A look at Museveni's Executive Order No3 after two months

The President’s July 2 letter to Gen (rtd) Salim Saleh, who is chief coordinator of the government’s struggling Operation Wealth Creation poverty alleviation initiative, over the deferment seemed to undermine the banning of migrant herdsmen from the north as directed in his May 19 order.

“I have seen your letter dated the 26th of June, 2023, regarding the Balaalo issue, I picked it up because some Acholi leaders were complaining about it, the advantages you have outlined are obvious,” he wrote.

“The only issues to take care of are: no Balaalo cattle tramples wanainchi’s crops and the answer for that is strong fencing and providing on-farm water.” 

According to him, the tendency of these herdsmen to collude with the locals in a family or clan to illegally acquire land in Acholi must be avoided because land does not belong to the individuals here. Most of the vast and very fertile lands of Acholi are communally owned.

The President said: “If these two factors are guarded against, then the migration by the elite (‘Balaalo’) would be healthy and symbiotic. The government would, then, seek to help other locals to learn from the Balaalo and develop a strong broad-based, dairy and beef industry in the North.”

 “Therefore, as we agreed on the phone and as I communicated through my radio message DTG 011550C June 23, I hereby extend the deadline of the Executive Order to the 30th of September, 2023,” he stated in the letter.

On July 5, Minister of State for Internal Affairs, Gen David Muhoozi, confirmed to Parliament that the President pushed his deadline to the end of September.

This is not the first time President Museveni has attempted to expel Balaalo from the North. In November 2022, he issued a two-month ultimatum for them to vacate or face eviction.  Many did not leave and remained in the area, resulting in the June directive. As things stand, it is not clear where the Balaalo will relocate and, if they bought land, how their contractual rights will be guaranteed given the land tenure system practiced across Acholi.  

There have been mixed reactions following the communication to Gen Saleh with some leaders here claiming that the executive order was never really meant to cause action against the disruptive migrant herdsmen, some of whom were reportedly armed with guns. The emerging scepticism is also driving suspicions that this was all politicking.

In the executive order, President Museveni also banned charcoal burning and business in northern and northeastern Uganda, stopped the nomadic Turkana herdsmen from Kenya from entering Uganda with guns. Other elements focused on the urgent need for security roads in and around Karamoja and a restructuring of police deployments within the next three years so as to have a more visible and agile presence. 

The proposal is to have at least 18 police persons and motorcycles at each sub-county to enable quick response to distress calls from locals.  He also authorised the recruitment of 12 Local Defence Unit personnel per parish in Karamoja and surrounding sub-regions to tackle sporadic cattle rustling, arguing that residents had lost trust in the army units based here some of whose commanders they accused of colluding with raiders and providing armed escorts to charcoal dealers.

More than 50 days after President Museveni issued the executive order, a Daily Monitor assessment suggests that there is slow progress in implementation.

Mr Christopher Opiyo Ateker, the Gulu District chairman, said that the decision to defer the order on Balaalo has had a negative impact.

“We did an assessment of all the sub-counties harbouring the herdsmen and registered 35 kraals. Out of that number, 21 did not meet the requirements prescribed by the President in the directive and we had given them only four days to leave or be forced out but the new deadline spoilt it,” he said.

 Mr Ateker said that authorities in Gulu had started mobilising in Palaro, Paibona and Awach.
The devastating impact that felling of trees for charcoal burning has had on the environment in the sub-regions of Teso, Lango, Acholi and West Nile is apparent. It is also clear that some military and police leaders are covertly benefitting from the illegal trade.

This collusion complicates what many saw as a well-intentioned directive when President Museveni said: “To save the environment and also the reputation of the NRM, I, therefore, hereby ban the cutting of trees for charcoal burning”, citing looming extinction of rare and highly valued flora like Shea-nut trees.

Currently, authorities are failing to implement the directive because, they say, it was not accompanied by clear procedures. Mr William Amanzuru, the coordinator of Friends of Zoka [Forest], an environmental pressure group in West Nile.

“In the corridor between Adjumani and Amuru districts, the order is not working. The most critical obstacle is the lack of political will to execute the order that is least talked about within our political spaces. The President has not tagged or mandated any institution responsible for the implementation,” he said.
 The ineffectiveness, or reluctance, of environmental protection agencies to act, coupled with the alleged militarisation of the charcoal trade, are some of the factors responsible for that failure, the Kilak County MP,  Mr Gilbert Olanya, says.

On the other hand, poor community attitudes towards the preservation and protection of the environment are hampering efforts Mr Simon Peter Kidega, the National Forestry Authority’s (NFA) sector manager for Zoka Central Forest Reserve, confirms this.

