The Karamoja District of Uganda

Abstract

Uganda is a green and fertile country; a land of dense forests, banana gardens, and elephant grass; but there is, in the north-east corner, bordering Kenya and the Sudan, a district which for many months of the year is brown and dry. This is Karamoja. Karamoja forms a barrier between the abundance of Uganda and the sparseness of the desert and semidesert, which sweep from the Horn of Africa, across the north of Kenya, to the escarpment of the Rift Valley, which is the eastern boundary of Karamoja itself. The District, which is one and a half times the size of Wales but with a population of only 172,000, consists of wide, thorn scrub covered plains broken by large volcanic mountain masses. Across the plains the tribes of Karamoja, the Dodoth, the Jie, the Karamojong, and the Suk, herd their cattle. Cattle are the basis of their life and their culture. It is for their cattle that during the dry season they wander over the great plains in search of water and grass. It is for their cattle, to defend their pasture, and to increase the herds, that the tribes fight and steal from each other. Like many of Africa's cattle tribes they have not taken to westernization. They present for Uganda the problem, common to many African states, of a proud pastoral people who do not fit into the new Africa of nationalism, constitutional changes and subtle voting arrangements.