Netters:
For sometime now, the press has had reports of ethnic strife, e.g. in Teso, Kibaale District and elsewhere.
In Buganda, the main enemy is none other Museveni and his monolithic Movement. A ploy he is using is to hide be "development projects" in a diabolical plan to make the baganda landaless.
A recent example of Kaguta's plan in action is for the GOVERNMENT of Uganda, which already owns half of Buganda's surface area -- thanks to the Land Act -- to buy us out in Ssese Islands (aka Kalangala District).
That is, Museveni is using our very own taxes to make us landless, and further impoverish Buganda and the Baganda, under the guise that the government is going to use the land to grow palms to produce palm oil! (see article on the so called Vegetable Oil Project below).
In the early part of last century, COLONIALISTS, argued on the best way to develop Uganda, via agriculture.
Some imperialists favored the adoption of the Kenya Model, in which the indigenous citizens (natives) were confined on "reserves" in the more inhospitable parts of the country, much like animals, from which they were to supply cheap labor to White owned large scale farms (shamba) that were to grow cash crops (esp. coffee & cotton in our case), supposedly more efficiently than Africans could.
Yet others favored the West African Model, in which the African grew cash-crops on his/her small shamba, as being more beneficial to the African in that with improved income, s/he would enjoy a better standard of living, while paying taxes to finance development. Fortunately, circumstances conspired such that this method was adopted. The rest, as they say, is history.
Some references on this include:
- D.A. Low, Uganda: Establishment of the Protectorate, 1894-1919.
- Ehrlich, The Uganda Economy, 1903-1945
- R.C. Pratt, Administration and Politics in Uganda, 1919-1945 (especially this one)
All in History of East Africa (Vol. 2), Edited by V. Harlow, E.M Chilver & A Smith (1965). Oxford, Clarendon Press.
- D. A. Lury, Dayspring Mishandled? The Uganda Economy 1945-1960 in History of East Africa (Vol. 3). Edited by D.A. Low & A. Smith (1976) Oxford, Clarendon Press.
Young, M. Crawford; Sherman, Neal P. & Rose, Tim H. 1981. Cooperatives and Development: Agricultural Politics in Ghana and Uganda. Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Press.
1. Where will those who are now landless and pocketfuls of the ever-falling shillings settle, in the long term and what effect will they have in their new settlement areas? And yet a Muganda, one Dr. Nsibambi, is the Prime Minister of Uganda and one Dr. Bukenya � another Muganda is the Minister for the Presidency! How come they (and others not named) do not fight to uphold Buganda�s interests?
2. If the government needs lands, why doesn�t it use the land which it already owns?
3. Since cotton, coffee and tea are all important cash crops, how come that, todate, I have never heard of government coffee farm in, say Bugisu, let alone Buganda? Where is the government�s tea farm? Where is its cotton farm?
4. Since cattle are are just as important, does the Uganda government own half of the cattle in Ankole (Teso or Karamoja for that matter )?
5. Does the government own half of the land in Ankole or elsewhere, as it does in Buganda? Why is this so?
6. If the government actually need the particular land in Ssese Islands, how come it does not or cannot negotiate lease agreements with the land owners, whereby they might be able to earn an annual income and even a living from their land?
7. If the Baganda (and other Uganda nationalities) can grow cotton, coffee, tea, etc; how come they cannot somehow learn to grow these damned palm oil trees?
8. Do palm tree only grow Ssese Islands? [someone consult J. W. Eggeling 1940. The indigenous trees of the Uganda Protectorate. Entebbe, Uganda, Printed by the government printer (revised 1950)
or the 1957 Exotic forest trees in Uganda : statement prepared by the Uganda Forest Department for the 7th British Commonwealth Forestry Conference,1957. Entebbe, Uganda : Govt. Printer
or the 1981 "A field guide to Uganda forest trees" by Alan Hamilton.
I will consult Katende et. al.'s 1995 Useful trees and shrubs for Uganda: identification, propagation, and management for agricultural and pastoral communities. Nairobi, Kenya : Regional Soil Conservation Unit.]
9. And, why are the Baganda in government silent as we are being systematically disposessed and disenfranchised?
Am I the only one who smell a big rat?
Gavumenti eguze ettaka ku bukadde 232
KALANGALA
Bya Musasi wa Bukedde
GAVUMENTI eyawaddeyo ceeke ya bukadde 232 ezaasasuddwa abaawaddeyo ettaka okusimbako ebinazi mu bizinga by'e Buggala mu Kalangala. Ceeke zino zaatwaliddwa akwanaganya ekitongole kya Vegetable Oil Project, Muky. Connie Masaba eyazikwasizza bannannyinizo n'agamba nti entegeka z'okulima ebinazi zaasasuliddwa banka y'ensi yonna ng'eyitira mu Gavumenti ya Uganda. Ettaka lino lijja kukwasibwa ab'ekitongole kino omwaka ogujja.
Published on: Thursday, 7th November, 2002
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ps:
For what is is worth, one of the Leakeys in Kenya tried to grow a plant -- from the the family Euphorbiaceae -- for oil (fuel, latex?) in the back in the 1980's. I doubt that it wass a fruitful venture.
This fascinating family of plants has quite a bit of literature on it, e.g.
Susan Carter and A.R. -Smith. 1988 Euphorbiaceae., Part 2. Rotterdam : Balkema on behalf of the East African Governments.
Oudejans, Rob C. H. M. 1993 World catalogue of species names published in the tribe Euphorbieae (Euphorbiaceae) with their geographical distribution: cumulative supplement I. Scherpenzeel, NL : R.C.H.M.
Govaerts, Rafael. David G. Frodin and Alan Radcliffe-Smith; assisted by Susan Carter ... [et al.] 2000 World checklist and bibliography of Euphorbiaceae (with Pandaceae). Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2000. 4 v.
and the its economic botany & chemistry has occupied quite a few minds, far and wide.
The botanically challenged will be relieved to know that this family includes at least one plant that originated in S. America but now quite common all over Africa and the world in the tropics, and which every one knows about (by various names):
Manihot. spp., manioc, tapioca, muwogo, mawogo, mahogo, bailo, cassava, etc. It's cousin is inedible (cassava itself can be lethal! cyanic acid?) is para in Luganda.
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