TY - JOUR
AU - Kristof, Titeca,
AB - Abstract In the last decade, there has been a major growth in the illegal ivory trade. Although this trade has been analysed from a variety of angles, one perspective is missing in the literature, namely the individual ivory trader. Based on in-depth research among illegal ivory traders in Uganda—which is a major transit point of ivory—this article aims to fill this gap. In doing so, and by linking their activities with the literature on the informal economy and the criminalization of the state, the article shows how various structural circumstances—such as war, globalization and the presence of foreign buyers—had a profound impact on the ways in which the illegal ivory trade was conducted. Initially, these circumstances created an increased market, both in supply and demand, which led many traders to engage in this trade. However, an increased crackdown on the illegal ivory trade has made the conditions much more difficult. By analysing how ivory traders navigate these structural circumstances, the article shows a gradual criminalization of the trade. In other words, the more ivory became criminalized, the more criminal linkages were needed to remain active in the trade, and the more significant power differences became. The illegal trade in raw ivory constitutes a global problem: largely fuelled by increasing demand and consumption in east and south-east Asia, it has been escalating rapidly since 2007.1 Data based on confiscated illegal ivory show that, particularly since 2010, this trade has reached unprecedentedly high levels.2 Some positive signs have become apparent in the last few years: while poaching increased from 2006 onwards, it reached a peak in 2011,3 with subsequent years showing reductions. Moreover, in 2016 the highest number of seizures took place since commercial trade in ivory was banned by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 1989. That said, the level of illegal ivory trade transactions remains as high as before.4 Given this peak, the illegal ivory trade has received a lot of attention, from a variety of perspectives. For example, policy reports and journalistic articles have been blaming the upsurge on the link between ivory trade and terrorism, arguing that a number of rebel and terrorist groups are fuelling the poaching of elephants and the ivory trade because this is an activity through which they are able to finance their activities.5 Yet this alleged link between terrorism and the ivory trade has been widely criticized and debunked as a myth: a number of articles have been published illustrating that the link has been overemphasized, and is based on limited and dubious sources.6 Another body of work focuses on ivory markets, looking at ivory on display in markets, hotels, workspaces and other places.7 There is also a significant literature analysing databases of seized ivory—particularly ETIS (the Elephant Trade Information System), a global database of reported seizures of illegal ivory.8 Largely missing from this literature, however, is a central figure in the illegal ivory trade: the individual ivory trader. What role do ivory traders play within the illegal ivory trade, and how do they organize their trade? These questions largely remain unanswered; yet they need to be addressed if we are to fully comprehend the illegal ivory trade. This knowledge gap is emphasized in a number of reports: the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), for example, argues that ‘a major research gap is the groups, routes and methodology used to move ivory within Africa, between the poaching sites and the ports of exit’.9 Milliken argues for more understanding of the structure of the ivory trade, while a range of other reports specifically argue that traders should be targeted.10 This article attempts to address this gap by analysing the activities of illegal ivory traders. As we will see below, Uganda is a major transit point for ivory, making it an excellent case-study for analysis of the activities of the traders who are responsible for transporting, buying and selling the ivory. Specifically, the article aims to analyse the ways in which illegal ivory traders navigate structural circumstances, which may facilitate or hinder their activities. The first of the following sections sets out an overview of the methodology used for this research. The second presents an overview of the debates on the informal economy and criminalization, showing that existing analyses of the illegal ivory trade (and illegal wildlife trade in general) take place from a variety of theoretical perspectives and disciplines, but have not engaged with the literature on the informal economy—a point which is associated with the relative absence of the ivory trade(rs) from these debates. The third section looks in detail at the life histories of a number of ivory traders in Uganda and how they have organized their ivory-trading activities. In doing so, the article will pay particular attention to the way in which the traders' activities have been influenced by the structural circumstances in which they operate, and how the various traders navigate these circumstances. Methodology This article is mainly based on in-depth research among illegal ivory traders in Uganda—and, to a lesser extent, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with whom semi-structured interviews were conducted between 2012 and 2017. By their nature, illegal trade activities are hard to detect. Even so, research on illegal activities has a long tradition.11 On illegal trade specifically, Ellis and MacGaffey emphasize the importance of adopting a ‘bottom-up’ approach, in which the activities of a small number of illegal traders are followed, with a ‘view to extrapolating from their activities in order to draw conclusions of wider application’.12 Crucial in conducting this research is establishing trust and rapport with the concerned actors, and engaging with them over time and space, in order to see their evolution in different geographical areas and at different times. Ethnographic research is particularly suited to this endeavour, owing to its lengthy immersion in local life and its close contact with the research subjects.13 I accordingly based my work on this subject on long-term ethnographic research with illegal cross-border traders in the Uganda–DRC border region.14 Initially as part of my doctoral research, I have been engaging with these actors since 2004. Through engagement with them over this extended period of time, trust and rapport were established and developed: as I kept coming back over the years, and as the traders' disclosure of information had no negative impact on their activities, my reputation as a trustworthy and reliable actor was strengthened. Initial suspicions that I had a hidden agenda (for example, that I was working for national or international intelligence authorities) therefore disappeared. Moreover, the fact that a European outsider showed interest in their activities became a source of pride for a number of them. Through snowball sampling—a technique which is particularly useful for approaching hard-to-reach subgroups15—I was introduced to various traders in different locations (both along the Uganda–DRC border and in the Ugandan capital Kampala). Engaging with these traders across both space and time not only increased trust and rapport, it also allowed me to cross-check the interview data across extended periods of time and in different places. The danger of snowball sampling, particularly on sensitive and difficult-to-access subjects such as illegal trade, is the risk of confinement to a particular narrow network, whose members share more or less the same socio-economic characteristics and vision.16 Again, the longevity of my research engagement with the subject and the region helped to mitigate this possibility: for example, while at certain moments my ‘pool’ of informants remained rather limited,17 the return of old informants or chance encounters, and introductions to new informants, helped to broaden my exposure to different networks and visions. Research in the capital Kampala, away from my core research area on the border, was particularly helpful in this respect.18 Importantly, my research among these actors was always inductive in nature: that is, research topics were strongly influenced by my informants' activities, rather than by predetermined research agendas on my side. Specifically, my interest in ivory trade largely came from my informants' engagement in this trade: initially, my research paid no attention to the illegal ivory trade, focusing on it only when it