1
00:00:00,390 --> 00:00:07,710
Good afternoon, good morning, everybody. It's great to see you and thank you very much to the organisers for inviting me here.

2
00:00:07,710 --> 00:00:14,070
This is a wonderful pleasure. And as I was listening to the papers already this morning, I was thinking home.

3
00:00:14,070 --> 00:00:21,040
I probably should have presented something I'd already written before. Other than trying to come to conferences, something brand new.

4
00:00:21,040 --> 00:00:28,860
But this is what I have done, and so I am excited to have this opportunity to present some of my new work to you today.

5
00:00:28,860 --> 00:00:37,950
But please, please know that this is very provisional. And in fact, I would assume that some of you probably are more expert in this area than I am.

6
00:00:37,950 --> 00:00:42,930
So I'm looking forward to your ideas as I develop this work.

7
00:00:42,930 --> 00:00:54,230
The future of. Between October 2nd and December 31st, 1982, nearly 80000 by your wonder,

8
00:00:54,230 --> 00:01:03,660
most of whom were citizens of Uganda were violently expelled from their homes by state operatives Mbarara and U.S. districts.

9
00:01:03,660 --> 00:01:06,720
Approximately half fled to neighbouring Rwanda,

10
00:01:06,720 --> 00:01:17,820
while the rest crowded into existing refugee settlements in the southwest or found themselves stranded on the Ugandan side of the border at Mekelle.

11
00:01:17,820 --> 00:01:24,870
Unlike the Asian expansion of 1972, the Banya window were not given 90 days to prepare.

12
00:01:24,870 --> 00:01:31,380
Instead, they were attacked in their homes and forced to flee with a moment's notice.

13
00:01:31,380 --> 00:01:39,230
Most of the displaced lost everything that they own, their homes, their valuables, their cattle.

14
00:01:39,230 --> 00:01:45,440
International observers have also reported multiple instances of rape and suicide.

15
00:01:45,440 --> 00:01:50,030
I do not wish to suggest that the Asian expulsion was any less violent or traumatic.

16
00:01:50,030 --> 00:02:01,070
On the contrary, I argue that it provided a dangerous template that was later used by those in power to justify and carry out the next eviction.

17
00:02:01,070 --> 00:02:03,500
Indeed, as his presentation reveals,

18
00:02:03,500 --> 00:02:13,700
expulsion functions as a militarised form of statecraft that bolstered and then later undermined the integrity of the state.

19
00:02:13,700 --> 00:02:20,360
Now, as I said, this project is at a very preliminary stage and is part of a larger project and is looking

20
00:02:20,360 --> 00:02:27,350
at the gendered legacies of militarism after the collapse of America's military state.

21
00:02:27,350 --> 00:02:32,660
And some of you know, I've worked on a mean machine before,

22
00:02:32,660 --> 00:02:38,090
and so I'm happy to talk more about that early work, specifically about the expulsion that is of interest.

23
00:02:38,090 --> 00:02:45,590
But today I want to I want to think through this idea of the parallels and ruptures with the Manawan expulsion,

24
00:02:45,590 --> 00:02:56,710
which happened 10 years after the Asian expulsion. I should also mention that what I'm going to be presenting today is snippets from the archives.

25
00:02:56,710 --> 00:03:00,520
The archive, some of which I actually just discovered two days ago.

26
00:03:00,520 --> 00:03:07,000
And so this is so fresh, not even funny chart, but I began collecting data for this project.

27
00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:14,800
In Twenty Seventeen, I was able to visit, first of all, the National Archives and interview and gather a bunch of data.

28
00:03:14,800 --> 00:03:21,880
I was able to go to the UNHCR archives in Geneva, which are full of very rich material.

29
00:03:21,880 --> 00:03:27,250
I analyse reports by groups such as cultural survival and other organisations.

30
00:03:27,250 --> 00:03:35,020
I combed through the testimonies thousands and thousands of pages from the Commission of Enquiry from the Violation of Human Rights,

31
00:03:35,020 --> 00:03:40,150
which I used a lot in my first book and I'm using it a lot in the second one.

32
00:03:40,150 --> 00:03:47,870
I also had a team of researchers working with me to do interviews in various parts of the country, primarily with women.

33
00:03:47,870 --> 00:03:52,900
I'm early a feminist historian of militarism and I'm interested in women's lives.

34
00:03:52,900 --> 00:04:00,670
So I wanted to be able to access the experiences of women who are not often part of these official archival repositories.

35
00:04:00,670 --> 00:04:06,850
And in fact, as I was digging through what I collected in the official archives, I discovered there weren't a lot of women there.

