Evicted

I have been back in Uganda now for about four days. Many things have changed, both within Hope Alive and the city of Kampala. Yet all in all, life here is still very familiar and in many ways I find it easy to slide back into African culture.

The purpose of this post, however, is not to tell you about my time thus far, but to make you aware of a tragedy that has befallen about a dozen families of Hope Alive! students in Kampala who live in the neighborhoods known as Naguru Quarters and Nakawa Quarters. Beginning yesterday, the government has forcibly evicted them from their homes, leaving them stranded. As these families are already very poor, the loss of their homes is significant and will result in severe hardship.

Destroyed homes in Nakawa

According to a national newspaper, the homes in Naguru Quarters and Nakawa Quarters were constructed in the 1950s as low income housing for civil servants. Though the government has technically owned the land all along, people have built and owned the homes in the area for many decades. Over the years, the homes have gradually deteriorated and these neighborhoods have become semi-slums, consisting predominantly of the poor. Many of the residents came to Kampala from the North during the past two decades to escape the war. Though these homes were condemned in the 90s, people continued to live there as they had no where else to go.

About six years ago, the government sold the land to investors, regardless of the fact that the investors would likely raze existing neighborhoods that housed thousands of people. Beginning about three or four years ago, the government began warning (or threatening) those living in Naguru Quarters to vacate their homes or be forcibly removed because investors planned to develop the area. However, the government did not follow through on any of their initial threats. Over the past few years, the government has many times threatened to forcibly remove people and destroy their homes, but has never taken action. Consequently, people living in Naguru (and Nakawa) began to disregard the warnings, thinking that they were simply empty threats. This past weekend, people were again warned to leave their homes, but did not do so due to past experiences. In addition, a current court case concerning this situation had not yet been resolved, leading people to believe that the government could not yet take action.

The final decision in the court case was to be handed down tomorrow (Wednesday, 6^th July). However, it appears that the government decided to pre-empt the courts. On Monday morning, residents of Naguru awakened to find that their neighborhood was surrounded by police and that bulldozers were entering the area. Several rows of homes were knocked down immediately, including some homes where the inhabitants were not home and had not been alerted to remove their possessions. Two of these homes that were initially destroyed also belonged to the families of Hope Alive! students. The destruction of these homes was utilized as an intimidation tactic as it compelled other families living in the area to frantically remove their possessions from their homes and vacate the area before their homes were demolished. Throughout the day, other homes were destroyed and gardens were plowed up by the bulldozers. The destruction of the families’ gardens was almost as equally detrimental as the destruction of their homes, as the family garden constitutes an important source of food and income.

Bulldozer destroying the garden of a Hope Alive family

The loss of their homes and gardens – with no compensation or provision from the government – has placed an extreme hardship on these families who were already very poor. Most have no money to even transport their belongings to a place outside of the demolition area, let alone to find and be able to pay for a new residence all in one day. Mothers were overwhelmed with worry that they would not be able find a safe place for their children to sleep come nightfall. Those who were not able to leave the neighborhoods by last night found themselves extremely vulnerable to thieves as all of their possessions remained sitting outside their homes. Landlords have also raised rent prices in the nearby areas, taking advantage of these people’s hardships. Consequently, these families must either pay an extremely high price to rent nearby or move somewhere far away from where they have built their existing life.

The family of one of our older students, Emmanuel, had their home knocked down early in the day yesterday in Naguru Quarters. The family moved all of their possessions behind the destroyed home, but had no where to go and no means of transporting the items. They ultimately slept outside that night to guard their possessions and bribed two police officers to provide them with protection from thieves. Today, they frantically borrowed money to transport all their items back to their village, which is in the North, as it is the only place they have left to go. Emmanuel will remain in Kampala with his elder sister so that he can continue attending school. However, they will now have to find some other place to stay and will be separated from the rest of their family.

Emmanuel's family home destroyed

Another Hope Alive family consists of a widow with six children living in Nakawa Quarters. They are still searching for a permanent place to move that they will be able to afford on a month to month basis. At the present, they only have a temporary place to stay which is an unfinished home with no windows and no door yet installed. The widowed mother also sells cooked maize to earn an income to support the family. She has lost one or two days of income due to this crisis and must even now find another place to cook and sell the maize so that the family can survive.