became increasingly prominent in my informants' trading activities. As I will show below, ivory became an increasingly important commodity in the Uganda–DRC borderlands, and in the traders' activities. Upon realizing this, I started focusing more specifically on this commodity, and started actively looking for other ivory traders. Snowball sampling again helped me to access different traders, the main difficulty being in gaining access to the best-connected traders. As I will describe below, connections with politico-military elites play a central role in this trade, and the best-connected traders proved the hardest to approach. Between 2012 and 2017, I conducted 49 interviews with eleven different illegal ivory traders in two specific locations, both of which are key nodes in this trade: the Ugandan–DRC borderlands (more specifically the border towns Arua in Uganda and Aru in the DRC) and the Ugandan capital Kampala. In this article, their identities have been anonymized: I use not their real names, but pseudonyms. I also conducted interviews with law-enforcement officials, journalists, representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and analysts working on this issue. My introductions to these individuals were also related to my research history: as an area specialist, I have been studying Ugandan politics for an extended period,19 over which I have developed long-term relations with a number of analysts, journalists and other actors, who in turn have introduced me to other relevant actors. Here again, I took care to ensure I was exposed to a range of actors of sufficiently diverse backgrounds, conducting 27 interviews with 24 different actors. Based on the above interviews, this article takes as a central unit of analysis the career paths of the illegal ivory traders: how did they become involved in the ivory trade, how do they structure their trade, and what difficulties did they encounter? Following them up for several years allowed me both to follow up their activities in real time, and also, through repeated interviews, to gain insight in how their careers evolved. At the time of writing (2017–2018), this is the first study primarily based on empirical research with illegal ivory traders. The informal economy and gradations of criminalization This article argues for the need to embed debates on the illegal ivory trade within the academic debates on the informal economy. As I will show, this literature allows us to better analyse power dynamics within the illegal ivory trade by looking more closely at the central actors in this economy, that is, the traders themselves. This perspective, which has hitherto been missing from the existing literature on the ivory trade (and indeed from illegal wildlife trade in general), allows for more nuanced thinking on the traders' position within this illegal trade. More specifically, a central concern of this article is understanding the ability of actors to navigate structural circumstances within a criminalized informal economy—an issue which will be explored in this section. The informal economy Much has been written about actors who evade the state regulatory framework, that is, who operate within the informal economy.20 An important premise of this literature—and a point that is pertinent for this article—is that the informal economy is not a homogeneous entity: informal economies are not monopolized by one specific group (whether they are working poor or criminalized elites). On the contrary, they contain a variety of actors commanding different resources, contacts and skills.21 This great diversity of ‘actors, positions, agendas and identities’ gives rise to a ‘highly differentiated nature of informal economies’.22 A key point is that different actors occupy different positions, and ‘actors with advantageous positions in the informal economy may organize to maintain and further those positions’.23 Informal economies are ‘traversed by multiple axes of power, along lines of income, gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion, etc. which interact with each other to produce particular patterns of advantage and disadvantage’.24 In other words, attention to power relations within the informal economy is of critical importance. Positions of power and hierarchies within the informal economy are not permanent or fixed: they ‘must be actively maintained, but may also be contested and put to the test by wider societal processes’.25 As a result, positions of power are often contested and redrawn: the point has been highlighted that informal activities do not develop in a vacuum, but are shaped by a variety of forces, which influence or reshape positions of power. This can happen in various ways. Scheld describes how the arrival of Chinese entrepreneurs in Dakar led to competition with local traders, exacerbating a number of conflicts and divisions and leading to a reconfiguring of power alliances.26 Other work has shown how communal security arrangements in Nigeria's informal economy were hijacked by opportunistic powerful politicians, transforming informal security initiatives into violent pawns in a brutal political struggle.27 In other words, informal economies are not stable, but constantly in flux, and they involve actors with a variety of positions of power. As the Nigerian example shows, informal economies can also be criminalized—which brings us to the next point. The criminalization of the informal economy The informal economy can also be a site of criminal activities, whereby illegal goods such as drugs, weapons or illegal wildlife bypass governmental regulations. How do the dynamics identified above play out for criminal economies? Specifically, how do various power dynamics within criminal economies manifest themselves, and how are they changed? In addressing these questions here, particular attention will be paid to how actors within the criminal economy are able to navigate the structural circumstances in which they operate. First, the state plays a central and ambiguous role in the criminalization of the economy, and has a profound impact on the power of actors to navigate it. On the one hand, through rigid state sanctions and regulations, particular activities and commodities are criminalized, and the conditions for illegality are created. Bayart and colleagues define criminal activity as ‘those political, social and economic practices which are the object of a “primary criminalization” either by the laws and other texts of the states … in international law, or according to international organizations or acknowledged guardians of international morality’.28 As examples they give trades in humans and drugs, piracy and banditry, and also trade in ivory and endangered species of wild animals. In the words of Andreas, ‘through its monopoly on the power to criminalize certain economic sectors, the state defines the boundaries of illegal market activities’.29 In so doing the state is able to criminalize a market by building up ‘barriers against “undesirable” cross-border economic exchange’.30 On the other hand, the creation of barriers also effectively gives state actors the power to sideline the rules the state has created: work on the ‘criminalization of the state’ and the ‘instrumentalization of disorder’ shows the central role played by state elites in criminal activities.31 Instead of the formal regulatory framework governing (and interdicting illegal activity within) the economy, informal networks, governed by ‘big men’, profit from participating in this economy.32 Janet Roitman refers to ‘an amalgam of personalities associated with the state bureaucracy, the merchant elite, the military, and nonstate militia groups’, together forming a ‘military–commercial nexus’ which ‘control[s] access to possibilities for accumulation’.33 The state is not a unitary actor in this process: whereas one section of the state might have an interest in declaring a particular commodity or sector illegal, other actors may want to profit from this. It is not only at the national level that the interdiction of particular activities creates opportunities; the same holds at the international level. It has been shown that international economic sanctions and arms embargoes can contribute to the criminalization of the state and the economy by creating economic opportunity structures for criminal actors at various levels.34 For example, Milosevic's hold on power in Yugoslavia, and the criminalization of the country's (war) economy, were entrenched, rather than eroded, by sanctions, which led to ‘monopolistic control of trade in oil and other strategic goods subject to sanctions, the selective