Tanzania October 2006 |
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| How Kagera tackles its immigrants, (Sunday News, 2006-10-01):-FAMINE and lack of land in neighbouring countries drive immigrants into Kagera Region where they pollute and degrade the environment. They can be found in the forests of Karagwe, Biharamulo, Bukoba Rural and Misenyi districts. I travelled to Kagera some weeks ago and heard many stories: a militia is sent to evict his former primary school teacher; another person is telling his friend where he was going to hide his 'alien mother', a medical doctor is removed from a hospital and thrown in custody to defend his nationality, etc. These stories stem from the ongoing operation to kick out thousands of long-term and short-term immigrants who have been living in Kagera Region. The government took the decision of repatriating immigrants early this year, when the Vice-President, Dr Ali Mohammed Shein, said that all foreign pastoralists, who were grazing in Kagera, had to be evicted as an environment-preserving measure. When Prime Minister Edward Lowassa later visited Kagera Region, he was told that there were up to 76,000 illegal immigrants in the region alone. He heard that the immigrants and their animals were degrading the environment and that some of them were on a mission to build a tribal empire. Mr Lowassa responded, insisting that the immigrants had to go. The Minister for Home Affairs, Mr John Chiligati, who accompanied the premier in Kagera, said village leaders had to draw lists of immigrants in their villages and hand them over to the authorities. During Mr Lowassa's tour of Kagera he was completely overwhelmed by complaints over immigrants and refugees. For people with knowledge of written and oral history of Tanzania and the neighbouring countries, the fact that Kagera is hosting a cocktail of immigrants and locals comes as no surprise. Kagera is one of the regions in the country that has been hit by an influx of immigrants and refugees. Its proximity to countries with a history of impoverishment and instability is the main reason why. The region received its first batch of immigrants in the 1920s, when Belgium replaced Germany as the colonial power in Rwanda and Burundi. The Belgian colonialists forced people to abandon food crop agriculture to grow cash crops, which created famines that sent people heading east. Many immigrants from Burundi and Rwanda who escaped the famine came to Tanganyika and settled in the areas of Ngara, Muleba and Karagwe districts. Although most of them have managed to integrate and speak the local language, still there are some who kept their culture and they have become an obvious target of the ongoing repatriation. Another group of agricultural immigrants in Kagera are the Bakiga, who settled in Karagwe District. They started arriving from Kigezi in Western Uganda in 1935 and continued to cross the border up to the 1980s. They immigrated into Tanzania due to population pressure and natural hazards. Some villages in Karagwe such as Kigando, Nyakashenyi and Kihinda are almost exclusively inhabited by Bakiga. The people have not lost their identity due to living close to each other and have now become a target of repatriation. This population of agricultural immigrants from Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda was further boosted by an influx of many others between 1980 and 1990. Famine and lack of land drove them to Tanzania, where village authorities allocated them land for cultivation. Another set of immigrants are pastoralists, who are the most conspicuous and targeted aliens in Kagera. They live a nomadic life in the forests with their large herds of cattle. They can be found in the forests of Karagwe, Biharamulo, Bukoba Rural and Misenyi districts. Their population is very small but their many animals make their presence felt. These people are jokingly called ėgardens, where corrupt officials always harvest. These pastoralists arrived in Kagera from mainly Uganda in two phases; first between the 1930s and 1965 and later between the 1990s and 2000s. In the early years, immigrants run away from rinderpest that hit western Uganda, while the second phase immigrants were pushed by population pressure and effects of consistent droughts. They are a mixture of Ugandans and Rwandans. Kagera received its first refugees in 1959 from Rwanda following the pre-independence ethnic violence. The refugees, who crossed into Tanzania, settled in refugee camps in Karagwe and Ngara. In 1980, the first phase government decided to grant them citizenships. Most of them became Tanzanian citizens through mass naturalisation, ordered by Mwalimu Julius Nyerere. However, some of them refused to be naturalised and returned to Rwanda after 1994. Others, still not naturalised, stayed in Tanzania and are now a target of expulsion. Another group of refugees came from Burundi in 1972, escaping the state-inspired terror. Most of the Burundians run to Tabora, Rukwa and Kigoma but some headed to Kagera. The latest refugees are Rwandans, who poured into Tanzania in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide. These refugees were repatriated en mass to Rwanda in 1996, but still many of them are scattered in villages in Kagera. When Mwalimu Nyerere visited Kagera in the early 1980s, Bukoba residents complained to him at a public rally that the presence of refugees was affecting their lives. The residents said that the refugees were thieves, cattle rustles and were grabbing land. But Mwalimu dismissed their complaints as unfounded xenophobia and urged them to respect and tolerate their African brothers. The past governments therefore tolerated immigrants. However, the current government now wants to see changes. Refugees and immigrants should go. Many Tanzanians hold a view that immigrants and refugees are environmental pollutants, bandits and imperialists. The Kagera Regional Commissioner Col. Enos Mfuru told the BBC: "These illegal immigrants first of all have many herds of cattle, they degrade the environment, they have to go to allow Tanzanians to develop." The Deputy Minister for East Africa Co-operation, Dr Diodorus Kamala, had to issue a press statement to defend himself after coming under fire for 'sympathising' with the immigrants. He had simply said that justice had to be done to avoid victimising genuine citizens. It is true, large herds of cattle degrade the environment and Kagera has almost become a grazing land for foreign nomads. It is also true that refugees have been a source of crime in Kagera. It is also a fact that the arrival of immigrants has created an identity crisis for some Tanzanians, especially those who resemble people from across the borders. Even members of the Karagwe royal family are sometimes subjected to harassment by the authorities, who suspect them to be foreigners. Col. Mfuru had given them up to September 16 to have sold their assets and go. And the Home Affairs Minister John Chiligati has said that long-term immigrants will be given time and opportunity to acquire residence permits at a nominal price of 10,000/- and also apply for citizenships. | |
South African Migration Project (SAMP) - Queen's University - http://www.queensu.ca/samp |