36
00:04:06,850 --> 00:04:13,390
So it's really, really great that that we can capture their their their life in other ways.

37
00:04:13,390 --> 00:04:18,010
And one of the things that I know that Anita and I were talking about might be useful today is to

38
00:04:18,010 --> 00:04:23,410
talk about the archives and how we do this kind of research and what we can find when we can't,

39
00:04:23,410 --> 00:04:27,610
because I would tell you the project that I wanted to present to you today.

40
00:04:27,610 --> 00:04:33,370
The project that I want my next book to be is not that I'm going to get to write because I didn't have the material.

41
00:04:33,370 --> 00:04:39,790
So this is this is the next iteration of what that might be.

42
00:04:39,790 --> 00:04:45,700
OK, so let me just give you a little bit of background. So who are the ban on dive?

43
00:04:45,700 --> 00:04:55,840
Fortunately, Godfrey, I appreciate you going before me because you said a lot of respect for me and who is who is a refugee so much.

44
00:04:55,840 --> 00:05:01,300
There's approximately about one million children living in Uganda give or take.

45
00:05:01,300 --> 00:05:06,640
Or at least that was the figure in the mid 80s. Sure, it's much higher now.

46
00:05:06,640 --> 00:05:14,140
There were some ethnic bound Yolanda that became Uganda by virtue of the drying up boundaries.

47
00:05:14,140 --> 00:05:23,800
But like every many ethnic groups, they are found in parts of Congo and one in Uganda.

48
00:05:23,800 --> 00:05:33,760
And so those who happen to be where the borders were drawn ended up as Ugandans, their family members on the other side of the border were not.

49
00:05:33,760 --> 00:05:43,320
Another group of persons who are categorised as finding one that came in the 1920s as labour, migrants and some legal claims to citizenship.

50
00:05:43,320 --> 00:05:49,650
Others, some of those people, I should say, became in the 1920s intermarried with local populations,

51
00:05:49,650 --> 00:05:55,050
especially the young people who are ethnically very similar to the Rwanda,

52
00:05:55,050 --> 00:06:02,040
which makes it very difficult then today to determine who is actually the one who's fanatical.

53
00:06:02,040 --> 00:06:06,710
And a lot of people don't actually necessarily know the difference, which I find really fascinating.

54
00:06:06,710 --> 00:06:13,350
And thinking about those issues of identity and then another most significant group

55
00:06:13,350 --> 00:06:20,820
of individuals came in between 1959 and 1973 after the political violence in Rwanda.

56
00:06:20,820 --> 00:06:29,760
These are the only group of persons in Uganda that can be considered ongoing refugees because they fall under the U.N. definition.

57
00:06:29,760 --> 00:06:39,660
It was this group if definition, but no wonder refugees were the people who were expelled in 1982.

58
00:06:39,660 --> 00:06:47,150
So they felt a little about removing them. But as I said, most of the anyone who lived in the area of southwestern Uganda,

59
00:06:47,150 --> 00:06:53,340
where it's their main home base, didn't actually consider themselves as refugees.

60
00:06:53,340 --> 00:07:00,690
They were in fact refugees, and many of them, because they had been there for generations, had actually believe that there were citizens.

61
00:07:00,690 --> 00:07:04,860
Now, for the sake of talent not going to go into the discussion about how citizenship works

62
00:07:04,860 --> 00:07:09,720
because I think we've already gotten that nicely laid out by many of my colleagues.

63
00:07:09,720 --> 00:07:16,860
But needless to say, there were many your who have just assumed because they've been born in Uganda and were you this?

64
00:07:16,860 --> 00:07:32,300
That was not the case. 1969 aborted plans to hold a survey too offensive to identify non-citizens in the country, this limitation on our own docks,

65
00:07:32,300 --> 00:07:36,590
and he wanted to make sure that people who are considered non-citizens were not allowed to vote.

66
00:07:36,590 --> 00:07:44,240
He also wanted to make sure that jobs were reserved in the public sector for those who were considered Ugandan citizens.

67
00:07:44,240 --> 00:07:49,490
And so there was a lot of tension surrounding that the beginning of the census.

68
00:07:49,490 --> 00:07:55,010
But fortunately, the census was precluded by any means to.

69
00:07:55,010 --> 00:08:05,810
That's probably the only time I will ever say that. And so as a result, many of the Bunia Linda appreciated the opportunity that came with a win.

70
00:08:05,810 --> 00:08:10,250
I mean, his power. Certainly, we can talk a lot about the violence of that regime.

