In 1966, Bunyoro kingdom leased out 50sq miles of land to the government of Uganda to set up the Kyangwali Refugee settlement Camp for the Banyarwanda refugees. The area where the refugees were settled had settlements and gardens in the neighborhood belonging to the indigenous communities who were nationals. Both the nationals and refugees settled peacefully with the refugees buying food from the indigenous people until 1998 when the Prime minister came to map-out boundaries
of the settlement and the community. Land grabbing is no new thing in Uganda. For many years now, many people have been forcefully removed from their land. Some compensated and others left in the middle of nowhere with nothing.
Families have been displaced and abandoned, children have dropped out of school leading to early marriages, people have committed suicide and others have been beaten and killed in the process. We had a solidarity visit with the Kyangwali community and it was just another week of cries and lamentations from the local communities of Bukinda and Katikara, Kyangwali sub-county in Kikuube district western Uganda- a new district which was created in July this year. It was a tough week, from occupying the RDC’s office premises for four nights to walking to Kampala to meet the president then being arrested and finally meeting the Speaker of parliament, Rebecca Kadaga. Bukinda and Katikala are comprised of 28 and 7 villages respectively. These villages are homes to the people being threatened to be evicted by the UPDF and the Office of the Prime Minister. They harbor people of different tribes who have lived peacefully for many years without any tribal differences but Bafaki is trying to instill hatred and conflict in them based on tribal lines.