Those who do not believe that unequal power relations can make some people rich and powerful and impoverish others and render them powerless need to visit Rujumbura county of Rukungiri district in southwest Uganda.
Rukungiri district of which Rujumbura is a part has been in the news for more than a year now. It will likely continue to be in the news because the increasing imbalance in power relations between Bairu and Bahororo people – the latter are rulers of Uganda since 1986 with a big number coming from Rujumbura – has continued to disadvantage Bantu/Bairu people. Bahororo people (Nilotic/Batutsi from Rwanda) have amassed so much power which they are using to end – once and for all – Rujumbura’s Bairu resistance to Bahororo domination since 1800. Under normal circumstances, one would have expected Bahororo to use their power to improve the welfare of all the people in Rujumbura. Sadly this has not been the case. The opposite has been the result.
Upon their arrival in Rujumbura in 1800 as refugees Bahororo people used their military power in collaboration with Arab slave hunters/traders and European weapons to defeat and subjugate the once rich, relatively peaceful and numerically superior indigenous Bantu people. Bahororo gave the defeated people the collective name of Bairu (slaves), still in use to this day in 2010.
As local representatives of the British colonial administration (1900-1962) under the indirect rule system, Bahororo gained tremendous power which they used to suppress Bairu further. Uganda’s independence based on majority rule and one man one vote formula gave Bairu hope that they would finally liberate themselves through the power of the ballot box. Bahororo made sure that did not happen by using their acquired power to suppress and divide Bairu forcing many to vote for the minority Bahororo to Uganda’s parliament and other key positions.
This post-independence development worsened hostile relations between Bahororo and Bairu in Rujumbura. To keep the latter down, Bahororo made sure Bairu were denied any possibility of acquiring political power. Many progressive Bairu people were induced with temporary and inferior political positions or junior jobs in the administration or were given Bahororo women to marry on condition they collaborate with Bahororo to suppress ‘rebellious’ Bairu. The first decade of independence in the 1960s witnessed massive harassment of Bairu under the epithet (term of abuse) of Banyama (those who stole and ate the district constitutional head’s cow). Many families fled the county permanently, others went into exile. Notwithstanding this repression, resistance to Bahororo domination has intensified as more Bairu have acquired education and an understanding of their inalienable (God given) rights including equality in freedom and dignity with Bahororo people.
With the return of elections since the 1990s, Bahororo have used money in large quantities to bribe and win elections unopposed. However by 2001 elections Bairu candidates had become so strong that money alone was no longer a sufficient condition for Bahororo to win. Further Bahororo were no longer standing unopposed. Therefore military intervention and extensive intelligence network had to be applied in addition to dishing out huge quantities money (there is a current story – to be confirmed – that Major General Jim Muhwezi recently dished out Uganda Shillings 16 million to one Catholic Church against his opponent’s Uganda Shillings 500,000!).
In 2001 elections, military force and live bullets were used in Rujumbura against unarmed people who had come to attend a political rally organized by the opposition. One person was killed and others injured. Registration cards of opposition Bairu voters were snatched at gun point. Under these circumstances Museveni got the presidential vote and Besigye, home-boy and popular, lost (Business in Africa April 2001). Another Muhororo Major General Jim Muhwezi got elected to parliament. The two senior presidential advisers from Rujumbura, Jim Muhwezi’s constituency, are close relatives of Jim Muhwezi.
In July 2010, Rujumbura county of Rukungiri district again suffered another military intervention using live bullets and tear gas against opposition members a few days before National Resistance Movement (NRM) party elections were to take place. Not surprisingly, Bahororo candidates including Jim Muhwezi and their friends got the vote. This is a classic case of how power (military and money much of it obtained in dubious ways) works for those who have it and against those who do not have it. Because military force and intelligence networks have not reduced Bairu resistance, Bahororo have come up with a “Permanent Solution” to Bairu problem – render them landless by expanding municipal boundaries into areas occupied overwhelmingly by Bairu. For easy reference, this is how it has occurred.
