Good afternoon, good morning, everybody. It's great to see you and thank you very much to the organisers for inviting me here.
This is a wonderful pleasure. And as I was listening to the papers already this morning, I was thinking home.
I probably should have presented something I'd already written before. Other than trying to come to conferences, something brand new.
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.
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.
So I'm looking forward to your ideas as I develop this work.
The future of. Between October 2nd and December 31st, 1982, nearly 80000 by your wonder,
most of whom were citizens of Uganda were violently expelled from their homes by state operatives Mbarara and U.S. districts.
Approximately half fled to neighbouring Rwanda,
while the rest crowded into existing refugee settlements in the southwest or found themselves stranded on the Ugandan side of the border at Mekelle.
Unlike the Asian expansion of 1972, the Banya window were not given 90 days to prepare.
Instead, they were attacked in their homes and forced to flee with a moment's notice.
Most of the displaced lost everything that they own, their homes, their valuables, their cattle.
International observers have also reported multiple instances of rape and suicide.
I do not wish to suggest that the Asian expulsion was any less violent or traumatic.
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.
Indeed, as his presentation reveals,
expulsion functions as a militarised form of statecraft that bolstered and then later undermined the integrity of the state.
Now, as I said, this project is at a very preliminary stage and is part of a larger project and is looking
at the gendered legacies of militarism after the collapse of America's military state.
And some of you know, I've worked on a mean machine before,
and so I'm happy to talk more about that early work, specifically about the expulsion that is of interest.
But today I want to I want to think through this idea of the parallels and ruptures with the Manawan expulsion,
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.
The archive, some of which I actually just discovered two days ago.
And so this is so fresh, not even funny chart, but I began collecting data for this project.
In Twenty Seventeen, I was able to visit, first of all, the National Archives and interview and gather a bunch of data.
I was able to go to the UNHCR archives in Geneva, which are full of very rich material.
I analyse reports by groups such as cultural survival and other organisations.
I combed through the testimonies thousands and thousands of pages from the Commission of Enquiry from the Violation of Human Rights,
which I used a lot in my first book and I'm using it a lot in the second one.
I also had a team of researchers working with me to do interviews in various parts of the country, primarily with women.
I'm early a feminist historian of militarism and I'm interested in women's lives.
So I wanted to be able to access the experiences of women who are not often part of these official archival repositories.
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.
So it's really, really great that that we can capture their their their life in other ways.
And one of the things that I know that Anita and I were talking about might be useful today is to
talk about the archives and how we do this kind of research and what we can find when we can't,
because I would tell you the project that I wanted to present to you today.
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.
So this is this is the next iteration of what that might be.
OK, so let me just give you a little bit of background. So who are the ban on dive?
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.
There's approximately about one million children living in Uganda give or take.
Or at least that was the figure in the mid 80s. Sure, it's much higher now.
There were some ethnic bound Yolanda that became Uganda by virtue of the drying up boundaries.
But like every many ethnic groups, they are found in parts of Congo and one in Uganda.
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.
Another group of persons who are categorised as finding one that came in the 1920s as labour, migrants and some legal claims to citizenship.
Others, some of those people, I should say, became in the 1920s intermarried with local populations,
especially the young people who are ethnically very similar to the Rwanda,
which makes it very difficult then today to determine who is actually the one who's fanatical.
And a lot of people don't actually necessarily know the difference, which I find really fascinating.
And thinking about those issues of identity and then another most significant group
of individuals came in between 1959 and 1973 after the political violence in Rwanda.
These are the only group of persons in Uganda that can be considered ongoing refugees because they fall under the U.N. definition.
It was this group if definition, but no wonder refugees were the people who were expelled in 1982.
So they felt a little about removing them. But as I said, most of the anyone who lived in the area of southwestern Uganda,
where it's their main home base, didn't actually consider themselves as refugees.
They were in fact refugees, and many of them, because they had been there for generations, had actually believe that there were citizens.
Now, for the sake of talent not going to go into the discussion about how citizenship works
because I think we've already gotten that nicely laid out by many of my colleagues.
But needless to say, there were many your who have just assumed because they've been born in Uganda and were you this?
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,
and he wanted to make sure that people who are considered non-citizens were not allowed to vote.
He also wanted to make sure that jobs were reserved in the public sector for those who were considered Ugandan citizens.
And so there was a lot of tension surrounding that the beginning of the census.
But fortunately, the census was precluded by any means to.
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.
I mean, his power. Certainly, we can talk a lot about the violence of that regime.
But but it also meant that they were spared for for particular moment of time and so many betting on ourselves appreciation.
So fast forward to the collapse of Amin's regime in 1979.
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.
Most of that war was fought in the lawyer triangle,
which was home to many of the women been living in the southwest and where many of those found in one doubt ended up
joining with 70s struggle against the state government for for old and for new grievances that they had against a biotech,
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.
And so it was logical that they would become involved in the.
The fire, OK, so so this is all taking place in 1981, and it's basically 1981.
So things really got started for the expulsion at a rally in nineteen eighty two.
Jan Abertay made this announcement. He publishes this was published in Uganda Times on January 11.
He said quote, Some refugees are trying to abuse our hospitality.
And some Rwandans voted in the last election. I warned them when I was an Embraer.
Reports indicate that some of them have gone to the bush and a non-Newtonian going to the Ugandan West to disturb Ugandans,
a visitor that does that is inviting himself to be sent away.
So that was published January 11th, 1980. The same day.
This, sorry, 1982 I wrote 1980 1982, the same day the same state run newspaper, the Uganda Times, published an editorial with the title.
