The Rwandan’s land grabbing strategy since 1950 [part 3]

The Rwandan’s land grabbing strategy since 1950 [part 3]

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  With military, financial, political and administrative powers achieved, the Rwandese are at the last part of occupation using either force, money or both against indigenous communities 

  
  

This is the 3rd and last part of the series The Rwandan’s occupation and land grabbing strategy since 1950 In the series we explore how the Rwandans who came seeking for refuges in the 1950’s turned Uganda’s indigenous communities into refuges in their country by taking over their political, economic, social and now land heritage.

This is a long article detailing the history and facts linking Museveni Tutsi/Rwanda merciless strategies to grab land and literally wipe out all indigenous societies in the above region.

This part looks at their current level of settlement and forcefully wiping out indigenous communities [Forceful and Legalizing land grabbing]

READ: The Rwandan’s occupation and land grabbing strategy since 1950 [part 1]

READ: The Rwandan’s land grabbing strategy since 1950 [part 2]

The Banyarwanda’s are registered at each sub-county and mandated to hold highly classified monthly get together meeting. They do this so secretly that local community members never know, yet even if one of them is a house  girl in your home knows of this meeting and attends it.

By 1991 it was estimated that Banyarwanda in Uganda were 1.3M out of a total population of 18M in the country. Of these, 450,000 were Uganda indigenous Banyarwanda who became Ugandans after Kisoro became part of Uganda in 1918 and 650,000 were the Banyarwanda economic immigrants who came to look for work and a few who came to look for pasture for their cattle between 1926 and 1959 of whom 84,000 were the Banyarwanda Tutsi refugees registered under UNHCR.

Many had left the refugee settlement camps and integrated into local society. In 1993 the then Minister of Local government, Dr. Steven Chebrot estimated that about 300,000 Banyarwanda refugees were spontaneously resettled amongst the locals outside the camps.

The able bodied had left the camps to the elderly and settled in urban centres while others had acquired land outside camps and settled there using money provided by government. The UNHCR had handed the management of the camps to the government though food aid continued coming in. Even within the camps, the refugees had become self sustaining by producing enough to feed themselves and surplus for sale.

In July 1994 when the RPF took over power in Rwanda, a reconnaissance party of Banyarwanda civilians left for Rwanda so as to get hold on political fortunes. By end of 1995, an estimated 226,000 Banyarwanda refugees had returned to Rwanda. They deserted the refugee camps and the countryside as far as Ngoma, Kyankwanzi, Masindi, Nakasongola and Luwero and moved en masse and headed for Rwanda.

As the Tutsi were leaving Uganda for Rwanda, the Hutu were leaving Rwanda in millions for Tanzania and Congo. A small contingent of 11,000 Hutu entered Uganda and were camped in Kisoro and Ntungamo before being transferred to Oruchinga camp. A departing Tutsi at Oruchinga camp attempted to spear a child of an arriving Hutu but only to injure his fellow Tutsi.

The 1993 Arusha Accord between the Tutsi RPF rebels and the Hutu government of Rwanda had stipulated that returning refugees after ten years were not to seek to reclaim previous properties but were to be resettled on unoccupied land. Once the RPF took over power, the returning Tutsi occupied property left behind by fleeing Hutu. However, as time went on, reconciliation efforts dictated that returning Hutu ought to reoccupy their property. The issue was so controversial to an extent that it accounted for the false accusations of genocide against some Hutu just as a way of keeping them off the property.

To strike a compromise, a villagisation (Imidugudu) scheme where services would be centralized and modern agricultural technology made accessible was initiated. The international development partners supported the construction of Imidugudu. Meeting land and housing needs of returning refugees proved quite a challenge. The situation was worse with the pastoralists Tutsi who needed huge chunks of land for their cattle.

Many returned and settled in Uganda where grazing land was plenty. Those who had anticipated a land of milk and honey, they too were disappointed and retreated to Uganda where land, availability of social services, and economic opportunities including employment were easily forthcoming more than in their new-homeland. For the majority of others who had not left for Rwanda, they opted to stay in Uganda. Even the elites in influential positions in Rwanda have been acquiring land in Uganda through proxies.

With the sound availability of cash and government favors, the so called Balaalo have evolved from the traditional pastoralist and casual laborers to owners of thousands of heads of exotic cattle, huge chunks of land, are armed and determined to spread to as far as West Nile and Acholi at the border with Sudan.

Museveni managed to push through the 1995 Constitution a provision that recognised Banyarwanda as one of the 56 indigenous ethnic communities. It was not made clear if the constitutional Banyarwanda ethnic group referred to the Banyarwanda who were added into Uganda by colonial boundaries in Kisoro, the economic immigrants of the early 20th century who came to look for work, or those who came as refugees during the 1959 – 1974 exodus escaping political turmoil. By 2017 Rwanda had a polling station in Uganda, whose eligibility none knows  whether Ugandan Banyarwanda  voted or not.

In October 2001, the Uganda government announced that it was probing the composition of 1,252 army Cadet Officers after discovering that several Rwandan undercover spies posing as Ugandans had been recruited for training. The then Army Spokesman, Col. Keitirima confirmed that they had also turned away several Rwandans who had sought to be recruited.

