Mabira's
Resistance To Monopoly Of Mehtas In Museveni's Uganda
By Vidya Bhushan
Rawat
08 May, 2007
Countercurrents.org
When
I got an opportunity to visit Uganda to attend an international conference,
the first thing that came in minds the issue of Indians in Uganda. Coincidently,
exactly a week before my departure to Entebbe, Uganda saw worst kind
of riots in Kampala in the post Idi Amin era. The news of an Indian
killed send shock waves through out the country. The Indian media reported
as if the native Ugandans have turned to racism against the 'poor' Indians.
It failed to report that two Ugandans were killed in rioting. How can
a community which has been victim of racism in the past and still facing
discrimination in its own country could be termed as racist just because
it lost its patience and indulged in rioting? There is a need to understand
the issue of blacks, apartheid and Indian domination in the African
countries and any analysis based on our 'nationalistic' pattern would
be bias and unfair.
Uganda is a growing democracy
despite army's control over power. In the streets you can still find
big appeals on behalf of the election commission to participate in the
political process. Among many FM channels, you will get political discussion
going and the president and prime minister being lampooned by the people.
It is the growing sign of democracy. However, it is important as what
happened to Uganda that the entire country united and condemned and
that there is more than what was presented to us.
Issue of Self Respect of
Native Ugandans
Idi Amin is not much respected in Uganda. There might be some pockets
where he may be adored, probably among the Islamic tribal community
but Ugandans have moved far ahead from that narrow idea of Idi Amin,
which destroyed their freedom and lampoonised the entire governance
process. Commentators called him a government owned by a minority group
without any mandate from the people, yet on one count, I found many
native Ugandans were appreciative of him. It is clear that Amin's predecessor
Milton Obote-1, had actually created another imperial class in his country.
The Indians, particularly Gujaratis who went to Uganda and East Africa
as laborers to construct the train track between Kampala and Nairobi
and other East African countries by the British, later monopolized the
Ugandan business and mercantile sector has now become a bone of contention.
Not that Indians do not work hard but more than this, there habit of
exclusivity and differentiate on colour. Yes, Indians are highly colour
conscious. One they recognize your colour matches their own, then they
shift to the caste loyalties. And when I was speaking to Ugandan friends
about the Mabira Forest Controversy, many facts came into light.
Deo Sfekitooleko, is a teacher
by profession at the University of Makarere, which is one of the largest
Universities in East Africa with more than 40,000 students doing various
courses. Deo is Chairman of Uganda Humanist Association and very radical
humanists who feel that the Christian Evangelical forces are equally
a threat to Africa and its secular cultural values. The violence against
Indians and Asians worried Deo but he confirms that it was not exactly
the case what was being reported. " The idea behind the demonstration
was good as Ugandans were demonstrating against their National Property
being given to foreigner and also destruction of a great forest which
has enormous value for Uganda.'
Responding to my question
whether he felt that there was a similarity of pattern on attack against
the Indian and Asians, Deo said that he found some similarity with the
Idi Amin's days but Amin cannot be blamed for everything. The fact of
the matter is that Milton Obette-1 has been supporting the Asians particularly
the Indians and sidelining the Africans. That was the reason that when
Amin's forces took over Uganda, he became an instant hero as he threw
the Asians out of Uganda. But then he went to extreme endangering the
progress of Uganda.
There is nothing particular
against Asians or Indians, suggest Deo. 'The problem lie with the Asian
culture and values. The do not associate with Africans outside business.
They may have a good relationship, employee-employer relationship in
business. They may have good business relations with Africans but outside
that there has never been an effort to build of social bonding. No interaction
with the Africans. No marriages. So, one can say there is a complete
cultural barrier with Asians and particularly with Indians who have
a caste system and they bring it here also. This life of exclusion which
Indians live make it difficult for them to associate with the African
community who they consider as inferior. The Europeans and Americans
also come here and appreciate our values and culture, mixed up with
us. Their men can marry with our women and vice versa. Therefore there
is not much against them in the socio-cultural front but Asians have
come here as a businessmen and nothing more than the same. They remain
confined to monitory gains and are here to earn without any sense of
belonging to the country.'