Refugees are not above the law.
And this editorial claimed that most atrocities committed during the new era have been done by non Ugandans, a claim that is let down.
The editorial also said that some refugees will flirt with terrorists in Wirral's district and are responsible for the prevailing unrest there.
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
to continue shouldering the responsibility of caring for these ungrateful people.
It went on to say that if refugees, particularly those from land up,
do not reciprocate our hospitality by being law abiding in the name of peace and progress,
Ugandans may ask their government to build camps for them so that their dirty activities can be easily monitored.
Alternately, we shall tell them to go. After all, have we?
Not more than anyone else at them long enough?
So this is published in the state sanctioned paper, so this is essentially the state of state shortly thereafter.
This is January. There was an incident in Berowra where three UPC affiliated personnel were killed.
There had been a spate of cattle rustling in in 1980, one in early 1982.
There was the perception that it was Binyavanga who were engaged in the cattle rustling and stealing primarily or only from the on college,
taking the cattle across the border into Rwanda, selling it for big profits and then living large on the loot.
Not really evidence suggests that this was the rumour.
So what happened is a group of three individuals, two UPC youth wingers and one police officer came to arrest some of these smugglers.
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.
The U.N. L.A., without without doing any assessment, shot the three on the spot, killing one.
This outraged, obviously members of the local community saying, you know, you're not responsible for murdering our people.
And so it created a big uproar.
And it was this this killing that actually instigated the wave of expulsions that will quickly run through seven minutes last.
And I should mention, too, that at the funeral for these individuals who were killed by the UN L.A.,
the Minister of Agriculture made a statement and he said I will not rest until we figure out who is responsible for these killings,
not knowing at the time that it was actually the government.
It was the U.N. who was responsible and said, I promise you, we're going to we're going to get them.
And so everybody in the area was agitated. They were really on high alert these killings.
The president had made statements in mid-July of 1982.
A few months later, the district council passed a resolution in Mbarara, saying that all refugees should be moved from the border.
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,
and they note the following about the so-called value of the refugees quote.
This is according to the district commission. They have left the camps during the mean time they acquired land titles,
and some have chased away rightful citizens from their land using force only
they registered in the last elections because it was hard to control them.
Some have started claiming that they are back zero three.
They own cattle, their asari, their own cattle are never stolen, only goes to the and folate,
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
back into their camp and that their movement should be checked and restricted,
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.
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.
The second thing they wanted is that they should be under the jurisdiction of the Uganda government directly.
Other than being under the province of the UNHCR, this would enable the government to better monitor their movements.
And third,
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.
And they passed that motion unanimously.
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.
He likened refugees in camps to animals to its strength.
He said that the expulsion was nearly to return them to the camps where they could stay out of trouble.
He said quote The purpose of the exercise was to collect the stray and they were very, very minute in the 1970s.
They just left the camps. And I do not think when we approached the Ministry of Culture,
then they did not know how many refugees they have in this country because some had already claimed they were citizens.
And even I do not think presently the government may know which people of Rwandan origin are still registered as refugees.
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.
A eventually gave credence to this theory in February of 1983 during the press conference.
He said it is not true that the September incident occurred with massive government policy.
What happened was resentment by Ugandans against one of these refugees who had left the camps
and occupied the citizens lands instead of reading the statement as to non culpability.
I see this as evidence of the lack of control that I mean that I see something
new to me that don't really have a real estate and the powerful actually.
Rather, I can talk about that more in the Q&A.
As an aside, I also, when I was doing research for this project,
heard many people tell me stories about how Botha was constantly drunk and how he was always in office.
And so it's not surprising, then, that there were other big men who are who are running the state.
Another architect of the expulsion, a higher believe that it was the bomb Yolanda's failure to integrate.
That was the cause of the problem, similar to what we heard with the Asians.
This was not the fact that they were straying from the camps. He testified before the commission that quote,
But when you have situations where people come into society and keep their integrity and they may have some superiority
complex or inferiority complex or some other complexes that the locals may find it very difficult to digest,
you are bound to have problems. So the only thing I would recommend if possible is to integrate and what?
And so the archives are actually filled with different examples of different colonial and former colonial.
So talking about the failure to integrate of the mind, you wonder over time.
And so I think that this is something really important.
Another claim that has been proven unfounded is that the underlying were very active in a major state research bureau.
Certainly, there were some high ranking members in the US Army,
but the vast majority of operatives were not actually finding whether that was a very easy scapegoat.
So looks like I've given all this context, and I haven't been able to tell you much about the expulsions.
I will just very quickly run over some of the main things.
On October 1st, 1982, the expulsion begins OK.
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.
About half of them crossed the border into Rwanda, where they were in two different camps.
The other half went into existing refugee settlements in southwestern Uganda, Nike Valley and primarily after a period of time.
After the first months on November 1st, Rwanda close the border because they were afraid of so many people coming back in.
So there were a group of about 4000 individuals, primarily Ugandans, that were stuck in a place called Maremma Hill.
They were unable to cross the border. A lot of them were reluctant.
They did not want to go into the existing established camps because they did not want to be associated with refugees.
And so they lived in these places for for several years.
And in fact, it was not until the fall of Maltese government in eighty five that they even began to contemplate coming back.
I'm happy to talk in the Q&A about that, some of the gendered repercussions, which I'm just starting to get across.
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,
for men, as well as the linkages that I see with AMOATENG and the in this state.
Unfortunately, I don't want to take more time, so I'm happy to do that.
And hopefully in the larger paper, I'll have a chance to kind of flesh that out,
but I appreciate the opportunity to at least start to present some of the spectacular.