Tracing history of guns in Karamoja sub-region
Karimojong men tied in line by the army after they were suspected to have been hiding guns during the disarmament project that started in 2001. FILE PHOTO
Entrance of guns. The position by the Entebbe administration to ignore Karamoja was supported by the secretary for colonies. But increased reports of arms from Abyssinia being smuggled into Karamoja would change the colonial masters’ attitude towards the sub-region.
After the fall of former president Idi Amin in 1979, guns were looted from Moroto barracks and it was then, many think, that the Karimojong got arms.
However, colonial records indicate that the Karimojong started receiving guns as early as 1898.
When Maj J. R. L. Macdonald arrived in Karamoja in 1898, he asked the British government to take charge of the territory by establishing a standing military patrol. Macdonald, who arrived in Karamoja on his expedition to find the source of the River Nile, was unfortunate as his request was rejected by the British foreign office. The government cited lack of resources.
Writing in volume 28 of the Uganda Journal, J. P. Barber says: “Macdonald feared that if Karamoja was not controlled it would become the prey of unscrupulous traders and adventurers.”
The colonial government in Entebbe declared Karamoja a closed district and opened a small post in Mbale to oversee government affairs, mainly collecting of taxes.
Traders going to Karamoja were required to get trade licences from Mbale. The major goods in the area at the time were ivory and arms.
The licences barred traders from selling guns to natives. Traders were forbidden from killing female elephants and the number of hunted male elephants was also restricted.
The roaming herd of elephants attracted many ivory hunters and traders in the region. Traders came from as far as Abyssinia (Ethiopia), Zanzibar, Mombasa and Nairobi.
Writing in the book The Wonderings of an Elephant Hunter, D. M. Bell says: “One of the most outstanding traders in the area at the time was Nairobi-based Allidina Visram who had a representative post at Koputh in 1910, while W. D. M. ‘Karamojo’ Bell, the greatest of the White hunters, left the district with a good record.”
The influx of Abyssinians opened the way for local tribesmen to have access to guns, a thing the administrators in Mbale had warned against.
In his May 1911 report to the government office in Entebbe, the Mbale District Commissioner said: “The Abyssinians when hunting elephants proceed in large parties and open heavy fire indiscriminately, leading to wholesale slaughter and wounding of enormous numbers. Some subsequently die, furnishing the natives with ivory wherewith they purchase rifles.”
Barber says as the number of elephants in the area decreased, some people started dealing in rifles for ivory.
“To tribesmen who had always raided neighbouring tribes for cattle and women, the attraction for obtaining these arms was so great that what started as a trade to obtain ivory soon became a trade to obtain arms.”
The position by the Entebbe administration to ignore Karamoja was supported by the secretary for colonies, Lord Elgin. He agreed with governor Hesketh Bell’s recommendation “to concentrate the resources of the protectorate to the immediate neighbourhood of the Nile”.
Later after reports of increased raids by Abyssinians emerged, the governor then decided that more attention be paid to Karamoja. During budget estimates for 1909/1910, he set aside £500 for the Karamoja plan, though it never took off.
Concerned about arms coming into the territory, the District Commissioner (DC) of Nimule on July 1910 sent a telegram to both Entebbe and the colonial secretary about the arms from Abyssinia being smuggled into Karamoja region.
A month later, the governor of the East Africa Protectorate (Kenya) wrote to both the colonial secretary and his Ugandan counterpart that he was taking over the administration of the territory West of Lake Turkwell (Turkana) and wanted to know what steps the Ugandan government was taking to stop constant cross-border tribal fighting.
The East Africa Protectorate’s offer and report from the Nimule DC forced the authorities in Entebbe to take action.
A team under the command of superintendent of police, P. S. H. Tanner, set off from Kampala for Karamoja on a patrol mission. They were also to investigate the arms smuggling claims.
Tanner set off from Kampala on September 23, 1910, on the assumption that he will get support from either the locals or traders. He was to carry out his mission disguised as a caravan trader.
While in Sebei, he first countered a caravan of traders from whom he gathered that Abyssinian traders had camped at Tshudi-Tshudi, present-day Kaabong District.
According to Barber, Tanner learned that “firearms could be obtained in Tshudi-Tshudi and he was told of fighting between the Karimojong and a Swahili trade caravan headed by a one Bwana Simba”.
But this early warning did not prepare Tanner and his team for what would come. While at Manimani with the Bokora, a group of Jie with some Swahilis came to raid cattle. Asking why the Bokora did not fight back, Tanner was informed that the Jie were armed with rifles while the Bokora had spears.
Tanner and his team went to the Jie territory to investigate their arms acquisition. In one Manyatta, they discovered, there were between 50 and 60 Gras rifles.
It was at this point that he blew his cover and decided to arrest the Swahili he found with the Bokora. They were arrested for illegal possession of fire arms.
When the police reached Tshudi –Tshudi, the Abyssinians picked their arms but upon realising that they were outnumbered, they surrendered.
The Abyssinian caravan leader, Dasta, escaped and he was hunted down in the trading centres of Magosi and Loyaro. But he still evaded his pursuers.
When he returned to Kampala, Tanner wrote a report to the governor.
“I found that the whole country was in an extremely lawless state, raiding, looting among the tribes being a very ordinary occurrence and there is no doubt that the natives being in possession and being able to obtain rifles has greatly increased the death rate amongst them,” Tanner’s report said in part.
Tanner was also able to confirm from the Swahili he captured at Tshudi-Tshudi that “a gun was costing 13kg of Ivory”.
“The tribes in the north of Karamoja, the Dodoth, Kamchuro and Jie, were heavily armed while the Karamoja tribes in the south have fewer rifles,” Tanner noted.
The flow of firearms into Karamoja continued as long as the elephants to provide the ivory still existed.
“Regular safaris came from Abyssinia every three or four months bringing rifles, ammunition and mules and returning with ivory. Hassan Muhamed, one of the Swahili traders, estimates that each safari brings into Karamoja 120 rifles and between 3,000 and 4,000 rounds of ammunitions,” Barber noted.
By the end of 1911, Karamoja sub-region was estimated to have amassed 2,000 rifles. The Dodoth under chief royal Lokuta was said to be prospering fairly well compared to other tribes at the time because of his partnership with the Abyssinian traders.
It was after the reports from Tanner and the East Africa Protectorate governor that the authorities in Entebbe decided to take action with the creation of the Kings African Rifles Northern Patrol headed by Captain H.M. Tufnell.
This did not, however, mean bringing the area under direct administration of the colonial authorities as the governor said on the appointment of Tufnell.
“There would be no attempt whatsoever to commence administration nor in any way to interfere with the tribes,” Hesketh Bell said.
It was not until 1921 that Karamoja was brought under civil administration. But the flow of firearms into the region from Ethiopia via Turkana continued through the 1960s, fuelling tribal raids from Kenya and ethnical raids within the Karamoja ethnic groups.
About the Gras rifles
The Fusil Gras Modèle 1874 M80 was a French service rifle of the 19th Century. It was a robust and hard-hitting weapon, but it had no magazine and so could only fire one shot after loading. It also had a triangular-shaped sword bayonet, known as the Model 1874 “Gras” sword bayonet.
