History of Global Arms Transfer, 6 (2018), pp. 39-44

Arms Availability and Violence in the
Ethiopia-Kenya-South Sudan Borderland †By TORU SAGAWA*
Is there any correlation between arms availability and violence intensification orconflict frequency? It has been reported that the proliferation of automatic rifles
has increased the seriousness and frequency of conflicts over the past 40 years inEast African pastoral societies. Early literature insisted that pastoral societies
have been inundated with uncontrolled youth violence due to new rifles.
However, much of the research shared a technologically-deterministic bias. This
study focuses on the conflict dynamics of pastoral groups after the proliferationof automatic rifles to examine the relationship between arms availability andviolence. I show that the pastoral peoples in the border area of Ethiopia, Kenya,
and South Sudan have controlled the extensive use of violence and maintained
local order. To examine the relationship between arms availability and violence,
it is important to consider the historical processes in place after the proliferationof new arms, the social and cultural contexts in which the groups with new arms
are embedded, and people’s agency to control the violence.

I
Is there any correlation between firearms availability and violence intensification orconflict frequency? Although much of the literature focuses on the arms, conflicts, andviolence, this relationship has not been properly analysed. In his paper published in 1990,
George Raudzens wrote, ‘(e)ven including the latest publications, weapons impact
analysis… has not received more than marginal attention from scholars…(W)e haveassertions, images, and impressions of technological decisiveness in war but we have no
detailed measurement, analysis, or consensus’1. After almost 20 years, Thomas Jackson andNicholas Marsh, who extensively reviewed the literature on the topic, concluded that
‘research is not yet sufficiently clear to definitively state that increased availability of
firearms causes an increase in homicide’2. Their conclusion is also applicable to researchon the East African pastoral societies.
A number of pastoral groups with populations of several thousand to several hundred
thousand people are widely distributed throughout the dry and low lands of East Africa.
Inter-ethnic conflicts have occurred for many years around the border areas of Ethiopia,*Author Affiliations: Toru Sagawa, Associate Professor, Faculty of Letters, Keio University.
† Previous version of this article was presented at an international seminar entitled Relationships between Arms

Availability and Violence on 28 March 2018 at the Meiji University, Tokyo. The author would like to thankTamara Enomoto for continued discussion on the subject. This work is partially funded by the Ministry of
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s (MEXT) Program for the Strategic Research Foundation atPrivate Universities, 2015-2019, JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP16K17075, JP16KT0040, and 16K21736
1 Raudzens, ‘War-winning weapons’, pp. 403, 432.
2 Jackson and Marsh, ‘Guns and deaths’, pp.120-1.

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TORU SAGAWA
South Sudan, Kenya, and Uganda. Many reports by researchers, non-governmentalorganizations (NGOs), and international organizations asserted that the proliferation of
automatic rifles has drastically changed the intensity of violence and increased thefrequency of conflict. At the end of the 1970s, when several national political upheavals
occurred in this region, automatic rifles flooded pastoral societies around the border area3.
For example, Jon Abbink insisted that the Suri society of south-western Ethiopia wereinundated with violence perpetrated by youths with AK-47s. Since 1987, when automatic
rifles were introduced, the traditional rules of the battlefield that regulated the exercise ofviolence have declined. Abbink described this change: ‘The new technology of violence
itself transformed ritual violence into real violence due to the decline of the role of what
Robin Fox has called ‘‘circuit breakers’’’4. According to Abbink, ‘the new technology ofviolence itself’ has destroyed these social norms and real or uncontrolled violence has
become widespread.
These studies shared a technologically-deterministic way of thinking5. They insisted thatthe violence associated with the new arms caused chaos in those societies. In contrast, I
focus on the historical processes and socio-cultural contexts where the new arms rifles
were introduced and proliferated. George Raudzens pointed out that ‘(i)t [the introductionof new arms] has been more obvious in its effects on the way people fight rather than on
the outcomes of combat. New weapons have changed soldiers’ behavior’6. For analysing
the relationship between firearms availability and violence intensification or conflict
frequency, it is necessary to clarify how local people use the new firearms, interpret theirexperiences on the battlefield, change their behaviours, and how these new behaviours
influence violence intensification or conflict frequency.
In this paper, I analyse the conflict dynamics of pastoral peoples in East Africa after the
proliferation of automatic rifles to examine the relationship between arms availability andviolence. The data analysed in this paper was collected during 14 months of fieldwork
between 2001 and 2006.

