Special Report on resettlement of Kikagati returnees

Mpanga Primary School is situated inside the Kahunge Refugee Resettlement Scheme in Kamwenge District, southwestern Uganda. Here, a group of Ugandan displaced - originally expelled from Tanzania - who arrived overnight on 6 May is starting to gather around several aid workers who are distributing clothes, food, hoes and domestic implements. The Ugandan returnees are part of a group of 3,027 Ugandans, mainly ethnic Bakiga cattle herders, expelled from Tanzania in late 2000, allegedly for voting against Tanzania's ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party in elections in October 2000. The expulsions were effected after CCM lost the elections in the northwestern district of Karagwe, Kagera Region, where the long-time Ugandan settlers had been living, the reports added. This group of 280 is the last batch of the initial 700 familes (about 2,800 people) expelled from Tanzania to be moved from Kikagati camp, in Mbarara District, some 170 km from the Kahunge settlement. They hope, by the end of the day, to receive at least two acres of land per family, in addition to materials they will use to construct shelters in their new homes. Most of the people are visibly exhausted from their long trip over wet murram roads, with all their belongings aboard lorries donated for the exercise by the Oxfam and the UN refugee agency. Many look hungry: they had a light meal last night, but nothing so far this morning. However, the children, most of them naked or half-dressed, are happily chasing each other around the Mpanga school compound on their bare feet, as their parents anxiously await to receive their resettlement packages. The first batch of the returnees arrived here on 8 April. Since then, several trips have ferried batches of them from Kikagati, a swampy patch of land in the Kagera River basin, 70 km from Mbarara town, where the group had been camped under difficult conditions since December 2000. In moving from Kikagati, the returnees carried with them any useful materials they had for building their shelters in the Kahunge site. Expulsion from Tanzania According to the deportees from Tanzania, trouble began brewing for them in when their host community began to show hostility towards them, out of envy for their success in making a living. Onesford Muhoozi, one of the group's leaders, told IRIN that he had moved to Tanzania in 1976 in search of land, since he had none in Kabale, his home district in southern Uganda. In Tanzania, he had managed to acquire some cattle, and land on which he planted coffee for sale through the black market as there was no coffee market in Tanzania. All that began to come to an end in late 2000, when the community received leaflets distributed in the night telling them to go home to their own country. That was soon followed by orders from the local sub-county chiefs to vacate their land by 30 December 2000, according to another leader, 43-year-old expellees Tumwebeze. "They started to bring in Local Defence Units to push us out," Tumbwebeze said. "We had no peace. We couldn't vote. We were not allowed to attend any community meetings. We weren't allowed to participate in any local development." The Ugandans problems were compounded by the Tanzanian elections of October 2000, in which an opposition politician was elected to parliament; locals claimed that his cause had been helped by the Bakiga vote. However, the Ugandans deny that they voted. "We were not allowed to vote. We had no powers to talk. We were mistreated because we were foreigners," said Muhoozi. Leaving poor living conditions According to the expellees, most of whom had been economic migrants to Tanzania, the humid, damp environment in Kikagati turned the temporary camp into a breeding ground for flies and mosquitoes, causing constant illness among their number. Onesford Muhoozi, one of the group's leaders, explained that in wet weather, water would seep out of the black clay soil, making it difficult for many people to sleep. During their 16-month stay in Kikagati, 56 people died in the camp, mainly from malaria, while two were swept away by the Kagera river nearby, according to Muhoozi. "Kikagati was not favourable for human existence," he told IRIN. "The camp was almost a swamp. We could not get any food. We had to go and work for villagers." However, another leader, 43-year-old Yusuf Tumwebeze, said that, despite the poor living conditions, the members of group were happier in Kikagati that they had been in Tanzania. "We stayed in the camp for one year and four months. No-one in the camp was beaten, but in Tanzania we were beaten all the time." The expellees, however, denied having voted. "We were not allowed to vote. We had no powers to talk. We were mistreated because we were foreigners," says Muhoozi. Problematic resettlement The process of relocating the expellees from Kikagati to Kahunge had been "successful" but "difficult", according to a six-member task force appointed after a meeting of the Department of Disaster Management and Preparedness (at the Office of the Prime Minister) and NGOs to supervise the resettlement. Plans to relocate the returnees, mainly ethnic Bakiga, from Kikagati began in late 2001 but implementation was delayed by community resistance in Kibale District - location of the first proposed site - and the government's failure to find an alternative. Baguma Isoke, State Minister for Lands and Kibale Member of Parliament, told IRIN last month that hostility to the proposed resettlement in Kibale - which has recently has been hit by ethnic tension and violence between the indigenous Banyoro people and the Bakiga, who have been settled in the district for decades - stemmed from the lack of a clear policy on resettlement. The Banyoro did not want any more Bakigas resettled in Kibale, according to Isoke.

