Museveni sets target on Karamojong disarmament

President Yoweri Museveni has said full-scale disarmament of Karamojong warriors will begin on 30 November, and that he will return to the northeast at that time to launch the programme so that it does not look like a conflict between Iteso people in Katakwi District and their Karamojong neighbours.

Museveni said it should not be a big problem to disarm the Karamojong, whose raiding has caused massive displacement in Katakwi. He attributed the delay in taking action to a lack of
coordination within the army and the Ministry of Defence, the government-owned newspaper The New Vision reported on Wednesday.

Museveni said the defence ministry had frustrated his earlier programme for disarmament when it came up with a huge budget that Uganda could not afford. He asserted that a huge budget should not be needed for the implementation of the disarmament. "The resources are there. What has been lacking is coordination," Museveni added.

The BBC reported last week that Karamojong warriors in and around Moroto town, for whom cattle rustling is a way of life, had agreed that they would hand in illegal arms in exchange for 100 cows for every gun surrendered.

Visiting Katakwi during a nine-day tour of the troubled Teso and Karamoja regions, respectively in eastern and northeastern Uganda, Museveni said he would routinely travel to oversee the disarmament programme, and brief the Karamoja leadership on it, The New Vision reported.

"I do not want to surprise them, because some of the Karamojong are willing to voluntarily surrender their guns," Museveni said.

Karamojong raiding - marked by abductions, massive destruction and looting of foodstuff - had caused massive displacement, in Katakwi District in particular, ever since 1979/80, with over 88,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) from an estimated population of 230,000, now living in 58 camps, Action by Churches Together (ACT) reported on 23 October.

Since the beginning of this year, there have been over 54 attacks, not only on villages but also on IDP camps, it said. [for related stories, go to http://www.irinnews.org

The most-affected areas were Kapelebyong and Usuk counties bordering Moroto District, close to the Kenyan border, ACT stated, appealing for almost US $904,000 for peace activities, assistance with basic health, water, sanitation and domestic items, and the provision of basic infrastructural facilities.

The conditions were bad in most IDP camps, which received very little attention from relief agencies or the government, "with overcrowding, poor sanitation and little access to medical treatment and other social services", it added.

Lack of utensils and other domestic items had been identified as a major problem, while the road network in and around the camps was wholly inadequate, hindering security patrols and quick communication, according to ACT - http://www.act-intl.org

The government has responded to Katakwi District's call for action by training and arming 600 people for Local Defence Units posted at strategic points in affected areas, but they needed better training, equipment and support to carry out their job, ACT said.

In Katakwi, President Museveni assured people that helicopter gunships would be permanently stationed in Soroti to fly to any part of Karamoja within 30 minutes, The New Vision reported on Wednesday.

There were ongoing peace initiatives involving Katakwi District (which declared a state of emergency in early August), Ugandan and international NGOs, church organisations and the Karamojong, but there was little hope that much could be implemented in the near future unless the government's disarmament process was successfully conducted, it added.