granting by the regime of lucrative licenses for exports/imports and foreign exchange dealings, and dramatic growth in corruption and the criminalization of the state’.35 In some cases, the distinction between state and organized crime evaporates—an example being Montenegro, where officials at the highest level (including the prime minister and chiefs of police) were involved in cigarette smuggling.36 In other words, the criminalization of particular commodities opens up opportunities for criminal actors to profit thereby. Second, the state, and its various enforcement measures, are not the only structural factor influencing the level of criminalization in the economy. This is also the case for the presence of wars, which have a particularly strong impact on the criminalization of economies, a point that was strongly emphasized in the literature on war economies in the 1990s. The ‘greed–grievance’ debate, which dominated the debate on the economic causes of war,37 was particularly influential in this respect. In David Keen's words, war had become ‘the pursuit of economics by other means’,38 and therefore a strongly criminalized enterprise. While this argument has been criticized for overemphasizing the ‘greed’ aspect of war,39 and also for overemphasizing the violent nature of cross-border trade,40 the economic aspects of war should still be considered important: a wide range of work has shown how the presence of war, violence and military actors has led to the criminalization of the economy. For example, it has been shown how the war in the western Balkans led to the criminalization of existing trade routes and political connections during the armed conflicts,41 leading to a ‘nouveau riche criminalized elite’.42 It has also been shown that in the eastern DRC the artisanal mining of tantalum ore underwent a ‘radical mutation of livelihood strategies’.43 Mineral exploitation, formerly seen as an activity of a survival economy, came to be seen as a criminal activity, largely fuelled by the war in eastern Congo and in particular the involvement of Rwandans.44 In other words, here too a shift of power materializes, this time created by wars, which involve ‘violent modes of accumulation’,45 and place actors with military connections in a much more central position. Third, globalization has played an important role in fuelling criminalization.46 In particular, as Marchal and Messiant have argued, ‘processes of informalization and privatization of the international economy’47—or globalization in its neo-liberal form—have been conducive to this criminalization of economies.48 De Zeeuw and Frerks summarize the point as follows: Globalization has opened up new opportunities for individual nonstate actors within weak states to link to global trading networks and potential partners without state interference. Improved communication technology, fast capital movements and increased deregulation in Western economies have created the necessary preconditions for coalitions between local warlords, private business, intermediary agents and emerging private security companies to capitalise upon the lack of state control on resource extraction.49 In this context, actors who are able to tap into global networks have a competitive advantage over more local actors. These include ‘international criminal networks engaged in the smuggling of valuable resources, trafficking of arms and drugs, and money laundering’;50 or, in Duffield's words, ‘political actors [who] have been able to control local economies and realize their worth through the ability to forge new and flexible relations with liberalized global markets’.51 Other actors are not able to tap into these networks, operate on a more local scale, and are often pushed out of the illegal trade by these more criminal actors. In sum, this discussion has shown that criminalization is not a typological characteristic—goods are criminal or they are not—but that, on the contrary, there are different gradations of criminality.52 The criminalization of the economy happens by degrees: the state can reassert control over the economy in response to illicit market forces ‘in the form of intensive, expansive, and technologically innovative international policing and surveillance efforts’.53 For example, a state can declare a good illegal; but it is only when it starts enforcing that declaration that the good becomes de facto criminalized—and such enforcement can be implemented to various degrees. Other structural factors include the presence of war and global networks, which allow for various degrees of violence, and various degrees of connections into global networks. Importantly, all these structural circumstances (whether the criminalization of particular goods, or the outbreak of war) involve a shift of power towards those who are better able to respond to these changing structural circumstances, and better connected in the world of clandestine transactions. In concrete terms, this means a shift towards better connections with state officials, military officials or actors tapped into global networks. These connections can range from a few rogue security officials involved in the smuggling of goods to the full criminalization of the state, as illustrated above. In the following sections, I will apply these ideas to the illegal ivory trade in Uganda. What impacts have various structural circumstances had on the activities of illegal ivory traders, what power shifts have taken place, and what does this tell us about degrees of criminalization? Uganda's illegal ivory traders CITES calls Uganda a country of ‘primary concern’ in the illicit ivory trade, listing it as one of the ten countries worldwide ‘linked to the greatest illegal ivory trade flows since 2012’.54 How did Uganda come to be this major transit point—and, more particularly, how is illegal ivory transported through the country? An expanding market for illegal ivory According to CITES, Uganda serves as ‘an important entrepôt/export centre in East Africa with clear links to central African ivory trade flows’.55 In 2016, CITES noted that Uganda was ‘highly implicated in illicit ivory trade movements’.56 Why is this the case? Uganda is neighbour to several countries with important elephant populations and alarming levels of poaching—especially in central Africa, a region shown by research to have both the consistently highest levels of poaching in Africa57 and a dramatic decline in the elephant population.58 Not much ivory leaves the continent directly from central Africa, however; most of it is taken out through eastern Africa. Uganda is playing an important transit role in this trade, located as it is near the major exit points for illegally traded ivory, Kenya and Tanzania, with their Indian Ocean seaports offering direct connections to Asian markets.59 While some of the ivory leaving from these ports comes from Kenya and Tanzania,60 a substantial part comes from central Africa, in which case it passes through Uganda. Reports estimate that between 2009 and 2014 an estimated 20 tonnes of ivory were trafficked through Uganda, mainly to Asia.61 Not only has the ivory supply been growing in the last decade; the demand for ivory has also risen. All the Ugandan ivory traders I interviewed mentioned the second half of the 2000s, and particularly the period around 2007–2008, as a crucial time for the ivory trade: this was, indeed, the moment when many Ugandan traders began to deal in ivory. Increasing interest in ivory played an important role in this development: around that time, there was an increased presence in Uganda of west African and Chinese actors with a clear interest in ivory. The traders I interviewed mentioned an increased presence of, and interest from, Chinese traders from around 2005. One recollected: In 2006, the Chinese started coming in. It was because China had their policy of opening up to the outside world. They came in as agents for factories. I knew some of these Chinese businessmen, they always had a cover to be here for something else. There was this one I was working with … His cover was that he was dealing in fish … He was exporting it [ivory] in cargo.62 Other traders told similar stories. Overall, these are in line with the increased presence of Chinese actors in Uganda (and Africa in general) between 2000 and 2005, after China initiated its ‘Go Out’ policy in 1999: both private- and state-owned companies were present in Uganda, active in a variety of sectors, including wholesale, construction and manufacturing.63 Traders also mentioned the increased involvement of west Africans (particularly from Nigeria and Côte d'Ivoire) in the ivory business. West