Deo's outspokenness is not
without facts. As I go around the streets of Kamapla, I find lesser
Indian. But once in the Old Kampala area, you will find the Muslims
habitats, the Bombay Road, The Delhi garden as well as Bombay Garden,
basically localities of the Indians. On the left hand side, there is
a Gurudwara named as Ramgarhia Gurudwara. My mind swings into action
that this must be a Dalit Gurudwara and I decided that I must visit
them and find what is cooking inside. At the gate, a native guard stops
my Ugandan friends and me. My Ugandan friends skip and allow me to go
in.
Condition of the victims
of (Kabootarbaji) illegal human trafficking
It is evening time and I
can hear the beautiful Sabad-Kirtan inside the Gurudwara. After a short
while, I meet a middle-aged woman Raj Pal Kaur who is an Indian immigrant
here. I tell her about my motive to understand how Indian feel here
and what were their relationships. Raj is very happy that a fellow Indian
has come from Delhi and therefore invites me to her house.
Her husband accompany me
to their house in Bombay Garden. The guy is a mechanic in a local company
and his inability to converse in Hindi is equally baffling. Her speaks
with me in native Punjabi and narrates how the Indians are living here
with 'bhaichara'. Once inside the house, one find two blacks, a very
young teenage boy and a girl are doing the household chores. I am told
most of the Indians still keep the blacks in their houses as domestic
servant.
Inside the house, the story
is similar to that of any Punjabi family who aspire to grow up in Canada.
Raj kaur and her husband along with a daughter were trapped into 'dream
Canada' by a travel agent. They were dumped in Uganda. With great difficulty
they established themselves and started recovering. Old habits die-hard.
Once again another expatriate Punjabi robbed them of whatever they had
by alluring them to take to Canada. They end up in paying up over USD
9000/- by selling their household items and Raj's gold ornaments. For
many days, she could not work. Situation turned volatile for them in
an entirely alien country. But a remarkable thing about the Punabi woman
is her strength of working hard. Raj decided that her husband's salary
was not enough for running their home and paying back the debt.
Raj Kaur today fetch 15 paying
guests from India. She takes care of them, provide home cooked food
there for an amount of Rs 5,000/- per person. This provides her help
her children's fees in school.
Once inside the house, I
am shocked to hear the tales of Indians who are brought by the Kabootarbaji
business rampant in Punjab and Haryana. Surjeet Ram, 27, is a graduate
from Jullandhar, Punjab. He paid Rs 4,50 lakhs to the travel agent.
Who promised him to Italy? Surender's father is an agricultural labour.
He is a Dalit Sikh though he does not have long hair. Surendra today
is living in a very difficult situation. being helped by a local Sikh
woman who herself was victim of Kabootarbaji but now have obtained Ugandan
citizenship, this woman Raj Kaur run a paying guest house. Her story
is of a great struggle and how Indian cheat. Raj Kaur have two children.
her husband is a mechanic who cannot even speak Hindi. I met them at
a local Gurudwara in old Kampala when she said that I must narrate her
story of how an Indian took away USD 9000 after staying for nearly a
month at their place and promising them to take to Paris.
Surjeet Ram's story thought
that he was going to Italy but at the end he was asked to take a flight
to Entebbe. Since Uganda provide visa on arrival, this has become a
heaven for the travel agents to dupe their client, extort huge some
of money from the illiterate relatives.
Sudesh Kumar is just a matriculate
and is about 22 years of age. He comes from Kurushetra district of Haryana.
The travel agent promised him to get a job in Europe.
He also paid nearly four
lakh of rupees. He is in equally difficult situation.
Satpal Singh is 45 years
of age. He has younger children who are going to schools in Kurushetra.
He sold his land and paid Rs 7,50,000 to travel agent. The travel agent
promised that they will get a job in Europe but were dumped in Uganda.
It is equally shocking to
hear the narratives from these people how their travel agent came to
Uganda and stayed for a few days. He got the two guys arrested and extorted
another USD 2,500 each for their release. Because of rampant corruption,
police extract money from the foreigners.
Now, the travel agent have
taken their passports and disappeared. Every one of them is today living
in horror. They do not have any travel document today and fear that
they might get arrested and no body is there to take care of them except
Raj Kaur who herself is facing lot of troubles and had to sold her ornaments
and other household itmes just to get Canadian visa.
Gandhi belongs to us in Uganda
but abandon Gandhi in Gujarat?
