KAMPALA, UGANDA, April 13, 2007: Uganda’s government assured Kampala residents of their safety on Friday, a day after rioters targeting Asians (as Indians are called in Uganda) stoned one man to death during a protest over plans by an Indian firm to develop part of a rainforest reserve. Soldiers patrolled the capital where police fired tear gas and bullets on Thursday to scatter hundreds of people demonstrating against a proposal to axe nearly a third of one of Uganda’s last natural forests to make way for growing sugarcane. “The government will not allow any group of persons … to abuse the hard-earned freedoms of Ugandans and plunge the country into lawlessness and anarchy,” Information Minister Kirunda Kivejinja said in a statement. “The government reassures all the people living in Uganda of their security and full protection.”
Scenes of Asian men dragged off motorbikes and beaten while others cowered in besieged city centre shops and a Hindu temple brought back bitter memories of 1972, when Uganda’s late former dictator Idi Amin expelled the country’s 75,000 Asians. Several thousand have since returned, but are viewed with suspicion by some Ugandans who resent their domination of many businesses, particularly small scale retailing. Many of Thursday’s demonstrators carried placards telling Indians to leave Uganda, and as the protest turned bloody armed police had to rescue more than 100 Asian men. “I was sitting in class when people gathered outside making signs through the window that they were going to kill us,” said a 20-year-old Asian student, Prakash. “We could see one Indian guy getting beaten really badly. It was terrible.”
The latest controversy began last year when President Yoweri Museveni ordered a study into whether to slash 7,000 hectares (17,000 acres), or nearly a third, of Mabira Forest to expand the sugar plantations of the Indian-owned Mehta Group. Mabira, which lies about 50 km (30 miles) east of Kampala, has been a nature reserve since 1932. Critics say cutting part of Mabira would have grave ecological consequences, from increased soil erosion to the drying up of rivers and rainfall, and the removal of a buffer against polluting nearby Lake Victoria. Museveni says conservation is a luxury not afforded by poor countries seeking economic development. On Thursday he said he would not be swayed by conservationists “shouting on the radio.”
“I cannot be intimidated,” he said. “The future of all countries lies in processing (goods)… I shall not be deterred by people who do not see where the future of Africa lies.” Dozens of people were arrested on Thursday and at least two rioters were shot dead, apparently by private security guards. Kumara Vithal, a 52-year-old Asian businessman who was born in Uganda, said his family fled to Kenya in the Amin years but came back in 2000 after Museveni encouraged Asians to return. Since then life had been peaceful, he told the agency, and he urged Mehta Group not to push ahead with its Mabira proposal. “They should not go into the forest, not just for us but for the country at large,” Vithal said. “People fear they will be targeted again if this plan goes ahead.”