African traders have historically been active in illegal trading in Uganda,64 particularly in the drug trade, but since 2006–2007 a shift has been observed towards the inclusion of ivory in their portfolio. Other nationalities (such as Vietnamese, Turks and Russians) were also mentioned as ivory buyers—albeit on a far smaller scale than the Chinese and west Africans—and again, these groups started showing up in Uganda in the mid-2000s. All these elements together point at a rapidly growing ivory market in Uganda as the result of Asia's growing interest in ivory: from around this period, increasing demand and consumption in east and south-east Asia, particularly in China and Thailand, has fuelled the illegal trade in raw ivory.65 In other words, the growing demand in Asia was translated into an expanding market in Uganda, particularly through the increased presence of interested buyers. The presence of these foreign traders is also related to a Uganda-specific factor: the country imposes only very light punishments for ivory smugglers. Its 2000 Wildlife Act has a maximum sentence of seven years' imprisonment for trading in ivory, and a fine of US$2,710.66 More importantly, even these sentences are never handed down in full. According to one security officials working on illegal wildlife: The sentences are absolutely minimal: you only get one or two years' imprisonment or you pay a two million UGX fine, and you are not jailed. So this is absolutely peanuts! You bring in so many tonnes of ivory, and then you only have to pay this very small fine! You only have to pay something like three million UGX. Peanuts! So there is very little deterring effect in these circumstances.67 Moreover, prosecution for ivory possession and trade remains problematic. There have been various cases of state officials actively engaging in the trade which were not prosecuted (particularly involving high-level officials), cases stalled in court and reported harassment of judges over wildlife cases.68 Many traders voice similar views, claiming that it is ‘very easy to bribe yourself out here … the punishment is very low: one million or a bit of time in prison, and it's very easy to get out’.69 This leniency distinguishes Uganda from neighbouring countries, where prosecution has been more effective and sentencing more severe. For example, Tanzania has given prison sentences of twelve, 20 and 35 years for wildlife smuggling.70 In the last of these cases, two Chinese men, having been found with 706 elephant tusks, received a prison sentence after failing to pay a fine of US$25 million. In Kenya, equally severe sentences were given for the possession of ivory.71 For example, in January 2014 a Chinese ivory smuggler was sentenced to a fine of US$233,000 or seven years in prison for possessing a tusk weighing 3.4 kg.72 In another case, an ivory smuggler was sentenced to 20 years in prison.73 In consequence of these prosecutions, Uganda, where these kinds of sentences have never occurred, came to be seen as a safe haven for traders in illegal wildlife. According to a Ugandan wildlife officer: ‘Many of the smugglers have shifted from Kenya to Uganda. For example, Guineans had shifted from Nairobi to here. When Kenya became strict in their laws: very many did settle here!’74 In other words, a structural context of an expanding market and weak punishments offers (at least in theory) an ideal context for smuggling ivory. How does this smuggling work in practice? This is the topic of the next section. Smuggling ivory: the ‘infrastructure rather than the commodity’ Although punishments are weak in Uganda, the ivory trade remains illegal, and traders try to avoid confiscation as much as possible. In practice, ivory still has to pass through a variety of settings where law enforcement actors are present: customs and security officials at points of entry into and exit from the country, security officials at roadblocks, and various state officials at points where the ivory is packaged and repackaged—buses, containers and so on. In order to successfully smuggle ivory, therefore, a trader needs a variety of contacts among law enforcement officials, custom agents, transporters and other relevant individuals. Uganda's context can be considered favourable for this activity, as the country has a long history of corruption.75 Bureaucratic forms of corruption are widespread, including ‘practices of bribery, nepotism, and misuse of official positions and resources’.76 This environment has an impact on cross-border trade and the possibilities for smuggling: there are significant illegal trade flows, whereby traders do not pay tax, but instead rely on hiding their transactions or bribing customs officials. For a number of years, the Bank of Uganda and the Uganda Bureau of Statistics had placed surveyors on border points, who developed relations with traders to measure the unregistered trade. These figures give an idea of the scale of illegal trading: for example, in 2008, illegal exports out of Uganda were worth US$1.35 billion, while formal exports were worth US$1.7 billion.77 Moreover, these figures underestimate the total value of illegal trade, as they do not include transactions that bypass formal border crossings altogether. This context is favourable for the illegal ivory trade. Research with ivory traders shows that for all of them, personal relationships with government officials are at the heart of the trade: it is these relationships which allow ivory to be imported and exported, provide protection on internal transport, and so on. Most ivory traders smuggle a variety of commodities: some also trade in highly illegal goods such as drugs or minerals (gold); others deal in more mundane goods such as cigarettes or fuel. The reason for this is straightforward: it is the (social) infrastructure, rather than the commodity itself, which guides the ivory trade. In other words, the traders have the contacts that allow them to operate in this illegal market: both the contacts that enable them to smuggle goods, and the contacts that give them access to a variety of commodities, including ivory.78 The following example of the ivory trader here called Steven illustrates this dynamic. Case-study 1: Steven, the ‘Arua boy’, operating in the Uganda–DRC border region Steven is a trader based in the border town of Arua in the west Nile region of Uganda, bordering on the DRC and South Sudan. The area has a long history of illegal cross-border trade, resulting from a combination of taxation policies, a history of refugee flows and similar ethnic groups either side of the borders. Steven was engaged in the smuggling of goods from a young age, starting by smuggling small quantities of fuel from the DRC into Uganda—fuel being a popular commodity for smuggling in the area, and commonly traded by smugglers with little capital. He soon expanded into other commodities, including cigarettes, sugar and batteries, that are popular among most traders in the west Nile region. Through this activity, he established good relations with border officials and security officials, who would help him get his goods over the frontier crossings. Over the years, he also established close contacts across the borders in the DRC and South Sudan, with government officials and traders alike. In all this, Steven was not an exception: there were many traders like him, and together they were nicknamed the ‘Arua boys’. