ENKOLA MU BASOGA EKHOZESEBWA OKHUMALAWO OBUTAGHEMAGANA (CONFLICT RESOLUTION STRATEGIES AMONG THE BASOGA)

Jacob Waiswa
Situation Health Analyst
Dishma-Inc.
P.O. Box 8885,
Kampala-Uganda
Tel. +256392614655/+256752542504
dishma.imhs@gmail.com
www.situationhealthanalysis.blogspot.com

Background:
An estimated 3 million Ugandans speak Lusoga. Busoga region is shaped by Lake Victoria to the west, Lake Kyoga to the north, and Mpologoma River to the East (Wikipedia, 2011). Basoga have strong historical ties with the Luo (Ayo, C. 2008). The socio-cultural structure made it easy for the Basoga to prevent and resolve conflicts.

It was a segmentary social system comprising of numerous, relatively small autonomous groups -who generally regulated their own affairs, and who could periodically come together to form larger groups and who, in some senses, may collectively appeared to be a single large community (Answers Corporation, 2011).

Jurisdiction was defined according to those levels –with each having power to convene a court session and make decisions without the interferences of the other levels (LoveToKnow Corp., 2006). Indeed Basoga are peace-loving people (Jinja Tourist Center, 2006).

Ebitti Ebyendhaulo Abasoga Byebakozhesa Okumalhawo Obutabanguko
(The Different Branches for Resolving Chaos Used by Basoga):
The main branch was that of ancestral spirits (or emisaambwa) headed by Lubaale –the creator (Uganda Visit and Travel Guide, 2011). The spirits fed Clans (ebikha) with wisdom. The relationship between the spirits and the clan was like that the main river and its main tributary. The clans were headed by Abakulhu abebikha (Clan heads).

Extended families were responsible to the clan heads in as far as preserving the unique behavior of each clan was concerned like not eating specific animals and plants and desist from in-breeding. Amakkha (homesteads) comprised of the Baaba (father), Maama (mother), Abaana (children) and abhenganda (relatives). They also subscribed to large communities with similar traditional norms, culture and origin.

Okubwoigokelha Abaana (Barking at or Rebuking Children)
Anything forbidden or undesirable if done was barked at to prevent it from happening again. Doing so was a responsibility of any member of the community -who could be older siblings, parents and other relatives.

Okubonerezha Abaana (Punishing Children)
Different from rebuking, Okubonerezha Abaana involved smacking or caning them. This, too, was a responsibility of any responsible member of the community. This commenced from as early as 3 years.

Okhuwa Ebiraghilo (Giving Instructions or Laying down Rules)
This was preserved for the parents and any senior member of the community –who could be older siblings, Aunties, Uncles, older cousins, and grandparents. What entailed ebiraghilo were the dos and don'ts (do this... don't do this). Also began from 3 years.

Okubulirirha (Lecturing)
It featured older young men and women –who had passed the stage of being punished by cane or being rebuked (16+ years). Okubulirirha carried an element of gender roles -where boys and girls were lectured about their roles and responsibility according to sex and help to equip them with tools with which manage future challenges; for example on issues regarding hard work, respect, dressing, and marriage.

Different people helped do this kind of job much as uncles and aunties were most favored. Others included mothers, fathers, grandfathers and grandmothers. They intervened in case of mishaps in desired behaviors of young adults.

Okutyaamya Mmu Lukiiko (Being Compelled to Sit Down in a Meeting)
This involved summoning wrong doer from wherever he or she was to attend a stated yet compulsory meeting. The meeting is called to discuss the unacceptable behavior of the wrongdoer and determine the way forward.

The way forward is a resolution reached by the entire community gathered -a meeting that constitutes elders, married people, and chaired by a clan leader. Actions taken include: caution, compensation, fines, and expulsion from the clan. Expulsion from the clan was the highest decision. It was so terrible that individual would not wait until such decision was reached.

Okwheta Abasweezi (Calling for the Services of a Spirit Medium)
The Chwezi influence in East and central Africa left no stone unturned in Busoga. This was a person or group of people –through whom the spirits could guide the community in decision making.

Some of the tasks were to forcefully have the wrongdoer who has just rejected the elders summon to attend the meeting to do saw by 'remote control' or by works of the spirit medium; revealing the truth in cases where wrong doers denied wrongdoing; identifying wrongdoer if he or she was unknown, and so on.

Merits:
Community Participation
Participants represented widest of the society. No costs were attached. Indeed, community participation was social capital for conflict resolution (Skidmore, P. Etal, 2008).

Consensus Building
Decisions reached were democratically voted upon by the community. There was no dictatorship or monopoly in the decision making process.

No Need for Investigation
There was no need for investigations as culprits were well-known. So in the meeting, it was a matter of the community letting the culprit know that they were aware of his misconduct, and whether he or she was aware of his or her misbehavior. That saves time.

Reintegration, Reconciliation and Community Harmony
The major aims of the Basoga justice system were to provide sufficient space and distance for reintegration of culprit into the community, reconciliation through forgiveness, and necessary compensation arrangements.


Demerits:
Summon to Attend Community Meeting had to be Adhered to
There was no way one would say no to attending the meeting once summoned. Even as far as overseas the spirits would posses him or her and bring him or her for the meeting.

No Defense Lawyer for the Culprits in Case they had Phobia to Face Public
Not every person can stand before a huge gathering to explain his or her wrong doing to the public. Some could have social phobia.

Listening Fatigue:
Lectures were often so long that listener developed listening fatigue. As a result, they soon turned out to be more of a punishment than a necessary source of knowledge.

Some Actions Used by Basoga are Today Forms Child Abuse:
Barking at children and caning today constitute physical abuse, emotional abuse and psychological abuse. Basoga are famed for that (Nalunkuuma, M. 2004).

