In Rwakitura IDP Camp Chaos
(September 7 - 11, 2005)
Bank of Uganda Deputy Governor, Dr. Louis Kasekende insisted on visiting an Internally Displaced Peoples (IDP) Camp.
"How can I fail to see for myself the intolerable conditions under which some of our people live?", he told me.
We set off from the multi- billion Bank of Uganda building in Gulu, just inaugurated by President Yoweri Museveni. A stark contrast awaited as we drove to Unyama Camp. These notorious camps are about 10 years old. Over 90 per cent of the population of Acholiland live here. At creation, the government claimed they would be temporary.
We set off from the multi- billion Bank of Uganda building in Gulu, just inaugurated by President Yoweri Museveni. A stark contrast awaited as we drove to Unyama Camp. These notorious camps are about 10 years old. Over 90 per cent of the population of Acholiland live here. At creation, the government claimed they would be temporary.
But 10 years on they have become the predominant feature of the once imposing Acholi village landscape. The people are herded together and forced to live according to the dictates of the military authorities.
We drove by the dilapidated buildings housing Unyama National Teachers College (NTC). Nearby a military patrol was assembling. It was past 6 pm. We stood in an open clearing between the NTC, the camp and the military detach. Five children were chewing sorghum stems nearby. Also nearby a group of young people were playing a worn-out football on a dusty field . In the outer boundary of the detach a tank was parked under a mango tree, its ugly muzzle aimed directly at us.
The camp consisting of tiny grass thatched huts is home to over 24,000 souls. "How do you maintain order with this large population," Dr. Kasekende asked the Camp Leader, our tour guide.
"We have divided the camps into four zones. This one here is Rwakitura A and the other one is Rwakitura B," he said.
Rwakitura is the name of President Museveni's country home in Mbarara. There was no better way for these villagers to assign responsibility for their woes than to name their squalid environment after the President's palatial estate. The irony was unmistakable.
A baby was emptying his bowels right outside the door of a house. Nearby, a goat was feasting on yeast put out to dry. In the next compound an elderly woman was having a meal of vegetables and pounded cassava.
On our way out the Camp Leader spoke of his own life. "I am now retired. I used to be the receptionist of the NTC but I chose to retire so that younger people could take over", he said.
The camp leader does not receive any payment. "I am a volunteer", he said. He had earlier shown us a bicycle as the only facilitation given to him by the World Food Program. He spoke of the great need he has of a phone.
"When there's a medical emergency, we have to contribute money to make a call", he said.
When Dr. Kasekende asked whether they faced water shortage he simply shook his head.
"Over there we have bore holes and stand pipes. Water is not the problem. We are just tired of this sort of life. We want to go home".
Earlier President Museveni had said the LRA were now finished and the remnants had fled beyond the red line.
I wondered then why our people were still in camps if the danger has diminished so much. Someone is not telling the whole truth.
There will never be development if the people are not productive. The condition in the camps paralyzes any serious productivity.
Yet at a deeper level, the unending war raises a moral question. It is not just about politics or economics. It is about morality.
It is about what is right and what is wrong. It is about the looming threat of a Uganda composed of two countries - one in the north, the other in the south. In fact we already have two countries. The Uganda hailed by the success starved donor community must be alien to the people in Rwakitura IDP Camp.
The other Uganda is said to be reaching for prosperity. Their Uganda is trapped in turmoil and uncertainty. In the words of T.S. Elliot, they are "living and partly living".
That is why the symbolism of the name Rwakitura IDP is heart wrenching. It is an aspiration. It is a hope and a dream. But in a way it is also a vote of no confidence in the man who lives in the real Rwakitura.
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