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, ivory appeared in Arua from time to time, but overall its appearance in these years was rather rare. From around 2007–2008 onwards, however, large quantities of ivory were offered to the region's traders, mainly from the DRC, and Steven—along with other Arua boys—started trading in it. Ivory would be delivered in a variety of ways: one option was delivery to the Congolese border town of Ariwara, from where Steven would make sure bicycles or motorcycles transported the ivory into Uganda, to Arua. Another option would be transport through border points. In Steven's words: ‘I know all the border people. All the Congolese and also the Ugandans, they're my friends. If it's necessary, I give them fifty or a hundred dollar.’79 A lot of the ivory was sold to traders coming to this border region: some of these buyers were Steven's usual contacts, but there were also a lot of new buyers—according to Steven, ‘Chinese, Korean, Turkish, Cote d'Ivoireans and many others’.80 These traders in turn sell ivory in Kampala, or export the ivory out of the country. The case of Steven shows how ivory was fed into historically established illegal trading networks in the Ugandan–Congolese border region. Steven was not the only trader involved in this development: many of his fellow ‘Arua boys’ followed a similar trajectory. Among the traders I interviewed, this group formed a distinct majority: seven of the eleven traders followed for this research project were part of this group. Ivory is but one of the commodities in which these traders are dealing and which are smuggled through their network of contacts with other traders, customs officials, security officials and so on. Most of these contacts have been established over a longer period of time than the ivory smuggling has been going on. The military and the ivory trade One set of actors who kept appearing in the interviews with ivory traders were individual soldiers: as a source of ivory and/or as a source of protection, facilitating the import and export of ivory. The presence of these soldiers in neighbouring countries played an important role in the trade: in these areas, soldiers, and the transport companies working for them, had easy access to ivory. Before we discuss the traders' perspectives, let us take a closer look at the Ugandan Army. In the past, the Ugandan Army has used its presence in neighbouring countries to illegally exploit natural resources. From 1998 to 2002, the Ugandan army occupied parts of the DRC. A central feature of the soldiers' presence was the illegal exploitation of Congolese natural resources (such as minerals or timber), which continued, through proxy groups, even after the Ugandan withdrawal.81 In late 2008, the army re-entered the DRC to track down the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebel movement, and later went into the Central African Republic (CAR). While there was no structural involvement of the army in exploiting natural resources, reports suggest that individual Ugandan soldiers still had an interest in these commodities, and in particular in ivory. For example, in March 2012, 22 elephants were shot from a helicopter in Garamba National Park—the area where the Ugandan Army was tracking the LRA. Reports accused the Ugandan Army of involvement in this episode.82 Moreover, a recent report asserts that army trucks are smuggling a variety of goods, including timber and ivory, and that government officials are not allowed to check their trucks.83 In sum, the presence of the Ugandan Army in neighbouring countries offered access to ivory. What impact did this opportunity have on the ivory traders? Let us look at another case-study, of the trader known as Andrew. Case-study 2: the ‘hustler’ Andrew, who started his career through military contacts Andrew is a self-declared ‘hustler’—a middleman engaged in a variety of trades. From early on, he has been on the lookout for various kinds of deals which allow him to make money—largely in the illegal economy. Andrew comes from western Uganda, and some of his relatives were involved in the liberation struggle which brought the current president, Yoweri Museveni, to power. Andrew was particularly close to a high-ranking army commander, who has been a family friend since he was young. This proved to be crucial in his introduction to the illegal business, which he started engaging with around the time he went to university: We used to chill at his [the commander's] place when I was at university. We have a drink, and in this way, I knew him; and he introduced me in the business. He was a shrewd guy: he only knew the language of money. And he had the cover to make things moving. Also the white people, whom we call “investors”, they all knew the big guys. The mainly go to the big guys, they particularly go to the big guys, and they tell the commander what they are looking for. At the same time, many Congolese came here, and in this way business was created. ‘Hanging out’ with the commander exposed Andrew to a range of contacts and business opportunities in the illegal sphere. This was in the late 1990s, at the time of the Congolese wars, when there was a flourishing trade in minerals. He [the commander] told me where business was. He said: business is here; do x, y z … So how he helped me: he would know of smuggling going on. He would be quick in knowing what is going on; he would know that there is mineral, gold, diamond being traded. Minerals were a lucrative business those days.84 The commander (and his colleagues) were particularly important for smuggling goods across the borders: a crucial element in this kind of trade is protection, allowing illegal goods to enter the country. Working with these higher-level actors gave Andrew not only protection, but also exposure to a wide range of contacts, which in turn offered more business opportunities. In doing so, he became involved in a variety of goods, such as minerals, drugs and (from time to time) ivory. The commander died in the early 2000s, but by then Andrew had established a wide network of contacts, both among traders and among military (and government) officials. He increasingly started dealing in ivory, which became a major activity for him from 2006 onwards. He received his ivory from a variety of sources: the Tanzanian wildlife authorities; the Ugandan wildlife authorities; Burundian middlemen (who in turn received ivory from Congolese rebel groups); and Sudanese traders. Importantly, there was a big demand for ivory from foreign traders in Kampala. In his words: ‘I started working with Chinese around 2006, even a bit earlier. There was this dude from Hong Kong I met in 2004. The Chinese are largely interested in ivory; and also the west Africans.’85 A number of foreign traders, particularly west Africans, who were dealing in drugs, also started trading in ivory: ‘Ivory and heroin, it's a small world. You meet in one place, and you meet in another area: a number of the Nigerians shifted to ivory, and many more of them arrived.’86 Andrew's story illustrates in detail how he slowly grew into the ivory business. Like Steven and the ‘Arua boys’, he has traded in a variety of goods, in which ivory gradually took a dominant place. The introduction by a high-level military commander proved to be crucial, both in the introduction to the trade and in the actual smuggling of goods. One other ivory trader with similar characteristics to Andrew was followed for this research project. As argued above, the small number of this sample was largely related to the nature of the traders' connections: given their close connections to military elites, this category of actors were particularly wary of speaking with a researcher.87 Both of these individuals, however, are illustrative of a group of traders, largely based in Kampala, which is operating on a regional scale. The cases of Andrew and Steven also illustrate the power difference between different groups of traders. The scale of Andrew's operations is decidedly larger than those of Steven and the Arua boys, who mainly operate in the DRC–Uganda border region, where they buy and sell ivory and other goods. Andrew is operating on a regional scale, as witnessed by the wide range of regional contacts in providing ivory: he buys, transports and sells ivory and other goods over a far larger territory, sourcing ivory from Burundi, Tanzania, South Sudan and so on. This wider scale of operations is largely linked with the nature of protection: the high-level military contacts (starting with the commander and continuing with other actors) allow him to acquire ivory from a wide range of sources, as these contacts allow him to smuggle goods through a range of border points. In other words, Andrew has a variety of linkages—with military officials and other traders—facilitating his illegal trade activities. Depending on the structural circumstances, he is able to use these to trade in one commodity or another. Thus, at the time of the Congolese wars, his primary trade was in minerals; later, with the increased demand for ivory, he shifted to ivory. Andrew is therefore a strong illustration of a criminalized economy: his activities are a direct result of a ‘military–commercial’ nexus,88 which allows illegal trade to flourish, and illustrate the illegal trade activities of Ugandan military officials.89 The activities of Steven and his colleagues, by contrast, are illustrative of a survival economy which shifted into more criminal activities: these trading networks in effect started in response to state neglect—largely among refugee flows and camps across the different borders—but they increasingly became more criminal as goods such as minerals and ivory were fed into them, albeit with a more limited geographical scope, and less powerful connections to rely on. The military involvement in the ivory trade