Mubende residents sue Buganda prince over land evictions

http://observer.ug/news/headlines/52591-mubende-residents-sue-buganda-prince-over-land-evictions.html

• Written by JONATHAN KAMOGA 
•  
• Residents of eight villages in the central district of Mubende have sued a Buganda prince and a Chinese company for alleged torture, as well as evicting them from their land, and paying them peanuts as compensation.
  Henry Kalemeera Kimera, who claims to be a grandson of former Buganda King Daudi Chwa, and Formasa Limited, a Chinese company, were sued along with the registrar of titles of Mityana district, the Attorney General and Quality Parts (U) Ltd, a limited liability company.
  The complainants, who hail from the two sub-counties of Madudu and Butoloogo, reside in the villages of Butolo, Kaswa Nakasozi, Mukiguluka, Kicucuulo Namayindi, Kisiigwa and Bikonyi.
  Kimera, who claims to be the owner of the contested 2,000 acres of land, allegedly sold it to Formasa. However, residents say the company went beyond its legitimate boundaries and encroached on their land.
  In civil suit number 31, which was filed on April 12, 2017 at the High court in Mubende, the residents say they, “lived happily on the suit land until 2010 when four people previously unknown to them, including a one Henry Kalemeera, Paulo Kazuga, one Richard and another, visited some of the villages and laid claim to ownership of the land comprised herein.”
  However, the residents contend that they have lived on the disputed land from ages, some of them for time immemorial, and have registered their land holdings with the Buganda Land Board, to which they pay tenancy fees (buusulu).
  
  RESIDENT'S COMPLAINTS
  When unknown surveyors entered the affected parishes in the company of armed police escorts without their prior knowledge on July 10, 2011, the residents subsequently engaged police, their local council leaders, and Resident District Commissioner Florence Beyunga.
  The strangers, at the urging of local authorities, held meetings with the residents. But, according to the complainants, police and the RDC purportedly ordered them to vacate the land. The residents also blamed police for not acting on reported cases.
  “The failure or refusal by the police to protect the plaintiffs and other affected people from the atrocities perpetrated by the second defendants is a violation of the defendants’ duty under article 20 of the constitution to protect the rights, freedoms of the people,” the suit partly reads.
  The residents claim in the suit that Formasa has forged certificates for land on plots 37, block 61 and plot 27, block 61. They also accuse the company of using violent methods, such as destroying their crops, unlawful arrests and detentions, forced evictions, savage beatings of individuals and torching of houses, to force them out of the land.
  Now, through their lawyers M/S Rwakafuuzi and company advocates, the residents want court to direct the Chinese company to vacate all the land they were evicted from.
  They also seek an order for compensation for their damaged crops, acts of torture committed against them, houses destroyed, violation of their right to privacy and costs of the suit.
  In May last year, The Observer reported about the alleged land wrangle in Mubende. In the story, residents accused Formasa of forcefully evicting people and purchase of land at prices set by the company. (See: Chinese firm accused of land grabbing, The Observer, Monday, May 23, 2016).
  
  FORMASA OFFICIAL SPEAKS
  Mr Steven Tumwine, a manager at Formasa, said he wasn’t aware of any court proceedings against his company brought by the residents. He, however, dismissed the residents’ claims against his company.
  “In those plots of land [under dispute], we have compensated about three quarters of them,” he said. “The land now fully belongs to us.”
  Tumwine argued that there is no assault case that any resident of the two sub-counties has ever been lodged against his company. He said their company has, however, taken some residents to police for vandalism.
  “They say we bribed the police [but it’s only] because when we plant trees and they come and cut them, we take them to police,” he added.
  Tumwine acknowledged that his company bought the land, which is about 2,000 acres from Kalemeera and that the latter was fully paid.
  
