{UAH} Police, soldiers whip Amuru residents
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10:15 AM |
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TUESDAY AUGUST 15 2017
Police, soldiers whip Amuru residents
Lands minister Betty Amongi while meeting land owners in Kololo, Amuru Sub-county in Amuru District on Monday. Photo by Cissy Makumbi
Amuru- A number of Amuru residents have been arrested while some were flogged or fled on their own during an impromptu security crackdown that has paralysed commercial and farming activities in Kololo parish.
The assault on civilians allegedly by police and soldiers happened on Sunday night in areas where the government wants to forcibly survey 10,000 hectares of arable land for Madhvani Group to set up a sugarcane plantation and sugar factory.
Government officials separately accused the project opponents, reportedly on incitement by sections of Members of Parliament from Acholi sub-region, of intimidating, destroying or looting possessions of individuals willing to give their land.
In the latest development, hundreds of children remained out of class after police set up a base at Payot Community School and crime preventers occupied Kololo Primary School until yesterday.
"We don't agree with the manner in which our land is going to be surveyed. They wrote our names (as consenting land owners) without our knowledge of what was going to happen and we are now being treated like animals," said 57-year-old Florence Lalam.
She is not the only one distraught.
Sande Oringa, 23, said was relocating his family to Gulu town over safety concerns.
"We are not happy with what the government is trying to force on us," he said, "Our colleagues have been beaten and arrested and our parents cannot access farmlands."
Regional Police Commander Bosco Otim confirmed the arrests, which he attributed to last week's clashes, but declined to disclose particulars of the suspects in police custody.
Government placed the area under security lockdown after disaffected women among protestors stripped in anger and blocked government bureaucrats led by Lands minister Betty Amongi from starting the survey exercise.
Ms Amongi, who camped in northern Uganda since last Tuesday, retreated to Gulu Town where she on Sunday announced emerging consensus following a series of back-to-back meetings with cultural, religious, civic, political leaders and security agencies.
She yesterday raced to Amuru under the cover of darkness, accompanied by Uganda Police Force Director for Operations Asuman Mugenyi, and announced that the survey exercise will begin today.
"The process will begin with the verification of [the particulars] of the 101 people who consented to give their land," she told journalists in Amuru District.
This newspaper understands that the minister and lawmakers under the Acholi Parliament Group will today hold a crisis meeting in Kampala to resolve differences and incorporate concerns of dissenters, among them, the formation of a Trust to handle the land matters on behalf of the community with Madhvani Group. Some 10 representatives of land owners are expected to attend.
The proposed Amuru project has divided leaders in greater Acholi and, in some instances, turned neighbours against one another in an area where land is generally communally owned.
Physical features such as streams, anthills and trees that defined borders of individually-owned land disappeared when land remained untouched during the Lord's Resistance Army rebellion.
A toxic mix of displaced persons' memory lapses, politicking and growing commercial appetite for arable tracts has fuelled land conflicts in the area, stymying Madhvani Group's attempt to acquire land there for a decade now.
Police's Mugenyi said last evening that they were deploying more troops to back up those massed in Amuru on the weekend and ensure the boundaries are opened without incident.
"Surveyors are not police to protect themselves. We have seen many areas where surveyors have been attacked. We are here (in Amuru) to protect the surveyors until the exercise is done," he said.
45-year-old Alex Ochaka, a resident, said it was irregular for the government to impose development on people.
"They (government officials) should come and explain to us the modalities of compensation and other terms in regard to the investment," he added.
RPC Otim, however, said that "people should stay calm and not fear. We are here to maintain law and order". Security forces yesterday set three roadblocks between Gulu town and Kololo in Amuru and searched every vehicle plying on the 120-kilometre road to ensure legislators accused of inciting the population never reached the hotspot unlike when they sneaked there last week.
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