The essence of conflict and the weapons used to fight war drastically changed from time to time. Before the 20th Century, few countries had large armies and sophiscated weaponries, as a result, the effect of war had limited cost to immediate surrounding area of battle in which majority deaths and wounded were active combatants. With this in mind, war was by far and large capitalized between the two blocks with capitalist and socialist ideology, notably, World War I and II involved the entire societies, in which a reasonable number of millions of people died in the wars and many more millions of casualties were realized.
On the completion of writing the UN charter and signing it on 26th June 1945, the hope to end the World War II was visible with the mandates to maintain international peace and security and removal of all threats to peace, surprisingly, the nuclear weapon age with indiscriminate destructive effects was born three weeks later and dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, in August 6th and 9th, 1945 respectively (Boothy, 2002: 1).
Having fresh in mind the effect of nuclear in the two cities of Japan, the UN general assembly establish an atomic energy Commission to ensure that atomic energy is used for peaceful purposes (Boothby , 2002: 2). The contradiction emerged when the United States proposed that the creation of an atomic energy development authority be for all phases from the manufacture to use of atomic energy; with the goal focus on effective involvement and operation of the authority would influence the reduction of production and eventually stock would gradually be destroyed, but then, to the Soviet Union, first thing first, the convention should prohibit atomic weapons and their production together with the destruction of all atomic weapons within three months of the convention entering into force (ibid , 2002: 2). As a result, there was no consensus reached due to the fundamental lack of trust between the Russian and US military interest which led to arm races; the argument was, Russia believed that the US proposal aimed at preserving the American advantage of military nuclear knowledge and capability, whereas, US anticipated that the Russian proposal would eliminate their edge without first ensuring that atomic energy development would be under effective international control (ibid, 2002: 2-3)
Notably, the holocaust of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, brought in force, other countries to engage in development of nuclear weapon as a mean to provide territorial security from any external threats. In agreement, Sethi M,(2008) noted that states possession of nuclear weapon is of two major considerations “as being security and status- whereby with security consideration, nuclear weapon is seen to provide last line of defense that no competitors can fight against hence making a nation invincible to conventional attack of any magnitude, on the other hand, is a matter of status that gives a great equalizer such that it can help even a small nation to stand up to the might of a large one, for instance, France possession of nuclear capability acquired justifiable quantitative significance in the world. Besides, nuclear capability ensure an independent decision making especially in foreign policy matter” (Sethi, 2008:410-412). Eventually, this concept of existence of nuclear weapon as a military might in the name of peaceful purpose/means spread from the first five countries like US, UK, France, China and Russia to countries like Israel, India and Pakistan. To a greater extent, impact of possession of nuclear weapons created a nuclear arm race in the globe. To this effect, the military expenditure increased in a bid to boost up the arms industries and to build weapon storage facilities capable of inflicting massive destructive anywhere in the globe.
According to the UN Charter, the world should be a place where people could converged to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war [and] . . . to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours . . .” It was envisioned as a place where people would “unite our strength to maintain international peace and security and . . . ensure . . . that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest . . .”(Gillis, 2009: 7), to the contrary, this clause in the charter is constantly violated by the member states and the competition to improve technology in inventing more sophisticated weapons at the expense of social development still in height.
With this in mind, the end of World War II marked the beginning of cold war which was meant to be guided by the UN Charter and its agent wars in which liberation war, intra-state conflicts, genocide and humanitarian crisis came in play. However, dilemma existed in that, on one hand, “the UN Charter sought to establish a global mechanism for peace and collective security and the betterment of humanity through social progress, justice, faith in fundamental human rights, and respect for international law; and on the other hand, virtually at the same moment in history, human ingenuity had invented weapons with a destructive capacity to annihilate the human race” (ibid 2002: 1).
