Views on the Kibaale land crisis

Jun 03, 2003

Recently, Kibaale district has been a hot and bloody news item. Several people have been killed in the clashes between the Banyoro and their immigrant neighbours, the Bakiga. We bring you views from different sides of the conflict

Pro-Bakiga

By Ndinawe Byekwaso

For some time now Banyoro elite, especially an organisation known as Mubende Banyoro Committee from Kibaale district, have been inciting a tribal war against the immigrant Bakiga in the district.

It started with local government elections. A Mukiga won elections for the highest office in the district. The Banyoro vehemently opposed him. A compromise leader with the help of the President was put in place.

Seeing it as victory on their part, the organisation started plotting on how to chase the Bakiga away or reduce their number. They started holding secret meetings. Later, they appointed committees downward to parish level. The purpose of the committees were to screen the Bakiga and redistribute their pieces of land (bibanja) to Banyoro.

This is what is taking place and is responsible for the recent clashes in which three people lost their lives. They go to a village, confront the owner of a kibanja, and if he or she happens to be a mukiga, they ask how the land was acquired. This is despite there being no dispute of ownership of the land. Then they proceed to divide it amongst themselves. Even two-year-olds are given land that is grabbed from immigrants.

A bylaw banning anymore fresh migration into the district by the Bakiga was passed, as if the district is not part of Uganda.

To the Banyoro elite in the district, all the land there belongs to them as a right. They do not recognise the bibanja bought by the Bakiga.

There are three ways through which the Bakiga migrated into Kibaale district. One was through government resettlement exercises in the 1970s and in 1992. This is the only land acquisition accepted by the organisation.

The second one was through purchase. Following their relatives for better livelihood, some Bakiga went to the district and bought bibanja from people willing to sell. This is happening elsewhere in Uganda. Some Banyoro must have bought bibanja in Buganda in that way, but are opposed to the same process taking place in Kibaale.

The third one was by individual or community consent. History tells us that Kigezi, as it was called at the time, was made a labour reserve by the colonialists. Kibaale, formerly known as The

Lost Counties was a cash crop reserve. Bakiga immigrant workers would go to the district to work in tea plantations or for rich Banyoro families. They would grow coffee, cotton, groundnuts and so on. Some of them were eventually given land as a result. They have developed it for many years, but are now being chased away.

The process of grabbing bibanja by this Banyoro group is not a new phenomenon. Many immigrants have lost their bibanja.

Although the victims of this violence reported the matter to Government, the Mubende Banyoro Committee has continued with its sinister motives, organising for the redistribution of land from Bakiga. This group holds rallies and incites violence. This is how the present tribal conflict germinated.

If the land problem in Kibaale is to be solved, the illegal activities of the Mubende Banyoro committee should be stopped forthwith.

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Pro-Banyoro

By Henry Ford Mirima

RECENTLY two children and their mother were hacked to death at Kabamba village, Kiryanga sub county, Buyanja county. The central government is blamed for these killings.

The people of Bunyoro-Kitara through Kibaale District Council foresaw this. On two occasions, they passed resolutions stopping further illegal migration of Bakiga to Kibaale.

The Kiyonga parliamentary probe committee in 2002 investigated the land and other problems in Kibaale and recommended that no more Bakiga migrants be allowed into Kibaale District. The committee further recommended that those Bakiga who entered Kibaale district illegally be re-located to other districts.

In addition, the committee recommended that a high-level judiciary commission of inquiry be set up to investigate and make final recommendations on how to solve the problems in Kibaale.

It is one year since the Kiyonga committee made these recommendations. Eriya Kategaya, the former minister of internal affairs, met the leaders of Mubende Banyoro Committee in Kampala in February and told them that he was setting up a high-level investigation team to visit Kibaale District and come up with recommendations.

Kategaya’s ministerial committee should have gone to Kibaale before the end of April. Nothing has happened.

Bunyoro-Kitara MPs have warned that if the situation in Kibaale is not addressed quickly, it will turn bloody. But Government has ignored this saga. The Mubende Banyoro Committee appeals to the Government to establish a commission of inquiry into the Kibaale crisis.

Secretary Mubende Bunyoro Committee

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The diaspora

By Ivan Kyambadde

We as Ugandans are a proud group of people, as evident in our different cultures and traditions. These serve to remind us of the heights we had achieved in civilisation and organisation before we were interrupted by the colonialists.

Our persistence with our old ways is a form of saying that despite an entire generation under a foreign yoke, we persevered. However, there within lies a bitter irony. What we draw from our greatest pride also delivers our darkest folly. I will explain.

To have culture and tradition in one nation is a blessing, but when you put the word “different” in front of “culture and tradition,” it changes everything. As we celebrate our diversity, we underline our differences.

A conversation between two strangers in Uganda will inevitably bring up the question of tribe. Some people have even become astute at identifying a person’s tribe just by looking at their physical appearance.

The nation is divided. We carry a seething distrust of one another and we do so with good reason. In this part of the world, your friend from a different tribe might be the same person who shows up at your doorstep with a machete

The events that transpired in Kibaale a few days ago only serve to prove that such inhumane acts are waiting to tear the nation apart at the first sign of anarchy. A northern gentleman who purchases a sizeable chunk of land in the south will always be viewed as a foe by his new neighbours, and vice versa.

It is true that poverty and illiteracy have helped to warp people’s minds, but the underlying cause of their resentment is that they view a new comer as a foreigner. Yet it is time for us to bury our tribal divisions with colonialism.

For a nation to survive, it must be able to re-invent itself. The Roman Empire, the longest ever civilisation, lasted that long because they where willing to change. When the empire was under the threat of the christian faith, Augustus Caesar threw out centuries old customs and traditions to accommodate the new religion. If people weren’t willing to dump old ways, there would still be apartheid in South Africa and slavery in the Western Bloc.

However, change must be gradual. A decree outlawing tribal activities will only serve to send them underground. As for Uganda’s many monarchies, they don’t have to be eliminated. A series of well planed intermarriages will ensure one unified kingdom under one royal family.

African kings and queens have been known to intermarry with an aim of unifying or pacifying warring kingdoms. Once again this must be done gradually or all hell will break loose.

It has to be noted that in giving up our old customs, traditions and tribal divisions, we are in essence saving our nation. We would be building a new tradition, one where nationalistic pride has precedence over tribal differences. Some of the good customs can be incorporated into the new in much the same way that the Romans included some of their old pagan ways into the new religion.

It is no secret that Uganda is located in an area rich in subversive activities. A united nation is harder to fell. It is no longer a mere need for us to unite, it has become imperative that we do; for Uganda’s sake.

Lessons from the Rwandan genocide dictate that we should. After all, what has your tradition done for you lately, apart from sending some of your country men to an early grave early in Kibaale?

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