The latest violence in Kasese, which killed between 60 and 104 people, exploded against a backdrop of questionable government foresight amid simmering tensions between rival cultural identities.
The area is occupied by various tribes such as the Basongora and Bakonzo, the Banyabindi and Batooro, the Bamba and Babwisi. The tensions have persisted for years, but last month’s bloodletting has been blamed on government failure to smell danger in the swelling numbers of royal guards of the Obusinga Bwa Rwenzururu (OBR) – a Bakonzo-dominated cultural institution led by King Charles Wesley Mumbere.
With time, some of the guards – who reportedly have no decent salaries – became a law unto themselves, ‘taxing’ locals for sustenance and imposing restrictions. This led to the guards clashing with the police, which lost 14 officers.
Thus challenged, the police and the army attacked Mumbere’s palace – ostensibly to get out unruly royal guards. The raid left behind gory pictures of houses burning, naked charred bodies, and a nation puzzled.
Earlier, in 2014, the CROSS-CULTURAL FOUNDATION OF UGANDA (CCFU) had produced a report about conflict in the Rwenzori region. Below is the first of two parts of an extract from the report, which explains the factors behind the Rwenzori region’s lingering conflicts.
The roots of conflict in the Rwenzori region can be traced back centuries, to the movements of peoples in and out of the area well before the advent of colonialism.
While information is sketchy, the history surrounding these population movements has been used until the present day to justify violent conflict and the legitimacy of different ethnic groups to a stake in available resources, most especially land. This pre-colonial period is thus still frequently referred to by the different ethnic groups in the region, as they trace their ancestry and establish their legitimacy.
This state of population flux was more or less frozen by the advent of colonial rule. The early colonialists could, however, only consolidate their rule by relying on local allies, in this case the newly-re-established Tooro kingdom, whose ascendance was then reinforced throughout a region already settled by several other ethnic groups.
The later colonial period also saw the creation of forest reserves and national parks in the region, resulting in the forcible eviction of many prior residents.
The end of colonialism exposed the fractious nature of the Tooro kingdom, highlighted by the walk-out of the Bakonzo and Bamba leaders from its parliament in 1962, claiming under-representation within the institution.
These leaders soon thereafter started the Rwenzururu rebellion, mostly legitimized by the feeling of oppression said to be experienced, to varying degrees, by all the non-Batooro in the entire region.
The eventual settlement of the Rwenzururu issue, initially in the mid-1960s, then in 1982 following the creation of the new districts of Kasese and Bundibugyo in 1974, only led to a relatively-short period of peace. Armed groups, the National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (NALU) and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) succeeded each other in the late 1980s and 1990s.
In 2009, the government recognised the Obusinga bwa Rwenzururu (OBR) as the cultural institution, primarily of the Bakonzo, with a king at its head, the Omusinga.
Over these years of open or silent conflict, the consequences have been grave for the various groups attempting to coexist in the Rwenzori region.
Foremost have been the losses of lives and property in the course of the various episodes of violence. The 1998 Kichwamba massacre, when more than 80 young people lost their lives at the Technical Institute, is still present in our collective memory.
More recently, people have also lost their lives and property in many parts of the region due to local fights over access to land, including violent episodes between pastoralists (Basongora and Batuku) and agriculturalists (Bakonzo and others). Over the years, several communities have also been displaced, deprived of services – including education – and want to return to what they consider their ancestral land.
These violent events have also led to less tangible outcomes, including a culture of violence, underlined by the prevalence of stereotypes and superiority/inferiority complexes and the emergence of youth vigilante groups.
The establishment of the OBR has – contrary to expectations – led to a period of renewed conflict, with non-Bakonzo groups in the region now decrying ‘Bakonzo dominance’, claiming their own cultural institutions, as well as another set of districts with strong ethnic undertones.
Fears are often expressed in the region that violent inter-ethnic conflicts are not far from the surface. As one of the respondents put it, “We are now accepting low level of conflicts as normal”. Another, pointing out the emergence of new sources of conflict around the discovery of oil and gas deposits, sums up: “The kettle is on the boil”.
