Kenya Vs Uganda:The Migingo Island Controversy.

[Magezi]

you just call them scouts. but they have at least done something to you. you have done nothing to me because you are coward. Kenya is not strong at all and you can not fight with Uganda, just lay your guns down and ask mercy from m7.

Ugandan army are just a group assembled by neighouring countries, tanzania being the pioneer nation in training UPDF. 20% of the uganda intelligence is supported by foreign agents so to me i see UPDF as just like the then RPF of rwanda.

 

[Mwana wa Mungu]

Ugandan army are just a group assembled by neighouring countries, tanzania being the pioneer nation in training UPDF. 20% of the uganda intelligence is supported by foreign agents so to me i see UPDF as just like the then RPF of rwanda.

have you ever had tested their strength yet? they would have cut off your legs before they burn you. they are more experienced on that than you, you just keep on talking without doing anything. you look coward and lazy. words do not cut off a tree brother, actions can. we do not need to support war, but we do not want the lie that kenya is strong millitarily. kwanini tuwapake mafuta kwa mgongo wa chupa? kwanini tuwadanganye, mtakuja mjikute mmeingia kwenye nchi ya watu mkapigwa mkapata aibu tupu. you are even more babies than Rwanda and Burundi to tell you. the only thing you keep on being proud of is "we are a vibrant economy in East africa" and Nairobi is the Dubai of East Africa. something which even a child can laught at you..hahaha. you are poor, full of diseases, illiterate and helpless, just like many african countries. the ten million people under famine, the killing and fight for land, your country is a mess to live and invest. few people will continue to be attracted to invest there in the future. you have got to sit down and think on how you will correct your faults because yu are going down. with yoru necked eyes, you will witness your neighbouring countries prosper very soon unexpectedly, and shame will be on you. are you a soldier sir? have you ever attended some trainign? do you know anything at all about these things or you are just talking politics.

 

[Magezi]

have you ever had tested their strength yet? they would have cut off your legs before they burn you. they are more experienced on that than you, you just keep on talking without doing anything. you look coward and lazy. words do not cut off a tree brother, actions can. we do not need to support war, but we do not want the lie that kenya is strong millitarily. kwanini tuwapake mafuta kwa mgongo wa chupa? kwanini tuwadanganye, mtakuja mjikute mmeingia kwenye nchi ya watu mkapigwa mkapata aibu tupu. you are even more babies than Rwanda and Burundi to tell you. the only thing you keep on being proud of is "we are a vibrant economy in East africa" and Nairobi is the Dubai of East Africa. something which even a child can laught at you..hahaha. you are poor, full of diseases, illiterate and helpless, just like many african countries. the ten million people under famine, the killing and fight for land, your country is a mess to live and invest. few people will continue to be attracted to invest there in the future. you have got to sit down and think on how you will correct your faults because yu are going down. with yoru necked eyes, you will witness your neighbouring countries prosper very soon unexpectedly, and shame will be on you. are you a soldier sir? have you ever attended some trainign? do you know anything at all about these things or you are just talking politics.

even idd amin had feelings like you ....

 

[Kiranga]

http://www.independent.co.ug/images/stories/issue50/mgingo.jpg
The above image is from a Ugandan paper, can somebody establish the actual coordinates of the island?

Migingo: Big trouble on small island

This tiny rock in Lake Victoria nearly brought Kenya and Uganda to war. Daniel Howden reports from Migingo

Migingo: Big trouble on small island - Africa, World - The Independent

Migingo Island rises out of the waters of Lake Victoria like an armour-plated turtle. An uneven, rocky dome of less than an acre, it is clad above the water line in corrugated iron. The rusty shacks crowded on to its back give shelter to a scarcely credible 500 people – a slice of life transplanted from the worst city slum into the middle of the world's largest tropical lake. It is also home to Africa's smallest war, a conflict fought in advances of three soldiers, a dozen policemen or eight marines. Any more than that and they would not fit. The fate of this rocky islet has caused outrage in east Africa, triggered a ministerial crisis and brought Kenya and Uganda to the brink of a shooting war.


The pair of flags that fly above the island, hoisted on driftwood, are testimony to a temporary victory and they have been torn down and replaced twice already. Across one of them prances a grey crane – fabled for its gentle nature – on a background of yellow, red and black: Uganda's national flag. The other has the black and white colours of the Ugandan police which, from a distance, look worryingly like a pirate's emblem. To the Kenyan fishermen who make up the bulk of the island's population, it is a symbol of fear and humiliation.