In July 2002, a delegation of 30 Banyarwanda elders met Museveni for a petition over the alleges of harassment of Banyarwanda by security agencies. They claimed that over twenty Banyarwanda were being held in safe houses by intelligence services. This was during the time when relations between Uganda and Rwanda were sour following the bloody clash of the two armies in Congo. To the security agencies, the detained Banyarwanda were Rwandese spies. Appearing on Andrew Mwenda Live radio talk show, Kagame had complained that; “I was told how Rwandese are being arrested in Kampala and in Kikuko wherever they are found.”

On 17th June 2007, the government owned New Vision ran a letter by one Mutesi of Kabale in which she was complaining about Banyarwanda being denied passports. That she had had to consult her friends in security services who advised her not to state that she was a Munyarwanda but should instead call herself a Mufumbira.

She went ahead to disclose that since she had worked in Kisoro as a teacher, she travelled there and using the voters card she filled forms, had them approved by the LCs and the area M.P and eventually got her passport. She disclosed that her grandfather had migrated from Rwanda to Tanzania 100 years ago, and that her father relocated to Uganda, died and was buried in Ntungamo, Uganda.

In 2007, the Local Government of Kyankwanzi district offered to take in and accommodate the 100 Banyarwanda Balaalo families that had been evicted from Buliisa following clashes with Bagungu. The move was spearheaded by the LC3 Chairman, Fred Mpora and escorted by Police. Fred Mpora has been a key figure in the incursions by Balaalo into Acholi.

In April 2008 Banyarwanda living in Uganda under their umbrella organisation, UMUBANO held the annual assembly at Lugogo Indoor Stadium under the chairmanship of Erick Kyamuhangire who is Museveni’s Senior Presidential Advisor on Culture. The assembly expressed grave concern over denial of passports, loss of land, denial of recruitment into public service, denial of scholarships and general discrimination by government.

Their Chairman lamented thus; “…. if one happens to have a contact in Rwanda, then it’s enough reason for disqualification.” They gave the example of Balalo who were being evicted in Masindi describing it as paid harassment before accusing the government of being biased against the Balaalo.

Note: one of the key state witnesses in the Kyadondo terror attack, Muhammad Mugisha claimed to be a Ugandan who was born in Rwanda but relocated to Uganda in 1998.

In 2009, the Uganda Citizenship and Immigration Control Act was amended to put it in line with the constitutional provision on Banyarwanda Tutsi. Section.12 provides for citizenship by birth for any person born in Uganda whose parents or grandparents is or was a member of any of the indigenous communities existing in and residing within the borders of Uganda as at the first day of February 1926, as set out in the Third Schedule to the 1995 constitution.

It went ahead to stipulate that every person born in or outside Uganda one of whose parents or grandparents was at the time of birth of that person a citizen of Uganda by birth, is eligible for citizenship. S.14 (1) (a) (ii) eliminates Hutu refugees from accessing citizenship thus; “every person born in Uganda who at the time of birth neither of his or her parents and none of his grandparents was a refugee in Uganda”.

Since it’s now the Hutu who are refugees, the provision bars them. S.14 (b) grants citizenship to anyone who has continuously lived in Uganda since 9th October 1962.

Interestingly, the Act under S.14 (2) (b) gives a blank cheque to Tutsi Banyarwanda who are always on the move migrating to and settling in Uganda thus ” any person who has legally and voluntarily migrated to Uganda and has been living in Uganda for at least twenty years is eligible for citizenship”.

The other requirements include a good command of the English language or ‘prescribed local language’.

In July 2010, the Museveni regime in connivance with the Kagame regime in Kigali forcefully returned to Rwanda 1,700 Hutu Asylum seeker and refugees. The victims have escaped Gacaca community courts, land wrangles and general repression.

Note: The UPC government was accused of forcefully returning Tutsi refugees to Rwanda in the early 1980s but in the instant case it looked okay because the victims were Hutu. In 2010, a group of Banyarwanda refugees in Uganda petitioned the Constitutional Court over acquisition of citizenship. They claimed that the Immigration Department was refusing to give them citizenship application forms on grounds that they were not eligible on account of their being refugees.

They based their petition on a constitutional provision that made refugees eligible for citizenship by naturalisation and registration. Article 12 (2) (c) and 14 (2) (c) provides that “a person who on commencement of this constitution has lived in Uganda for the last 20 years is eligible for citizenship by registration”. The petitioners had lived in Uganda since 1985. In October 2015 court ruled that refugees were eligible for citizenship not by registration but naturalisation but two of the petitioners had already been relocated to the USA by UNHCR while the 3rd could not be traces.

The 2013 Land Policy condemns those who classify “cross border population movement as refugees or internally displaced people because of shared common heritage and culture”. With Museveni’s treacherous populist refugee policy, what can stop Rwandans faced with land shortage back in Rwanda from coming to Uganda claiming to be refugees from Burundi or Banyamulenge of Congo.

