Southwest Uganda was already a colony when Britain arrived

When Bantu and Nilotic peoples met in northern, eastern, Buganda, Bunyoro and Toro they intermarried extensively and produced new communities and mixed economies of crop cultivation, herding and manufacturing. However, by the time the Nilotic Bahima (and later Batutsi under the new name of Bahororo) entered southwest Uganda (former Ankole district and Rujumbura county of Rukungiri district) they had decided against intermarriage with Bantu people and against allowing Bantu to own cattle as a form of capital accumulation. Nilotic Bahima and Bahororo people who were more powerful militarily but less advanced economically than Bantu chose to colonize the latter. By and large, colonization involves the colonizer depriving the colonized of their properties, disrupting their economic structures and imposing taxes or tribute in exchange for unsolicited law and order or protection.

For easy reference we need to know that before Nilotic people arrived in what later became southwest Uganda some six hundred years ago, Bantu people had developed dynamic and viable economic structures and systems that combined wild hunting, fishing and gathering, crop cultivation, livestock herding (short-horn cattle, goats and sheep) poultry rearing and manufacturing a wide range of products mostly based on iron ore. Food surplus and specialization had permitted the emergence of a ruling class of kings and chiefs or council of elders and a form of centralized governance system and diplomatic relations among different communities. In short, Bantu were civilized.

Why has Rukungiri district become ungovernable?

Rukungiri is a small district located in southwest Uganda and far away from the seat of government in Kampala. Since Uganda’s independence in 1962, Rukungiri has been visited by Uganda presidents – Obote, Amin and more so by Museveni – or sent more delegations to Kampala than any other district in an attempt to understand and solve the district’s intractable problems. These problems of a political, economic, social and ethnic nature have included suicide, death or injuries from security forces’ gunfire, forcing people into exile or fleeing permanently from the district, snatching voting cards from opposition members at gun point and using some unsealed ballot boxes including in the opposition presidential candidate’s polling station.

Although many people do not want to hear it, the problem in Rukungiri district is the political and economic struggle between Nilotic Bahororo rulers and Bantu Bairu (slaves) ruled ethnic groups since pre-colonial days. Bahororo – a Batutsi and numerically very inferior group that entered Rukungiri district in 1800 from Rwanda via short-lived Mpororo kingdom located in southwest of former Ankole district – believe that God created them to rule others irrespective of their education and/or work experience. In fact Bahororo agree that God gave Bairu physical and mental strength to labor for the comfort of their Bahororo masters who have specialized in military strength. This superiority complex of Bahororo was consolidated during British colonial rule that used pre-colonial oppressive chiefs as their civil servants. Britain which never lost control over Uganda has continued to favor Bahororo over Bairu since independence.