Fifty kilometer from the Kampala city is another beautiful and planned
town of Jinja. Jinja is famous for its tourist resorts, planned streets
and the 'source' of river Nile, Ninja showcased Indian diaspora led
by the Gujaratis. A large number of Gujaratis were settled here and
build their mansions before Idi Amin asked them to leave Uganda. While
the biggest commercial building in Kampala city belongs to 'Bank of
Baroda', in Jinja you can find big mansions named after the Gujaratis.
At the source of river Nile,
I meet Rubina, a native Ugandan, who owns a shop of the handcraft items,
and ask her what is her reaction to recent anti Asian riots, which left
Indians concerned. She said,' The people of Uganda are not against Asians
or Indian in particular. We are friends but Asians must understand that
we cannot allow our forest and environment to be finished by private
corporations. It is not a war against Asians but efforts of the private
companies to loot the resources of the poor nations. You too have waged
a war against imperialism and we have been together in our struggle
against imperialism.'
While the success of Indians
or in other way round, Indian imperialism in the East African countries,
has hurt their relationship with local populace yet it reached the optimizing
point, when Mr Madhavan N Mehta, the director of Sugar Corporation of
Uganda Limited was granted more than 9000 Hectare of Mabira forest for
developing another sugar factory. It is no secret that Indians control
business in Uganda. While the Indians feel that since they are competent
and know to do their work better (a racist propagation of their superiority),
the native Ugandans feel that the Indian exploit their wide ranging
connections particularly in the big corporations and the World Bank
and other institutions. Mehta's SCOUL was a joint venture with the government
and earlier the government partnership was 49% but not it has reduced
to a mere 23%. Secondly, newspaper reports continue in Kampala that
Mehtas are not even the Ugandan Citizen but British Citizen. According
to The Monitor, Kampala, The sugar baron has already pocketed Shs29.7
billion as compensation from government. Sunday Monitor has learnt that
in 2002, Mehta demanded to be compensated for losses he had incurred
during the regimes of Idi Amin (1971-79) and Milton Obote (1980-85).'
The paper's report furthers
that Mehta and his company has never paid any taxes in Uganda during
the past 26 years. The compensation has become a controversial issue
with President Yoweri Museveni firmly supporting the industrialization
process. This 'sale off' triggered strong reaction in entire Uganda.
Already president Museveni's high handedness has created stir among
the local population. In the name of development you cannot just shunt
people from their inhabitat.
It is strange that Uganda
does not have rehabilitation laws. When the people were uprooted from
mabira forest under the guise of saving the forest, none of them objected
but the same government shamelessly went ahead with providing land to
a big corporations, which the Ugandan now feel are betraying their national
interests.
Hence the violence against
Indian is not because of Mehtas or Madhvanis who have controlled the
sugar companies of Uganda but broader nature of Indians. At Jinja, I
go to a Gujarati temple. Since it is Sunday therefore not many had turned
up in the temple but I meet a young Gujarati who had been working in
Uganda for the past three years. Accordingly, he feels that Jinja was
a much better and safer place unlike Kampala, which was crowded and
tense. There are three Gujarati temples in Jinja, he says. The temple
that I visited was of 'Satya Narayan'. At the temple, we join a discussion
about how Gujarati's are working. The man is proud of Mehtas and says
that Gujarati's build Uganda and now this country is not respecting
us. When I ask him as what is the situation and how does he feel here?
' These issues are politicized. Look, President Museveni is a nice person
and very supportive of investment but politicians do not like this.'
At this, I refer to situation in Gujarat. He says, Gujaratis always
lived in brotherhood with Muslims and it is just the politics. Still
today, many Gujaratis live together, no question of Hindus or Muslims.
The fellow asks me to take photograph of Mahatma Gandhi. I am amused
at this. Gandhi has been thoroughly rejected by the Hindus in Gujarat.
They feel he is an obstacle in their progress but in Uganda, the same
Gujaratis are asking me to remember Gandhi? Why?
We have to understand this
psychology of using the popular names. There is a statue of Gandhi at
the bank of river Nile. Gandhi is popularized as a person who fought
for the rights of the blacks in Africa. Therefore the blacks too feel
that Gandhi fought for their battle and is best symbol of fight against
imperialism. Gujaratis knows it well and are using the same. Unfortunately,
Gandhi's statue in Black Africa is a conspiracy to disconnect the Africans
to the popular anti caste movement in India. Gandhi has become a tool
for every one to exploit particularly his native Gujaratis who have
abandoned him. It is in the fitness of thing for the Gujaratis to think
of how they treat others in their home state. What are the Gujarati
industrialists doing? Supporting the Hindutva and its hate monger in
Gujarat but at the same point of time want the world to respect their
'culture'.