Nicholas Makongo Nyanda, 30, used to be one of those fishermen but he has not been back to Migingo for two years. As the outboard engine pushes his reluctant craft through the waves towards it, he becomes visibly more nervous. He retreated from the island after being forced to pay £250 – a fortune on the impoverished shores of Victoria – to Ugandan officials as a ransom for his confiscated engine. He speaks of rumours of violent arrests, torture and men with guns. Kenyan fishermen who go to Migingo can be lost and never heard of again, he says, adding: "It is full of Ugandan soldiers."

Like all good maritime stories, this one begins with pirates. Five years ago, the island was home to a solitary, eccentric fisherman. When word got out of the catches he was landing, more fishermen came, some from nearby islands, others from the Kenyan shore three hours away, and others from Uganda, a six-hour trip by motor boat. The influx brought with it a different kind of attention. Pirates, some with assault rifles, appeared from as far afield as Tanzania, stealing engines, fish and any cash they found. The fishermen appealed to their respective governments for help, and that was when the real trouble began. Uganda answered the call first, sending a detachment of maritime police to defend the fishermen, and suddenly an island which, if anyone had cared to think about it, had always been thought to be Kenya had the wrong flag flying over it.

Then the Ugandan officials on the rock saw how much money was being made. Migingo's wealth lies in its proximity to some of the richest remaining deep-water fishing in the lake. A short ride from the barren rock, nets can still be filled with Nile perch, a freshwater giant worth tens of millions of pounds in exports to the EU and beyond. Boats have been landing more than 100kg of fish a day, earning up to £200 – three or four times what many in Kenya or Uganda make in a month on land. The rush to cash in on this bonanza created an increasingly harsh regime on the island as entry permits, taxes, fines, tithes and ransoms were used to extract money with menaces. Some fishermen were arrested and sent to Uganda, others were expelled or fled. Jacob Otieno, a shopkeeper on the island, described seeing two fishermen, caught without an expensive permit, being paraded and forced to eat raw okoko, a fish with spines like "helicopter rotors".

The plight of the fishermen eventually attracted public attention in Kenya and the politicians were forced to respond. Last month, an excitable district commissioner, Julius Mutula, with a dozen Kenyan police, arrived on the island, declared it to be Kenyan soil, tore down the Ugandan flag and hoisted their own. Within 24 hours, Uganda sent in 60 heavily armed marines. Suddenly, the region stood on the brink of its first full-blown conflict over the dwindling resources of the once-abundant Lake Victoria.

While it is hard to imagine, given it is such a vast body of water, the 68,800sq-km (26,600sq-miles) source of the Nile is under an accelerating and life-threatening siege, with 30 million dependants divided between Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.

Godfrey Ogonda, an environmental expert with the Friends of Lake Victoria, based in the Kenyan city of Kisumu, unravels the nightmare. He begins with a list of the lake's attackers, industry, agriculture, sewage, over-fishing, climate change. But what it all comes back to is poverty. Unable to buy gas or paraffin, people cut down the trees for fuel. Deforestation strips the surrounding land of its protection and plays havoc with rainfall. The soil, loaded with chemical fertilisers and pesticides, is washed into the rivers in a process known as eutrophication and ends up in the lake where it joins a soup of other nutrients with alarming consequences. Vast mats of water hyacinth, an invasive species that has flourished in the deteriorating ecosystem, chokes the lake's harbours and blocks its shoreline. A massive and costly manual extraction funded by the World Bank offered brief respite but in the past two years the hyacinth has returned, bringing with it hippo grass, a so-called "superweed". The grass now forms entire floating meadows that are altering the chemical balance of the water. Professor Ogonda believes changes in the PH values of the lake are, in effect, slowly turning the water into acid.

Then there is overfishing. Victoria supports an estimated two million fishermen. Kenya's fisheries department says stocks of some species have collapsed by 80 per cent in three years. Scientists believe the lake could recover if left alone for as little as five years and there are now calls for a moratorium on fishing. The problem, again, is poverty. The three nations bound by Victoria face a choice between co-operating in making difficult decisions to save the body of water or engaging in a destructive race to the ecological bottom of the dying lake. The Migingo crisis gives little cause for optimism. "Everyone wants their share," says Professor Ogonda. "People do not understand they are killing their life source."

