Following publication (New Vision July 8, 2010) of a statement delivered by national coordinator of security services, General David Tinyefuza when he made a courtesy call to the district administration on his way from Masindi Artillery headquarters, there have been consultations because this is a very strong and scary statement. But before we come to the substance of this article Ugandans need to understand two things.
The first observation is that this was not a courtesy call. This was a threat. According to the World Book Dictionary courtesy means polite behavior, thoughtfulness for others. Therefore a courtesy call means a short, formal visit paid by one government official or dignitary to another as an act of courtesy or etiquette. Etiquette means the customary or formal rules for behavior in polite society. The message conveyed by General David Tinyefuza, on his courtesy call did not reflect courtesy or politeness at all.
The second point is that Ugandans need to know whether this was truly a statement made on behalf of the government because the General is quoted as saying “As the government, we know that rights of indigenous people should be protected, but we can no longer restrict the movement of people”. He added that Bakiga have been forced to move out of former Kigezi district because they have been replaced by Banyarwanda. Was this statement cleared by cabinet and/or parliament? When the General talks about the movement of people whom is he referring to? Was he saying the Uganda government cannot prevent the movement of Banyarwanda into Uganda forcing Ugandans to move to other places within and possibly outside of Uganda? An official clarification is necessary. The statement has contradictions and factual errors as well. If the government knows it has to protect the rights of indigenous people, then it has to do something about the free movement of people that impinge on the rights of indigenous people.
General David Tinyefuza’s statement has one major and regrettable factual error. He said “Your children [was he referring to Banyoro or Uganda children?] are no longer dying because we are immunizing them but the size of our country is constant”. The children of Uganda not only continue to die but the numbers have increased as well. Take infant mortality as an example. The infant mortality rate has risen from 75 to 78 per 1000 live births – that is a big increase in the number of Uganda infants dying every year! Ugandans should focus not so much on the size of country but on how we adjust our economy and skills to allow the constant size to accommodate more people and avoid a civil war. UK has the size of Uganda but it accommodates 62 million people twice the population of Uganda.
Should Ugandans continue to care about absolute numbers, then the government should disaggregate data to determine the increase caused by migrants who enter the country, produce children from women in their ethnic group, adopt local languages and local names but refuse to marry local women and thus refuse to integrate but try to dominate and marginalize indigenous people. This is where the problem is likely to come from.
General David Tinyefuza warned as mentioned above that land may cause a civil war in Uganda if tribes do not change their cultural thinking adding that “We shall continue fighting if you [Banyoro?] do not adopt a modern way of living”. He did not elaborate on a ‘modern way of living’ appropriate to Banyoro or Ugandans. He continued “We need to live as Africans and forget the land demarcations left to us by the colonialists”. This is a heavily loaded statement subject to many interpretations. Why did he say “We need to live together as Africans” and not as Ugandans? The division of Uganda into so many districts does not facilitate Ugandans learning to live together but learning to live separately. If you do not like your neighbor approach the NRM government and you will get a separate district. So boundaries inside Uganda created by Britain have changed beyond recognition especially since the NRM came to power in 1986. Was the General talking about international boundaries with Uganda neighbors that have not changed since 1962? What may cause trouble is when boundaries are arbitrarily altered without consultation. For example, the creation of Rukungiri municipality changed Rujumbura boundaries so arbitrarily in a calculated and targeted manner affecting largely one tribe that it has left many troubling questions unanswered.
Ugandans and their authorities in particular need to understand that statements like this can easily be misunderstood and lead to unintended and unfortunate outcomes like a civil war.