  
  
  
  Chinese Firm Accused of Land Grabbing
  http://allafrica.com/stories/201605231544.html
  The Observer, Monday, May 23, 2016).
  By Benon Herbert Oluka
  'They cut me, left me for dead and took my land'
  From atop any of the rolling hills that give Butolongo sub-county its undulating beauty, an enchanting serenity seems to spread out as far as the eye can see.
  But that's only the view from the top. Walk down to the plains and valleys of this green expanse in Mubende district, and the story changes. Shadowed by the hills and forests are horrific tales of intensifying battles for land which cost men their livelihood and women their dignity.
  In Ngabano village, Sam Ssenkinga has spent the last two months nursing life-threatening injuries from a vicious attack by neighbours and friends who he says attempted to end his life because of 13 acres of land. Ssenkinga limps to our meeting point in wooden crutches with his left leg, which he keeps off the ground, in a heavy black cast that cost him Shs 250,000 from Mulago hospital.
  "I am in this situation because I refused to sell my land," the father of 12 and husband to two wives starts.
  Describing that situation causes Ssenkinga to break down in tears at least four times. He displays a double cut to the head whose scar now forms an 'X', a cut to his left palm and the heavily-casted leg whose bone was broken and almost ripped into two by the machete (panga) that caused the damage.
  HORRIFIC ATTACK
  Ssenkinga says his woes started when Formasa Tree Planting company, a Chinese-owned company, came to the area to grow pine trees. In a bid to secure more land, the company has been trying to buy off many of the tenants and landowners in the three villages of Kyedikyo, Nakasozi and Kicucula.
  According to Ssenkinga, when Formasa officials approached him sometime last year, he told them that he valued his land at Shs100 million.
  "I told them to give me Shs 100 million in exchange for the land because I had already done a lot on it; there were seven acres of coffee, four and a half acres of eucalyptus trees, and my banana plantation. When they said they couldn't buy it for that amount, I refused to sell," he narrated.
  Because of his stand, Ssenkinga says, he received some veiled threats from workers at the farm, but he ignored them - until March 17, 2016, when they escalated to violence.
  On that day, Ssenkinga was heading to the trading centre when three friends who used to drink alcohol from his place approached him. Because he knew them, Ssenkinga stopped to hear from them, despite knowing that they are labourers at the company that wanted his land.
  "When I saw they wanted to attack me, I threw down my motorcycle and ran away. They chased me until they caught up with me and then started cutting me up," he recalled.
  Ssenkinga's attackers left him for dead. He was only rescued by passers-by who heard his cries for help. They called his relatives and friends. One of those friends, 40-year-old John Ssemike, describes what he found at the scene as horrific.
  "I was called that Sam had been chopped up and was dying. When I reached Sam, I found that he was in a bad state. His leg was in two pieces," he says.
  The officer-in-charge of criminal investigations at Muduku police station, where Ssenkinga reported the case, Benson Ampaire, said they registered an attempted murder case given the gravity of the injuries. Ampaire adds that their investigations found the cause of the incident was not a land dispute but a love wrangle over a woman.
  "They [Ssenkinga and family] wanted to associate this case with land, but it was a fight which started from a bar over a woman. It was revenge," he said.
  Abel Turwaneho, a manager at Formasa, also told The Observer in an interview that Ssenkinga's injuries were because "they fought in a bar."
  However, Ampaire says they have not arrested anyone because Ssenkinga and his family are not cooperating. They are not revealing the names of the attackers.
  "If Sam comes and says so and so attacked me, we are very much willing to arrest him," Ampaire says.
  SALE UNDER DURESS
  In hospital, Ssenkinga was visited by two managers of Formasa, Abel Turwaneho and a lady only identified by locals as Anna. Turwaneho offered Ssenkinga Shs 200,000 while Anna offered Ssenkinga Shs 500,000 for treatment.
  A few days later, according to Ssenkinga, the Formasa managers were back with a proposal. They wanted to purchase his land so that he could use the money for medication.
  "While I was in hospital, people from the company came and said: 'We are going to value your land and tell you how much we will pay you.' Then they came and gave me Shs 16 million. I had no choice. I accepted the money," he says, wiping away tears.
  To this day, however, Ssenkinga believes he got a raw deal under duress. "You can't value all my land and what I had planted there and give me that kind of money and yet I had also built my houses on that land," he argues.
  Ssenkinga's father, Francis Sseninde, is equally unhappy with the deal and circumstances under which it was negotiated. He tells The Observer, "That company really squeezed us. When buying our land, it gives us very little money. However, Turwaneho described the statements made by Ssenkinga and his father as lies.
  "The problem of those people is that they are lying," he said by telephone. "For us, we are compensating, we are not grabbing. We have the pictures, we have the agreements."
  Turwaneho said his company had fully compensated Ssenkinga not just for the land but also for the injuries he sustained in the incident involving their workers.
  "We have already compensated him with Shs 21 million. The Shs 21 million also included damages for his injuries," he said.
  But Ssenkinga says the attack has left his family in dire straits, given that he can no longer fend for them and has to prioritise the money given to him for treatment.
  "I used to earn between Shs 500,000 and Shs 1 million [per month] from my land and I would be able to take care of my family. But now this has left us helpless," he said, wiping away more tears.
  WIDESPREAD CASES
  Cases of Mubende residents coming under threat are numerous. One lady, who declined to be named, says she was repeatedly raped by employees of Formasa as they sought to drive her away from her family land.
  In one case, which reached the office of the deputy resident district commissioner (DRDC) Evelyn Kizza Tinkamalirwe Jimmy Ssegujja complained that Formasa was grabbing his land. On May 5, 2015, Tinkamalirwe wrote to the manager of Formasa, Stephen Tumwine, in a bid to resolve the dispute.
  "The abovementioned (Ssegujja) has petitioned this office that you are grabbing his kibanja which he has already been allocated by the District Land Board," she wrote. "You are, therefore, requested to halt developing the disputed part until relevant authorities intervene and settle the dispute."
  When contacted at her office in Mubende, Tinkamalirwe told The Observer that she had intervened in the matter because land matters are "a security concern." She says she sought to mediate between the two parties.
  According to Tinkamalirwe, it was not the first case she has had to resolve where Formasa was accused by locals of using violent means to get the upper hand in a land dispute.
  "The name of that company also surfaced in Nakasozi. They called me at night that the workers of Formasa were uprooting their gardens, slashing their cassava and I also called police. When they went there, they arrested those people," she said.
  "I called Stephen [Tumwine]and told him, 'if you bought their land and they are not aware that you bought their land, because they are complaining, don't go back there'."
  Tinkamalirwe says when she met Formasa manager Tumwine, his response was that it was not the company's policy to harass landowners. He said their workers could have taken matters into their own hands and those found to have done so would be disciplined by the company.
  
