Compensate Ngikarimojong who lost animals in UPDF protected kraals

On the night of January 28th 2010, hundreds of cattle owners and families in Namalu Sub County lost an estimated 5000 herd of cattle to suspected Pokot raiders at a UPDF protected kraal at Kagata, Namalu Sub County. Subsequent attempts to recover the cattle by the UPDF were futile, and less significant in a number of ways.
During disarmament, especially in the phase of the infamous “cordon, search and disarm” operations, government and the UPDF asked communities to bring their cows to one point, that became referred to as ‘protected kraals’.
In Pursuit of justice, the owners of the Kagata kraal cattle are now processing a civil suit against the government, seeking compensation.
There were dozens of protected kraals in Karamoja from March 2006 to the end of 2010. These protected kraals became a harbinger for rapid losses of animals all over Karamoja since raiders within and even across the Ugandan border easily targeted them. The ‘protected kraals’ soon became empty, heralding an apparent reduction of cattle stocks all over Karamoja. 
The initial success of disarmament was premised on a number of factors, one of which was the promise by the government to protect the lives and property of the disarmed. Recorded negligence by government to protect these very herds should be ground for compensation.
While it is a fact that intra and inter clan raiding has existed in Karamoja, the thousands of animals in ‘protected kraals’ without guns in the hands of owners were even more vulnerable.
The government was never going to guarantee the safety of herds in these kraals, and rode on an important programme approved and supported by Parliament, the local population and Civil Society to ensure the cattle were handed over to them in the first place.
There is vivid and compelling evidence that the UPDF neglected security of cattle in protected kraals, the Kagata example provides a number.
Only four UPDF soldiers on the night of the raid were manning the cattle that were evenly spread over an area the size of six football pitches. The armored response to the midnight raid came at five O’clock, in the afternoon of the next day, in good time for the raiders to cross in to Kenya.
During and after the Cordon, Search and disarm phase of the disarmament exercise, there were widespread accusations regarding the inability of the UPDF to follow and recover stolen cattle.
The communities and owners of these cattle have been vigilant during these times, giving information to the military before, during or immediately after raids but generally, attempts to recover these cattle have been unsuccessful, owing to either the lack of capacity or the military willingness to recover these animals.
For years since Ngikarimojong lost animals in the hands of government, they have heard only promises of compensation especially in the buildup to the 2011 General Elections but these are unyielding. Suffering in families has been wanton.
When the owners of the stolen cattle from that January 2010 day appear in court to lodge a civil suit against government, they will be doing something unprecedented in the cattle wars of Karamoja, but like I have talked to some of them, they are ready to give their best shot.
Their firm belief is that the government is responsible for the theft of those cattle, because it promised to take care of them, could have averted the raid or recovered the cattle but didn’t. Somehow, these poor peasants, some of whom septuagenarians who have witnessed their colleagues die waiting for the government to return their cattle have now contributed shillings 1,800 per cow to take care of legal fees.
They believe justice can be served. This is even though they are neither used to the craft of the courts nor have the connections that define Kampala High Court cases.
It is a far cry to government to compensate Ngikarimojong for tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of cattle lost in the hands of the military in the so called ‘protected kraals’! 

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