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Uganda: Museveni Orders Basongora Resettled
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New Vision (Kampala)
20 July 2008
Posted to the web 21 July 2008
Barbara Among
Kampala
President Yoweri Museveni has directed an inter-ministerial committee to travel to Kasese district in western Uganda and immediately implement the resolutions concerning the resettlement of the Basongora pastoralists.
The President gave the directive yesterday at State House Entebbe during a meeting with the inter-ministerial committee charged with the resettlement exercise.
"The Basongora have a right to a homeland," a statement from State House quoted Museveni as saying, adding: "the Government has a historical debt to the Basongora because they turned their original settlement into a national park which earned the country sh388b last year."
He ordered the committee to start the exercise on Tuesday.
The committee, headed by agricultural minister Hillary Onek, is composed of cabinet ministers Kirunda Kivejinja, Crispus Kiyonga and Kahinda Otafiire. Others are state ministers Matia Kasaija and Bright Rwamirama, senior security officials and MPs from Kasese district.
There have been clashes in several sub-counties of Kasese between cultivators and the pastoralists. The clashes started when some cultivators refused to leave the area for the resettlement of the pastoralists.
The Government earlier this year identified land in several sub-counties in Kasese district for the resettlement of more than 10,000 Basongora pastoralists who had been deported from the Democratic Republic of Congo three years ago.
The Basongora fled Uganda at the height of the rebellion by the Allied Democratic Forces.
Upon return in March 2006, they occupied parts of Queen Elizabeth National Park, causing concern among conservationists and stakeholders in the tourism sector.
Attempts by the Uganda Wildlife Authority to evict them from the park last year were halted by the Inspector General of Police. Twelve rangers were arrested for shooting at the pastoralists.
Museveni appointed an inter-ministerial team, led by minister Onek, to find a permanent solution to the Basongora question.
Following Onek's recommendations, the government earmarked parts of Mubuku and Ibuga prison farms for the relocation of the pastoralists. Others were resettled in Ibuga refugee camp and in Karusandara.
Though the report recommended that the displaced cultivators be compensated and that the Basongora accept to co-exist with other people on the land, this has not happened.
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The cultivators said they were barred from further cultivation and were left with no alternative means of survival.
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