  
  

  Parliament Probes Nakaseke Land Evictions

  http://www.chimpreports.com/parliament-probes-nakaseke-land-evictions/ 

  March, 10th, 2017
  

  By: Nixon Segawa 

  Parliament has called for a comprehensive report over the continuous land evictions in Nakaseke district where about 500 families are said to have been displaced from 5 villages by President Museveni’s son in law Edwin Karugire.
  Mr. Karugire vehemently denies these accusations.
  Over 20 people on Thursday morning camped at Parliament to petition the Speaker Rebecca Kadaga for her intervention.
  The area Member of Parliament, http://conforms.com/wp-includes/feed.php Paulsen Kasana Lutamaguzi told the house that the displaced families are currently homeless with no food to eat.
  “Yesterday in the night, there were five villages in Nakaseke which have been faced with land grabbing and evictions; so far not less than 20, 000 people have become homeless and today some have camped at Parliament with a petition,” Lutamaguzi told the house.
  Lutamaguzi claims the land grabbers are being guarded by soldiers.
  In response, the Minister of Finance, David Bahati confirmed the development, noting that even the government Chief Whip constituted a team that went to Nakaseke.
  “Given the urgency of the matter; after here, we are going to call the RDC and the Security as we wait for the report of the committee on Tuesday.”
  Bahati promised that government would take administrative action to help the displaced people.
  The Attorney General, Mwesigwa Rukutana also noted, “On behalf of government, we want to categorically disown whoever is carrying on the illegal evictions of people from their Bibanja because the law is clear on the protection of land owners; whoever is doing it is doing it in a criminal manner. Government will put in place mechanisms to identify and bring them to book.”
  The victims led by Mike Luganda, Muhammad Sseruwagi, Hassan Mutumba and May Kawagga told Chimp reports that the area Deputy RDC known as Africana has connived with the LCIII Chairman, John Mugerwa and other leaders in the rea to illegally evict them from their land.
  “These have used the District Land Board chairperson, Geoffrey Mukiibi and others to chase us away from our bibanja saying that the land we are living on belonged to government which later sold it to Mr. Edwin Karugire, the president’s son in law.”
  “Some armed men have been coming to our villages arresting our people, fencing, intimidating and making all types of violence on us; we are being chased without any compensation.”
  Commenting on the allegations, Mr. Edwin Karugire noted in a message that, “That must be another Edwin Karugire because I have not grabbed, seized, taken, sold, bought, leased, acquired or in any manner dealt with any land in Nakaseke District or its environs. Please administer a sobriety test on anyone who says otherwise.”