A COMPLEX CONFLICT
While generally recognising a period of relatively peaceful coexistence prior to colonialism, the different ethnic groups in the Rwenzori region have divergent accounts as to the causes and evolution of the series of conflicts of the post-colonial era.
The existence of these varied, ethnically-informed narratives provides a first step in understanding the roots of conflict in the region. Respondents most often mentioned cultural differences as a source of conflict, usually tracing them back to the colonial period and the centrality of the Tooro kingdom, with its control over several other ethnic groups, besides the Batooro (Bakonzo, Banyabindi, Basongora, Bamba, etc.).
Lines of division were then clearly defined between the Batooro and these other ethnic groups. The former, for instance, insisted on the wide use of their language, including in schools, to the exclusion of other languages, and tended to socially-exclude the other ethnic groups who accused the Batooro of mistreatment and dominance.
Intermarriages between the Batooro and the other ethnic groups were not common and the former occupied decision-making posts. The youth of other ethnic groups were brought up to believe that the Batooro were mostly oppressors.
This perception was, in the eyes of many, reaffirmed when the Tooro kingdom Constitution explicitly excluded non-Batooro from leadership positions, resulting in the Bakonzo and Bamba walkout from Parliament and the start of the Rwenzururu rebellion, which brought together the Bakonzo, Bamba and others to ‘secede’ from the kingdom.
This narrative, with its emphasis on cultural differences, finds further resonance in the respondents’ description of the events of the subsequent decades, this time in relation to the ‘victorious’ Bakonzo and their neighbours.
While the Rwenzururu rebellion was a violent and marked assertion of cultural identity and autonomy, leading, among others, to the establishment of new districts and the eventual recognition of the Rwenzururu Kingdom, remarks are made among the non-Bakonzo to the effect that there is no ethnic group called the ‘Rwenzururu’ and that it was, therefore, erroneous on the part of government to recognise the OBR, ostensibly as the cultural institution of the Bakonzo (although it is pointed out within the OBR institution that its founder, Isaiah Mukirania, deliberately avoided naming the institution after a particular ethnic group but, rather, after the mountain glaciers to include all marginalised communities in the area at that time).
History in a sense thus repeated itself, with a focus on culturally-inspired conflicts, but this time between the Bakonzo and their neighbours, with a wide range of cultural differences mentioned.
With respect to the Banyabindi, differences that are regularly highlighted include language, marital and naming practices, dress, and selection of food, although their cultural ‘proximity’ to the Batooro is equally often pointed out.
For another group, the Basongora, in addition to language and cultural practices, traditional occupation and lifestyle as cattle keepers with distinct customs and spiritual beliefs, are underlined to distinguish them from the Bakonzo.
Such differences quickly descend into stereotypes and [are] used to explain that not all participated in the ‘liberation movement’. A group of Bakonzo elders, for instance, stated: “The Banyabindi despised the Bakonzo as backward; so, they did not join our rebellion”.
With the establishment of the OBR, a widespread perception has emerged among the non-Bakonzo ethnic groups in the region that they have been marginalised within the traditional governance system, an exclusion viewed by some as retribution for not having taken part in the rebellion:
“Our Banyabindi forefathers did not help their Bakonzo counterparts to fight for freedom and as such the Banyabindi are not part of the current administration and leadership in Kasese district”. Further, as had been the case with Batooro, the Bakonzo are said to impose the widespread use of Lhukonzo language and of their naming practices on the other ethnic groups.
This is an emotive issue: as a Musongora stated, “When we heard that the district council had passed a resolution to teach Lhukonzo in lower primary schools, we knew that our language was buried. We felt it was a plan to assimilate the Basongora into Bakonzo so that we get extinct.”
In addition, the non-Bakonzo feel excluded from access to land, to scholarships from the President’s Office, from employment opportunities in the local governance system, and from political representation.