Surely, the end of cold war led to “reduction of military expenditure as the United States and the Russian Federation dismantled several nuclear weapon, reduced military personal and other stockpiles, however, it was short-lived as governments by 1998 increased their military expenditure as a response to increasing global insecurities that eventually propelled even the world further into tension and war” (UNODA, 2012: 4). Without any point of further contemplation, the UN Nuclear disarmament move was regarded as macro-disarmament that concentrated on finding an alternative solutions to prevent further injuries as it was in Japan without any attention given to missiles and other small arms.
Consequently several attempt by the United Nations since its inception to date to maintained global peace and security was focused on various International disarmament programs with the aims to established universal norms against weapons that cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering, or whose use would be repugnant to the conscience of humankind ((Dykmann: 2011, 79; UNODA: 2015, 1), but, has met a lot of resistance as a result of mistrust amongst the Nuclear weapons countries. As states modernizes its weapons and facilities, the negotiation to complete nuclear free world will still remain strained without realizing that the manufacturing and use of weapons prevents sustainable ecological development and preservations.
For long, the United Nations focused on expensive destructive weapons like nuclear weapons (UNA-MN, 2014, para, 12-13), without immediate attention given to elusive small arm destructive effect that bring in play a thick layer of insecurity imposed on civilian population. While the United Nations’ attention was focused on disarmament of nuclear weapons that is known to destroy massive life at once, many more different kinds of small arms and light weapons that destroy life slowly but surely was being manufactured and circulated in societies around the globe. The invention and modernization of small arms and light weapons awash all poor nation states in the world including developed countries in the name of self-security. This accumulation of guns in the hands of civilians flourish and facilitated inter-tribal conflict and civil wars that caused more destruction mostly in mineral rich areas in developing countries before the UN could realized its effects on the powerless civilians. The broad spectrum of small arms destruction was in play until agenda for peace of 1992 was supplemented with micro-disarmament which referred to dealing with and of weapons especially light weapons line small arms and landmines that are killing people in hundreds of thousands (Boothby, 2012: 21).
The excessive available weapons especially small arms in communities throughout the world especially in developing countries particularly in the hands of socially organized communities trigger its misused that results into unspecified number of people dying yearly, continues to violate human rights, unjustifiable killing of civilians, impedes social development, education, prevent economic stability and sustainable livelihoods (Gillis: 2009, 57). Nonetheless, over 1,200 companies in 90 countries around the world concentrated in manufacturing of small arms; the highest production stemmed from United States, Russian Federation and China, had authorized trading of US $4 billion in 2003, yet undetermined estimated values in illicit trading in small arms exist globally (ibid : 2009). Much as the UN have an updated statistics on the number of nuclear warheads, stock of chemical weapons and transfer of conventional weapons, specifically, the exported number of small arms is obscure irrespective of the arm embargo ever imposed by UNSC- this is still being violated by the small arms traffickers (Ibid 2009, 58). This seems to me that the production of weapons worldwide overwhelmed the peace and security that every individual should enjoy, coupled with the number of small arms in circulation is unknown and the trading chains is invisible to United Nations Security Council. However, it was evidenced that small arms were equally causing more threats to human kind globally especially in socially organized communities up to date. That is why The United Nations eventually adopted Programme of Action to prevent, combat and eradicate the Illicit trade in small and light weapons in all aspect in 2001, besides, other resolution on disarmament (Gillis 2009: 60, UNODA, 2008: 4) presumably, after decades of civil wars in mineral rich areas and genocides in many parts of the globe. Consequently, African Union was to address the issues of illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in Africa (UNODA, 2008: 71, Wezeman, 2003: 6).
According to Gillis (2009) “Disarmament is not only about eliminating weapons; it is also about creating opportunities – opportunities to think about security in new ways, to reprioritize our budgets, and to rethink sense of ourselves as nations in community with one another” ( Gillis 2009: 7). It seems to me that the production of weapons worldwide overwhelmed the peace and security that every individual should enjoy. The UNODA (2008) resolved that “States should maintain strict regulations on the activities of private international arms dealers and cooperate to prevent such dealers from engaging in illicit arms trafficking” (UNODA: 2008, 71-72).
