DEFENDING LAND AND ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS

Benet: Uganda’s stateless people

Published

3 years ago

March 20, 2022

Kapchewuut cave in Benet Sub-County in Kween District still acts as a home for some of the evicted people who were evicted 13 years ago from their ancestral home.

Kampala, Uganda. The Ugandan government must recognise the Benet as the indigenous inhabitants of the forest from which it evicted them and restore them to their ancient home.

Amnesty International, the London-based international human rights NGO made the demand in a report titled, ‘13 Years in Limbo: Forced Evictions of the Benet in the Name of Conservation,’ that it launched on Nov.08.

“The treatment of the Benet is a flagrant violation of Uganda’s constitution and its own international human rights obligations,” said Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for East and Southern Africa during the release of the report.

This is the latest call for the restoration of the rights of the Benet, a community of an estimated 18,000 people who lost their ancestral land in Mount Elgon area of Sebei in eastern Uganda in 1920 when the British colonial protectorate classified the moorland and grasslands as a forest reserve.

Subsequent governments have piled violations on the minority group, including violent forced evictions since 1983, further deepening the plight and poverty of this community. Amnesty International says the Benet face a multi-generational struggle.

The Benet is one of Uganda’s indigenous ethnic minority groups who have been deprived of their right to health, adequate housing and education, it said.

“They are still living in temporary settlements made of flimsy huts of mud and stick, deprived of essential services such as clean drinking water and electricity and cut off from healthcare and education,” said Muchena.

Perhaps the most brutal evictions happened on Feb.16 in 2008 when 178 families were rendered homeless.

The Uganda Wildlife Authority and the national army—the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF)—forcefully evicted the families claiming they were still settled inside the national park despite government allocating the same land to them after previous evictions.

People’s houses and crops were destroyed, cattle were confiscated. The displaced Benet found shelter wherever they could: in caves and under trees. The luckier ones stayed in a nearby primary school or joined relatives elsewhere.

David Chemutai, the current coordinator of the Benet-Mosop Indigenous Community Association, a community based organisation in Kween District in eastern Uganda still remembers the 2008 evictions.

“I came back home from school only to find our home burnt. All the houses in the homestead were burnt,” he told The Independent on Nov.10, “Our food which we used to keep in the house was also burnt. My parents were gone and I did not know where to find them.”

Chemutai who was 23 at the time was only able to find his parents days later in a cave. Over a decade later, hundreds of families of the Benet community still live in temporary resettlement sites. Some still live in the cave.

They accuse UWA of killings, unlawful use of force and firearms, including shootings, beatings, and even crimes under international law, including torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. This often happens when they try to enter the forest which was declared a national park in 1993.

In 2004, the Uganda Land Alliance (ULA) filed a legal suit, Uganda Land Alliance, Ltd. v. Uganda Wildlife Authority in the High Court of Uganda on behalf of the Benet community, for enforcement of their right to use their forest land.

On 27 October 2005, the court in a judgment commonly referred to as the “Consent Judgment”, which was settled and agreed to by the affected Benet community, the UWA, and the Attorney General of Uganda, recognised the Benet as the historical and indigenous inhabitants of the forest that the government had classified a national park in 1993.

The judgment underlined the need to “redress the imbalance” facing the Benet in education, infrastructure, health, and social services, provided for under Article 32 of Uganda’s Constitution.

Despite the court ruling, the Benet are still not permitted to build permanent structures and live in small huts constructed from sticks and mud in temporary resettlement camps, with no electricity and potable water.

The restriction has impacted the Benet peoples’ agro-pastoral lifestyle and other economic, social, and cultural practices such as the right to access cultural sites for rituals, fruit gathering, bee keeping, and hunting.

“We are now a stateless community,” says Chemutai, “This is something we are still fighting for.”

The Uganda Wildlife Authority insists it is not to blame for the fate of the Benet.

“We are not responsible for the gazettement and degazettement of these places. The Uganda Wildlife Authority only manages these spaces,” Bashir Hangi, the UWA public relations officer,told The Independent on Nov.10, “Regardless whether they were evicted or not, when the government handed over the area to us, we had no alternative but remove the people.”

But Amnesty International’s Muchena says academic research says conservation, such as by UWA, works best when the state works with the indigenous people as equal partners in conservation.

“It must not result in human rights violations, or be used to justify them,” he said.

Original Source: independent.co.ug

DEFENDING LAND AND ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS

Court Alert: Court Grants Bail to Jailed Defender and Wife.

Published

5 days ago

July 21, 2025

witnessradio.org

By Witness Radio team.

After a significant legal engagement, a magistrate court in Kiryandongo District has decided to release a community land rights defender and his wife on bail. This decision comes after they spent 40 days in prison.

Olupot James, a community land rights defender from Kikungulu village, Kibeeka Parish, Kapundo Sub-county, in Kiryandongo District, and his wife, Apio Sarah, were charged with malicious damage to property on June 5th, 2025, and were remanded to different prisons, including Dyang Prison.

The arrest of the defender and his wife has had a profound impact on their four children, leaving them in a state of grief and pain. They were left without parental care in a house surrounded by the sugar plantation.

According to the prosecution, the duo allegedly uprooted sugarcane plants belonging to Kiryandongo Sugar Limited and replaced them with maize on land neighboring the defender’s home. The multinational claims ownership of the land.