71
00:08:10,250 --> 00:08:20,840
But but it also meant that they were spared for for particular moment of time and so many betting on ourselves appreciation.

72
00:08:20,840 --> 00:08:27,320
So fast forward to the collapse of Amin's regime in 1979.

73
00:08:27,320 --> 00:08:41,030
The other black period from 1979 to 1980, the heavily contested re-election of the vote in 1980 and the start of the NERY war in February of 1981.

74
00:08:41,030 --> 00:08:44,180
Most of that war was fought in the lawyer triangle,

75
00:08:44,180 --> 00:08:54,350
which was home to many of the women been living in the southwest and where many of those found in one doubt ended up

76
00:08:54,350 --> 00:09:05,780
joining with 70s struggle against the state government for for old and for new grievances that they had against a biotech,

77
00:09:05,780 --> 00:09:14,990
the no wonder had become an easy scapegoat for much of the violence that had been taking place and threatens the stability of the regime.

78
00:09:14,990 --> 00:09:20,440
And so it was logical that they would become involved in the.

79
00:09:20,440 --> 00:09:30,490
The fire, OK, so so this is all taking place in 1981, and it's basically 1981.

80
00:09:30,490 --> 00:09:36,460
So things really got started for the expulsion at a rally in nineteen eighty two.

81
00:09:36,460 --> 00:09:43,760
Jan Abertay made this announcement. He publishes this was published in Uganda Times on January 11.

82
00:09:43,760 --> 00:09:49,450
He said quote, Some refugees are trying to abuse our hospitality.

83
00:09:49,450 --> 00:09:55,570
And some Rwandans voted in the last election. I warned them when I was an Embraer.

84
00:09:55,570 --> 00:10:03,700
Reports indicate that some of them have gone to the bush and a non-Newtonian going to the Ugandan West to disturb Ugandans,

85
00:10:03,700 --> 00:10:09,200
a visitor that does that is inviting himself to be sent away.

86
00:10:09,200 --> 00:10:17,960
So that was published January 11th, 1980. The same day.

87
00:10:17,960 --> 00:10:29,720
This, sorry, 1982 I wrote 1980 1982, the same day the same state run newspaper, the Uganda Times, published an editorial with the title.

88
00:10:29,720 --> 00:10:32,390
Refugees are not above the law.

89
00:10:32,390 --> 00:10:42,710
And this editorial claimed that most atrocities committed during the new era have been done by non Ugandans, a claim that is let down.

90
00:10:42,710 --> 00:10:54,110
The editorial also said that some refugees will flirt with terrorists in Wirral's district and are responsible for the prevailing unrest there.

91
00:10:54,110 --> 00:11:02,420
It was claimed that refugees were a liability to the nation. The editorial wrote that Ugandans cannot and will not state what if they are expected

92
00:11:02,420 --> 00:11:08,340
to continue shouldering the responsibility of caring for these ungrateful people.

93
00:11:08,340 --> 00:11:12,570
It went on to say that if refugees, particularly those from land up,

94
00:11:12,570 --> 00:11:18,750
do not reciprocate our hospitality by being law abiding in the name of peace and progress,

95
00:11:18,750 --> 00:11:25,890
Ugandans may ask their government to build camps for them so that their dirty activities can be easily monitored.

96
00:11:25,890 --> 00:11:30,060
Alternately, we shall tell them to go. After all, have we?

97
00:11:30,060 --> 00:11:33,980
Not more than anyone else at them long enough?

98
00:11:33,980 --> 00:11:41,810
So this is published in the state sanctioned paper, so this is essentially the state of state shortly thereafter.

99
00:11:41,810 --> 00:11:51,710
This is January. There was an incident in Berowra where three UPC affiliated personnel were killed.

100
00:11:51,710 --> 00:11:58,220
There had been a spate of cattle rustling in in 1980, one in early 1982.

101
00:11:58,220 --> 00:12:07,400
There was the perception that it was Binyavanga who were engaged in the cattle rustling and stealing primarily or only from the on college,

102
00:12:07,400 --> 00:12:15,060
taking the cattle across the border into Rwanda, selling it for big profits and then living large on the loot.

103
00:12:15,060 --> 00:12:18,270
Not really evidence suggests that this was the rumour.

104
00:12:18,270 --> 00:12:32,640
So what happened is a group of three individuals, two UPC youth wingers and one police officer came to arrest some of these smugglers.

105
00:12:32,640 --> 00:12:44,190
The money went to instead went to the nearby military base of the U.N., L.A., the Liberation Army and reported bandits who were in the area.

106
00:12:44,190 --> 00:12:51,330
The U.N. L.A., without without doing any assessment, shot the three on the spot, killing one.

