Focus Media (Kigali)
18 September 2009
Rwandans as a group are falling victim to political violence in Kampala. The Ugandan capital has been in the news after it erupted with mobs of Baganda youths battling the Police and other security organs ostensibly because the government forbade the Baganda king from travelling to Kayunga one of the country's districts - which too saw scenes of violence. Banyarwanda, as usual, were one of the principle targets of mob wraths in Uganda.
"It is very dangerous now to be a Munyarwanda in Kampala," said Samuel Kageruka, a Ugandan citizen of Rwandan origin. "Just to be seen with a long nose can mean members of a mob pulling you out of a vehicle and beating you to death," said Kageruka who told us he sells Japanese electronics on Ben Kiwanuka, one of the city's streets.
Kageruka told us that for the moment he cannot dare come out of his house in the residential area of Ntinda to commute to work.
Having a "long nose" is one of the stereotypical features of Banyarwanda, specifically Tutsis; and once again people who are innocent of any crime are falling prey to tribal hatreds and animosities they have done nothing to bring about.
Other people that have been victim of the mindless political violence in Kampala over the past few days are members of the capital's Asian community - the Indians.
Their shops have been the main target of looters and it seems the lesson of hatred of Indians Idi Amin inculcated in the country's poor, urban unemployed in the early 1970s has not been forgotten. Now, according to our reports, Ugandan Indians late last week were cowering in their shops, too scared to move about, perhaps with vivid images in their minds of the couple of Indians who were lynched in April 2007 when an Indian industrialist announced he was cutting up portions of the Mabira forest to plant sugarcane.
In the three days of violence last week Rwandans who had traveled to Kampala could only watch helplessly as transport became paralyzed and the city centre went up in smoke as angry mobs battled police and engaged in indiscriminate attacks that left more than a dozen people dead.
The multitudes of unemployed, thieving, pick-pocketing youths who usually hang out on the Jaguar Bus Company's stage on Namirembe Road were the first to turn rioters, pulling people out of buses headed for Kigali, looting their property and generally yelling anti-Banyarwanda epithets. Some of them, after the buses were emptied of people and property, were even seen trying to pry headlamps from the buses.
"Abanyarwanda mudeyo ewamwe tubakoye, tetukyabagala!" (Rwandans go back home, we are fed up with you, we don't want you anymore!); this was a common cry at the stage according to one passenger, Gatorano, who made it back to Kigali in one piece after three harrowing days of staying undercover and staying away from areas where riots were likely to break out.
"The mob at the Jaguar stage was a very frightening one," said Gatorano who declined to tell us his second name or what he does. "They were looking at Banyarwanda women with eyes of lust and one woman was lucky to be saved by some policemen when several youths yelling furiously in Luganda attempted to strip her naked."
It was a terrible 30 hours for innocent travelers transiting through Kampala as both the mobs and government forced appeared to make no distinction between victims of circumstance and their targets. As mobs attacked and robbed anybody they deemed not to be one of them and undressed women, police clobbered anybody they could lay their hands on. The cops hammered suspect rioters with gun butts and batons and kicks; frightened cops fired indiscriminately in crowds and by the time the carnage was over more than a dozen people were reported dead.
One woman who lives in Mpererwe and who declined to be named told The Rwanda Focus that some Luganda speaking youths brandishing sticks and hurling stones were stopping cars "to look for Banyankole and Banyarwanda." "These people looked like they had been smoking njaga (cannabis) because their energy levels were not for ordinary people," said the woman.
"They were looking for Banyarwanda or Banyankole and if a person happened to have a thin nose or thin lips or 'looked Rwandan' then that person was in a lot of trouble. They would pull the person out shouting, 'mwaatujjira!' (something that can be translated to mean, 'you are the cause of our misfortunes since you came) and proceed to beat up that person with everything, kicks, sticks, fists."
Another person commenting on youths who beat up people after making a judgment based on appearance said, "but you can't imagine how stupid these people are; after all it is their men who always try to marry Banyarwanda women and now even many of their children and other Baganda have thin noses and lips as a result, so how do they know they aren't beating up other Baganda?"
In countering the boldest challenge to his rule by Baganda monarchist agitators, President Yoweri Museveni who is of the Banyankole people - whom tribalist mobs are targeting because they are of the same ethnicity as the president - has responded with force. Museveni has unleashing riot police, the military and armored vehicles that had until now been a key element of his personal security at the two state houses in Kampala and Entebbe.
Also broadcast media people whose programs are exactly like RTLM for inciting Baganda youths against anyone else that is not a Muganda have been locked up.
One Kalundi Serumaga of Kampala's Radio 1 FM was thrown in jail. Regular listeners of Serumaga tell The Rwanda Focus that Serumaga's talk show consists primarily of statements along the lines of, "Museveni should go back to Ankole to herd cattle since he is not fit to lead a country" and "But when will these herdsmen ever leave is alone and go away!"
These kinds of messages attempt to make no distinction between Banyankore and Banyarwanda.
Uganda's Broadcasting Council had pulled the plug on four radio stations by Friday.
A team of The Rwanda Focus journalists compiled this report; we were in phone contact with people on the ground in Kampala as the riots were underway and we were in close touch with contacts in Ugandan media houses from Thursday to Saturday last week who regularly were updating us.
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The Banyarwanda in Uganda.Most of them are tutsi with thier close relatives the Banyankore,who are cattlekeepers in districts of Kiboga,Nakasongola,Luwero,Sembabule,Mpigi-Gomba and other savanah grazing areas of the region.However many are in other places like towns and villages settling amacably with rest of of the tribes mostly the Baganda.However just like in any society,thery are hummilliated in some areas.According to my analysis,the following partly account for this; 1.Their occupation on big 'charks' of land in most grazing areas in the central region given that they are cattle keepers. 2.Their strong support to the NRM government led by President Museveni who is also from apastoral Origin.(this made them on hunt during the september 18 riot in Kampala by the anti-gorvernment rioters). 3.Other factors like political Influence by government critics who term such people with 'long noses'(Banyankore-Banyarwanda) as those have made the rest suffer.