Crossing the line: 100 years of the North-West Uganda/South Sudan border

This article looks at the complex history of the border area between what is now North-West Uganda, the Equatoria region of South Sudan, and the North-East Democratic Republic of Congo, over pre-colonial, colonial and post colonial periods. In the early colonial period, international borders changed several times, and local people found|themselves successively part of King Leopold?s Belgian Congo, Anglo-Egyptian Condominium Sudan, and the Uganda Protectorate. Cross-border movements included European adventurers, slave armies and ivory poachers, who periodically terrorised local populations. As ??West Nile?? district, colonial North-West Uganda was systematically|underdeveloped, and became a labour reserve and a major source of army recruitment (epitomised by the characteristic local figure of Idi Amin). In the post-colonial era,|movement over the borders has been characterised by large-scale cross-border informal trade, refugee movements, armed rebel groups, and the region?s continued marginalisation from more economically developed and politically powerful parts of the three countries. The article explores changes and continuities in the salience of these borders|over the past century and a half.