The family of one of our younger children, Bridget, was forced to move temporarily to a place just outside of Kampala – a placed called Mukono – that is quite far away from their former residence in Naguru. They will not be able to afford the daily transport fees for the children to continue attending their current schools or for Bridget to attend Hope Alive! activities at this time. If they are ultimately forced to remain in Mukono as a permanent solution, Bridget will no longer be able to participate in the project which could significantly affect her future educational and life opportunities.

Bridget and her grandmother outside their home in Naguru with all their possessions

The government may technically own the land in Naguru/Nakawa and thus have the legal right to sell the land, but the people on the land are not squatters as they either owned their homes through purchase or were paying rent to live in the homes. The people consequently also have a legitimate claim to remain on the land. The problem is that what matters here is not legitimacy or rights or justice, but power. The Ugandan government under President Museveni has demonstrated time and again their willingness to trample the people’s rights and to abuse their own power in pursuit of both financial gain and political longevity (including the recent violence in response to peaceful demonstrations from political opposition parties). The fact that the government pre-empted any official court ruling in this case reveals their determination to remove the current inhabitants regardless of the decision rendered by the court.

Equally as disturbing as this abuse of power is the government’s lack of sympathy for the people being evicted. The government is not blind to the fact that these people are poor, without resources or alternatives. Yet not only did they not provide alternative housing options, they also declined to provided any sort of provision or protection to people being abruptly removed from their homes. My own personal theory is that the government hopes many of the people being evicted will return to their villages in the North, thus ridding Kampala of “northerners” who comprise much of the opposition to Museveni’s government.

The rumor is that investors plan to build new, expensive flats (apartments) and an Islamic university at these sites where people have been evicted. This kind of "development" does not actually benefit the majority of the people and primarily serves only to line the pockets of politicians and businessmen. Development should never come at the cost of a people’s well-being. The poor who have been forced out of Naguru and Nakawa will never be able to afford to live in the new flats or to attend the university that is to be built where their houses once stood. Why is so much money being poured into these grand “development” projects while the poor continue to live hand to mouth on a daily basis? Could this money not instead be used to create opportunity for the poor? A simple observation, yet I know from experience that it is also a naïve one. Corruption and greed ensure that the government’s first priority will always be their pockets and not their people. The government is very aware of the situation of the poor. But instead of protecting them, they choose to take advantage. They know that the poor lack the power to challenge injustices being perpetrated against them. And they know that the poor lack a voice.

So let me be their voice now. I know that this blog will only be read by small number of people. But at least someone, somewhere, is hearing their voice. Know that they are powerless. Know that while the Museveni government falls short of being oppressive, it does abuse its power at the expense of its people. Riot police and water hoses were on hand in both Naguru and Nakawa as a silent form of intimidation to prevent people from rising up to oppose the obvious injustice that was occurring. It was a reminder that the power was in the hands of the government. Worse things certainly could have happened – such as a loss of life. Yet the loss of homes is tantamount to a loss of livelihood, a loss of community, and a loss of security for many of these families who have worked hard to create a life for themselves in the midst of poverty. Many of them had to “start over” when they came to Kampala years ago from the North. Now they must start over yet again.

Police encampment complete with red firetrucks and water cannons at center

The families here are very adept at surviving hardship. Their smiling faces and endless hospitality can in fact often mask the grim reality of their situations. Yet as I walked around Naguru yesterday to assess the needs of affected families, I was met with smiles, but also with a discernable heaviness and anxiety that I have never encountered so palpably in my time in Uganda. Resilience remains, but not apart from an accompanying sense of defeat. Hope Alive is providing assistance where it is able to do so, alleviating some of the hardship and anxiety. However, the financial need is greater than what the project can provide. We are standing by the families in whatever way that we can, even if it simply means visiting them and letting them know that they are not alone, letting them know that we hear their voice. Please also hear their voices now and stand by them in prayer.

*Information in this post was gathered from The Monitor, New Vision, and human sources.