, Ton Dietz, Michael Bollig, Ben Knighton and John Lamphear.
22. Interviews in Karamoja, 2001–4.
23. Kenya National Archive, Turkana history, Turkana political records, miscellaneous, 1921–45 TURK 159, DC/TURK3/1, p. 90.
24. Awoundo Odegi, Life in the Balance: Ecological sociology of Turkana nomads (ACTS, Nairobi, 1990); James Barber, Imperial Frontier (East African Publishing House, Nairobi, 1968), pp. 91–106; Augusto Pazzaglia, The Karimojong.
25. Barber, Imperial Frontier.
26. Interview with Ael Ark Lodou, Member of Parliament for Dodoth in Moroto, Uganda, 12 November 2004.
27. Interview with James Chere, former raider and Chief of Rupa in Moroto, 3 January 2003 and October 2004.
28. Samuel Makinda, ‘Conflict and superpower in the Horn of Africa’, Third World Quarterly, 4, 1 (1982), pp. 93–103; For analysis of countries supplying arms to the Horn of Africa during the cold war, see also Jeffrey Lefebvre, Arms for the Horn: U.S. security policy in Ethiopia and Somalia 1953–1991 (University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1991).
29. Interviews with eyewitnesses and others in Karamoja, 2001–4.
30. Interviews in Panyangara, Kotido, Moroto and Namalu, 2001–4.
31. Charles Ocan, ‘Pastoral crisis in Northern Uganda: the changing significance of cattle raids’, (Report, Centre for Basic Research, Kampala, 1992).
32. Interviews 2001–4. I did meet some young men who had fought in DRC but were now jobless and originated from the Karimojong area.
34. Jan Cappon, ‘Why do communities want arms? Controlling the demand for small arms, the search for strategies in the Horn of Africa and in the Balkans’, (Report, The Hague/Pax Christi, Netherlands, 2003). There is increasing evidence of racketeers, but more work needs to be done on this secretive area. Some evidence exists in Kennedy Mkutu, Guns and Governance: Pastoralist conflict and small arms in the North Rift (James Currey, Oxford, forthcoming).
35. National Assembly of Kenya, Report of the Parliamentary Select Committee to Investigate Ethnic Clashes in Western and Other Parts of Kenya, (National Assembly, Nairobi, Government Press, 1992).
36. Mkutu, Pastoralist Conflict and Small Arms.
37. The term vigilante here refers to a self-appointed body of citizens organized to maintain order in their local community. For more on vigilantes, see Les Johnston, ‘What is vigilantism?’ British Journal of Criminology 36, 2 (1996), pp. 220–36. For the metamorphosis of vigilante in Karamoja region and its current status, see Mkutu, Pastoral Conflict, Governance and Small Arms.
38. Interviews with Father John Bosco in Amudat, and others, 2001–4.
39. Interviews in Karamoja, 2001–4.
40. Interviews in Karamoja, November 2004. By the end of 1995, the Ugandan government was spending over 60 million UgSh per month to pay vigilante in Karamoja alone. See ‘Government spends Sh.60m on Karamoja vigilantes’, Daily Monitor, 9 October 1995.
41. Gomes and Mkutu, ‘Breaking the Cycle of Violence’.
42. Interview, name withheld, in Kampala, 17 May 2003.
43. Interviews in Karamoja, 2001–4.
44. Interview with resident district commissioner, name withheld, in Karamoja, 2004.
45. Mkutu, Pastoral Conflict, Governance and Small Arms (chapter 4).
46. The Monitor, 22 March 2000.
47. Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources (IBAR) and Organisation of African Unity (OAU) pastoral community harmonization meeting held at Mount Elgon Hotel, Mbale, Uganda, May 2001.
48. These were recognized by their language especially in Bokora: interviews in Lotome, November 2004.
49. For more on the disarmaments, see Mkutu, ‘Guns and Governance’; Kennedy Mkutu, ‘Pastoralist conflict and small arms: the challenges of small arms and insecurity and attempts at management in Karamoja, Uganda’ (Paper presented at the Northeast Africa Seminar, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford, 30 January 2004); From 2004 to January 2006, 1,068 arms have been recovered forcibly and voluntarily in the four districts of Karamoja. See Daily Monitor, 9 January 2006.
50. Confirmed by interviews in Karamoja, 2001–4.
51. Interviews in kraals in Karamoja, 2003–4.
52. ‘Protests as state disarms homeguards over clashes’, Daily Nation, 29 November 2004; ‘Police reserves were a threat to security’, Kenya Times, 21 April 2004; ‘Kenya Police reserve force is disbanded,’ Daily Nation, 10 April 2004.
53. Interview with UPDF soldier in Namalu, 28 January 2003.
54. Interviews in Namalu, January 2004. The author personally visited the kraal where the animals were raided and witnessed the graves of the children who had been killed in the crossfire.
55. Interview with Amudat hospital personnel, January 2003; interviews with several members of the Karimojong and Upe Pokot community concurred in 2004.
56. Interview with Roman Catholic Father in Karamoja, name withheld, Karamoja 2004.
57. Interviews with elders in Alale, Kenya, August 2002, and visit to the scene. This was not reported in any press.
58. Interview with karachunas in Kangole, July 2001; interviews in Musasia, Nakaplimoru and Pangayangara in September–November, 2004, confirmed this.
59. Interview with elder Koritantoyo in Nakiliro, 2 February 2003.
60. Interview in Karamoja, November 2004.
61. Interviews in Karamoja, Uganda and in West Pokot, Kenya, 2001–4, and phone and e-mail communications, 2005. In Namalu and Kangole in Karamoja, warriors could be seen chewing miraa (Khat).