   

   

   
• Over 20,000 evicted in Nakaseke
  By Moses Mulondo, Mary Karugaba
  Added 9th March 2017 03:46 PM
  http://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1448172/-evicted-nakaseke#sthash.GT5Crd4j.dpuf
  
  
  Nakaseke South MP Semakula Luttamaguzi (black suit) with some of Nakaseke’s residents at Parliament on March 8, 2017. Photo by Maria Wamala
  
  Nakaseke South MP Paul Kasana Luttamaguzi has raised alarm about rampant land evictions in Nakaseke district.
  
  Raising it as a matter of urgency on the floor of Parliament on Thursday, Luttamaguzi asserted that over 20,000 residents from five villages in Nakaseke South were evicted on Wednesday.
  
  The MP said the land grabbers are powerful people connected to government because they are protected by soldiers.
  
  The Speaker, Rebecca Kadaga, confirmed the reports of land grabbing in Nakaseke and asked government to immediately do take action.
  
  "You know I own land there in Nakaseke. I recently went there and the residents told me if I don't help them by the time I go back I find them evicted. They said the land grabbers are big people," Kadaga revealed.
  
  The state minister for finance, David Bahati, assured the house that they would immediately instruct government authorities to intervene and stop the evictions.
  
  The Deputy Attorney General, Mwesigwa Rukutana, denied any government connection with land grabbers who are reported to have powers from above.
  
  "We want to disown whoever is evicting people from their bibanja. The law doesn't not allow those evictions. Whoever is doing it is doing it in a criminal manner," Rukutana clarified.
  Nakaseke South MP Semakula Luttamaguzi (black suit) with some of Nakaseke’s residents at Parliament on March 8, 2017. Photo by Maria Wamala
  
  Nakaseke South MP Paul Kasana Luttamaguzi has raised alarm about rampant land evictions in Nakaseke district.
  
  Raising it as a matter of urgency on the floor of Parliament on Thursday, Luttamaguzi asserted that over 20,000 residents from five villages in Nakaseke South were evicted on Wednesday.
  
  The MP said the land grabbers are powerful people connected to government because they are protected by soldiers.
  
  The Speaker, Rebecca Kadaga, confirmed the reports of land grabbing in Nakaseke and asked government to immediately do take action.
  
  "You know I own land there in Nakaseke. I recently went there and the residents told me if I don't help them by the time I go back I find them evicted. They said the land grabbers are big people," Kadaga revealed.
  
  The state minister for finance, David Bahati, assured the house that they would immediately instruct government authorities to intervene and stop the evictions.
  
  The Deputy Attorney General, Mwesigwa Rukutana, denied any government connection with land grabbers who are reported to have powers from above.
  
  "We want to disown whoever is evicting people from their bibanja. The law doesn't not allow those evictions. Whoever is doing it is doing it in a criminal manner," Rukutana clarified. - See more at: http://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1448172/-evicted-nakaseke#sthash.GT5Crd4j.dpuf
  Nakaseke South MP Semakula Luttamaguzi (black suit) with some of Nakaseke’s residents at Parliament on March 8, 2017. Photo by Maria Wamala
  
  Nakaseke South MP Paul Kasana Luttamaguzi has raised alarm about rampant land evictions in Nakaseke district.
  
  Raising it as a matter of urgency on the floor of Parliament on Thursday, Luttamaguzi asserted that over 20,000 residents from five villages in Nakaseke South were evicted on Wednesday.
  
  The MP said the land grabbers are powerful people connected to government because they are protected by soldiers.
  
  The Speaker, Rebecca Kadaga, confirmed the reports of land grabbing in Nakaseke and asked government to immediately do take action.
  
  "You know I own land there in Nakaseke. I recently went there and the residents told me if I don't help them by the time I go back I find them evicted. They said the land grabbers are big people," Kadaga revealed.
  
  The state minister for finance, David Bahati, assured the house that they would immediately instruct government authorities to intervene and stop the evictions.
  
  The Deputy Attorney General, Mwesigwa Rukutana, denied any government connection with land grabbers who are reported to have powers from above.
  
  "We want to disown whoever is evicting people from their bibanja. The law doesn't not allow those evictions. Whoever is doing it is doing it in a criminal manner," Rukutana clarified. - See more at: http://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1448172/-evicted-nakaseke#sthash.GT5Crd4j.dpuf