II
The Daasanach live in the border areas of Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Sudan. Their
population in Ethiopia is approximately 65,000 people, according to the 2016 census. In
addition, some of Daasanach live in north-western Kenya.
Six ethnic groups live around the Daasanach. They refer to the Kara and Arbore to thenorth as ‘our people’ (gaal kinnyo). The two groups have maintained peaceful relations
with the Daasanach. In contrast, the Turkana to their southwest, the Gabra to theirsoutheast, the Nyangatom to their northwest, and the Hamar to their northeast are referred
to as kiz or ‘enemy’. Indeed, there are frequent small-scale attacks (sulla) between the
Daasanach and enemy groups, involving a few to several dozen people. A more collective
and organized violent attack, called osu, involves 100–1000 or more people. The
Daasanach youths explain that they have two aims in going to war. The first is to raid theenemy’s livestock and keep their access to the pasturelands for their livelihood. The second
is to kill members of enemy to prove their masculinity7.
3 Mkutu, Guns and governance.
4 Abbink, ‘Violence and culture’, p. 137.
5 Sagawa, ‘Automatic rifles’.
6 Raudzens, ‘War-winning weapons’, pp. 432-3.
7 Sagawa, ‘War experiences’.

40Arms Availability and Violence in the Ethiopia-Kenya-South Sudan Borderland
Although the conflict among pastoral peoples seems to be ‘traditional’, one of the root
causes of conflict is associated with state policy. For example, the British colonial
government controlled livestock herding by local pastoralists around the border area,
increasing the scarcity of pastures in the area. This policy caused an intensification of
hostility between the Daasanach and the neighbouring peoples. After the Second World
War, the Ethiopian government lost interest in this remote area and made few attempts toresolve their inter-ethnic conflicts. The Ethiopian government had not enforced adisarmament operation in the region from the mid-1960s to the mid-2000s.
The history of the proliferation of the rifle in the Daasanach can be classified into three
periods8. The first period began after the conquest of the Ethiopian state in 1898. Singleloader rifles were introduced to the region by merchants and soldiers from the north. The
second period began with the Italian occupation of Ethiopia in 1936. The Italian army
trained the Daasanach to become a border defence corps against British-Kenya andsupplied them with approximately a thousand rifles9. After the withdrawal of Italy in 1941,
rifles left by the Italian army were circulated by local merchants. During the third period,
the proliferation of automatic rifles (mainly the AK-47s and G3s) occurred in the late1980s. The Daasanach acquired the rifles primarily by bartering with merchants,neighbouring peoples, and other Daasanach.
At around 15 years of age, a Daasanach boy conducts an initiation ceremony and enters
into age-set. At this point, he is allowed to purchase his own rifle and go to the battlefield.
In 2006, 48% of adult (initiated) males I interviewed (N=163) owned rifles and 87% ofrifle owners had automatic rifles.

III
After the proliferation of the automatic rifle, larger scale battles occurred between the
Daasanach and their neighbours. The relationships between the Daasanach and threeneighbouring peoples, the Nyangatom, Turkana, and Gabra, changed after the 1980s. Dueto the detailed history I presented in my other paper10, I only summarise the relationships
between new arms and violence intensification or conflict frequency.
The Nyangatom are a northern neighbour of the Daasanach. Relations between them were
mostly amicable from the 1940s to the 1960s. A chain of revenge was brought about by alarger conflict in 1972, when the Daasanach killed over 100 Nyangatom. During the 1970s,
the Nyangatom were also involved in serious battles with other neighbouring peoples.
The situation changed to the Nyangatom’s advantage in the mid-1980s. The Nyangatom
acquired automatic rifles from their allies, the Toposa, who live in the south-eastern Sudan(currently South Sudan)11. They attacked neighbouring peoples one by one. From 1988–9,
the Nyangatom and Toposa destroyed three Daasanach villages on the western side of the
Omo river.
The most devastating attack on the Daasanach was against the village called Salain. The
Nyangatom attacked the village before sunset and killed hundreds of Daasanach in just a
few hours. In this battle, the Daasanach survivors observed that some Nyangatom continued
to shoot at the dead bodies of the Daasanach, even after they ran out of bullets. It was also
observed that after the battle, the Nyangatom moved to a nearby hill and shot their rifles
8 Sagawa, ‘Automatic rifles’.
9 Almagor, ‘Raiders and elders’.
10 Sagawa, ‘Automatic rifles’.
11 Tornay, ‘More chances’.

