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Saturday, December 12, 2009

Cattle Rustling in Karamoja

Karamoja is the dryest, poorest part of Uganda - with 80% illiteracy rate - in NE Uganda on the border with Kenya. Karimojong are the people - nomadic pastoralists competing across the Kenyan border with the Turkana nomadic pastoralists. Both rustle cattle across the border, a practice sometimes ritualized as a way to manhood, but fraught with violence as many gun-carrying men protect their herds which represent their wealth and symbolize their power in society. Kotido and Moroto make up the political area of Karamoja. Pastoralists from Kotido raid Kitgum to the east. Raiders from Sudan go into Kitgum. Raiders from Kenya (the Turkana) go into Kotido and Kitgum, and those guys go over to Kenya. These cows travel a lot. They bring diseases with them, foot and mouth disease is one.

Karimojong have had the belief that cattle naturally belongs to them so they can take more. In the 1980s they acquired guns from unhappy national army soldiers, and so began the gun culture. All this raiding brings a big demand for guns, so the Turkana, Karimojong and Sudanese are expert arms dealers specializing in inexpensive guns. They are expert marksmen too.

They don't want to wear western clothing but Idi Amin tried to make them. In 1972 Amin had 200 Karimojong shot for choosing not to wear western clothing. Now they wear sarong things, and army jackets I read somewhere.

The "Magoro accord" was sealed back in 1998 between Karimojong and the neighboring Teso tribe. If you kill someone in a raid and people find out, the government will take 60 of your cattle and give it to the victim's clan.

In June 2009, the Ugandan army sent out some troops as the cattle anti-theft force to protect the border between Kitgum and Kotido, and protect Kitgum from Sudanese too.









NY times story from 1991

Amazing timeline of Gun History in Karamoja

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