DanChurchAid
Uganda
8 killed, 318 livestock raided in June
By David Mafabi, journalist, the Daily Monitor, Uganda
This is contained in the month of June report prepared by Karamoja Agro-pastoral Development Programme [KADP] on the security situation updates for the month at Bokora sub-region in Moroto district.
KADP is an local NGO operating in Karamoja region charged with the responsibility of transforming traditional pastoralism into modern pastoralism geared towards re-directing Karamoja on a journey to development, ending cattle raids and creating a conflict free pastoral communities in Karamoja region.
While explaining the report findings entitled; Security updates for June, KADP programme manager, Mr. Michael Kuskus said all deaths and raids recorded are a product of the 21 raids recorded between 1 and 30 June this year by both the warriors and Uganda People’s Defense Forces in different places in Karamoja region.
"Whereas the army insists that disarmament is the way to end conflict involving cattle raids in Karamoja region, KADP security update reveals that in the month of June 318 head of cattle, 127 sheep 33 goats and 4 donkeys were raided in the month of June amidst the cordon and search disarmament,” said Kuskus.
The report says that the 21 raids in Lokopo, Lorikitae, Neipolim, Llodume, Lopeta, Apeitolim, Longalim were committed by the Jie, Matheniko and Pian warriors on one hand and the UPDF on another hand particularly naming Lokopo detach.
The report names the Pokot, Pian, Chekwi and Chekwii in Nakapiripiriti district, the Labwar, Dodoth and the Jie tribes within Karamoja region as the leading cattle raiders in the North East of Uganda and Western parts of Kenya.
Kuskus told Daily Monitor that Karamoja region because of the UPDF disarmament exercise is having the highest loss of lives in the whole of the corn of Africa where the pastoralism is the leading economic activity.
Kuskus revealed that whereas violence in the pastoral region has changed in nature, scale and dimension due to the proliferation of automatic weapons, high youth unemployment, widespread poverty, increased competition over natural resources, land alienation, extended patterns of drought and reduced respect of traditional rules governing cattle raiding, government should employ a more civil approach to the disarmament exercise.
He said basing on the situation in Karamoja, KADP is seeking enduring mechanisms that would ensure setting up of agro-pastoral projects in Karamoja that would ensure another sustainable means of income, sensitization and mobilization of people to take children to school in order to change people from looking at pastoralism as the only source of livelihood.
However when contacted about UPDF involvement in some of the raids, the UPDF 3rd division spokesperson, Lt Henry Obbo dismissed it as allegations geared towards damaging the UPDF as an institution that is over seeing the disarmament in the region.
Obbo revealed that UPDF only gets involved in the pastoral conflict to recover the guns and raided cattle to return them to the rightful owners.
“There are incidents were the warriors have killed innocent soldiers and nobody is talking about this but as UPDF our intention in Karamoja has never been to be involved in fights, cattle raids but to disarm in order to ensure that there is peace in the region as the first and most important ingredient of development,” said Obbo.
He said that on 5 July in a pastoral conflict involving the Matheniko and the Bokora at Nadiket, Katikikile sub-county, UPDF intervened impounded 818 cows and 19 guns and that the animals have already been handed over to the rightful owners.
Obbo urged the local leaders to stop talking ill of the UPDF but join them in efforts to seek ways to prevent and eliminate the pastoral conflict in Karamoja collectively in order to re-direct the region on the journey to development.
DanChurchaid and the Humanitarian Aid Department of the European Commission are funding a drought preparedness program in the districts of Moroto and Nakapiripirit, which is helping the Karimojongs in developing their traditional way of living as agro-pastoralists. DanChurchAid has invited two journalists from the leading Ugandan newspapers, The Daily Monitor and The New Vision, to see the work of the local partner KADP.
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