Before the bulldozers came, Magdalena Nakamya harvested coffee,
cassava, avocado and jackfruit on her three-hectare (seven-acre) plot on
Kalangala, an island in Lake Victoria.
But on a July morning in 2011, Nakamya, 64, awoke to find yellow
machines churning up her land and razing the crops she had grown in a
bid to make way for palm oil plantations.
“No one came to talk to me before they destroyed my crops,” says
Nakamya. “I heard that some people were given money, but I didn’t
receive anything.”
Oil Palm Uganda Limited (Opul) was launched in 2002, following an agreement signed between the government and Bidco Uganda, a food producer, with the aim of increasing palm oil production in the country.
In 2011, Opul acquired land leases from a Ugandan businessman, Amos Ssempa, with the aim of expanding its plantations. About 7,500 hectares (18,500 acres) of oil palm have been planted since 2002 (pdf). Opul describes the project as part of an initiative to increase vegetable oil production in the country.
Mangdelena Nakamya, 64, now lives on church land after she was evicted from her land in Kangala. Photograph: Alon Mwesigwa
Francis Ssemogerere, 55, tended 3.6 hectares of land for 30 years
until he was evicted in the same year as Nakamya. No compensation was
paid to him either. “They took all of [my land]. They promised to come
back and pay me but they never came back,” Ssemogerere says.
Uganda’s constitution requires
authorities to obtain a court order to evict people from their land,
and compensation must also be paid. Nakayama and Ssemogerere are from a
community of more than 100 people in Kalangala who claim they were
evicted from their land illegally.
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The
palm oil project is supported by the UN’s International Fund for
Agricultural Development (Ifad). Bidco and global palm oil giant Wilmar
International are major investors. In 2004, the World Bank withdrew from the project amid concern that it was not complying with the bank’s forestry policies (pdf).
Anne van Schaik, accountable finance campaigner at Friends of the
Earth Europe, said: “Wilmar and its subsidiaries, backed by European
money, are forcing communities from their land in Uganda.”
On 19 February, a group of farmers filed a lawsuit against Bidco Uganda and Amos Ssempa, who leased the land to Opul.
A spokeswoman for Wilmar said: “No one had been evicted for the Opul
project. Where it was not possible for the occupants to leave the land
in question, the specific area was set aside and no oil palm development
took place. We believe we have developed one of the best oil palm
plantations in Africa in Kalangala and the local people have benefited
tremendously from the project.”
Bidco Uganda general manager Suvrajit Ghosh denied knowledge of the case.
Ssempa says “due processes were followed and farmers were
compensated”. He says: “They [the farmers] signed that they received the
money.”
Ann Turinayo, communication and knowledge management officer for Ifad
Uganda, says: “Ifad is not involved in any land acquisition. What we do
is that we give highly subsidised finance to government which benefits
small farmers in Kalangala.
“We [Ifad] support people who are growing oil palms on their own
land. There are more than 1,600 farmers in Kalangala, who are growing
oil palms at a commercial basis on their own land, and these are the
people we support.”
While some of the farmers agreed to be compensated, they say the
money they have received is insufficient for the value of the land they
have lost and the food that has been destroyed. Some farmers claim they
were coerced into signing for the money.
Desire Nsamba Kiggundu, 43, one of the affected farmers, says seven
of his 12 acres were taken yet he was given only 250,000 Uganda
shillings ($86.30) in compensation.
“I was told, ‘If you don’t sign for this money, do you have lawyers to argue in court?’” Kiggundu said.
Emmanuel Kyambazi, 41, experienced something similar. He says he was
forced to sign for 100,000 shillings ($34.50) in compensation for his 10
acres of land.
David Balironda, the Kalangala district production officer, said he saw people being compensated.
Asked why he had not objected to the fact that the compensation did
not match the value of people’s land and food, he said: “It was their
agreement with the landlord. These people were squatters on someone’s
land. They agreed on the amount of money.”
He added: “I blame the NGOs; it is them amplifying people to rise up and demand for land even when they were compensated.”
A palm oil plantation in Kalangala. Photograph: Alon Mwesigwa
Opul says it has so far recruited 1,200 local workers, including
university graduates. It says the palm oil production will bring
benefits for the area. “The project aspires to provide the people of
Kalangala district with a great opportunity to immensely improve their
quality of life. We have, for example, started construction and
maintenance of roads, set up a clinic and housing for our employees.”
Frank Muramuzi, director of the National Association of Professional
Environmentalists (Nape)/Friends of the Earth Uganda, said: “Wilmar and
the other palm oil companies are aware of the fact that communities have
been displaced but have to date not been able to resolve the problems.
“This project was sold to the residents of Kalangala with promises of
employment and a brighter future. But they were not fairly compensated
for the loss of their livelihoods, and now without access to land face a
daily struggle to get by.”
Friends of the Earth Uganda argue that the project has had a
devastating effect on the environment. “A large proportion of the palm
oil plantations are in areas previously covered by natural forest. An
estimated 3,600 hectares of forest have been destroyed to make way for
the palm oil plantations, including 100 hectares of the protected Gala
forest reserve in Bugala, Kalangala,” it said in a 2012 report (pdf).
Samuel Lowe, a land campaigner at Friends of the Earth England, Wales
and Northern Ireland, said: “This case clearly shows that we cannot
expect companies and financiers to regulate themselves. We need binding
regulations in Europe so financiers can no longer provide their services
to companies engaged in land grabbing.
Land disputes in Uganda are not unusual and, as the government dishes
out land to foreign investors, it is the local farmers who are usually
the victims.
In 2011, a
report by Oxfam said at least 20,000 farmers had been evicted from a
government-owned forest in Mubende and Kiboga districts in central
Uganda to make way for a British forestry company, New Forests Company (NFC).
