There is a small section of Karamojong who have found ingenious ways to resist and cope with the flaws of development interventions targeting their ways of life. They have reverted to their tried and tested coping mechanism of cattle raiding. These are so-called ‘reformed warriors’ who had been trained by local government defence units and have disserted with their guns and uniform. They have joined with the ata lonetias (a local reference for hooligans/thieves) to form the new cattle raiding group.
Lonetia that initially began as petty theft of one or two animals and household items has developed into groups carrying out raids armed with the skills and weapons of military deserters. The fundamental difference between previous and recent raids is in the role of kiwa ekile where raiders have cut loose the communal structure that enforced kiwa ekile. Kiwa ekile (literally translated as ‘hide the man’), a concept that forms a vital part of Karamojong coping strategies before disarmament and which ensures that raid-related intelligence is kept secret at all costs by all members of a community. There is also a new element of commercialisation to recent raids where raided animals are sold quickly at below the market rates destabilising the local cattle markets.
To justify heavy-handed military responses to the armed raids, the government has blamed the Karamojong for “refusing to change their ways of life”. Some development actors have attributed the current hunger crisis in the region to the combination of climate change, conflict, rising food costs, covid-19 and limited resources. Communities, on the other hand, blame insufficient or ill-implemented interventions by the government security forces for their resort to their tried and tested pre-disarmament mode of ensuring security and survival.
The crisis epitomises years of sustained failures by development and government interventions in the region and a missed opportunity to build the capacity of the local population to better cope with cyclical crisis. The answer for building and improving communities’ resilience has always been with local populations, communicated in their vernacular, cultural performances, and symbols. Yet rather than working with and to enhance communities coping, interventions have only worked against these aspects of communities that made them resilient to fundamental changes to their sociocultural, economic and livelihood strategies.
Photo credit: Ponsiano Bimeny