Karamoja: colonial roots of famine in North‐East Uganda

Abstract

Karamoja in Uganda's north‐east corner has always been regarded as a backward and troublesome area. The implication always is that it suffers from an inhospitable environment and its people follow a primitive way of life. The problem is either ‘natural’ and intractable, or due to conservatism. A review of the historical evidence reveals, to the contrary, that before the colonial presence the Karamojong operated a viable system of land utilisation that left the country a ‘grass savanna’, where today it is burnt out bush. The deterioration of the environment in fact came about during and as a result of colonial rule and the particular forms of exploitation visited on the Karamojong. This included the alienation of grazing land; the conversion of hunting into ‘poaching'; and ‘de‐stocking’ of cattle was, to add insult to injury, urged as the solution to the resulting over‐grazing.

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