With close analysis to the civil war in mineral rich West African states Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria to other parts of African States like DR Congo, Angola, Sudan, illicit weapons in circulation triggers and maintain the pace of war in eight to ten million concentrated in the West African sub-region alone(Bah 2004; 33). Bah acknowledge that According to the United Nations (UN): “Small arms and light weapons destabilize regions; spark, fuel and prolong conflicts; obstruct relief programmes; undermine peace initiatives; exacerbate human rights abuses; hamper development; and foster a culture of violence” (ibid 2004; 33), as the supplies of guns is based on bartered trade with valuable minerals like Diamond. The has been no international treaties to deal with manufacturing, distribution and use of such elusive guns, until when the fierce civil wars that left hundreds of millions of people dead in African countries and tens of thousands remain causalities marked the beginning in swift into political and security configuration of the sub-regions in African (Bah 2004: 33 )
With the mandates from the United Nations, UNREC-for Peace and Disarmament in African was established as a regional Centre of the UNODA, is mandated “to provide, upon request, substantive support for initiatives and other practical efforts of Member States of Africa towards the realization of measures of peace, arms limitations and disarmament”(UNREC 2016 1). The Centre supports African States, the African Union and sub-regional organizations by strengthening their capacity and providing them with the technical, legal and substantive assistance necessary to achieve sustainable peace and security(ibid 2016; 2). Accordingly, this is possible because it is politically binding for all members’ states of United Nations of which Uganda is one.
In this respect, Uganda has for long struggled to remove guns from the hands of civilian who are socially organized pastoralist-the Karimojong of the Northeastern Uganda. Karamoja region for long had registered low development indicators and low human index and security threat not only to its inhabitant but to the neighboring communities of the Acholi, Lango, Teso, and Sabiny and cross border communities of Kenya and South Sudan because of the availability of illicit guns and light weapons.
As a result, the best justification for peace building interventions as prerequisite for sustainable development to save the humanitarian situations in Karamoja (OPM: 2007, 1), was to disarm the Karimojong warriors and sealed off the borders to stop any gun trafficking. Disarmament strategy took different stages ranging from voluntary to forceful between 2001-2010 to get rid of all illicit guns and ammunition in the hands of Karimojong Warriors, although government capacity to ensure total peace is still limited (ibid: 2007, 2).
4.2 Creating condition for promoting human security and recovery in Karamoja.
Human security is the primary stakeholder of all components of security. Projecting power rather than relating. A better reasons to believe for human security to ………..
These pastrolasit have different cultural, political and socio-economic mind set from the rest of the world. They view the world in terms of cattle possession and total complete life cycle. Their elder is like the central government, religious leader, teacher, executive, legislative and judiciary institution to whom they owe the regency the same way the rest of the citizen regards their state institutions. They seems to have been an independent state within a state. The elder is the source of wisdom, even the literate Karamojong still have strong ties to their kinship yet may oppose verbally but in practice is real. Besides the social cultural heritage the Karamojong shares with Didinga and Toposa of South Sudan, and the Turkana of Kenya, the wave of globalization seems to have impacted little effect in this region of Uganda due to central government and NGOs interventions since colonial time. This region is defined by prolong droughts, deforested, high illiteracy level, continuous crop production failure because of insufficient rainfall, cultural heritages which is known to every member of the community and beyond but undocumented, gender roles are also well defined, harsh environmental conditions that makes them carry out pastoralism to endure the condition for survival.. Previously, the Karamojong had a vast land for livestock herding and rainfall was predictable as environmental degradation was not so gross, and population was not as high as it is today. But due to government intervention to gazette land for wildlife conservations and mineral extraction, the Karamojong concentrated their grazing with in a small areas causing drastic change in ecological setup of the region compounded by increase population beyond the carrying capacity of the ecosystems and use of pollutant implements such as guns, pushed the Karamojong vulnerability. The pastoralism is only resilience way the Karamojong would adopt and consistently practice as a survival strategies and it is the symptom of external pressure on the Karamojong cultural norms but not the cause of their hostility.