Ugandan police target demonstrators protesting destruction of forests
16 April 2007
27 arrested after protest turns violent; environmental groups condemn violence, may face charges.
A demonstration against the Ugandan government's proposed plans to ax much of Uganda's Mabira forest reserve turned violent this past Thursday, leading to three deaths. Ugandan police have arrested 27 suspects involved in the incident, including two opposition Members of Parliament. The MPs are reportedly charged with inciting violence.
Frank Muramuzi, the head of the Save Mabira Coalition and Executive Director of the National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE), has made repeated statements that the action was intended as a peaceful protest, and that the demonstration became violent after Ugandan police fired live ammunition to disperse the protestors. It is expected that Muramuzi, also the lead campaigner against the proposed Bujagali hydropower project, will been charged in the incident. Some observers have suggested that the arrest of opposition politicians and environmental activists is politically inspired and aimed at derailing the campaign to preserve the Mabira forest.
The government is currently considering plans to sell off a third of the Mabira Forest - some of the country's last remaining forest reserves - to a local sugarcane producer. The move has been opposed by a large cross-section of Uganda's public who insist that the negative environmental impacts would far outweigh any short-term economic benefit.
NAPE has been among the most vocal organizations questioning government plans to construct the Bujagali dam - an expensive 250MW dam on the Victoria Nile - which activists fear is neither the least cost energy option, nor the most sustainable source of electricity, given the declining water levels at Lake Victoria and the threat that climate change-induced drought poses to hydropower-dependent energy supplies.
The health of the Mabira Forest Reserve directly impacts on the catchment area feeding Lake Victoria, and therefore affects the proposed Bujagali project. As one environmental activist attested in a letter to the World Bank, which is considering financing Bujagali, “without the Mabira ecological system there can be no Bujagali dam.’’
Bujagali is scheduled to go to the World Bank Group Board next week, on April 26, despite a pending Inspection Panel claim and unresolved concerns about the economics of the project and comprehensive energy options studies.
Resources
- Mabira - Murder charges by Hussein Bogere & Mercy Nalugo, The Monitor, April 16, 2007 (AllAfrica website)
- Press Release: IRN calls for release of arrested civil society leaders, International Rivers Network, April 13, 2007 (IRN website)
- Save Mabira Coalition condemns violence by Gerald Tenywa, New Vision, April 14, 2007 (AllAfrica website)
- Three killed in Uganda land protest, Asians targeted by Francis Kwera and Euan Denholm, Reuters, April 12, 2007 (Reuters website)
- Mabira: Forest petititioners meet speaker, New Vision, April 12, 2007 (AllAfrica website)
- Uganda hammers demonstrators, Business Day, April 18, 2007 (Business Day website)
- Mabira: New cabinet paper out by Gerald Tenywa, Sunday Vision, April 16, 2007 (Sunday Vision website)
- Police okays Mabira forest demo, wildlife clubs seek World Bank help by Paul Kiwuuwa and Gerald Tenywa, New Vision, April 11, 2007 (New Vision website)