“The challenge is that the truckers have become non-compliant, because earlier on they were issued licenses by the district. When we tell them that the executive order is above all those licenses, they are not cooperating, and because they also have strong connections,” Mr Kidega said. 

The NFA has a taskforce in place but it continues to be an uphill struggle with minimal gains 
“We have instructed soldiers and police to guard the trucks while the drivers are arrested and taken to Adjumani for further management. The executive order is beyond the licenses or any local arrangement and we are now impounding the charcoal on site and in transit,” he added. 

In Gulu, Mr Ateker says they resolved to arrest landowners and local council officials in whose villages commercial charcoal burning persists unchallenged.

“The district resolved and directed that the landowners who hired land for trees to be cut by the dealers, the LC1 and LC2 chairpersons were to be arrested. The dealers used to sneak at night but their numbers have gone down,” he said.

It would appear that things are getting worse before they can get better for communities affected by Karimojong armed rustling. Weeks after the order and a presidential meeting with Acholi and Lango leaders at Barlegi State Lodge in Otuke district, reports show that the number of cattle and goats raided has sharply risen.  At least 15 people have been killed by the rustlers, bringing the total deaths to 56 in two months. 

Official data presented to the UPDF Division army leadership in Pader last week indicated that 189 cows have been lost, taking the reported total to 2,040 up from 1851. More than 4,844 goats have been stolen, one thousand more than had been rustled before the executive order.

Promised security measures have been slow in coming. Local leaders in the 14 sub-counties of Agago and Kitgum districts, which border Karamoja sub-region, say they have not seen a single police dog deployed to track the raiders despite the President’s directive for such deployments. 

Similarly, nothing on the ground suggests the recruitment of 12 LDU personnel per parish.
Over the first weekend of July, Ms Beatrice Akello Akori, the State Minister for Economic Monitoring, also Agago district Woman MP, said the upsurge in raider attacks is impacting agricultural production and livelihoods even more.

“Ninety-nine per cent of these communities earn their livelihoods through farming but their oxen are raided from the gardens. And now that oxen are kept in community kraals in one place in a parish, the locals [must] trek long distances to come and pick their cows to graze them or go to the garden,” she observed.

Ms Akori points out that the rustlers “are now not taking only cows, they are taking chickens, phones, clothes, solar [power systems], goats, pigs, etc. They even demand food and once you have not cooked for them or given them food materials, they kill or harm you.”

“It has affected education in Lapono Sub-county, at Keremec, and [elsewhere]. In Agago district, there are parishes and sub-counties in which we have had to hire trucks guarded by soldiers that now ferry children to school and back because the raiders are everywhere.”  

The junior minister noted that this escalation has also been noticed in Kitgum, Otuke, and Sebei.”
Whereas MS Akori says MPs from affected areas had lobbied the President to allow formation of local militia forces which would potentially end the problem, she says his order on recruitment of LDUs and opening of security roads is barely in effect.

Mr Robert Okidi, the Arrow Group (local militia) leader in Paimol Sub-county, says the raiders now come more heavily armed, making it difficult to thwart their criminal actions.

“Right now, that they are coming in with more guns, why can we not be given guns to fight the raiders as LDU?

The youth are ready and we shall not demand any coin from the government, all we want is to have our children in school, food security and animals saved, Mr Okidi said.

“The problem is that the UPDF numbers are thin on the ground even when they are trying,” he added.

Mr Kite Ojok, the Lira-Kato Sub- County chairman, who heads the Chairpersons of Borderline Sub-counties Association, worries that whereas only eight sub-counties had been affected, the problem has spread to cover 14 sub-counties now.

The raiders, mainly from the sub-ethnic Jie community in Kotido, are terrorising locals in these sub-counties right from Adilang up to Omiya-pacwa, Kokil and Wol.

At a security meeting organised to discuss how to recruit 12 LDU personnel per parish along areas bordering Karamoja, Brig Keith Katungi, the UPDF 5 Division commander, apologised at Akwang PS in Lai-mutu Town Council, Agago District for the continued attacks.

Minister Mao's take 

The Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister, Mr Norbert Mao, who was former district chairman in Gulu, believes that there is still a chance to stop the destructive trade.

“We are going to help the sub-county governments, we are going to draft tough by-laws for every sub-county in districts affected by commercial charcoal trade under the Presidential Executive Order 3,” he said last week

“The sub-counties will now be able to impose fines and collect money. imprisoning them will not change much, these illegal dealers, once subjected to heavy fines and community service, will find it expensive to sustain the trade,” Mr Mao said at a media briefing in Gulu City on July 11.