{UAH} KIGA BWOYI, HOW COULD YOU MISS THE BOAT? Amin attempts to resettle Bakiga in Karamoja
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Amin attempts to resettle Bakiga in Karamoja
An illustration of former president Idi Amin dancing with a group of Bakiga. ILLUSTRATION BY DANNY BARONGO
Former president Idi Amin wanted Bakiga to migrate to Karamoja after being informed of overpopulation in their homeland Kabale.
In April 1971, Amin visited Kigezi District as it was called then. He had officially gone to open the Kisoro Paratroop Dropping Zone. While there, he proposed that since Kabale was densely populated, the Bakiga should be transferred and resettled in Karamoja, in the north-east, which was a fertile but sparsely populated region.
"My government is already aware of the problems facing people of Kigezi and particularly the land problems. Unfortunately land is one of those commodities which are limited in quantity so what a country like Uganda with fixed, well defined boundaries has to do with the amount of land God has given to its people is try to use it as economically and share it out as best as we can," Amin told the audience in Kabale.
He added: "At this juncture, I want to make a special commendation to those people who have wisely moved out from the densely populated areas of southern and central Kigezi and who are now settled in the northern parts [Rukungiri and Kanungu] of the district."
Amin also explained that the resettlement scheme had shown that Bakiga were enterprising people.
"Some of these people have resettled in other districts in Uganda such as Tooro and Ankole. We are aware that these people are extremely happy and are more economically prosperous than they were before. Their enterprising spirit has proved that one can live peacefully anywhere in Uganda," Amin observed.
When the Bakiga were first resettled in Kihihi, now Kanungu District, by the colonial government in early 1950's, the area was bushy and forested harbouring fierce wild animals.
However by end of Amin's era in 1979, Kihihi Town was more developed and vibrant than, for example, Buyanja and Kebisoni trading centres located in a relatively better geographical environment near Rukungiri District headquarters.
"I want other people in Kigezi to follow their meritorious example. You should feel free to come and settle anywhere in Uganda since the whole of Uganda belongs to you," Amin told the Bakiga.
"My government intends to embark on resettlement scheme for some people to move from the overpopulated areas of Uganda to the sparsely populated ones. Apart from land shortage in some areas of Kigezi is also the acute problem of land fragmentation," Amin stated.
Incentives to migrate to Karamoja
Amin knew that it would not be easy to persuade the Bakiga to relocate from Kigezi to Karamoja. So his government provided some incentives to encourage the resettlement scheme.
"To encourage our people from Kigezi to move to Karamoja, and possibly to other areas where there is sparse population, my government would be prepared to help these new settlers by not asking them to pay poll tax for the first two years while they are settling into their new surrounding, and for the first six months, while their crops are being harvested, free supplies of food will be available. In this they will not suffer and will be able to get off to a good start in their surroundings," Amin promised the Bakiga on April 30, 1971.
Besides free food supplies and exemption of poll tax, Amin's military government was also going to offer free transport to the settlers from Kabale to Karamoja.
"To assist these new settlers even further, my government will help to transport them, their families and possessions to the new areas and at the same time will also provide maximum protection as a sign of our desire to help them and make them realise we are one people in one Uganda," Amin pledged.
It is not clear why resettling of the Bakiga in Karamoja did not take materialise. When Sunday Monitor recently asked Festo Karwemera, a Kigezi historian, about Amin's government attempt to resettle Bakiga in Karamoja, the 92-year-old said he does not recall such a programme.
However, he recalls that in the early 1950's during the resettlement of Bakiga from Kabale to Rukungiri in north Kigezi, a prominent local sub-county chief Ephraim Mbareba worked tirelessly in identification, registration and relocation of the settlers.
Nonetheless, on January 22, 1974, while at the function to mark the third anniversary of the second Republic of Uganda hosted in Kabale, Amin was quoted by the Voice of Uganda newspaper of January 25, 1974, telling the Bakiga that the minister of Provincial Administration, Brig Moses Ali, who had accompanied him, would immediately start resettling them in Karamoja.
Bakiga would have been Karamoja investors
Owing to the British colonial government sentiment after the 1899 insurgency in the area, Karamoja was neglected. To date, the area remains the least developed compared to the rest of the regions in Uganda.
In 1971, then president Amin observed that the Bakiga were very enterprising people but lacked enough land as agriculturalists to utilise their skills and energy to develop and get rich.
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