The trafficking of illegal small arms along the Kenyan, Ugandan and Sudanese borders has increased to the point that an AK-47 rifle will sell for 100 000 Ugandan shillings ($50). A pistol will sell for 50 000 shillings ($30) and a bullet for 200 shillings, or a few American cents. Inside Sudan, an AK-47 can go for as little as a few chickens.
Porous borders are allowing the trade to thrive. Illegal firearms are not registered with the police or military, nor licensed to civilians.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour released a report last week urging the Ugandan government to curb human-rights abuses and violence against civilians during its disarmament raids in the north-eastern region of Karamoja, where nearly 70 people have died since November last year.
Violence in this notoriously lawless region has long been fuelled by inexpensive, semi-automatic firearms smuggled from Horn of Africa countries. Armed with illegal weapons, the Karamojong regularly engage in cattle raids against their neighbours, the Toposa of Sudan and the Turkana and Pokot of Kenya. Estimates of the Karamojong pastoralists’ gun stock range from 50 000 to 150 000.
Uganda is believed to have the worst problem of illegally controlled arms in East Africa.
The Ugandan government says its forced disarmament programme is in accordance with the Nairobi Protocol, a United Nations treaty banning the possession of unlicensed guns.
East African states acknowledged the proliferation of illegal small arms by signing the Nairobi declaration in March 2000. A primary goal of the protocol was to harmonise legislation between member nations to control the illicit manufacturing, trafficking and use of small arms. An estimated 400 000 small arms are in circulation in Uganda, though the proportion of illegal arms is unknown.
“If anyone had the opportunity to count illegal arms in Uganda, then those arms would have been removed,” said Richard Nabudere, coordinator of the Uganda Focal Point on Small Arms and Light Weapons. Nabudere added that illegal firearms are often held in secrecy, except in the case of the Karamojong, who openly display their weapons and have been targeted by the military’s forced disarmament programme.
The pastoralists, along with Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, are the two largest holders of illegal small arms in the country. The arms supply of the LRA has been difficult to ascertain but, judging by the amount of arms already recovered by the Ugandan government, the reserve could be substantial, Nabudere said. In previous years, the LRA was reportedly supplied with arms by the Sudanese government.
At a regional meeting on small arms held in the Ugandan capital Kampala late last month Paul Eavis, the director of the Nairobi-based organisation Safer World, said that illegal small arms are not only being used by the Karamojong and the LRA but were key in civil wars in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi and Somalia. Small arms have also been instrumental in the Rwandan genocide and the Ethiopia-Eritrea border conflict.
Kenyan authorities estimate that 100 000 illegal weapons exist in the country compared with 4 000 licensed weapons — altogether 12 000 guns have been recovered and destroyed in recent years. The weapons are purportedly used by criminals in armed robberies and murders, as well as by cattle raiders. An estimated 600 000-plus illegal weapons are in circulation across East Africa and the Horn, according to the Nairobi-based Regional Centre on Small Arms.