'Disarmament': The End or Fulfillment of Cattle Raiding?

Abstract

Abstract The Uganda government claims that the now decade-long disarmament campaign is achieving pacification and the end of cattle raiding. Here, such claims are tested using data collected over a ten-month period between 2007 and 2008. These data show that the army is unable to prevent raiding or to recover and return more than a token number of raided livestock. The disastrous consequences of unbalanced disarmament are also considered, using material from in-depth interviews within one Karimojong territorial section involved, the Bokora. Following unbalanced disarmament, this section has lost to raids almost all its livestock and remains under constant threat, so that even the prospect of long-term restocking through breeding seems uncertain. As seasonal rains continue to fail to produce a harvest, large numbers of Bokora have dispersed to eke out low-status livelihoods elsewhere in Uganda, or they are rendered dependent and immobile on an inadequately funded World Food Programme. Forced to disarm and then left unprotected, the Bokora are already losing the whole framework of their culture, and they risk losing their territory too.