Landing on the rocky tail of Migingo it is hard to see it as a place where fortunes are made. It has the rough edges of a frontier town, with tiny pathways separating bars, brothels and doss houses; prostitutes and their young children rub shoulders with shopkeepers, fishermen and police in the scant space in between. The welcoming committee is a muscular man in combat trousers and a striped shirt, open to the waist, who introduces himself only as Victor. He is the Ugandan police commander, he says, and will need to see a passport. The document is taken through a labyrinth of scraping iron doors to the real commanding officer, Superintendent St John Nuwagira.

Outside the metal hatch, propped open with stick, a fish eagle floats at eye level in the wind and waves crash on the rocks, making it hard to hear anything. He confesses to being surprised when he arrived on the contested island. "I was expecting it to be bigger. It's just a small rock."

It would be "useless", he says, to go to war over this. That prospect receded with a recent foreign ministers' meeting where an awkward accord was reached. Calm and quietly spoken, Mr Nuwagira says a joint survey team from both countries will be arriving soon to establish finally who the island belongs to. He insists he does not know what his colleagues have been charging fishermen. "You'll have to ask them."

Outside the superintendent's office, Juma Ombori is waiting to do just that. A heavy-set man in his mid-50s and the leader of the Kenyan fishermen, he has witnessed things go from bad to worse with "a lot of money" lost. Even if Migingo is eventually surrendered to Kenya, that is unlikely to bring peace and prosperity for long. Digging out a sheaf of papers on which Mr Ombori has carefully traced the average catch even during the chaos and confrontation, he shares a much more frightening revelation. "The fish is running out."

Migingo In numbers

2002 The year that the first house was built on the tiny island outcrop.


500 People live on the island. Eighty per cent of the population are Kenyan and 20 per cent are Ugandan.

3 Hours is how long it takes to reach Migingo by motor boat from Kenya.

6 Hours is how long it takes to reach Migingo from Uganda.

2,000 Kenyan shillings is the sum, equivalent to £17, that visitors are charged each week to stay in a boarding house on Migingo – more than eight times the going rate in the nearby city of Kisumu.

4 Pubs are on the island, together with one pharmacy, one hair salon and several brothels.

10 Cabinet ministers from two countries attended an emergency summit on Migingo.

 

[Smatta]

you are even more babies than Rwanda and Burundi to tell you. the only thing you keep on being proud of is "we are a vibrant economy in East africa" and Nairobi is the Dubai of East Africa.

something which even a child can laught at you..hahaha. you are poor, full of diseases, illiterate and helpless, just like many african countries. the killing and fight for land, your country is a mess to live and invest. few people will continue to be attracted to invest there in the future. you have got to sit down and think on how you will correct your faults because yu are going down. with yoru necked eyes, you will witness your neighbouring countries prosper very soon unexpectedly, and shame will be on you. are you a soldier sir? have you ever attended some trainign? do you know anything at all about these things or you are just talking politics.

hiyo *soon* yenyu haifiki, we need actions, not just plain bluff.. stop calling us illiterate coz we all know who among the East African country are illiterate, Then prove us wrong, you have the 'peace', the 'brotherhood', corruption level is 'low', you have alot of minerals..why cant you be a force to reckon with economically, why do you keep mark timing economically??

 

[Kiranga]

Politics of fish in Uganda-Kenya dispute over Migingo Island


by Mubatsi Asinja Habati

Date: 10-03-2009

Source: The Independent




Uganda and Kenya are once again clashing over ownership of the rocky islands of Migingo in Lake Victoria for the second time in a period of five months. The latest flare-up came on February 21 when many Kenyan fishermen fled the island following the arrest of Kenyan administration police officers by Ugandan authorities. The Kenyan police officers had gone to the island and allegedly, pulled down the Ugandan flag and hoisted Kenya's in its place.

Migingo (in fact they are two tiny islands lying side by side separated by a strip of water) over which the two countries have been squabbling for the past two years is only one acre, much of it rocky. Inhabited by fishing communities totaling less than 1,000 people and drawn from across East Africa, the island is located 5.4 nautical miles (10km) off Kenya's Sori -Bay in Karungu division, Migori district. Kenyans have therefore often taken their closer proximity to the island to imply ownership.

On the other hand, Ugandan authorities say the island falls within the boundaries of its eastern district of Bugiri. Indeed the Google earth map clearly indicates Migingo islands are located within Uganda boundaries. The Google earth coordinates for the island are 2°48'06.82"S and 32°38'45.25"E. Google earth offers maps and satellite images of pinpointed or complex regions.

A few years ago, the two countries had a similar argument over Wayasi island, also in Lake Victoria, which almost ended in a shoot-out. Later it was found that the island was indeed in Ugandan territory and Kenya backed off.