The Ugandan returnees queue for clothes and other relief supplies on the site of their new homes in Kahunge Refugee Settlement

The Bakiga, an industrious agricultural community who originated from the neighbouring, densely populated district of Kigezi, had been encouraged by the government to go to Kibale, which was relatively sparsely populated, according to Isoke. "It all revolves around policy. The Kibale scenario would not have come up if there had been such a policy," he said. Ethnic tensions began to take root in the area with an increasing influx of Bakiga, who then began to outnumber the Banyoros, according to humanitarian sources. Kibale District had more migrants than most other areas of the country, and the local population was apprehensive of additional outsiders being resettled in the same area, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), noted in its October 2001 humanitarian update. Resistance in Kibale effectively forced the government to seek an alternative site for the relocation of those camped in Kikagati. In late March, Martin Owuor, Assistant Commissioner in the Department of Disaster Preparedness, told IRIN that a plan had been finalised to transfer the Kikagati returnees to a new site in Kamwenge District, starting on 8 April. Each of the 700 families involved would receive a two-acre plot on the new location, he added. Funding shortage According to members of the task force effecting the transfer, the process started very well, with the first group of 178 people arriving at Kahunge on 8 April, but was hampered right from the beginning by a severe shortage of funds. Booker Ajuoga, public relations officer for the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) in Uganda and chairman of the resetllement task force, told IRIN that although the prime minister's office had appealed for an initial budget of about US $193,000, donors had largely failed to respond. Other members of the task force were drawn from the prime minister's office, the international relief organisation Samaritan's Purse, the World Health Organisation (WHO), WFP and Oxfam. By the time the relocation commenced, total donations received comprised only some $3,000 - $2,000 from ADRA and $1,000 from the United Nation's World Food Programme (WFP) - along with 7,500 litres of petrol from the Italian embassy in Uganda. "We thought if we started the process, the funds would come," Ajuoga told IRIN. "The project is still cash-strapped. The exercise is nearly finished, but the operational costs have not been paid," he added. In spite of this, the operation went ahead and not a single death has been reported since it began. "In one and a half years, nearly 60 people died at the Kikagati camp, but since we started the exercise, none of them have died. They're getting sick, but no reported deaths for a month," Ajuoga added. Humanitarian sources told IRIN that aid agencies were becoming increasingly reluctant to provide emergency assistance in Uganda because they felt the government, who has primary responsible for this, was not "pulling its own weight" in supporting humanitarian activities. Owuor, whose office also deals with humanitarian response, admitted that the government currently had no clear budget for disaster management. "Managing disaster is something new in government here," he told IRIN. "The government is used to dealing more with traditional areas. Right now I don't have any money to deal with all the floods currently taking place all over the country." However, Owuor also accused humanitarian agencies of "blackmailing" the government. "Of course the government is leading all humanitarian activities in the country. We managed to get the land to resettle the expellees, but we are not happy with the way we are being assisted by the agencies." "This is a problem of a humanitarian nature," he added. "They put a condition that they would not assist returnees until they had been moved. That type of condition I don't agree with. It is not humanitarian." New hope in Kahunge Local leaders are hopeful that the newcomers will easily integrate with the local people in Kahunge - also Bakiga - who have already given them a friendly reception. "We are convinced that the future is very bright. The local community is very happy; they are even giving them free food to help them settle," John Kamuningi, who heads the local council, told IRIN. According to Kamuningi, local people, who had earlier encroached on some government land, had initially been apprehensive. "The local community at first thought that they would be evicted from the area, but they were assured that they could stay, together with the new group," he said. "They were very pleased with the government's decision. They were not forced to donate land. They were happy to be involved in the exercise. Each of them gave according to their own will," he added. Initially, the 75-sq km government settlement land had been used to accommodate refugees from Rwanda, and they had gone home before the local community began to encroach on it, according to the camp commandant, David Mugenyi, who is in charge of the settlement's administration and security. He went on to note that although the entire settlement was dotted with members of the local community, there was enough land to resettle all the newcomers. Kamuningi also saw a need for the new settlers to receive awareness seminars as part of their reintegration into Ugandan society, as they had been away in Tanzania for decades. In particular, he was concerned about the high rate of early marriages within the group. "You can see that almost all the girls aged 13 and above are married," he said. "This is against the law. We have a big task ahead."

The Kikagati camp, a swampy patch of land where the Ugandan returnees had been camped under difficult conditions since late 2000, has now been dismantled

Hardhsips remain Although nearly all the returnees have been resettled, and most of them are happy with their new homes, there are still hardships ahead, particularly those occasioned by poor access to health and water infrastructure, according to members of the resettlement task force. The nearest health centre, for example, is about 13 km from the settlement, which also lacks protected water sources. According to Mugenyi, several NGOs have identified water sources and there are plans to drill new boreholes in the area, but little has been seen of the project, so far. "Health and water is still the biggest problem here. I am still worried about that problem," he said. "The majority of the people are still new to the area, and don't know the roads. They are falling sick from changing their environment, but the nearest hospitals are very far." Mugenyi is also worried about the food security situation for the resettled people in the coming months. Most had not received any seeds to plant and, although the WFP had donated food to last the group three months, the impending end of the rainy season was raising fears that they might go hungry, he said. However, like Muhoozi, many of the expellees were pleased to start life over again after the difficulties they had undergone since their arrival from Tanzania. "I am sure, if I get land, I will be able to cultivate food for my family," Muhoozi said. "Life has not been easy in Tanzania. We had no freedom of speech. Now I am very happy. I have no other possible means to thank God," he added, his face breaking into a broad smile. But Charles Rwabakigya - who was resettled in Kahunge on 17 April with his family of two wives and 11 children - was unhappy with the two-acre land allocation he had received. He said the land, on which he had built two temporary huts and cultivated bananas and vegetables, was barely enough to feed his big family, forcing him and his wives to seek alternative casual farm jobs from villagers, to supplement the family income. Moreover, he said, he had not received seeds and farm implements, forcing him to seek assistance from villagers. "Starting is always difficult," he told IRIN at his new home. "I have nothing. The land is too small. I have to rely on villagers to get seeds and even hoes. We have to keep waiting till they are free, when the villagers are not using them." The returnees are now urging the Ugandan government to negotiate on their behalf with the Tanzanian authorities for the return of, or compensation for, property they were forced to leave behind.