62. Interview with a SPLA soldier, name withheld, Moroto, 20 June 2001.
64. Interview with James Chere, former raider and now chief of Rupa in Rupa, 2003 and 2004.
65. ADOL ‘Arms trafficking in the border regions of Sudan, Uganda and Kenya’ (Unpublished report ADOL, Kampala, 2001), pp. 202–10.
66. Interview with elder in Moroto, 20 June 2001.
67. In the field in October 2004, reliable sources in Karamoja indicated that Kony was spotted in Lira. Interviews in Kotido with various people, including Local Council Fives, and in Kanawat, February 2003, also confirmed Kony as a source of weapons to pastoralists.
68. Interviews in Losilang and Kachile, Jie, October–November 2004.
69. Interviews with Somali businessmen who own mines in Karamoja, 2003–4; interviews in Moroto, Nikloro and Namalu and visits to mining areas.
70. Interviews in Namalu and Mbale, name withheld, 20 June 2001.
71. Observed in Namalu and Kangole in Uganda and in Alale in Kenya.
72. Sandra Gray, ‘A memory of loss: ecological politics, local history, and the evolution of Karimojong violence’, Human Organization 59, 4 (2000), pp. 401–18.
73. Mkutu, ‘Pastoralist Conflict and Small Arms’, p. 11.
74. Father Joachim Omolo Ouko, ‘Clearly famine caught govt napping’, Kenya Times, 5 January 2006 <http://www.timesnews.co.ke/05jan06/editorials/comm1.html> (5 January 2006).
75. Interviews in Nakapiripirit, Moroto and Nikoloro and observation, 2003.
76. Riamiriam, ‘The policy advocacy role of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Karamoja: The challenges and successes’ (Unpublished report, Riamiriam, Moroto, 2005).
77. Mkutu, ‘Pastoralist Conflict and Small Arms’, pp. 17–18; for numbers of cows paid for brides, see Mkutu, ‘Pastoralist Conflict, Governance and Small Arms’, p. 167; ADOL, ‘Karamoja response to disarmament’.
78. Interview with Peter Lokeris, Minister for Karamoja, in Kampala, January 2003.
79. Interview with Father John Bosco who is a victim of a gunshot in the knee, St Joseph’s Mission, Amudat, 28 January 2004.
80. Interviews in Karamoja and West Pokot in Kenya, 2001–4.
81. Interviews, visits and observations.
82. West Pokot was formerly known as West Suk.
83. KNA, District Commissioner West Suk, Annual Report, 1945, pp. 2–3.
84. Interviews and observations, 2001–4.
85. Ben Knighton, ‘The state as raider among the Karimojong: where there are no guns they use the threat of guns’, Africa 73, 203 (2003), pp. 427–55.
86. Knighton, ‘The state as raider’, pp. 443–46; ‘Residents plead for army bases at border’, Daily Nation, 7 June 2002 <http://www.nationaudio.com/News/DailyNation/today/News/News11.html> (7 June 2002); the government of Kenya was accused of killing residents under the guise of ‘security operations’. Other examples include the Wagalla, Malkamari and Garissa massacres, where thousands of people were killed and property worth millions destroyed.
87. See ‘Leaders foiling guns surrender plan, says DC’, Daily Nation, 19 September 2004 <http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&newsid=57473> (20 September 2004). The DC noted that, of the 2,600 arms surrendered, the majority were defective, and some residents were still withholding those in good condition.
88. Ben Okudi, ‘Causes and effects of the 1980 famine in Karamoja’ (Report, Center for Basic Research, Kampala, 1992).
89. Interviews and phone communications Karimojong, NGOs and government officials in Karamoja, 2004–6; Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), ‘Karamoja integrated disarmament and development programmes: creating conditions for promoting human security and recovery in Karamoja, 2005–2008’ (Government report, Kampala, June 2005).
90. Interviews with warriors in Panyangara, Kanawat and Kotido in Karamoja, February 2003 and November 2004.
91. Knighton, ‘The state as raider’, pp. 426–55.
92. Not all the UPDF are raiders, in my experience in the field since 2000, I found a lot of them to be very helpful; the conditions in which they operate need to be considered.
93. Interviews in Panyangara, Kacheri, Kotido, Musisia, Loputuk and Moroto, November 2004.
94. Interviews in Karamoja, 2001–4.
95. Interviews with warriors and others, Nakapelimoru and Panyangara, August 2005.
96. Interview in Karamoja, November 2004.
97. Interview with warriors in Panyangara airstrip, 7 October 2004; interviews with Lotirir mothers’ group and women in Rupa near Moroto, September 2004.
98. Interviews in Karamoja, September–November 2004.
99. Interviews with young Ekwete brew sellers in Jie County and Loputuk, September–October 2004.
100. Interviews in Kanawat and Kotido, February 2003, and in Losilang and Kachire, November 2004. In some places, there is no government administration.
101. Interview in Karamoja, November 2004.
102. Interview with Pastor Samuel Kotiyot, Amudat, 31 May 2001.
103. Interviews in Kachire, Panyangara and Kanawat, November 2004. Kotido also came up with the same figures.
104. Interview with reformed raider in Kanawat, 2004.
105. Interview with Catholic Father in Karamoja, name withheld, 19 June 2001 and January 2003.
106. Interviews in Kotido town, November 2004.
107. Interview, name withheld, in Alale, 2006.
108. See Standard Team, ‘Minister: Sh28b needed to fight famine’, Sunday Standard, 8 January 2006; See also John Korir, ‘60 billion livestock threatened’, Kenya Times, 4 January 2006 <http://www.timesnews.co.ke/04jan06/business/buns7.html> (4 January 2006).