By Cyprian Musoke
MAJOR Roland Kakooza Mutale’s Kalangala Action Plan (KAP) and other soldiers have been warned not to get involved in land evictions that have rocked Kiboga district, leaving a number of people dead.
State minister for lands Baguma Isoke said it is the duty of the Police, LCs and the district security committee to oversee eviction of any unlawful occupants.
Addressing Kiboga district leaders at the council hall over the land matters yesterday, Baguma said land disputes were a civil not a military matter.
“Kakooza Mutale comes here yet you (pointing at Police officers) are here? What is your role? Have you failed to protect the citizens and their property? This nonsense and abuse of office must stop. They (Mutale’s group) have caused disorder and breach of peace. My heart is bleeding!” said Baguma passionately.
The meeting had earlier been informed by the Kiboga district chairman, Siraje Nkugwa, that Mutale and ‘men in military uniform’ were to blame for the vicious land upheavals in the district.
“Kakooza Mutale came here, purporting to solve land disputes. Men from his office have come twice to my office, asking to intervene in land disputes and I told them to proceed only if the law covers them,” Nkugwa said.
He said he later heard that the ‘army men’ were causing havoc and that when the civil
ians realised that the Police was not protecting them, they picked their machetes (pangas) to wage war.
He said there was a group of notorious rich land dealers in Kampala who forge court orders, buy military and private security groups in town and pay area LCs to allow them evict people.
He pointed out a man only identified as Ssanyu, now in Luzira prison, who was arrested with a fake court order while enforcing an eviction.
Speaking in a mixture of Runyoro and English, a visibly vexed Baguma, who called the leaders by their first names, repeatedly banged the table to express disgust at the anarchy in his mother district.
“In Uganda, Kiboga is number one in being disorderly. You don’t know the rule of law and you don’t follow hierarchy. Nowhere in Uganda is such anarchy as is in your district, my mother district,” he said, looking at the chairman Nkugwa (right) and the RDC behind him.
He said while Kibaale district had more land cases, there was no anarchy as was the case in Kiboga.
“Your district does not have a good name in government. The President yesterday showed me files and files. When I told him that this meeting would try to solve some cases, he reluctantly said ‘may be’,” Baguma said.
He criticised the district leaders for not making the land a priority, by obtaining land titles that they could use to acquire credit to develop themselves.
He said they were sleeping on their riches while the people in western Uganda, who acquired titles to every piece of land, have left them behind.
The minister said he was shocked to learn that the district lacks a valuer, a physical planner and a land committee.
“Why are you sleeping here? I want you to become rich. Does any one of you here have a full suit?” he asked, looking around the room in which no one wore a suit or looked exquisitely dressed