In 2012 the government set up a committee to discuss naturalisation for refugees especially Rwandese and Congolese of 1990s and 1960s lot respectively. The Director of Refugees stated that at least 5,000 refugees had applied for naturalisation. In January 2015, the Ministry of Internal Affairs ran a countrywide awareness campaign to enable any non-citizens that meet the conditions stipulated under S.14 of the Uganda Citizenship and immigration Control Act to become citizens. The Minister made it clear that refugees were not eligible to apply. In both instances, nothing concrete was arrived at and the scheme was simply abandoned.

In 2012, Museveni and Kagame met members of the Banyarwanda community in Uganda (UMUBANO) at State House in Kampala. They were feuding over leadership with one faction recognising Donant Kananura while another one recognized Dr. Eric Kyamuhangire who also doubles as a Senior Presidential Advisor on Culture.

The Kananura group was accused of extorting money from Kagame under the guise of assisting Banyarwanda in Uganda. Museveni promised to mediate in resolving the leadership wrangles. On his part, Kagame advised the Banyarwanda not to focus on those small issues of leadership but work for their dominance of the two countries.

In 2013 Tanzania expelled Rwandese who were illegally staying in Kagera region back to Rwanda. Thousands of them chose to come to Uganda where the Museveni regime accorded them VIP reception, free land and citizenship. The Chairman of the Banyarwanda in Uganda who is also a Presidential Advisor on Culture, Dr. Eric Kyamuhangire wrote a long missive in The New Vision condemning Tanzania’s action. He argued that the people expelled were Banyarwanda who had migrated there in the 1970s and 80s in search of pasture and were therefore both Ugandans and Tanzanians because that region is suitable for cattle grazing.

The expulsion also fermented serious friction between Museveni and Kagame on one hand and Tanzania’s Jakaya Kikwete. Kyamuhangire’s argument confirms the belief by some people that the so-called cattle corridor is for their exclusive occupation. How come they couldn’t trace their previous homes if they were Ugandans? In July 2015 Museveni paid a visit to a one Johnson Nyinondi in Tanzania’s Kagera region whom he described as his relative who had helped a lot in intelligence gathering and recruitment of fighters against the Iddi Amin regime.

In April 2016, the then Minister of Internal Affairs, Rose Akol visited Mirama Hill border post at the Uganda-Rwanda border. She ordered Rwandan nationals in Uganda who were holding both Ugandan and Rwandese national IDs to surrender one. During the same occasion the DPC Ntungamo and Immigration Officers disclosed that the irregularity was making it difficult to fight cross border crime. Immigration Officers further revealed that they were confiscating an average of ten Ugandan IDs per day from Rwandan travellers.

Given the porous borderline, it is obvious that many more Uganda ID card holders move freely to and from the two countries. During the 2016 general elections in Uganda, the opposition decried that the Museveni regime had been issuing national IDs to Rwandans in order to enable them to vote for Museveni.

The Minister’s stand did not go well with the regime agenda and she was not only relieved of her ministerial position but made to lose in the parliamentary elections. Death of high Aronda Nyakairima is allegedly linked to this project

It’s no wonder that even the Uganda national ID is institutionally baptized ENDAGAMUNTU vs INDANGAMUNTU – a Kinyarwanda word for Rwandan national ID.

Last week the Rwandan High Commissioner to Uganda called upon Rwandans residing in Uganda to get ready to cast their vote at the embassy during the forthcoming August general elections. He disclosed that there are 55,000 Rwandans in the diaspora of which about 6,000 live in Uganda.

From the above long narration, it can be authoritatively argued that the so called Banyarwanda include all the Rwandans who find themselves in Uganda including the Rwandese embassy staff. They are bonafide citizens of Rwanda and Museveni’s Uganda (they vote Kagame and Museven)

The spirit of the constitution was manipulated to cover up for a wider scheme for Tutsi domination of Uganda. The recognition of Banyarwanda as one of the indigenous communities of Uganda was not meant for the migrant Banyarwanda who came to Uganda at the beginning of the last century.

Moreover, this category had already integrated into the local Ugandan society and those from Kisoro district who were made part of Uganda by colonialists have their own identity as Bafumbira. Therefore, the Banyarwanda of Uganda are the former Tutsi refugees of 1960s and 70s and the Tutsi immigrants both of whom have found two homes in both Uganda and Rwanda. They are bent on systematically achieving dominance and have the political and financial muscle to achieve this.

Currently all Banyarwanda wherever they are in Uganda are secretly registered by highly classified officials. They are given money for upkeep, pay fees for their children in big schools and even given start up funds to do different projects in their areas especially buying massive land/properties. By design, all Banyarwanda’s in Uganda whenever they are, are paid state agents/spies.

The Banyarwanda’s are registered in each sub-county and mandated to hold highly classified monthly get together meeting once in that sub-county. They do this so secretly that local community members never know, yet even if one of them is a house  girl in your home knows of this meeting and attends it.

Under the guise of modernization, land reforms and commercial farming, Museveni’s scheme is to deprive indigenous communities of their land, hoard them into concentration camps in urban centres so that they lose their respective community identities to Banyarwanda.

That is the price of the false so called national unity and region integration

Nangalama Leah