Photos: Sam Lawino\Josephine Apira
Renewed attacks on Acholi farmers in Apaa, in northern Uganda, left four dead, 13 injured and 35 houses burnt.
Kilak South MP Gilbert Olanya complained that police refused to release the bodies, until forced to hand them over. He said: “Uganda police are busy arresting dead people yet no attackers were arrested.”
This area is beset by a land dispute. Last Thursday’s (31) were the latest in a line of attacks, going back to 2011.
A month before the latest incident, Amuru MPs told an online event how the community took coffins to the Acholi Paramount Chief’s palace, when the President visited Gulu, in May, to show they would die for their land.
Gilbert Olanya said a promised judicial inquiry had still not reached Apaa. Lucy Akello said an Oxfam team seeking community views had been refused access from Amuru and escorted out before they could speak to people.
Olanya added that more than 10 kilometres from Apaa Trading Centre, “army officers are escorting the Madi community to replace the homes of the Acholi people.” He added: “They chase away the Acholi from their land.”
One seasoned observer rated chances of a government inquiry helping local people at “absolute zero”.
“Houses are being burnt, killings are happening. Sometimes they waylay you on the way and you are killed”, he said. “The survivors are the ones arrested and charged and the murderers are left scot-free.” He added: “So Apaa is a custody state, is an isolated society, within Uganda, that you cannot hear a voice from there. You speak with a razor on your throat.”
He said soldiers had been told to expect rebels, only to find it was land conflict. The place was like a concentration camp, with extreme human-rights abuses and forced silence, he added.
He had heard how Madi, from Sudan, some soldiers, had been brought in to take over the land, risking creating dangerous communities, while central government leaders just worked for money and position with no interest in solving Apaa’s problems.
Uganda’s Parliament redesignated the area for trophy game hunting, rather than human habitation, in 2002, when the Acholi living there had been forced into concentration camps during a brutal, 20-year civil war.
Acholi MPs foiled an attempted mass eviction in 2012. A naked protest, by elderly Acholi women, helped stall a government bid to move the area from Amuru, in Acholiland, to Adjumani, in West Nile, home of the Madi tribe, in 2015. Government forces attacked a peaceful meeting of farmers there five months later, shooting, beating, bombing and tear-gassing local people.
In 2017 the government annexed the area to Adjumani, although a Parliamentary inquiry had not yet reported. Amuru access has long been sealed off. Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja gave Apaa’s community three months to leave in February but communal protests and Amuru MPs saw President Museveni suspend this and order a judicial inquiry instead.
Important note: There is a crowdfunding campaign to help complete Out From Under Us, a feature documentary about the land grabs, human-rights abuses and alleged genocide in Acholiland. The campaign is due to close tomorrow, Friday 8 September. Please support the film at https://greenlit.com/project/out-under-us
Learn more about the Out From Under Us documentary from this Black Star News article.
