Operation to seize guns underway in northeast

The Ugandan army has embarked on an exercise to seize firearms held illegally by ethnic Karamajong pastoralists in the northeastern region of the country, in a bid to stem escalating incidents of violence, a military spokesman said. "Today we are starting the forcible disarmament in Karamoja. We have been using the carrot-and-stick approach, urging them to surrender the guns and arresting and charging those found on the roads or in neighbouring areas carrying guns," said the army spokesman, Maj Felix Kuraije. The decision to confiscate weapons from the cattle herders followed an intensification of attacks by the Karamojong against other groups in the area as well as interclan raids within the community itself. The Karamajong; their neighbours, the Pokot; the Turkana of Kenya; and the Toposa of southern Sudan share a history of raiding each other’s villages to steal cattle, but the raids have become increasingly bloody in recent years, as modern raiders have cast aside the traditional spears and arrows used by their ancestors in favour of guns. On average, 150 people are killed in cattle raids in northeastern Uganda every four months, according to Peter Otim, a researcher on insecurity in Karamoja. The government at one time allowed the pastoralists to use guns to defend themselves against marauders from Kenya and Sudan, but it later became apparent that allowing civilians to possess weapons only aggravated insecurity. The Kenyan government also carried out a gun-collection exercise on its side of the border in 2005. Previous gun-seizure operations in Uganda were criticised by human rights groups and churches, which accused the army of brutality. About 10,000 of an estimated 50,000 guns in circulation were recovered in the late 1990s, but the disarmament effort was abandoned in 2002 when troops assigned the task were relocated to northern Uganda to combat the rebel Lord's Resistance Army.