became particularly intensive during Uganda's mission to track down the LRA in neighbouring countries, as illustrated by the next case-study. Case-study 3: Ronny, dealing ivory provided by his army commander uncle Ronny is a trader renting out trucks and construction material, who largely operates out of Kampala. He entered the ivory trade later than most other actors, around 2013. He received the ivory from his uncle, who was stationed in the CAR as an officer in the Ugandan forces pursuing the LRA. Soon, his uncle started calling him to come and pick up ivory in the CAR, having also arranged the buyers. In Ronny's words: At first I started engaging myself in the ivory trade through my uncle. He had a muzungu [white] lady friend, who was buying the ivory. My uncle had told her that I was the one making sure that ivory was going to be supplied to her … Ronny was asked to travel to the army base in the CAR, where ivory was put in an army vehicle: ‘They did put guards in the pickup, and that's where they put the ivory. The vehicle brought me back to Arua, and to Kampala. That kind of army vehicles: they don't check it. This was 280 kilograms of ivory, which I gave to the muzungu lady … My uncle said: with these things, you can make a lot of money, you have to engage yourself more in this. Since then I have been working with my uncle.’90 After this, Ronny started making similar trips more regularly. The advantage of dealing with his uncle was the security he was able to provide, particularly the transport in army trucks, which allowed him to transport the ivory easily to Kampala: My uncle organizes these things in CAR. He is the one calling me and telling me how many kilograms are available, and what they want instead: sometimes it is not only money. For example, one time I arrived with tealeaves…. To transport it from CAR, I use an army truck. It's because of my uncle that I can transport many kilos. I make an arrangement with him, and I make sure there's fuel in the truck. The advantage of an army truck is that they don't check what's in there.91 Further advantages were the availability and cheap price of the ivory: The commander took me to a person selling ivory, who's a local. We drove around 8 to 10 kilometres out of town for this. It was very cheap: five US dollars per kilo. He told me he had 700–800 kilos! I saw all of it. I think the man was poaching for it himself.92 Unlike the traders in the previous case-studies presented here, Ronny is dealing in a single commodity, on the basis of a privileged link with one particular actor—in this case the military—giving him easy access to ivory. Another trader followed for this research project had a similar experience: he was working as a driver, supplying the military with goods (such as foodstuffs) in the DRC and CAR and returning with ivory which he bought from the military. The fact that he was working for the military allowed him to smuggle ivory into Uganda easily. As he explained: ‘We were civilian trucks hired by the military. What we did: we hid the ivory in the trucks. We were not being controlled, because we were working for the military … The number of kilograms varied: sometimes 100 kilograms, sometimes less. We didn't always find ivory. Sometimes we did find, sometimes we did not.’93 More generally, the presence of Ugandan troops in neighbouring countries led to an increased influx of ivory into Uganda. This was an important part of the reason why the ‘Arua boys’, such as Steven, suddenly had a steady supply of ivory: for Steven and his colleagues, the increased flow of ivory into their border region was helped by the presence of the army in neighbouring DRC. The data presented above do not constitute evidence of an institutionalized engagement of the Ugandan Army in the exploitation and export of natural resources, as happened during the second Congo war. Rather, they reflect a situation in which individual Ugandan Army officers make use of the opportunities available to them: based in the DRC or CAR, they have easy access to the supply of ivory, and easy ways of transporting it back to Uganda. The same goes for individual truck drivers, who are hired to supply the army, and make use of that opening to bring back ivory. Importantly, this does not mean they have easy access to a market: many are struggling to sell the ivory. In the words of the other trader who was also supplied by army officials: The army officers: they don't know the market! If the officer is in an operation, and he gets some ivory, he'll try to sell it as soon as possible. Even for the high-level army officers, it's not their business. They want money, and they want it as soon as possible. For the army, if there's a side business coming up: you want your money there and then. So the big guys: if you're in an operation; and you have ivory, you want quick money. In other words, army officers do not necessarily have the best infrastructure in place to sell ivory: they might have easy access to the commodity, but do not always know what to do with it. This was also the case for Ronny, the trader mentioned above. Case-study 3 (continued): Ronny, and his problems selling ivory Although Ronny had easy access to ivory, he was pretty much on his own: he did not know the market, and after the ‘white lady’ left, he had to find ways to sell the ivory himself. And this didn't work out very well: he ‘sold’ some of his ivory to a trader from his home region, but was never paid for this. There was this tribe-mate of mine whom I had sold ivory to. I was introduced to him by Julius [a known middleman of the west Nile region]. Now he [the tribe-mate] claims that the police have confiscated the ivory and that he cannot pay for it. The guy came through Julius, so I trusted him, but he cheated on me.94 Ronny also said: He had only given me a thousand US dollars and he still owed me fifteen thousand! I don't remember how many kilograms I have sold him, but I remember I sold him at 70 dollars per kilogram.95 As a result, as I met Ronny over the years, I saw that he had lost his initial enthusiasm for the commodity, having struggled to sell his ivory. Moreover, his uncle had also eventually left the CAR, receiving a new posting back in Uganda. Before leaving, his uncle did introduce Ronny to the new commander, who could also help him to acquire ivory, but this did not prove to be easy—contacts were not as easy as they had been with his uncle. The case of Ronny illustrates a number of issues. First, it shows the strong military engagement in the ivory trade, and the overall criminal nature of this trade—as for Steven and the Arua boys, the military were an important source of ivory. Second, Ronny's case further illustrates the power differences within the illegal ivory trade: even for actors with strong military connections, it can be difficult to sell ivory. Success in the trade depends not only on the ability to source and transport goods, but also on access to the necessary buyers. The difference between Andrew and Ronny is striking: from the beginning, Andrew was tapped into both markets and supplies of a variety of illegal commodities, while also being offered the necessary protection. His high-level military connections had access to broader markets of a variety of illegal commodities. Ronny, by contrast, had privileged access to a steady supply of ivory, but was unfamiliar with the market: his only connection was on the supply side, and he lacked access to illegal markets. What most actors (including military commanders) do is to make use of existing (illegal) trade networks, and sell through these networks. Ivory is sold through an illegal trade infrastructure already in place, as for the Arua boys in west Nile. Ronny, however, failed to find access to these markets. Increased confiscations and a narrower ivory market From 2010 onwards, a range of measures were taken by the Ugandan government to address the illegal ivory trade, making the traders' activities more difficult. First, there was an increasing awareness among the relevant law enforcement officers about the importance of illegal trade in wildlife products, ivory in particular. Many of the officers interviewed claimed that they had only recently become aware of the importance of ivory and how to trace it. As one customs official put it: Before, we used to see it a bit, but nobody cared. The poaching of elephants and the trafficking of ivory, it did not hit Uganda directly. It comes from neighbouring countries: DRC, CAR, Tanzania. As we did not have a vested interest, we thought it was safe. It is only at the start of 2015 that for the first time in the history of Uganda