Such perceptions are countered by representatives of the dominant group: some Bakonzo point out that other groups have representatives in the OBR parliament, that no Munyabindi has been evicted from land by Bakonzo and that some district councillors are Basongora and Banyabindi. A group of Bakonzo youth met explained: “They say they are marginalised, but they do not want to participate”.
Local leaders reject accusations of unequal provision of services and point out that “there have been deliberate efforts to implement projects in areas of Banyabindi and Basongora communities, such as the construction of valley dams for cattle keepers who are Basongora.”
Another “layer” of cultural identity stimulates conflicts amongst the Bakonzo themselves. While the Rwenzururu rebellion was fought in the name of the entire ethnic group, not all were involved or equally supportive.
As a result, upon the recognition of the OBR, new lines of division have emerged between the freedom fighters, mainly residing in the mountains, and the lowland Bakonzo who were less active in the rebellion and were known to coexist more easily with other ethnic groups in the plains.
While the Omusinga is expected to consult a council of elders on community concerns and governance issues, a tendency to consult mainly chiefs and elders who were part of the rebellion and less so with those in the lowlands was, for instance, mentioned by some respondents.
MINDSETS AND SOCIAL DIMENSION
Recent history has also led to reversals in social status that are not easy for all to accept. In the distant past the Bakonzo were for instance said to coexist harmoniously with the Basongora, but in a subservient position.
The former were known to construct shelters for them in the plains – before returning to the mountains upon payment for this service. With the establishment of the OBR, the Bakonzo sought to assert their authority, leading to resentment and tensions, especially when the Bakonzo attempt to settle in the lowlands.
In July 2012, when the Busongora cultural institution attempted to express its distinctiveness by hoisting a traditional flag, this was forcefully brought down by Bakonzo youth, taken along with the royal drum and destroyed. A large sum of money for the construction of the leader’s palace was also allegedly stolen.
The police intervened, and while the Basongora claim not to have reacted violently, they remain offended and demand an apology from the Bakonzo as the first step towards restoring peace in the region, short of which, in the words of the head of the cultural institution, conflict “will remain a chronic disease”.
Interviewees also mentioned silent tensions and conflicts between and within the Batooro and the other ethnic groups borne not only from historical claims of oppression and marginalisation, but from inferiority and superiority complexes derived from their cultural affiliation and reinforced by the colonial administration.
The Batooro, for instance, are still said to consider themselves superior to the other ethnic groups in the Rwenzori region, emphasising their advanced non-formal education, traditional governance system and organisation. The Bakonzo were for long perceived as inferior as they generally offered labour services to the Batooro.
During the colonial era, they were, for instance, assigned manual work while the Batooro were given clerical work and preferential treatment. These reinforced the complexes that prevail to date and provide a source of latent conflict in the region, with a tendency on the part of the Bakonzo to paint a uniformly-negative picture of “Tooro domination” although, as a group of Bakonzo elders acknowledged, “OBR forgets too quickly that Tooro educated us”.
Within the other groups, the Basongora are also said to continue to consider themselves ‘superior’ to the Bakonzo and closer to the Bahima with whom they share a common language and cattle keeping tradition.
To this picture must be added the feeling, among the Basongora and Banyabindi especially, of displaced societies (especially by the now-dominant Bakonzo) whose collective identity and cultural institutions have been undermined by years of oppression – “we are victims of cultural genocide” said one of the respondents, pointing out that people resort to alcoholism, to violence, and to a denial of their cultural heritage, with some resorting to assimilation into the community of Bakonzo.
A Munyabindi used equally strong words: “The Bakonzo wronged us during the Rwenzururu rebellion days. They killed our people, confiscated our property, including land, and displaced us”.
Claims of dominance can, however, easily be brushed aside by the Bakonzo: thus the interviewed youth dismissed any secessionist desire on the part of OBR and their elders rejected the Banyabindi’s description of marginalisation by stating that “they were unwilling to go for education; so, they have not been able to access jobs – although the few educated ones are given jobs”.
Look out for part 2, of this report, which delves deeper into the tensions between the groups in the Rwenzori subregion, which led to the latest bloodshed.