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TORU SAGAWA
into the sky and then ate the livestock meat that they raided from the Daasanach. This was
unusual because a group of fighters who raid an enemy’s livestock return to their village assoon as possible, fearing a counterattack from the enemy. That time, the Nyagantom andToposa stayed near the village for several hours and displayed their superior strength ofpower to the Daasanach. The Daasanach recall this time as, ‘The Nyangatom got drunkwith Kalashnikovs’. Due to the of fear of the Nyagantom’s fighting power, the Daasanachabandoned the land on the western side of the river and moved to the eastern side.
To defend themselves against the Nyangatom, the Daasanach demanded the local
government to supply them with automatic rifles—but the request was refused. After this,the Daasanach heard that many AK47s were supplied in the Arbore land from the east. In
1991, after many adult males acquired automatic rifles, the Daasanach attacked Kibish, oneof the biggest villages of the Nyangatom. Although the Daasanach did not achieve military
victory in the battle, they established the fact that they could fight the Nyangatom as
equals.
After this war, the Daasanach youths slowly moved to the western side of the river, which
remained in no-man’s land, and herded their livestock. The Nyangatom did not execute
another well-organized attack until 2006. In the late 1990s, the Daasanach moved further
north and started living together with the Nyangatom in Kibish.
The Turkana live in the western region of Lake Turkana. The Daasanach maintained amilitarily superior position since the early twentieth century. This was partly attributed to
the fact that they were able to acquire older-styled rifles from the Ethiopian region, as
opposed to the Turkana of Kenya, where the circulation of firearms was strictly regulatedby the colonial government. However, when the Ugandan regime under Idi Amin collapsed
in 1979, the automatic rifles flooded into the Karimojong of Uganda, and the Turkana
began acquiring automatic rifles from over the border.
When they were equally matched militarily, a large-scaled violent crash occurred in 2000.
The Daasanach attacked a Turkana village named Kanamagur to avenge themselves against
the Turkana. It is estimated that about 200 people were killed or wounded in both groups.
At this battle, the Daasanach attacked the village with three military units from the left,right, and front before dawn. This had been their usual attack strategy. However, in thisbattle, large quantities of bullets from automatic rifles flew in every direction in the dark.
The Daasanach not only killed livestock, but also accidently shot and killed some of theirown comrades.
This was a serious issue for the Daasanach because in their culture, killing another
Daasanach is considered a mistake of the highest order. A Daasanach who kills another
Daasanach must have a nyogich. The person who has a nyogich must engage in apurification ritual, otherwise the nyogich will infect other Daasanach. Even if the person
performed the ritual, it is said that the person who has a nyogich will inevitably die aftersome years. Since it was not known who had accidentally killed the other Daasanach in thebattlefield, those killers had not performed the purification ritual. This created widespreadfear among the Daasanach that a nyogich would infect the whole community.
After this conflict, the young men discussed the unexpected result of the battle and theelders advised them of the present danger. Elders called the new rifles ‘bad or dangerous
rifle (jiete dedewa)’ compared to the older-styled rifles and warned the young men to
restrain themselves from using them. After a long discussion, the young men decided tochange their attack strategy. Instead of invading the village before dawn, they would attack
the enemy with small members after sunrise when the people and their livestock were42Arms Availability and Violence in the Ethiopia-Kenya-South Sudan Borderland
herding outside of the village. In an attack outside the village, the livestock would scatter,
reducing the risk of shooting their own community members. Although small-scaled raids
against the Turkana occurred after the Kanamagur’s conflict, the number of dead andwounded was much less than in the conflict in 2000.
The Gabra are the south-eastern neighbours of the Daasanach. Since the colonial period,
the Daasanach were armed with older-styled rifles, having attacked and defeated the Gabra.
Unlike the Turkana, the Gabra living in Kenya could not get automatic rifles, because theirterritory was far from the Ugandan border. In March 1997, the Daasanach, armed with newrifles, attacked the village of Kokoy and killed more than 100 Gabra. In addition, theDaasanach killed Kenyan policemen a day after the fighting with the Gabra.
After this battle, the Kenyan government instituted a law designed to deter violent
conflicts. If a member of one group killed a member of another group, his group had to pay
50 cattle to the other group in compensation. There had been no similar form of ‘bloodprice’ between the Daasanach and neighbouring groups before the government establishedthe law. It appears that the new law had an impact on the inter-group relationships because
no large-scale battles occurred until 2006.
However, the risk of a conflict re-occurring still exists. In January 2006, approximately
150 members of the youngest age-set planned a large-scale attack against a Gabra village.
The main reason for the planned attack was that the younger men were jealous of the older
members who had battle experience, and they wanted to go to war to prove theirmasculinity. Before the attack was carried out, it was disclosed to the older members. The
members of all age-sets hit the members of the youngest age-set with sticks and made themwithdraw their plan. The Kenyan Daasanach have three generation-sets and eachgeneration-set consists of five to eight age-sets. Their relationships are complex. In short,the interaction of the generational system and age system creates a complex system of
opposition and cooperation among age-sets. Thus, it was unusual for all age-sets tocooperate with each other to regulate the activities of the youngest age-set.
Underlying these issues was a sense of crisis elder Daasanach men felt under the Kenyan
government. The Daasanach living in Kenyan side are demographically and politicallyminority groups in their county. They believe that they have consistently been marginalized
by the government, as compared to the Gabra in the same administrative zone. The Kenyan
Daasanach indicated that, after the War in Kokoy, government pressure had increased. To
prevent another oppressive intervention by the Kenyan government, the elder Daasanach
men intensified their control of the activities of the youngest age-set, which otherwise
would have provided a reason for the government to threaten their livelihoods.

