| KAPCHORWA
The Uganda Wildlife Authority effort to restore the national park colonial boundaries has left over 1,211 people in Kapchorwa landless, the district chairman of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change, Mr Peter Kamuron, has said.
Kamuron said the Benet of Kapchorwa have been rendered landless and are squatters on their own land, living in camps under poor sanitation.
While government addresses the issue of internally displaced people living in camps in northern Uganda due to the Lords Resistance Army rebellion, there are over 1,000 Benet people of Kapchorwa displaced by UWA living in camps constructed on a rock who urgently need help, Kamuron said.
He was addressing a political rally at Kapchorwa Boma Ground on July 2, shortly before the launch of FDC offices in Kapchorwa town.
Kamuron is a former National Resistance Council Member for Kween County.
He said when the government transferred the authority of Mt. Elgon National Park to UWA in 19
90/92,
UWA made stringent rules that left many people landless.
Tension between UWA and the local residents is surging as UWA is in the process of restoring the national park boundaries as they were during the colonial period.
Kamuron told the FDC team led by the interim chairperson, Ms Salaamu Musumba, that the government had done nothing to end the Karimojong cattle rustling in which 1,700 people were killed and 34,000 displaced and over 8,000 head of cattle stolen in the last four years.
He said Ngenge sub-county that lies between Nakapiripiriti and Sironko has been deserted because the armed Karimojong have turned it into a cattle rustling corridor.
Musumba said since the Movement government has not given them security for 20 years, they should abandon it.
A government that does not provide security for its citizens and does not bother about the living conditions of its people is as good as dead. This is the time the people of Kapchorwa should dam
p the
Movement government, Musumba said. |