Kony War: Returnees’ agony of trying to get back land

In 1997, Wilfred Okongo was forced to flee to Pabbo Internally Displaced People’s Camp located in Amuru District in Northern Uganda at the height of Joseph Kony war against President Museveni.
The 25-year old Okongo flee to the camp which was one of the biggest IDP camps along with his mother, father and siblings.
But while in the camp, Okongo’s father died in 2007 and the following year, the government commenced the process of returning the people staying in the camps since peace was returning to their villages after the UPDF defeated Kony who fled to the jungles of the Central African Republic.
Likewise, Okongo along with his mother left for the camp and headed to their village Pabbo located in Amuru District.
But to their surprise, strangers had taken over their land and even planted crops there on.

Okongo says upon inquiring who had given them permission to take over their land, in response, the land grabbers pointed to the LC1 boss whom he accused of having rented out to them their family land.
Despite efforts to regain their family land, all was in vain as the land grabbers have refused to leave and the LC1 is not helping either.
Okongo says he is seeking legal redress from court as the only option to reclaim their family land.
Okongo’s family is not the only one that was faced with this bitter truth of losing their family land to land grabbers upon return from the internally displaced peoples’ camp. Several families spent more than 20 years in the IDP camps as they sought refuge as such, the problem cuts across most of the districts that were affected by the Kony war.

Land issues
A new research report, that was released last week, Situation Analysis of the Land Question in Pabbo and Lamogi Sub-counties of Amuru District, Northern Uganda, by Makerere University don Daniel Ronald Ruhweza, summaries emerging issues of land question by the LRA insurgency returnees in the two Sub-counties as follows.

Atitude change
According to Ruhweza’s report, land in Amuru took on an economic value in addition to its socio-economic and cultural status as land became the only valuable asset left after the two decade war.
“Boundary disputes, gender violence and land grabbing significantly increased at this time. Some attribute this attitude towards the politicians of the time who advised their people that all they had left in life was their land…” the report read in part.

Death of elders
The death of parents and elders in the IDP camps left children, who did not know their original family land fail to locate boundaries to enable them reclaim their land when they left the camps.
“There were challenges involving situations where the older generation had passed away during the long years in the IDPs and the young people did not know where to go. In the absence of clear landmarks or registered titles these young people had to rely on the good neighbourliness where greedy neighbours would either chase them away or totally refuse to assist them.”

Government deals
The report also states that the secretive and underhand methods with which the central government has sought to deal with land matters has not been helpful.
For example, according to the report, it is suspected that the reason why there is a perceived boundary conflict regarding land in Apaa is because government allocated that land to a South African in 2005. The conflict then started when people from IDP camps returned to their land only to find when this investor has taken over their land and they too started claiming for it.

Occupants
The law provides that if someone settles on a piece of land for more than 12 years undisrupted, he/she becomes the owner of the land. The puzzle here is that the Kony war lasted for more than 20 years, meaning the locals left their land for more than 12 years and anyone who could settle on it, became the rightful owner after 12 years.
This, according to the report, has also fueled land conflicts amongst the IDP returnees.
Clash of cultures
The report findings showed that culture in Amuru district does not allow women to own land but the constitution allows anyone including women to own land too.
These two conflicting provisions have become a breeding ground for land conflicts amongst the IDP returnees.

Interventions
Gilbert Olanya, the Kilak County MP and one of the law makers from northern Uganda that was affected by the Kony war, explained to this newspaper that as leaders in the region, they are trying to encourage the locals to abandon the customary land ownership and acquire land titles for their land.
The law maker explained that once the locals acquire titles for their land, even if their parents died, the children will still rightfully claim for their family land. Under this arrangement, they will be able to get it back as opposed to the customary land that is communally owned.
Another leader Bilak Jalmaro, the RDC of Amuru District said government is involving local leadership so that they can ably identify who owns which piece of land and have them resettled to avoid such related conflicts.

The RDC added that they are encouraging mediation among locals involved in the aftermath of the LRA land conflicts on grounds that mediation has proved to be faster at solving such conflicts as opposed to courts of law that take years and are also expensive and far from their villages.
Another player in this intervention process is human rights body, the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI) that is promoting land rights of the formerly IDPs particularly women and children through local advocacy and pro-bono legal assistance in land matters in Lamogi and Pabo Sub-counties in Amuru District.
FHRI is also working closely with regional leaders like MPs, traditional leaders and community based organisations to make sure that former IDPs are not deprived of their land.

Recent land conflicts in northern Uganda

1. The release of the report findings about Amuru land conflicts comes barely six months after elderly women staged a nude protest before the late Internal Affairs Minister Aronda Nyakairima and Lands minister Daudi Migereko who had visited the contested land between Amuru and Adjumani districts. The ministers who had visited the contested land with a group of surveyors from the lands ministry, were to among others fix mark stones to demarcate the boundaries and also sensitise the area residents about the government’s intention to demarcate the boundary between the two districts when the ugly scenario unfolded before them. The 40 square kilometre contested land had also over the years been claimed by the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), which says it is a game reserve.

2. Further, a similar ugly scenario of nude stripping by women over land happened in Soroti in July this year. This was after two women stripped in protest of the move by Soroti University attempt to take away part of their land. The women protested claiming the proposed Soroti university project was encroaching on their land. The land in question measuring 980 acres was donated to Teso College Aloet by residents. However, Teso College Aloet reportedly carved 460 acres of the same land and donated it to Soroti University. But the residents claimed the University has since encroached further into their territory, erroneously taking up another 140 acres of their land. The women have since been charged before courts of law for being a public nuisance.

3.Another land related conflict scenario happened about a month ago when the police arrested Kilak County MP Gilbert Olanya for allegedly inciting locals to fight for their disputed Apaa land in Amuru District, which he claimed government was grabbing it from them. The law maker has since been charged before courts of law and the case is still pending.

Background to the war
The more than two decade conflict in the Northern part of the country was between the Lord Resistance Army (LRA) led by Joseph Kony and President Museveni’s government. The rebellion was one of the most virulent that Uganda has experienced in the recent history.
Through massive abductions and conscriptions of children, the LRA built its army. More than 38,000 children were abducted and forcefully recruited into the rebellion that was responsible for committing serious crimes like murder, sexual assault and horrific mutilations of limbs and ears.

Impact
This led to a crisis in social services including agriculture, education and health with many professional employees deserting the region to seek employment in other safer parts of the country and the Diaspora.
As a result of the rebellion, more than 1.8 million people were forced into internally displaced camps.

Gradual change
With the commencement of the Juba peace talks in 2006, the government started gaining control of the security situation in the region. Subsequently, the government issued directive to have the locals in the camps to return to their homes.
In the process, IDPs were unable to identify the land originally belonging to them since some of them were born in camps and grew into adulthood while in the camps. So the accumulative situations caused a lot of land conflicts to the returnees. Amuru district was one of the districts in the northern region that was mostly affected by the Kony war.