The problem, it seems, is that Kenya has the smallest part of Lake Victoria but its citizens, mostly fishermen, have settled on the islands in Uganda's territorial waters, thereby mixing occupancy and sovereignty. Kenya has only six percent of the lake, Uganda 43 percent while Tanzania owns 51 percent.

The final Kenya-Uganda border demarcation was made in 1926 by the British colonialists, with much of present day western Kenya being transferred from Uganda to Kenya. This was the basis of former Ugandan president Idi Amin's 1977 claim on the western parts of Kenya.

Parallels could be drawn with the Nigeria-Cameroon conflict over Bakassi Peninsular in which the two countries fought a short war a few years ago. Because many Nigerian fishermen had settled in the area outnumbering Cameroonians, Nigeria mistook occupancy and proximity for ownership. In the end, the International Court of Justice ruled that the island actually belonged to Cameroon. But the real fight was over the rich oil reserves believed to lie in the peninsular.

Migingo might therefore easily be East Africa's Bakassi, the only difference being that the stakes are not over huge oil reserves but over fish – in fact declining fish stocks!

The fish industry in Uganda and Kenya is currently suffering due to fish scarcity. Last year (2008), Uganda exported a total of 22,731 metric tonnes of fish. But Uganda's fish export earnings dropped by $5.2m (Shs 10,244bn) to $112.2m (Shs 221,034bn) from $117.4m (Shs 231,278bn) the previous year. This is far less than the US $150bn (Shs 300bn) the industry exports topped in 2005, signifying a continuous downward trend.

 

[Kiranga]

The quoted coordinates are actually in Tanzania

The Google earth coordinates for the island are 2°48'06.82"S and 32°38'45.25"E

 

[Ab-Titchaz]

No respite in Migingo Island dispute​

Updated 5 hr(s) 1 min(s) ago
By Nick Oluoch

Four days after talks on Migingo collapsed, Uganda has beefed up security on the disputed island.

Senior Kenyan and Ugandan officials failed to resolve the issue and tension is high on the island.

Yesterday, Kenyan fishermen walked out on a meeting called by Ugandan security and fisheries officers meant to reportedly to introduce tough new taxation rules.

The meeting came a day after a Ugandan police boat docked at Migingo with heavily armed police officers.

Migingo Beach Management Unit chairman Juma Ombori said Ugandan fisheries officers called a meeting to inform them of the new charges.

Ugandan flag on Migingo, Monday. Efforts by the Kenyan officials to have the flag lowered have fallen on deaf ears.​

"We immediately rejected the move even before they announced the amount of money they wanted us to pay," he said.

Mr Ombori added: "Kenyans working and living on this island are now confused and do not know where to turn for help."

Confusion surrounds the Migingo saga after last Friday’s meeting on the island ended in disarray after a member of the Ugandan delegation confronted Lands Minister James Orengo over alleged incitement.

What map shows

The meeting failed to solve the row and Uganda continued to tighten its grip on the island, which maps show belongs to Kenya.

Uganda sent more troops on the island and declined to lower its flag as requested by the Kenyan ministers.

Yesterday, Kenyan fishermen complained of harassment from Ugandan security officials.

"The Ugandan security officials have taken a very radical and firm position. They are telling us to obey their rules and pay taxes or leave," said a fisherman, Mr Michael Oriko.

On Friday, Orengo’s speech was disrupted by an official who accused the minister of inciting the residents using Dholuo.

"Why are you cheating your people? What you are saying is not what we discussed. We cannot work that way," the official shouted.

Orengo responded: "You got me wrong. I have used Dholuo to emphasise some issues to the residents because majority of them are Luos."

Ugandan flag

The residents were angered by failure by Uganda officials to lower their flag hoisted on the island, despite the two countries agreeing that it be brought down.

They turned down pleas by Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula to allow Ugandan authorities to lower the flag within five days.

"The issue of lowering the flag cannot be decided now. Give the Ugandan authority five days to do so," he said.

They also questioned why Ugandan soldiers were not withdrawn from the island.

Others in the Kenyan delegation included, Fisheries Minister Paul Otuoma, Internal Security Assistant Minister Orwa Ojode, Nyanza PC Paul Olando, his Western counterpart Abdul Mwasserah and Migori DC Julius Mutula.

Ugandan had Third Deputy Prime Minister for Internal Security Kivinda Kivejinja and ministers Sam Kuteesa (Foreign Affairs), Asumani Kiyingi (Lands) and Fred Mukisa (Fisheries).

The Standard | Online Edition :: No respite in Migingo Island dispute