The army has downplayed the decision by three rival pastoral communities in Karamoja to establish a joint kraal to protect their livestock from raiders. On Sunday last week, the Jie of Kotido, Matheniko of Moroto, and their Turkana counterparts from Kenya held a meeting after two years of fighting and cross-ethnic raids.
The three communities resolved to end any further raids, killing each other, and agreed to establish a joint Kraal in Kobebe grazing area in Moroto district. During the meeting, Mzee Ezekiel Emankior, one of the Turkana pastoralists grazing his cattle in Kotido, said the three pastoral groups have lost thousands of livestock to what he called stupidity.
While several political leaders have welcomed the decision by the three communities to work together and end the hostilities, Brig. Joseph Balikudembe, the UPDF 3rd Division commander described the move by the pastoralists as a camouflage. He said that security would only be impressed by the idea, if the three pastoral communities had handed over all the illegal firearms that they have been using to terrorize their neighboring communities.
“Whatever they are resolving is non of our business but what we are after are guns. We would respect their decision of coming together if they had brought their firearms,” he said. According to Brig. Balikudembe, this is not the first time, the pastoral communities are pretending to unite after seeing that the security personnel are giving them hard time.
“What they are doing for us as security we know, it’s just camouflage but we shall continue with our operations,” he said. There is relative calm in the region, which has only registered a single raid in two weeks. Despite the stand of the army, Joseph Lokoru, a peace activist, says that the rustlers seem to have come to their senses after noticing that they are losing many animals in endless raids “I think it’s good to give them the benefit of doubt may be they have realized the need to live in peace,” he said.
