At the end of September, around 1,000 Karamojong warriors clashed with the Ugandan army at the base of the Morungola Hills in the northeastern region of Karamoja. The violence erupted after the local Dodoth people's cattle had been impounded by the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) in an attempt to force them to give up their guns in return for their livestock. Rather than complying, the warriors ambushed the army, killing one soldier and injuring three others.

The next three to four days of combat left between five and 12 dead on each side, culminating in the army's deployment of a helicopter gunship to disperse its hardy foe. Those numbers don't include any deaths that may have been caused by the helicopter, because the Karamojong had already retreated back to their territory in the hills where it's impossible to say how many met their end. Even the United Nations can't go up there to investigate as they fear the Karamojong might attack official vehicles.

The army argues that it's had to step up its disarmament campaign in order to collect small arms that are fuelling violence in the region. "The hills provide...ground for hiding, we are forced to bring in choppers with machine guns," explains UPDF spokesman Felix Kulayigye, resplendent in a cocked green beret at his Kampala office.

In Karamoja, the remote corner of Uganda that borders Sudan and Kenya, the UPDF is the main government institution, and has been working for the past several years to collect illegal arms, which are a common possession in this sparsely populated region.

The Karamojong people are pastoralists - cattle herders often armed with AK-47s, who depend on their animals for meat, milk, blood and barter, and on their guns to protect their animals. The influx of weapons has made frequent cattle raids more deadly.

Farming is tough in the drought-prone region, made only harder by a lack of equipment and technology. The confluence of droughts and violence makes Karamoja one of the most disadvantaged places in Uganda.

Some parts of the region - where the government's disarmament campaign has succeeded - have recently become more peaceful. But, as the Morungola Hills fighting suggests, in other places the disarmament operations have stoked yet more violence.

GUNS, GUNS EVERYWHERE

"Some Karamojong want to keep their guns at all costs and some UPDF want to recover guns at all costs," said Priscilla Ciesay, Karamoja team leader for the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Emphasising the need for the Karamojong community to be held accountable for their actions, she added, "The soldiers are not shooting at themselves."

Kulayige downplayed the Morungola incident, describing it as a brief ambush followed by looting and a retreat into the hills. He said the UPDF had been "forced" to bring in the helicopter decorated with machine guns.

In response to claims that the UPDF was simply responding to the Karamojong's actions, Human Rights Watch representative Elizabeth Evenson said, "There is violence committed by civilians in Karamoja but government personnel are under obligations of Ugandan law and international law."

The current round of disarmament began in 2004. Initially, the Karamojong were offered ox-ploughs and maize in exchange for their guns, but between November of that year and April 2006, only 1,796 guns were collected.

The UPDF decided to change its tactics, adopting a process known as "cordon and search", in which homes were surrounded by soldiers and guns were forcefully removed. Between May 2006 and the end of the year, over 4,500 guns had been collected - though estimates of the number remaining range from 30,000 to 200,000.

The new approach may be putting more weapons out of action, but observers say it's led to human rights abuses by the army, as well as an increase in incidents like Morungola. "Violations have included unlawful killings, torture and ill-treatment, arbitrary detention, and theft and destruction of property," says a Human Rights Watch report released in September, entitled Get the Gun!.

"While the Ugandan government has a legitimate interest in improving law and order in Karamoja, including stemming the proliferation of illegal weapons, it must do so in a manner consistent with human rights," it said.

The UPDF harshly criticised the report, with Kulayigye calling it "factually wrong, contextually not deep, and biased". He said it didn't recognise any of the progress the army has made in amending previous wrongs and cleaning up its human rights record.

PATCHY PEACE

Indeed, some things do seem to have changed for the better in Karamoja. Areas around Moroto town, where the terrain is less challenging, have been pacified. Loputuk parish, around seven kilometres from Moroto, was disarmed in the early round of army sweeps.

In Apetaoi, Komalem Loyo Meyoya, who's unsure of his age but looks around 40, tells of how he once had hundreds of cattle. To protect them, he bought the requisite AK-47 from the Jie people. A tall man with a woven pattern of agaran (the Swahili word for beauty) markings made with a razor and needle on his right shoulder, he's pretty much resigned to his fate.

When all but one of his cattle were stolen soon after he gave up his gun, there wasn't much he could do. "I sat down," he said. Fortunately, as a father of five, his three daughters' dowries of 80 cows each had already been paid. The UPDF's Kulayigye insists the disarmament programme is proceeding "systematically", and will eventually cover the whole region. Meanwhile, the problem for the Karamojong is that while some have turned in their guns, others haven't - and continue to raid cattle from those who are unarmed and unprotected.

Having lost his own herd to rustlers, Meyoya is adamant that others should lay down their weapons. "[The] army must remove all the guns. After disarming all the Karamojong they will develop and people will be at peace," he said. "Some parts are untouched, so they still be destructive. They must cover every part of Karamoja because if they leave even one corner it will come to disturb the rest."

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