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
-----
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.
