Is it Conflict or Peace in Uganda? An Expert View on Land

Jacob Waiswa,

Peace and Conflict Program,

Makerere University,

Kampala, Uganda

 

With the population of Uganda at 33 million, available natural resources are quickly and continuously facing exhaustion, rendering the next generations to come at risk of extreme starvation.

The struggle by Ugandans to survival has led to both psychological and physical insecurity. High crime rate involving murderous act are reported everyday in the media, diminished confidence in government has increased pressure on it to deliver through violence.

Already 52% Ugandans are food insecure. Only 48% Uganda households were food secure. More than 800 million in 20% of the population suffers from chronic under nutrition. Millions more are vulnerable to malnutrition.

The forests and wetland are other victims of population explosion, whose fate (global warming) affects everyone, though the peasant are most, or affected first. When it rains heavily, there is natural violence due to floods, and disease pandemics such as cholera.

It has over the years scored high in areas formally national protection areas, as out-of-bounds for human settlement, for example Bwaise, lowlands of Rubaga, the Golf Course, Lugogo, Nakivubo, Bugoloobi, and Namanve. Wetlands occupy 13% of the Uganda surface. Settlers in such areas are emigrants who left sufficient hectares of land in rural areas.

That has increased congestion in Kampala’s slums, the apathy of poor sanitation, insecurity, and disease outbreaks; time and again. Wetlands are fraudulently acquired for development by investors, with clear knowledge the national environment authority. When the quest for jobs fails, the youthful population becomes a menace to government, city management, and fellow citizens who may find the economic situation unbearable.

The discovery of oil in western Uganda has spread both uncertainty and fortune: uncertain because unsuspecting peasants in oil-rich areas are being hoodwinked by moneyed investors to sell of their land without the right information for them to make commercial decisions. As a result they lose arable land without sufficient compensation to find alternative lands for agriculture, and being food secure in a couple of years is almost impossible.

Most of the foreign firms secure land for investment fraudulently, costing the nation billions of shillings. The heat of conflicts, regardless of where they occurred are felt in the capital, Kampala through emigration and immigrations, and their subsequent effects like land wrangles, encroachment of protected areas, poor sanitation, unemployment and insecurity..

Foreign investors may form 100 percent foreign-owned companies and majority or minority joint ventures with local investors and may acquire or take over domestic enterprises. Uganda's reformed commercial legal system is far faster at case resolution than the rest of the country's legal system. Residents and non-residents may hold foreign exchange accounts. There are no restrictions or controls on payments, transactions, or transfers.

The colonial legacy contributed to future conflicts on land that, until now the conditions for conflicts are visible, ever waiting for sparks. The 1900 agreement gave Buganda a privileged position in the Uganda protectorate.

Land in Buganda had always been a political and economic tool held by the Kabaka in trust for his people, and through his chiefs and clan leaders, though generally owned by the people. In September 11, 2012, government restriction of the Buganda’s king to free move about his territories, traditionally belong him, led fierce protests, which an estimated 40 unarmed Ugandans died.

The lands secured are often not appropriate for human settlement; they are either wetlands or forests, while industrialization in some other areas necessitates eviction of city immigrants, some of whom are refugees. It can be noted that 40% of the rain is generated by forests and wetland.

By encroaching on them, rainfall formation patterns begin to stagger backwards. Attempts by forestry and wild life officials to rid natural reserves of people, was and for a long time turned violent.

Such are continuous cause of conflict between law enforcers and settlers, between developers and environment activities, and above all; between settlers and environment hazards like cholera. Those conditions represent the structural anomalies in the country, which amount to conflict, not just outburst or explosions into full-scale wars as some people say.