Mr President, you have a choice in the ‘bafuruki’ saga
OPIYO OLOYA<br><i>PERSPECTIVE OF A ugandan in CANADA</i><br><br>Dear President Yoweri Museveni, I have been desperately trying to educate myself about the issue of the so-called ‘bafuruki’ in Bunyoro. I must admit it is still not clear
OPIYO OLOYA
PERSPECTIVE OF A ugandan in CANADA
Dear President Yoweri Museveni, I have been desperately trying to educate myself about the issue of the so-called ‘bafuruki’ in Bunyoro. I must admit it is still not clear to me why any Ugandan should be degraded from being a Ugandan to a mufuruki. Can a fish be a mufuruki in water?
How can we speak without shame about patriotism yet label a neighbour a mufuruki with the threat of pushing him out of his home? I am thinking here of my late uncle Daudi Ochieng, an original mufuruki from Acholi generously and genuinely accepted by the Baganda as a native son and elected as their representative in Uganda’s parliament.
To this very day, as you read this, my parents have lived peaceably in Masindi district where they have sought refuge in the war years. Perhaps I am very wrong about this, and I stand to be corrected, but should I worry about their safety? In the meantime, I am searching for a comparable situation anywhere in the world where a dominant ethnic group views other ethnic minorities as bafuruki, and that perception was given official blessing as you have done in the case of Bunyoro, yet there was no bloodshed.
In Rwanda when the Tutsi were called inyenzi (cockroaches), hundreds of thousands were butchered by ethnic Hutu. More recently in Kenya, ethnic attacks were directed at ethnic minorities within different parts of Kenya. Kikuyu were killed in Luoland, Luo were killed in Kikuyuland, Kikuyu were killed in Kalenjin land and so forth. In each case, the minorities, the bafuruki, became the target of the ethnic majority. Outside Africa, the tit-for-tat killings between the Han Chinese and Muslim Uyghur (pronounced WEE-gers) in China’s Xinjiang province which saw over 190 killed last month is another example of a minority being called bafuruki.
Xinjiang province is the homeland of nine million of the Turkic-speaking Uyghur whose involvement with China dates back to the Eighth Century or earlier. As the dominant (though not majority in Xinjiang) Han Chinese own most of the economy in the province with Uyghur slowly being squeezed out. Last month’s riot was apparently sparked by a rumour of harassment of Chinese women by Uyghur, but quickly tapped on long simmering tension which spread. The Han Chinese feel the Uyghur are, you guessed it, bafuruki, and have been ungrateful, and should go. Where the Uyghur bafuruki should go after thousands of years in China is not clear.
I am also thinking about the more than 13,000 people of Meskhetian ethnicity in the Krasnodar Krai region of Russia. A largely Muslim group from southwestern Georgia, the Meshkhetian Turks were deported in 1944 to Uzbekistan and then again because of inter-ethnic violence in the region. Under a law issued by local authorities in 2002, the Meskhetian people face deportation again. The 2002 decree aimed at rounding up “illegal migrants†or as you would say, bafuruki, even though Meskhetians are former citizens of the USSR who were legally residing on the territory of the Russian Federation at the time of the adoption of the 1992 Citizenship Law. Many live without rights enjoyed by Russian citizens.
Then there is the interesting case where the shoe is on the other foot for Russian minorities living in the tiny Republic of Moldova. Sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania and formerly controlled by Russia, Moldovans who are mostly Romanians have been trying to get rid of what they say are Russian bafuruki. The tension and potential violence directed against Russian speaking citizens of Moldova rises and falls like the tide. A popular anti-Russian saying in 1989 was: Let us wash the streets of Chisinau with Russian blood. Indeed a poem penned by a Moldovan nationalist ran like this: “There is a thief in our home/With whom we sit at the table. You must call him “brother/But instead of bread/
Better give him a block of dynamite.
Mr. President, I am not sure that the ethnic issue in Bunyoro is as tense or urgent as some leaders of Bunyoro have reported recently. What I know is that your letter in which you spell out how the Banyoro should be protected from bafuruki has emboldened some parochial thinkings. “We are saying ‘Bafuruki’ should go and we distribute the land among ourselves,†said state minister for internal affairs Matia Kasaija at a meeting of ethnic Banyoro in Kampala last week.
Of course Bunyoro, like many parts of Uganda, desperately needs infrastructure and capital investments for growth that can raise the standard of living of all Ugandans living within that area.
However, Kasaija is your minister, and if he says something as provocative as that which results in the spilling of blood then that blood must be on your hand as the leader of the country. My advice to you is simple enough: You either allow such careless talks to go unchallenged and therefore give it your tacit blessing or you speak out firmly, strongly, and unequivocally against them.