107
00:12:51,330 --> 00:13:00,630
This outraged, obviously members of the local community saying, you know, you're not responsible for murdering our people.

108
00:13:00,630 --> 00:13:02,340
And so it created a big uproar.

109
00:13:02,340 --> 00:13:16,590
And it was this this killing that actually instigated the wave of expulsions that will quickly run through seven minutes last.

110
00:13:16,590 --> 00:13:23,970
And I should mention, too, that at the funeral for these individuals who were killed by the UN L.A.,

111
00:13:23,970 --> 00:13:34,260
the Minister of Agriculture made a statement and he said I will not rest until we figure out who is responsible for these killings,

112
00:13:34,260 --> 00:13:36,840
not knowing at the time that it was actually the government.

113
00:13:36,840 --> 00:13:42,330
It was the U.N. who was responsible and said, I promise you, we're going to we're going to get them.

114
00:13:42,330 --> 00:13:48,060
And so everybody in the area was agitated. They were really on high alert these killings.

115
00:13:48,060 --> 00:13:53,280
The president had made statements in mid-July of 1982.

116
00:13:53,280 --> 00:14:02,250
A few months later, the district council passed a resolution in Mbarara, saying that all refugees should be moved from the border.

117
00:14:02,250 --> 00:14:11,250
Now it's interesting the commission of Enquiry into Violations of Human Rights has the exact has an extract from the minutes from this meeting,

118
00:14:11,250 --> 00:14:16,350
and they note the following about the so-called value of the refugees quote.

119
00:14:16,350 --> 00:14:23,220
This is according to the district commission. They have left the camps during the mean time they acquired land titles,

120
00:14:23,220 --> 00:14:28,230
and some have chased away rightful citizens from their land using force only

121
00:14:28,230 --> 00:14:32,160
they registered in the last elections because it was hard to control them.

122
00:14:32,160 --> 00:14:35,850
Some have started claiming that they are back zero three.

123
00:14:35,850 --> 00:14:42,150
They own cattle, their asari, their own cattle are never stolen, only goes to the and folate,

124
00:14:42,150 --> 00:14:51,450
indicating clearly that these are the people who steal the cattle. And the district council then decided that one the refugees should be forced to go

125
00:14:51,450 --> 00:14:56,670
back into their camp and that their movement should be checked and restricted,

126
00:14:56,670 --> 00:15:05,850
which, by the way, is a violation of international law. You cannot force refugees to stay in the but nonetheless, that's where they wanted them to go.

127
00:15:05,850 --> 00:15:14,940
Also, never mind the fact that most of the people living in the area where they were lined up weren't actually refugees, but they had to go.

128
00:15:14,940 --> 00:15:19,860
The second thing they wanted is that they should be under the jurisdiction of the Uganda government directly.

129
00:15:19,860 --> 00:15:27,940
Other than being under the province of the UNHCR, this would enable the government to better monitor their movements.

130
00:15:27,940 --> 00:15:28,840
And third,

131
00:15:28,840 --> 00:15:38,620
the district council wanted them to be moved from the border and be given areas elsewhere because they are causes of insecurity on our borders.

132
00:15:38,620 --> 00:15:42,990
And they passed that motion unanimously.

133
00:15:42,990 --> 00:15:55,200
Later, when the minister of the member of Parliament from our south was asked to testify, compel them to testify before the commission of enquiry.

134
00:15:55,200 --> 00:16:00,120
He likened refugees in camps to animals to its strength.

135
00:16:00,120 --> 00:16:05,610
He said that the expulsion was nearly to return them to the camps where they could stay out of trouble.

136
00:16:05,610 --> 00:16:14,940
He said quote The purpose of the exercise was to collect the stray and they were very, very minute in the 1970s.

137
00:16:14,940 --> 00:16:18,780
They just left the camps. And I do not think when we approached the Ministry of Culture,

138
00:16:18,780 --> 00:16:24,960
then they did not know how many refugees they have in this country because some had already claimed they were citizens.

139
00:16:24,960 --> 00:16:34,150
And even I do not think presently the government may know which people of Rwandan origin are still registered as refugees.

140
00:16:34,150 --> 00:16:44,410
So fascinating, that kind of the language that's being used to talk about people who've been living in Europe for a very long time, it's a stray.

141
00:16:44,410 --> 00:16:51,490
A eventually gave credence to this theory in February of 1983 during the press conference.

142
00:16:51,490 --> 00:16:56,770
He said it is not true that the September incident occurred with massive government policy.