Harmful Spirits:
They are widely believed to cause mayhem to the community by causing illnesses and death until rituals were organized to free person of the harmful spirits and eventually get well. They can be powerful weapons in a conflict (Ultimate Media, 2011).

Conclusion:
The socio-cultural design of the Basoga society was both conflicts preventing and resolving in its functioning. Little or nothing has been done about the lack of written materials on conflict resolution among the Basoga.

The responsibility now shifts from the elders whose source of information is their memory to the new generation –who have gone to school (Kakamwa, C. 2010). And some methods are in conflict with the contemporary thinking and practice, which threaten the traditional Basoga justice system. A common ground ought to be set to avoid possible conflict between traditionalism and modernism.

Theft in Uganda: Is there a Right Way to Keep Valuables Safe?

Jacob Waiswa
Peace and Conflict Center
P.O. Box 7062,
Makerere University
Kampala-Uganda
jwaiswa@arts.mak.ac.ug

It is crazy situation to lose valuables. It takes a lot to buy them but a moment of time to lose them. The strong attachment to them makes it very difficult to forget let the event go. It takes a little lapse in concentration and swift execution of a plan to lose much-valued property.

Thanks to the military intervention in Uganda that over the years helped to scale down the much-feared armed robberies in the country. Most of the suspects in the early 1990s were interested in small cars and greatly made the life of car owners unstable. Shoot-on-sight eliminated them.

The life-taking armed robberies were then replaced by petty thefts –involving stealing of low value items, snatching, stealthily entering open residencies and stealing whatever is in sight, and breaking lockers, padlocks of apartments whose owners have been understood to be away to a day’s journey, club or party.

The just-seeking community behaved themselves by arresting and handing over thieves for further action. In 2000s, the Uganda police lost its face. For some reason, the thieves were soon released back into the community after community-engineered arrests.

One police woman said the police cells were so full that they never have appetite to add more ‘petty’ thieves in them. The case backlog was only increasing owing to the few judges and magistrates.

To cope with pressure of crimes everyday, the police department decentralized some responsibilities by asking local council chair persons to handle community crimes to the best of their knowledge. It was only when the case overwhelmed the village chief that they would refer it to the police. Along the way, however, an exchange of money takes place.

Firstly, the chairperson, who demands money from the victim to facilitate arrest of his or her tormentor, then the police –who asks the victim to meet costs of transport to the scene of crime and the location of the suspect.

It is rather the western justice system which refers to a well-known criminal suspect and soon released back into the community citing 'lack of evidence.' In such circumstances, every smart criminal who does everything he or she can to kill evidence will always be free.

The third scenario is the release of the suspect the next day after arrest and confirming evidence; something which the police too fail to explain and only look at each other. Therefore, when it became evident in 2000s that the police was promoting crime and working for criminals rather than crime prevention -by releasing the suspects back into the community to begin terrorizing the community from where they stopped, they (community) began administering justice themselves. The common system of administering justice is what today is now called mob justice.

Mob justices eliminate instantly the agents of crime rather than build and sustain it as the notion was when police stepped in, and there is an instant feeling that justice has been realized. Before finding oneself a victim of theft, it will be unthinkable to support mob justice.

But after learning a big lesson of the fact that the thief himself is never sympathetic, and only comes to deny fellow humans of their possession, or even to kill, the ex-victim will be the first to throw a stone and moral-boost mob justice.

Thieves have become too innovative to defeat the miserable consequences of mob justice. They have recently engaged women in their plans to enhance success of their mission. Because men steal to meet the comfort of women, fewer women than men will be found engaged in theft activities.

But, of course, at certain socially acceptable levels like boy-friend girl friend or marriage relationships, women do fake their men to obtain money from them. The men specially look for vulnerable women for opportunities to grab handbags for the quick-and-sell items like phones and jewellery. The brave ones make stealth moves to hand-pick an item from the pockets of their victim. Most heavily on demand items are phones and laptops.

There is a recent emergency of elite thieves in Uganda only comparable to the Nigerian email medium ones. They conduct sufficient researches about their victims-to-be and understand well their immediate social and economic worlds. They have got characters of not less than three, and make their would-be victim the fourth one.

Their first step is to build rapport by masquerading as though old schoolmates and exclaiming how long it had been without meeting. Once successful, they suggest an item at stake –usually very attractive and expensive enough to yield the fourth character a huge commission and, of course, his or her attention.

The proposer (character one) links his would-be victim to a foreign business man -the second character who happens to be Ugandan capable of forging a Mzungu (westerner) accent done by squeezing one’s nostrils and blocking them while making orders for a commodity to the satisfaction of the would be victim who now takes the position of 'salesman'.

Yet in the real sense he or she brokers the deal between the real sales man and the proposed buyer and on behalf of character one. Then the third character is one referred to as real sales man who is paid to provide the very expensive item and meet the proposer at a suggested location to share of the loot. The reward for the fourth character is called commission.

The proposer emphasizes the need for secrecy as the deal is run. It all begins by the attracted fourth person asks for the price and sample to be taken to the Mzungu. In response the provider of the item then asks for the deposit in cash that must be half the total money payable and electronically sent -ranging from 30 to 60 million.

And, when that is done, the game is finished. To any such attractive proposals in Uganda, it is important not to listen but rather escape the scene as much as possible. Giving attention to stranger’s suggestions to enter attractive business deals is a gateway to loss of the very little saving the entrant may have.

With the current reports hat robbers are back in town, what a combination it will make with already serious wave of mugging and conning! In Uganda, there is simply one rule: never trust a stranger, or consult at least 6 to 12 different people before accepting to negotiate any deal.