Back in Kampala, I am at
the house of an Indian and for the first time in 10 days watched Aaj
Tak. The woman talks of 'Sansani', a programme of crime reporting at
the Star News. The 10 PM news at Aaj tak shows horrible footage of a
paster being beaten by the goons of the Hindutva in Jaipur, Rajasthan.
Acharya Giriraj Kishore is defending the Hindutva action on these things.
I ask an Indian. What do you feel when such things happen in our country.
" Oh, its not an issue here, he says. Sikhs and Hindus are always
friend.' But such incident does not make you feel insecure here in Uganda.
The Indians do not feel offended with that. It is more shocking. When
riots occurred in Uganda, the government became over conscious to defend
the Indians but what happen when we see such situation occurs with in
our own country.
Land for Investment: While
President Museveni confirmed that the struggle against Mabira forest
take-over would subsidise. As a human rights activist, I felt proud
to have spoken against the take over and expressed my solidarity with
the native Ugandan people. Having heard the voices of sanity against
this gross exploitation of natural wealth, Indian people would be doing
great disservice if they support their crony capitalists. In fact, the
governments everywhere should ensure that the corporate houses indulged
in hate mongering formula and supporting fundamentalists groups must
be kept out. At the time, when Americans are going crazy over war against
terror, it is also worth demanding that such corporations which displace
people, spread hatred elsewhere or support such campaigns should be
barred from every where.
It is better that Mehtas
have right now not staked the claim for the Mabira forest after the
bloody riots. In case he continue to pursue his family interest, it
would be difficult to contain the local resentment. Mehtas have given
Ugandan an opportunity to think and unite and if he persist with the
more take over; the day would not be far, when other 'nationalists'
forces might take over Uganda. While the civil society organizations
that assembled in Uganda to participate in the Assembly of International
Land Coalition wholeheartedly spoke against the degazetting of the Mabira
forest for commercial purpose threatening the biodiversity of the green
Uganda, it is ironical that intergovernmental bodies desisted from issuing
a statement against the government. People have forgotten Idi Amin but
nobody can deny that his action to acquire property of the Indians was
targeted at the popular sentiments with in the country who were frustrated
with Indian domination over all walks of life. Clear enough while the
Gujaratis want every one to follow their culture in Gujarat, they refuse
to do the same elsewhere. The events of Uganda are a reminder that you
cannot take a community for granted. If the Indians have got so much
in Uganda, they must also respect local sentiments and be part of it.
And finally my disappointment
with the current regime of President Museveni who continued to assure
Indians that action would be taken against anti social elements but
at the same point of time refused to understand the sentiments behind
the protests. The cabinet does seems to lack unanimity on this issue
as Agricultural minister told us that the president has no power to
sale of a national asset and unless parliament approves it, nothing
can be done. Very unfortunately, the government defines land in terms
of investment, which is dangerous. Even when Indians do not have a fair
record of land reform, yet our constitutional forefathers provided enough
tools for poor to get a fair deal. Zamindari Abolition Act, land Ceiling
Acts were out come of such concern but it is shocking that the land
minister accepted in the conferences that his deputy was a landless
person in the area where people have land in the area of over 10 kilometer.
There was no system of land reform in Uganda. Idi Amin captured the
land and property of the Asians to be distributed among his own cronies.
People who thought his nationalism would help them remain clueless.
Uganda government can learn a lesson or two from Indian constitution
to help its landless population and allow people to access and control
its vast natural resources. Uganda remains the 'pearl of Africa' and
its greenery is enchanting. It must tread carefully with a greater balance
with national aspirations, sustainability and development. The government
needs investment but it cannot do so at the cost of displacing its people
and killing the environment. India is already facing this war of people
against the multinational onslaught on their soverignity and Ugandans
will do the same. Government should ultimately remain loyal to their
people and not to private corporations and international institutions
failing which there are dangers of political instability, greater chaos
and anarchy, which has already killed thousands in African continent.
To attain short term objectives, the government should not lose sight
on greater national interests and Mabira forest have become Uganda's
symbol of resistance against the onslaught of the private corporations
and their masters in the government, any effort to discount popular
sentiment would result in further polarization of communities and create
further instability in the region.
Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Visit my blog at
www.manukhsi.blogspot.com
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