18 April 2008: The Politics and Violence of Land

Uganda is currently in the midst of a big debate that is likely to divide the country along ethnic lines. The debate follows president Yoweri Museveni’s proposal to amend the Land Law to make it easier for tenants and squatters to adversely acquire title of the land they occupy from their landlords, and to make it easier to deprive the landlord of title.

Bookmark with:

Facebook

del.icio.us

Digg It!

President Museveni’s administration says the law seeks to end the current state of affairs where landlords continually evict tenants/squatters on a whim, arguing that this affects food production and increases poverty. The argument in favour of the bill is that most of the food production is done by squatters and tenants and not by the landlords.

The biggest opponents of the Land Amendment Bill 2008 are supporters of the Buganda Kingdom who see the bill as threatening, first to the Baganda King’s absolute right over all Buganda land and secondly to the unity of the Baganda people.

The argument goes that most of the squatters/tenants who live on land within the Baganda region are not Baganda and issuing them with titles will necessarily reduce the homogenous nature of the Baganda people and ultimately reduce their hegemony, which, it is contended, is the real aim of President Museveni and his administration.

The Baganda have also received support from the Luo-speaking people of the north who contend that the civil strife in the north has meant that many people have become squatters on land belonging to others, and the passage of the bill would essentially deprive good Samaritans of their land.

The debate is emotional and ethnic in nature, with the Buganda Kingdom threatening to stop its support of the Museveni administration and Museveni trying to drive a wedge between the two communities by declaring that all Buganda Kings are Luo by descent.

The tension caused by the Land Amendment Bill 2008 is palpable. Indeed, some analysts have predicted that a situation similar to the food crisis in Zimbabwe might develop, noting that a similar re-organization of ranches by Museveni’s administration in 1991 did not lead to improved production. Yet others fear that simmering tensions will lead to tangibly exploitable grievances, possibly resulting in violence.

Of the many factors said to have fuelled the violence that erupted in Kenya following the election irregularities in early 2008, what has been termed as the historical land injustices stands out.

The colonialists, in settling in Kenya, displaced locals from their land, as happened in all settler colonies. Soon after independence, the post-colonial British government supported the re-acquisition of land that had been given to settlers under a policy of willing-buyer-willing-seller. The British support was in the form of a grant to the newly independent Kenyan government to enable it to give loans to Kenyans to buy land from the then White Highlands.

The Independence government under President Jomo Kenyatta is largely perceived to have given loans and outright free allotments to members of Kenyatta’s Kikuyu community to settle on land that was historical (that is before the advent of colonialism) Kalenjin land. This then allowed President Kenyatta and his ruling elite to take over the large farms in what would then be considered the ancestral or historical land of the Kikuyu - the very same Kikuyu who had waged a bitter war, the Mau Mau war of independence against the British. This war was also largely about issues of land ownership and displacement of people from their land to make way for the settler community during the onset of colonialism in Kenya.

This perception regarding the Kikuyu land occupation has been exploited time and again by all political forces, especially during the electioneering period. And it is this perception and exploitation that led to the most serious of skirmishes, termed ethnic cleansing, following the mismanaged elections.

The story of land in Zimbabwe has defined perceptions on Zimbabwean politics for several years now with pro-Mugabe analysts forgiving his economic and political mismanagement of the country because he is said to be re-distributing land to “rightful” owners, despite the widespread acknowledgement of the corruption and the economic demerits of the whole process. The land change process in Zimbabwe, as is clear to all, has led to economic degradation of the country and has resulted in frustration and violence. South of Zimbabwe, many fear that the situation in South Africa can easily degenerate into a Zimbabwe scenario.

The attachment that most Africans have to land is an indicator of the level of development on the continent - what most would describe as pre-industrial. In this context, where man only has skills applicable to subsistence farming, land gains an almost mythical status as the sustainer of life, as indeed it is. Defending land with life and limb is not only the logical thing to do, but also the only thing to do. Hence the violence associated with land on the continent.

Empowering Africans with greater technological skills could enable the cutting of the umbilical link to land as the only means of survival, and more importantly, put a stop to violence perpetrated in the name of land.