How Turkana and Pokot got caught up in 1970s' arms race

Idi Amin had an unholy alliance with the Soviet Union. Shortly after the 1976 Entebbe raid by Israeli soldiers that had destroyed most of his air force, the Ugandan president turned to Soviet President Nikolai Podgorny for help.

The Soviets were looking for a strategic place in the heart of Africa to place their weapons. That is how Uganda’s Moroto barracks was turned into an armoury of Soviet arms. Moroto was close to the Kenyan border and its mountain, by the same name, and grasslands are the last bastion of pastoralists from both Kenya and Uganda who venture into this Karamoja territory in search of pasture during the dry seasons.

The volcanic mountains have water, plenty of it. Apart from the Karamojong, this was the best place for such arsenals – away from any scrutiny.

It is now estimated that the barracks stored 15,000 guns and two million rounds of ammunition for the Soviets before the Ugandan despot was overthrown by Tanzanian soldiers. That is how the guns – AK-47 assault rifles, the World War II Heckler & Koch-made G-3 army rifles, and millions of ammunition – ended up in the hands of the Matheniko-based pastoralists.

MOVED LIVESTOCK

By this time, the Pokot herders had taken their livestock across the border to Matheniko Game Reserve, away from the ever-armed Turkana, who had always bought arms from South Sudan and which they used to raid all the neighbours with deadly success. Records indicate that the Turkana were armed with rifles smuggled from Ethiopia and bartered for camels from around 1910. These were old but serviceable weapons that they used to terrorise their neighbours.

After World War I and as the British tried to disarm the Turkana and pacify them, they were forced to close down the district to contain the raids. The British confiscated thousands of Turkana livestock, leading to widespread poverty and bitterness as they crushed the resistance. With this disarmament, the balance of power had now shifted to the Dassanech of the Omo Valley.

World War II found the Turkana in this state and new rifles were introduced in the region by Italian troops in 1930s during the occupation of Ethiopia by Benito Mussolini of the National Fascist Party. That is how the Austrian Steyr became the weapon of choice for the pastoralists, although they still had not lost all the weapons they had managed to buy from the north.

LAUNCHING PAD

Turkana district was used as the launching pad by the British against the Italian invasion and locals were recruited into the war – and a new dalliance with weapons was born. In order to contain the Italians, during World War II, the British armed the Turkana and Karamojong, and many other pastoral groups, to help them fight against the invading forces.

But after World War II, the British attempted to disarm the Turkana, who continued to carry out sporadic raids on both the Pokot and Marakwet, who were still using rudimentary spears, bows and arrows.

Later, the acquisition of AK-47s by the Karamojong not only transformed their traditional arsenal with firearms but also gave them a powerful tool to preserve their pastoralist identity.

In 1974, the Kenyan Parliament was told that the Turkana Ngoroko, a group of armed marauding livestock rustlers, was still buying weapons from Sudan and Ethiopia. The entire region, which was awash with Cold War guns, had become a huge gun market.

What was happening was that the entire pastoralist belt was caught up by spillovers of the Cold War of the 1960s and 1970s in Africa.

In the 1970s, the Soviets, under presidents Podgorny and Leonid Brezhnev, became some of the biggest suppliers of arms to Uganda, Somalia, and Congo, as part of a $12 billion annual arms budget for Africa, until 1978. The Anyanya War in South Sudan in the 1960s had seen the dumping of weapons in the region from West Germany, the US and Britain and these found their way into the hands of pastoralists.

The flow of small arms and light weapons into this theatre of war was mind-boggling in the 1970s and early 1980s as Cold War politics in the region saw more arms than the rebel armies in Sudan needed.

The Turkana had become masters of the game – after all, they also received government support through the Kenya Police Reserve unit created for all border districts to protect Kenyans where there were no police posts.

While these were also meant to keep Amin at bay because of his territorial claims on Western Kenya (Pokot and Turkana areas were transferred to Kenya in 1921), they became a force unto themselves.

SOMALI TRADERS

It was about the late 1970s that the Pokot managed to buy some World War II guns and automatic weapons from Somali cattle traders. These Somali traders had taken advantage of the 1976 Ogaden War insurgency in which their soldiers had invaded Ethiopia, creating a conflict that saw small arms become part of barter trade between the Pokot and Somali after Barre’s soldiers discovered huge, abandoned warehouses in Ethiopia stocked with American arms and ammunition.

It was the first contact between the Pokot and some good guns – thanks to the Ogaden war. One arms researcher was surprised to find a 1908 Budapest-made Austro-Hungarian rifle among the Pokot, an indicator of an old illicit arms trade in the region. With the ouster of Amin in 1979, the fall of the Moroto barracks saw hundreds of Uganda soldiers flee to Pokot with their guns, which they instantly traded with locals, transforming Pokot cattle raids into deadly warfare.

The Karamojong, usually the victims of armed Turkana raids, sold some of the Soviet weapons to the Pokot as a way of keeping the Turkana at bay. With that, a triangle of terror was created with the Pokot, Karamojong and Turkana. The supply was coming from the north.

Among the prime movers of the Pokot acquisition of guns was Francis Polisi Lotodo, a warrior who rose to become the chief driver of Pokot rights. So feared was Lotodo that in 1984, he was jailed by President Moi for “promoting warlike activities”.

This was at a time when Moi was once again arming the Turkana to ostensibly provide a buffer zone following Sudan’s Islamic revolution of 1983 that led to the fall of Gaafar Nimeiry. They were also to contain the Karamojong, who, Moi feared, might be used to raid Kenya, or form a militia against him. Moi was then convinced that Uganda was planning to train guerrillas against Kenya with the help of Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, which led to the closure of the Libyan embassy in 1985.

COMMUNITY RAIDS

The Karamojong took advantage of the post-Amin instability to raid the Lango and Teso, besides terrorising everyone in their neighbourhood and they were used to fight Yoweri Museveni during his bush wars.

Moi feared the Karamojong. But while arming the Turkana to keep them at bay, he also disarmed the Pokot, who suffered raids by both the Turkana and Karamojong in the 1980s. Because of that, the Pokot have continued to amass more guns and took more as reservists.

While tensions heighten during elections, as cartels seek to gather funds for campaigns, they also escalate tensions to send “foreigners” packing so that they do not support rival candidates.

Pokot raids also coincide with the annual coming of age of recently circumcised warriors. These warriors need to marry, and that requires many cattle for dowry.

In Pokot, for example, one bride can fetch up to 200 head of cattle in dowry. If 2,000 girls are getting married, the whole of Pokot land cannot provide the cattle required, and hence they have to go farther afield to find them.

The decrease in the number of animals per household because of drought and the static demand for cattle as dowry means that the gap can be filled only by raids.