IV
I showed the dynamics of inter-ethnic relations between the Daasanach and neighbouringgroups. It is clear that violence on the battlefield has intensified since the proliferation of
automatic rifles. However, inter-ethnic relations did not deteriorate into disorder. The
sociologist Lewis Coser aptly described the situation of this area: ‘By bringing about new
situations, which are partly or totally undefined by rules and norms, conflict acts as a
stimulus for the establishment of new rules and norms’12. The Daasanach, who have been
confronted with ‘new situations’ in the proliferation of automatic rifles, have attempted to
institute ‘new rules’ to control the excessive use of violence.
12 Coser, The functions of social conflict, p. 124.

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Regarding the Nyangatom, the military factor, or their mutual balance of power, hasmainly contributed to the control of excessive violence. In the relationship with theTurkana, the cultural and social factors, like the local concept nyogich, and the advice fromthe elders, has changed the strategy on the battlefield and decreased the scale andcausalities of the conflict. In the relationship with the Gabra, the political factor, or externalpressures from the Kenyan local government, has made elder members intensify theircontrol of the youths and their violence. As previously mentioned, George Raudzens
pointed out that the introduction of new arms ‘has been more obvious in its effects on theway people fight rather than on the outcomes of combat. New weapons have changed
soldiers’ behavior’13. I would add that the introduction of new weapons has also changed
community member’s attitudes toward ‘soldiers (youth in pastoral societies)’, and their
new attitudes have managed the exercise of violence with new arms by ‘soldiers (youth)’.
Examining the relationships between firearms availability and violence, it is important toconsider historical processes after the proliferation of new arms, social and culturalcontexts involved, and people’s agency to control violence.
References
Abbink, J., ‘Violence and culture: anthropological and evolutionary-psychological reflections on intergroup conflict in southern Ethiopia’, in B.F. Schmidt and I.W. Schröder, eds., Anthropology of violence
and conflict (2001), pp. 123-42.
Almagor, U., ‘Raiders and elders: a confrontation of generations among the Dassanetch’, in K. Fukui and
D. Turton, eds., Warfare among East African herders (Osaka, 1979), pp. 119-45.
Coser, L. A., The functions of social conflict (1956).
Jackson, T. and Marsh N., ‘Guns and deaths’, in O. Greene and N. Marsh, eds., Small arms, crime andconflict: global governance and the threat of armed violence (Oxford, 2012), pp. 105-21.
Mkutu, K. A., Guns and governance in the rift valley: pastoralist conflict and small arms (Oxford, 2008).
Raudzens, G., ‘War-winning weapons: the measurement of technological determinism in military history’,
Journal of Military History, 54–4 (1990), pp. 403-34.
Sagawa, T., ‘Automatic rifles and social order amongst the Daasanach of conflict-ridden East Africa’,
Nomadic Peoples, 14–1 (2010), pp. 87-109.
Sagawa, T., ‘War experiences and self-determination of the Daasanach in the conflict-ridden area ofnortheastern Africa’, Nilo-Ethiopian Studies, 14 (2010), pp. 19-37.
Tornay, S., ‘More chances on the fringe of the state?: the growing power of the Nyangatom’, in T. Tvedt.,
ed., Conflict in the Horn of Africa (Uppsala, 1993), pp. 143-63.

13 Raudzens, ‘War-winning weapons’, pp. 432-3.

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