The Penal Code Act, Cap. Section 312 (1) of Uganda states that any person who willfully and unlawfully destroys or damages any property commits an offence and is liable on conviction to up to five years’ imprisonment.

Since 2017, Olupot and several other community land defenders have been in and out of prison, a testament to their unwavering resistance against illegal land evictions. Their resilience is a source of inspiration for many. Thousands of families claim they have lost their land to the multinational without following any law, without receiving any compensation, and without being offered an alternative settlement.

Through Witness Radio Legal Aid Chambers, the duo was granted a non-cash bail of two million Shillings, and their case has been fixed for hearing on July 28th, 2025.

The children, who have been enduring the absence of their parents, are now experiencing a sense of relief and joy as the family is reunited.

DEFENDING LAND AND ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS

A land rights defender and his wife have been arrested, charged, and sent to prison.

Published

1 week ago

July 16, 2025

witnessradio.org

By Witness Radio team.

Kiryandongo District – A community land rights Defender at Nyamutende Cell in Kiryandongo District, and his wife have been sent to prison by a magistrate’s court in Kiryandongo District, Witness Radio confirms.

Olupot James and his wife, Apio Sarah, were charged with malicious damage to property after a multinational company, Kiryandongo Sugar Limited, accused them of destroying its crops. The area police later picked them up.

Since 2017, Kiryandongo Sugar Limited, a subsidiary of Rai Holdings Private Limited, has been among the three multinationals that have forcibly displaced over thirty-five thousand (35,000) people in Kiryandongo District without following due diligence or offering alternative settlement options.

Community land Rights defender Olupot James and his wife Apio Sarah are amongst a few remaining families that resisted the company’s violent eviction and repression. Their home is currently trapped in the middle of the sugar plantation after they lost their land, which was dug up to the house by the multinational. Despite their peaceful resistance, Olupot has been arrested, charged, and imprisoned more than six times, a clear indication of the injustice they are facing.

Since late May this year, the duo has been reporting to Kiryandongo police station on Criminal Case Number CRB No. 316/2025, until they were arrested and aligned before the court and imprisoned. Olupot was remanded to Dyang while Apio is in Kiryandongo prison.

The state alleges that Olupot and Apio committed the offence of malicious damage to property in Kikungulu village, Kiryandongo District, a region with a complex history of land-related conflicts.

The Witness Radio’s legal aid team is monitoring the case and will appear in court to apply for their bail.

DEFENDING LAND AND ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS

Crackdown on EACOP protesters intensifies: 35 Activists arrested in just four months.

Published

3 months ago

April 30, 2025

witnessradio.org

By Witness Radio team.

Ugandan authorities’ ongoing crackdown on anti-EACOP protest marches is spreading rapidly like wildfires. The East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) Project, a significant oil infrastructure development, has been a point of contention. Recently, Witness Radio warned that criminalizing the activities of individual activists and environmental defenders opposed to this project, which aims to transport crude oil from Hoima in Uganda to the Port of Tanga in Tanzania, will be regarded as the most disastrous and insensitive to communities’ concerns in Uganda’s history.

In just four months, a series of arrests targeting environmental activists opposing the mega oil project that transports crude oil from Hoima in Uganda to the Port of Tanga in Tanzania has resulted in a scene of crime. No one is allowed to express their concerns peacefully about it and push back on its adverse negative impacts.

While activists view the peaceful marches as a rightful and brave effort to protect the environment and the communities affected by the project, the authorities, including the Uganda police and Prosecutor’s office, regard these actions as attempts to sabotage development projects and resort to criminalization.

Activists and civil society organizations’ reports indicate that the project will likely damage the environment and has displaced thousands of local communities in Uganda and Tanzania.

Despite growing concerns and an intensified crackdown, project financiers and shareholders remain unwavering in supporting the EACOP project. This steadfast support underscores the urgency of the situation. However, environmental and human rights defenders stand firm, resolutely demanding the project’s halt, showing a glimmer of hope in this challenging situation.

Over last weekend, eleven (11) environmental activists were arrested, charged, and sent to prison. They were arrested and detained by police at Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) premises while attempting to deliver a petition urging the bank to halt its financial support for the 1,444-kilometer heated pipeline project.

The arrest of the eleven activists comes less than a month after nine activists were detained on April 02 outside the Stanbic Bank headquarters while attempting to deliver a petition urging the bank to halt its funding for the project.

The eleven include Bob Barigye, Augustine Tukamashaba, Gilbert Ayebare, Umar Kasimbe, Joseph Ssengozi, Keith Namanya, Raymond Bituhanga, Mohammed Ssentongo, Paul Ssekate, Misach Saazi and Phionah Nalusiba.

KCB Bank Uganda is one of the banks that recently joined the race to fund the EACOP project. Last month, On March 26, 2025, EACOP Ltd., the company in charge of the construction and future operation of the EACOP project, announced that it had acquired additional financing provided by a syndicate of financial institutions, including regional banks such as KCB Bank.

Other banks in the syndicate include the Stanbic Bank Uganda, the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), the Standard Bank of South Africa Limited, and the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD).

The activists appeared before the Nakawa Chief Magistrate Court on April 25. They were charged with criminal trespass. According to section 302 of the Penal Code, a person convicted of criminal trespass is liable to a maximum sentence of one year in prison. This detail underscores the weight of the situation.

The activists are currently on remand at Luzira Maximum Prison and are expected to appear again before the court on May 08, 2025, for mention.