Should you choose to say nothing, you can mark my word, as the sun rises from the east, someone will say that President Yoweri Museveni said it is hunting season for bafuruki. You do have a choice and a voice in this matter—you started it, you finish it.
Opiyo.oloya@sympatico.ca
PERSPECTIVE OF A ugandan in CANADA
Dear President Yoweri Museveni, I have been desperately trying to educate myself about the issue of the so-called ‘bafuruki’ in Bunyoro. I must admit it is still not clear to me why any Ugandan should be degraded from being a Ugandan to a mufuruki. Can a fish be a mufuruki in water?
How can we speak without shame about patriotism yet label a neighbour a mufuruki with the threat of pushing him out of his home? I am thinking here of my late uncle Daudi Ochieng, an original mufuruki from Acholi generously and genuinely accepted by the Baganda as a native son and elected as their representative in Uganda’s parliament.
To this very day, as you read this, my parents have lived peaceably in Masindi district where they have sought refuge in the war years. Perhaps I am very wrong about this, and I stand to be corrected, but should I worry about their safety? In the meantime, I am searching for a comparable situation anywhere in the world where a dominant ethnic group views other ethnic minorities as bafuruki, and that perception was given official blessing as you have done in the case of Bunyoro, yet there was no bloodshed.
In Rwanda when the Tutsi were called inyenzi (cockroaches), hundreds of thousands were butchered by ethnic Hutu. More recently in Kenya, ethnic attacks were directed at ethnic minorities within different parts of Kenya. Kikuyu were killed in Luoland, Luo were killed in Kikuyuland, Kikuyu were killed in Kalenjin land and so forth. In each case, the minorities, the bafuruki, became the target of the ethnic majority. Outside Africa, the tit-for-tat killings between the Han Chinese and Muslim Uyghur (pronounced WEE-gers) in China’s Xinjiang province which saw over 190 killed last month is another example of a minority being called bafuruki.
Xinjiang province is the homeland of nine million of the Turkic-speaking Uyghur whose involvement with China dates back to the Eighth Century or earlier. As the dominant (though not majority in Xinjiang) Han Chinese own most of the economy in the province with Uyghur slowly being squeezed out. Last month’s riot was apparently sparked by a rumour of harassment of Chinese women by Uyghur, but quickly tapped on long simmering tension which spread. The Han Chinese feel the Uyghur are, you guessed it, bafuruki, and have been ungrateful, and should go. Where the Uyghur bafuruki should go after thousands of years in China is not clear.
I am also thinking about the more than 13,000 people of Meskhetian ethnicity in the Krasnodar Krai region of Russia. A largely Muslim group from southwestern Georgia, the Meshkhetian Turks were deported in 1944 to Uzbekistan and then again because of inter-ethnic violence in the region. Under a law issued by local authorities in 2002, the Meskhetian people face deportation again. The 2002 decree aimed at rounding up “illegal migrants†or as you would say, bafuruki, even though Meskhetians are former citizens of the USSR who were legally residing on the territory of the Russian Federation at the time of the adoption of the 1992 Citizenship Law. Many live without rights enjoyed by Russian citizens.
Then there is the interesting case where the shoe is on the other foot for Russian minorities living in the tiny Republic of Moldova. Sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania and formerly controlled by Russia, Moldovans who are mostly Romanians have been trying to get rid of what they say are Russian bafuruki. The tension and potential violence directed against Russian speaking citizens of Moldova rises and falls like the tide. A popular anti-Russian saying in 1989 was: Let us wash the streets of Chisinau with Russian blood. Indeed a poem penned by a Moldovan nationalist ran like this: “There is a thief in our home/With whom we sit at the table. You must call him “brother/But instead of bread/
Better give him a block of dynamite.
Mr. President, I am not sure that the ethnic issue in Bunyoro is as tense or urgent as some leaders of Bunyoro have reported recently. What I know is that your letter in which you spell out how the Banyoro should be protected from bafuruki has emboldened some parochial thinkings. “We are saying ‘Bafuruki’ should go and we distribute the land among ourselves,†said state minister for internal affairs Matia Kasaija at a meeting of ethnic Banyoro in Kampala last week.
Of course Bunyoro, like many parts of Uganda, desperately needs infrastructure and capital investments for growth that can raise the standard of living of all Ugandans living within that area.
However, Kasaija is your minister, and if he says something as provocative as that which results in the spilling of blood then that blood must be on your hand as the leader of the country. My advice to you is simple enough: You either allow such careless talks to go unchallenged and therefore give it your tacit blessing or you speak out firmly, strongly, and unequivocally against them.
Should you choose to say nothing, you can mark my word, as the sun rises from the east, someone will say that President Yoweri Museveni said it is hunting season for bafuruki. You do have a choice and a voice in this matter—you started it, you finish it.
Opiyo.oloya@sympatico.ca