Revenue Authorities, wildlife crime has become one of the key result areas for the organization … Before the only interest of URA was to collect revenue.96 Similar feelings were expressed in other interviews, highlighting the lack of awareness about wildlife products—particularly among customs officials, who not only lacked knowledge of how to identify illegal wildlife and ivory, but who also indicated that their main (even only) interest was the collection of tax, rather than combating the illegal wildlife trade. Most law enforcement officials argued that it was only between 2010 and 2015 that they started being trained in, and becoming aware of, the importance of this illegal trade. Reflecting this trend, there has been an increasing number of confiscations from around 2013 onwards: for example, in October 2013, three tonnes of ivory were seized in Kampala.97 In the same month, two tonnes of ivory originating in Uganda were confiscated in Mombasa.98 Overall, CITES notes that some progress has been made since 2013 in arresting those suspected of criminal trading in ivory and interdicting large-scale movements of ivory prior to export.99 Formal institutional measures have also been taken, such as a review of the Wildlife Act, with stronger sentences for ivory poaching and trafficking. Moreover, in October 2016, a court specifically dedicated to wildlife crimes was set up, which began prosecutions in early 2017.100 These measures have had some effect on the traders' activities. For example, much of the ivory which was being sold in the west Nile border region—home to Steven and the other ‘Arua boys’—remained there, as most traders considered the transport of ivory to Kampala too risky, as there had been a range of large-scale confiscations along the road to the capital. Very few were now willing to risk transporting their goods to Kampala. Similar feelings were voiced by other ivory traders. Among other things, traders were referring to spies as a constant danger. In the words of one trader: ‘It has also become much more risky here: someone says he's selling, but he's a mole. Someone claims he's buying, but he's also a mole.’101 Another trader said: ‘You know, for ivory, the risk has become too big. It's almost better to deal in “brown sugar”, or “white powder”. The risk is there because there's too many informants.’102 Second, as noted above, most of the traders have a broad portfolio of commodities, of which ivory is only one: they are continuously looking for new commodities and opportunities, and once a particular market becomes unattractive, that commodity is abandoned, temporarily or permanently. In the words of one trader: ‘When business is slow in one side, I shift to another side.’ Similarly, when the market becomes too risky, traders move on. Gradually, with the crackdown on the ivory trade, this commodity became too risky, and many traders moved on to other goods. Most of the ivory traders followed for this research project abandoned the ivory trade: out of the eleven interviewed, only two remain active in the trade at the time of writing—the well-connected Andrew and his colleague. Indeed, it is the level of their connections that has allowed them to continue. The other traders indicated that they no longer had the necessary protection to continue, and that the market had come to be dominated by high-level players who were able to secure protection from high-level politico-military elites—a level of protection not available to most of the traders I interviewed. Recent confiscations implicating high-level security officers, for example of ivory at the farm of the army's commander of land forces,103 of other illegal wildlife goods in the possession of a presidential adviser,104 or of ivory with the luggage-handling company at Uganda's biggest airport, controlled by politico-military elites,105 are indications of this trend. Moreover, similar concerns were voiced throughout the interviews with wildlife enforcement agents, who consider their tasks frustrated by what they call the involvement of high-level political actors. In the words of one customs official: So a challenge is that the military are involved, and also that very influential politicians are involved. On this side, you are trying to do a good job; while on the other hand, the guy who gives you the job is making it very difficult for you to actually do your job. Sometimes you wonder how safe you are if you're doing your job here.106 Conclusions The illegal ivory trader is a much neglected actor in the literature on the illegal wildlife trade. Based on access to a number of illegal ivory traders in Uganda, this article has set out to analyse the activities of these traders. The career paths of these ivory traders are strongly reminiscent of debates in the literature on the informal economy. Ivory traders are not a homogeneous group; on the contrary, there are strong power differences between the actors. These power differentials are in themselves dynamic and influenced by structural circumstances. As highlighted in the theoretical part of this article, the same is true for criminalized economies: particular structural factors help to explain the level of criminalization and, closely related with this, the power differences at work. The more criminal a particular economy or commodity is, the more powerful criminal connections are needed to operate within it, and the more actors are pushed out of the activity. Specifically, three factors are important: the role of the state; war (and the military); and globalization. All of these created major opportunities for illegal ivory traders, but eventually led to a concentration of power: the more criminal ivory became, the more criminal connections were needed to trade the commodity, eventually pushing out most of the traders. Let us have a closer look at these structural factors, and the opportunities they created for illegal ivory traders. From the mid- to late 2000s, there was both an increased supply of ivory and an increased demand for it. War and globalization were key factors in this: there were Ugandan soldiers operating abroad, with easy access to ivory (both supply and transport). The fight against the LRA took them into the Congo's Garamba National Park and the CAR, where ivory was plentiful. There also was an increased presence of foreign buyers (Chinese and west African traders). Also, the state was an enabling factor, providing an overall institutional context of bureaucratic corruption. Although ivory was formally criminalized, sentences were low and prosecution measures weak; that is, the level of criminalization was low. In this context, many illegal traders started trading in ivory—particularly those who were already relying on historical illegal trade networks. However, these structural circumstances did not have a uniform effect. The way in which ivory traders navigate these structural circumstances highlights the power differentials at play, particularly in the personal links necessary to organize their trade. It has been shown that links with governmental actors are crucial in the trade: for protection, transport, supply and so on. The importance of contacts with individual soldiers in particular has been highlighted. Because of these various links, the different ivory traders operate on different scales and with varying degrees of success: actors such as Steven and the other Arua boys operated on a fairly local scale, in ‘their’ borderlands, while better-connected traders such as Andrew operate on a larger geographical scale, sourcing ivory in the wider region.107 However, the same structural factors which created opportunities eventually created constraints on the traders. This was particularly the case in respect of the state, whose increased criminalization of ivory had a strong effect on the trade: specifically, greater awareness among state agencies, and increased prosecutions, prompted many traders to abandon ivory. The more the commodity became criminalized, the more criminal connections were needed to survive in the trade. Low-level military connections were no longer sufficient, as the case of Ronny showed. Overall, this article shows that the illegal ivory trade can be definitively seen as a criminalized trade, with the military–commercial nexus at the heart of it. This criminalization is not static, and has different gradations. The overall trade dynamics show a gradual criminalization of the trade, which became increasingly risky for those involved, pushing out most lower-level actors so that only elite actors were left. In other words, the more ivory became criminalized, the more criminal linkages were needed to remain active in the trade, and the more significant power differences became. 