Contrary to procedures established by Uganda Parliament that the proposed expansion and upgrading of towns should be advertised by the ministry of local government, consultations should be undertaken with the people to be affected, boundaries be determined fairly by covering all areas around the town, the Rukungiri municipality case was handled very differently. There was no advance notice from the ministry of local government and ipso facto no consultations whatsoever.
On a Friday afternoon just before parliament was scheduled to meet the following Monday morning to approve new municipalities presented by the minister of local government, the chairman of Rukungiri District Council convened an emergency session of Rukungiri District Councilors and passed a resolution for upgrading Rukungiri township into a municipality. The entire Kagunga sub-county occupied overwhelmingly by Bairu who are opposed to Bahororo domination since 1800 was incorporated into the municipality. The areas of Nyakagyeme sub-county where the Member of Parliament Major General Jim Muhozi comes from and Buyanja sub-county where the chairman of Rukungiri District Council Mr. Zedekia Karokora comes from (which are closer to the municipality than the new parts of Kagunga sub-county) were exempt apparently because the people in those two areas do not want to lose their land to the new municipal authority.
The following Monday morning when consideration and approval of new municipalities came up in Uganda’s Parliament, the minister of local government who has mandate for municipalities made a presentation of the proposed new municipalities except the one of Rukungiri. Major General Jim Muhwezi the Member of Parliament who comes from Rujumbura constituency in which Rukungiri town is located made a presentation of Rukungiri municipality which parliament approved even when procedures – from start to finish – had not been followed.
Upon consultations I wrote to the Speaker of Uganda’s Parliament several times to know how he allowed Rukungiri municipality to be presented by a Member of Parliament who had no mandate to do so and why advance notice had not been issued by the ministry of local government and consequently no consultations had taken place. I sent all correspondence with the Speaker to the Prime Minister who is leader of government, Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, and Uganda’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York (where I am residing) who represents the President of Uganda. They have declined to respond except the Leader of the Opposition.
As soon as parliament approved municipality status for Rukungiri the people affected were told that any planning on the land must be presented to the council for approval and fees would be charged for that service. The overwhelming majority of the people affected are extremely poor and functionally illiterate. They depend on land for their livelihood. They are being told that they will be compensated so they start business in towns. This is an empty carrot being dangled before them to get them off their land to be allocated to entrepreneurs with money to develop the area. In fact Major General Jim Muhwezi has already launched a program to supply rural grid electricity to attract agribusiness entrepreneurs.
It has been indicated that such a move will have long term impact of genocide magnitude by reducing Bairu population or adversely affecting them psychologically. The landless and functionally illiterate women will resort to sex work to make ends meet with all the deadly risks including HIV. Young boys will engage in crime to make ends meet, will end up and languish in jail and will not marry and have children. The survivors will suffer extreme poverty.
Where people have been thrown off their land, the result has been awful. ”Millions have been pushed off their land over the past few generations into urban slums where they live in squalor, earning pennies a day from ‘informal’ activities like hawking cigarettes on the street or bringing home a few dollars a day from a sweatshop where they sew clothes for consumers across the ocean. Their plight is extreme: they are hungry much of the time, they lack clean water, they cannot afford doctors, community supports are few, and hope is a sparse commodity. Thus the number of people living in misery and squalor in a particular country [or district like Rukungiri] may rise, even as the monetary measures of poverty decline” (World Policy Journal Summer 2006).
It is feared that the Bairu of Kagunga Sub-county of Rujumbura county of Rukungiri district that have been pushed into Rukungiri municipality without ever consulted by district and national authorities will end up in a similar situation described above.
Against this bleak backdrop, we appeal to Rukungiri District Council, Uganda Parliament and the Office of President of Uganda to reconsider the decision that was taken without following procedures established by Uganda’s Parliament.