143
00:16:56,770 --> 00:17:02,800
What happened was resentment by Ugandans against one of these refugees who had left the camps

144
00:17:02,800 --> 00:17:10,180
and occupied the citizens lands instead of reading the statement as to non culpability.

145
00:17:10,180 --> 00:17:14,650
I see this as evidence of the lack of control that I mean that I see something

146
00:17:14,650 --> 00:17:20,080
new to me that don't really have a real estate and the powerful actually.

147
00:17:20,080 --> 00:17:24,280
Rather, I can talk about that more in the Q&A.

148
00:17:24,280 --> 00:17:27,070
As an aside, I also, when I was doing research for this project,

149
00:17:27,070 --> 00:17:35,580
heard many people tell me stories about how Botha was constantly drunk and how he was always in office.

150
00:17:35,580 --> 00:17:42,380
And so it's not surprising, then, that there were other big men who are who are running the state.

151
00:17:42,380 --> 00:17:50,120
Another architect of the expulsion, a higher believe that it was the bomb Yolanda's failure to integrate.

152
00:17:50,120 --> 00:17:54,360
That was the cause of the problem, similar to what we heard with the Asians.

153
00:17:54,360 --> 00:18:01,160
This was not the fact that they were straying from the camps. He testified before the commission that quote,

154
00:18:01,160 --> 00:18:07,190
But when you have situations where people come into society and keep their integrity and they may have some superiority

155
00:18:07,190 --> 00:18:14,210
complex or inferiority complex or some other complexes that the locals may find it very difficult to digest,

156
00:18:14,210 --> 00:18:22,160
you are bound to have problems. So the only thing I would recommend if possible is to integrate and what?

157
00:18:22,160 --> 00:18:29,700
And so the archives are actually filled with different examples of different colonial and former colonial.

158
00:18:29,700 --> 00:18:35,240
So talking about the failure to integrate of the mind, you wonder over time.

159
00:18:35,240 --> 00:18:37,910
And so I think that this is something really important.

160
00:18:37,910 --> 00:18:45,650
Another claim that has been proven unfounded is that the underlying were very active in a major state research bureau.

161
00:18:45,650 --> 00:18:50,450
Certainly, there were some high ranking members in the US Army,

162
00:18:50,450 --> 00:18:58,320
but the vast majority of operatives were not actually finding whether that was a very easy scapegoat.

163
00:18:58,320 --> 00:19:03,840
So looks like I've given all this context, and I haven't been able to tell you much about the expulsions.

164
00:19:03,840 --> 00:19:08,230
I will just very quickly run over some of the main things.

165
00:19:08,230 --> 00:19:13,860
On October 1st, 1982, the expulsion begins OK.

166
00:19:13,860 --> 00:19:25,110
Over the course of two to three months, about 80 to 90 thousand on your watch were forced to leave their homes, primarily to understand your district.

167
00:19:25,110 --> 00:19:29,430
About half of them crossed the border into Rwanda, where they were in two different camps.

168
00:19:29,430 --> 00:19:39,300
The other half went into existing refugee settlements in southwestern Uganda, Nike Valley and primarily after a period of time.

169
00:19:39,300 --> 00:19:46,530
After the first months on November 1st, Rwanda close the border because they were afraid of so many people coming back in.

170
00:19:46,530 --> 00:19:54,390
So there were a group of about 4000 individuals, primarily Ugandans, that were stuck in a place called Maremma Hill.

171
00:19:54,390 --> 00:19:57,420
They were unable to cross the border. A lot of them were reluctant.

172
00:19:57,420 --> 00:20:05,460
They did not want to go into the existing established camps because they did not want to be associated with refugees.

173
00:20:05,460 --> 00:20:09,750
And so they lived in these places for for several years.

174
00:20:09,750 --> 00:20:18,360
And in fact, it was not until the fall of Maltese government in eighty five that they even began to contemplate coming back.

175
00:20:18,360 --> 00:20:24,740
I'm happy to talk in the Q&A about that, some of the gendered repercussions, which I'm just starting to get across.

176
00:20:24,740 --> 00:20:32,070
This is what I get for having. We don't like other, but I can talk about the experience of exile that were that were different for women,

177
00:20:32,070 --> 00:20:38,970
for men, as well as the linkages that I see with AMOATENG and the in this state.

178
00:20:38,970 --> 00:20:42,360
Unfortunately, I don't want to take more time, so I'm happy to do that.

179
00:20:42,360 --> 00:20:46,080
And hopefully in the larger paper, I'll have a chance to kind of flesh that out,

180
00:20:46,080 --> 00:20:52,075
but I appreciate the opportunity to at least start to present some of the spectacular.