Though state control of arms and livestock has caused violence to abate, Ugandans feel angry and vulnerable
SITTING ON his hand stool, a pair of car tyres hollowed into sandals on his feet, Nzongoli Lotongokol (42) strains his ears to hear how much food aid he will get this year.
He’s not happy. But not because the international aid agency will only meet 50 per cent of his food needs, down from 70 per cent last year. Like the 200 or so other members of the Karamojong tribe, gathered on the hill looking over the arid plains of Kaabong, he finds it hard to believe that for another year he has been forced to look for outside assistance just to survive.
“We were not food insecure when we had our guns,” says Lotongokol. “We could go out far grazing because we had AK47s to protect our cattle from raiders. Now we have to give the cattle over to the government for protection. And if they’re not stealing them, they’re not protecting them properly.”
Since a government disarmament campaign began in 2001, cattle herders like Lotongokol have been forced to give up their weapons and hand their cattle over to the government for protection in specially constructed corrals of 30,000 cattle or more. To the government, it has been an enormous success story, ridding the area of violence that made it a no-go area for over two decades.
But according to the herders, it is decimating their way of life, as cattle die from disease in the closely packed corrals and continue to be raided by the army and tribes which have not been disarmed.
From a high of 180,000 cattle four years ago, there are now 90,000 in Kaabong, says the local government vet. And so the World Food Programme now has to meet the food needs of 58 per cent of the local population, who find it increasingly difficult to get to their livestock for milk and blood, on which it has traditionally depended.
For its part, the government argues that the disarmament campaign has been successful in putting an end to cattle raids. “We’ve had no raids for one year. No road ambushes for one year. Of course, there are still thefts, but that’s not bad considering five years ago we had two to three raids a day,” says Robert Okelu, the district security officer. He denies soldiers are stealing cattle.
However, regional district commissioner Thomas Okoth–Nyazulu admits they might be taking some. “The army might eat one or two, but the idea that they are loading them onto trucks and taking them to Kenya and Sudan is ridiculous.”
Permits are required for the movement of all livestock, he says, making it impossible for soldiers to steal them in large numbers and bring them to slaughterhouses.
Either way, local pastoralists have little way of exercising their anger. There will be three MPs elected from Kaabong district in this week’s parliamentary election. No opposition candidates are standing – the only challengers to the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party are independents who did not win the nomination at the NRM selection conventions. Opposition candidates, they say, have been chased from the area.
Meanwhile, Koyo Pius (45) has only two cattle left. “There’s nothing we can do because when we ask for our cattle back, the army say ‘where is your gun?’ and beat you.” He says 20 were stolen from the protected area and another two taken by the army last year.
“Compensation for taking my rifle? Here it is,” he says, pointing to deep chiselled marks in his feet where he says soldiers beat him with rifle butts, after he claimed his cattle were disappearing mysteriously in the night.
“Beating you is as good as it gets.”