Suffering people of Apaa deserve better

The government has let down and betrayed the people of Apaa. The communities have suffered multiple wrongs, with some self-inflicted from deadly clashes among themselves. But other miseries, as documented by the Law Refugee Project, have been visited on the people by the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA).

The report says UWA rangers burnt down on July 17, 2010, at least 170 huts in Apaa. The report also incriminates the police and military, who have not spared the villagers, violently evicting them on February 13, 2012, and again on March 12, 2012.

In all these, we’ve have consistently over the last seven years, challenged both government on the one hand and Acholi, and Madi leaders on the other, to step forward and sort out this protracted and bloody feuds over the wider 40-square kilometre Apaa land block in Pabbo Sub-county, Amuru District. Both Amuru and Adjumani districts claim ownership of Apaa, with Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) also saying it is part of East Madi Wildlife Reserve. 

But the onus rests on the leaders in Acholi and Madi whose communities have lived in harmony for centuries in both South Sudan and in Uganda to sue for peace. Given this set up, the Acholi and Madi have no reason to fight but to be each other’s keepers. And they seem to have listened. 

To their credit, on July 9, 2014, Daily Monitor commended them in an editorial, ‘Emulate Acholi, Madi on ethnic conflicts’. We had then praised the Acholi and Madi communities for rediscovering themselves, their bonds of good neighbourliness, kinship and being responsible for their collective well-being. The two communities then buried their hostilities over the piece of land. We further praised them for setting a decent example because other bloody ethnic tensions were tearing apart communities in the Rwenzori, yet they had chosen the path of peace. 

Sadly, seven years later, we’ve run full circle and are back to the bloody feuds that had previously left up to 90 people killed in the skirmishes. But government, perhaps takes the bigger portion of blame. Given that we have we had flare-ups in July 2014, June 2017, and January 2019, it is clear that government slept on its cardinal role of protecting lives and property of citizens as the conflict has brewed on.

To its credit, government has set up two separate ad hoc committees to inquire into the land fights and recommend a durable solution. The Gen Moses Ali-led inquiry fell by the way side, was taken up Premier Ruhakana Rugunda, it also faltered and was assumed by Speaker Jacob Oulanyah, but all have yielded nothing.

Over all, the best option for resolution of the Madi and Acholi feuds are in their own hands.

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