1 T. Milliken, R. W. Burn, F. M. Underwood and L. Sangalakula, The Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS) and the illicit trade in ivory, report to the 17th meeting of the conference of the parties, CITES (Johannesburg, 2016), pp. 11, 24; Fiona M. Underwood, Robert W. Burn and Tom Milliken, ‘Dissecting the illegal ivory trade: an analysis of ivory seizures data’, PLOS ONE, 18 Oct. 2013, pp. 1–12; Kristof Titeca, ‘Illegal ivory trade as transnational organized crime? An empirical study into ivory traders in Uganda’, The British Journal of Criminology, 11 April 2018, pp. 1–21. 2 T. Milliken, F. M. Underwood, R. W. Burn and L. Sangalakula, Addendum to the report on the Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS), 17th meeting of the conference of the parties, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) (Johannesburg, 2016). 3 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), CITES, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and TRAFFIC, Elephants in the dust – the African elephant crisis (Nairobi, 2013), pp. 11, 13. 4 CITES, ‘African elephant poaching down, ivory seizures up and hit record high’, press release, 24 Oct. 2017, https://cites.org/eng/news/pr/African_elephant_poaching_down_ivory_seizures_up_and_hit_record_high_24102017. 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Examining the role of Uganda in the transnational illegal ivory trade’, Trends in Organized Crime, 10 Jan. 2017, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12117-016-9299-7. 60 UNEP et al., ‘Elephants in the dust’, p. 43. 61 ‘Uganda gets kits to combat wildlife crime’, Independent (Uganda), 22 Jan. 2017; Chris Kiwawula, ‘US trains Ugandans in combating wildlife trafficking’, New Vision, 17 Jan. 2017. 62 Author's interview with ivory trader, Kampala, 3 Dec. 2017. 63 Ward Warmerdam and Meine Pieter van Dijk, ‘China–Uganda and the question of mutual benefits’, South African Journal of International Affairs 20: 2, 2013, pp. 271–95; Somerville, Ivory, power and poaching, pp. 217–19. 64 Kate Meagher, ‘The hidden economy: informal and parallel trade in north western Uganda’, Review of African Political Economy 17: 47, 1990, pp. 64–83. 65 Underwood et al., ‘Dissecting the illegal ivory trade’, p. 6; Varun Vira, Thomas Ewing and Jackson Miller, Out of Africa: mapping the global trade in illicit elephant ivory (Washington DC: Center for Advanced Defense Studies, Aug. 2014). 66 Ten million Ugandan shillings (UGX): Sec. 76 of the 2000 Wildlife Act. 67 Author's interview with police officer, Kampala, 12 Jan. 2016. 68 L. Cakaj and S. Lezhnev, Deadly profit: illegal wildlife trafficking through Uganda and South Sudan (Washington DC: The Enough Project, 2017), pp. 3, 10. 69 Author's interview with ivory trader, Kampala, 14 Jan. 2016. 70 See, respectively: Agence France-Presse, ‘Notorious Tanzanian ivory trafficker jailed for 12 years’, 3 March 2017, https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2017/03/notorious-tanzanian-ivory-trafficker-jailed-12-years/; Reuters, ‘Tanzania court jails four Chinese men for rhino horn smuggling’, 18 Dec. 2015, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tanzania-poaching/tanzania-court-jails-four-chinese-men-for-rhino-horn-smuggling-idUSKBN0U11NG20151218; Fumbuka Ng'wanakilala, ‘Tanzania court jails two Chinese men for ivory smuggling: media’, Reuters, 19 March 2016, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tanzania-poaching/tanzania-court-jails-two-chinese-men-for-ivory-smuggling-media-idUSKCN0WL0NK. 71 Vidhi Doshi, ‘Nairobi gets tough on ivory smugglers’, Independent, 29 Jan. 2014, http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/nairobi-gets-tough-on-ivory-smugglers-9092464.html. 72 World Wildlife Fund, ‘Kenya finally gets a new wildlife law’, 17 Feb. 2014, http://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?216350/Kenya-finally-gets-a-new-wildlife-law. 73 Joseph Akwiri, ‘Kenyan court jails ivory smuggler for 20 years’, Reuters, 22 July 2016, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kenya-crime-poaching/kenyan-court-jails-ivory-smuggler-for-20-years-idUSKCN1021YT. 74 Author's interview with wildlife officer, Kampala, 24 Jan. 2017. 75 Godfrey Asiimwe, ‘Of extensive and elusive corruption in Uganda: neo-patronage, power, and narrow interests’, African Studies Review 56: 2, 2013, pp. 129–44. 76 U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre, ‘Uganda: overview of corruption and anti-corruption’, U4 expert answer, 2013, p. 2, http://www.u4.no/publications/overview-of-corruption-in-uganda/. 77 Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), The informal cross border trade survey report 2008 (Kampala: UBOS and Bank of Uganda, 2009). 78 Titeca, ‘Illegal ivory trade as transnational organized crime?’. 79 Author's interview with ivory trader, Arua, 15 Nov. 2015. 80 Author's interview with ivory trader, Arua, 12 Nov. 2015. 81 Kristof Titeca, ‘Access to resources and predictability in armed rebellion’, Afrika Spectrum 46: 2, 2011, pp. 43–70. 82 Jeffrey Gettleman, ‘Elephants dying in epic frenzy as ivory fuels wars and profit’, New York Times, 3 Sept. 2012; Varun Vira and Thomas Ewing, Ivory's curse: the militarization and professionalization of poaching in Africa (Washington DC: Center for Advanced Defense Studies, April 2014), pp. 44–5. 83 Cakaj and Lezhnev, Deadly profit. 84 Author's interview with ivory trader, Kampala, 1 March 2017. 85 Author's interview with ivory trader, Kampala, 14 Jan. 2016. 86 Author's interview with ivory trader, Kampala, 1 March 2017. 87 Both Andrew and the other trader agreed to speak with me on the basis of their close connection with one of my key informants, with whom I have been working since 2004. 88 Roitman, Fiscal disobedience. 89 Koen Vlassenroot, Sandrine Perrot and Jeroen Cuvelier, ‘Doing business out of war: an analysis of the UPDF's [Uganda People's Defence Force] presences in the DRC’, Journal of Eastern African Studies 6: 1, 2012, pp. 2–22. 90 Author's interview with ivory trader, Kampala, 14 Nov. 2015. 91 Author's interview with ivory trader, Kampala, 14 Nov. 2015. 92 Author's interview with ivory trader, Kampala, 11 Jan. 2016. 93 Author's interview with ivory trader, Arua, 12 Nov. 2015. 94 Author's interview with ivory trader, Kampala, 15 Nov. 2015. 95 Author's interview with ivory trader, Kampala, 11 Jan. 2016. 96 Author's interview with URA official, Kampala, 14 Jan. 2016. Other actors put the starting-point a few years earlier. 97 Uganda Wildlife Authority, ‘UWA intensifies crackdown on illegal ivory trade’, Oct. 2013; ‘Uganda seizes huge ivory shipment worth millions’, BBC News, 18 Oct. 2013. 98 Charles Mghenyi, ‘Kenya: two tonnes of ivory seized at Mombasa’, The Star, 7 Oct. 2013. This trend continued later on: around 3 tonnes were seized in 2015, and around 1 tonne in February 2017 alone. See Cakaj and Lezhnev, Deadly profit. 99 Milliken et al., The Elephant Trade Information System, p. 18. 100 Betty Ndagire, ‘Uganda: soldiers fined Shs4 million for stealing ivory’, Daily Monitor, 28 Feb. 2017. 101 Author's interview with ivory trader, Kampala, 3 Dec. 2012. 102 Author's interview with ivory trader, Kampala, 29 Jan. 2014. 103 Kenneth Kazibwe, ‘UPDF speaks out on ivory found at Gen Otema Awany's farm’, Nile Post, 27 November 2017, http://nilepost.co.ug/2017/11/27/updf-speaks-out-on-ivory-found-at-gen-otema-awanys-farm/. 104 Betty Ndagire, ‘Museveni's advisor on political affairs released on bail’, Daily Monitor, 13 Dec. 2017. 105 Patrick Jaramogi, ‘Crime investigations: tensions as ENHAS is cited in USD3M smuggled ivory—suspected manager fired’, Investigator, 27 Feb. 2017, http://theinvestigatornews.com/2017/02/crime-investigations-tension-enhas-cited-usd3m-smuggled-ivory-suspected-manager-fired/; Gerald Tenywa, ‘Police arrest five over illegal ivory’, New Vision, 27 March 2016. 106 Author's interview with customs official, Kampala, 14 Jan. 2016. 107 Or, as I argue elsewhere, these places function as ‘nodes’ for ivory traders with varying degrees of power: Titeca, ‘Illegal ivory trade as transnational organized crime?’. © The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal Institute of International Affairs. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.
TI - Understanding the illegal ivory trade and traders: evidence from Uganda
JF - International Affairs
DO - 10.1093/ia/iiy115
DA - 2018-09-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/understanding-the-illegal-ivory-trade-and-traders-evidence-from-uganda-XWVu4zpg52
SP - 1077
VL - 94
IS - 5
DP - DeepDyve
ER -