Deal #7676

Failure to conduct community consultations, seeking consent from affected communities

The evicted families accuse two companies; Agilis Partners Limited, a grain dealing company and Kiryandongo Sugar Limited of colluding with the Police and the office of the Resident District Commissioner to violently evict them and destroying property worth millions of shillings.According to police investigations, While acting as the secretary to the Kiryandingo District Land Board, Lubambula John, Mwesigye Reuben, and others at large, fraudulently transferred land ownership comprised in Block 7, Plots 66, 68, and 69 at Kimogora in Kiryandongo, and gave it to multinationals for large scale agribusiness

Kiryandongo Sugar limited is also evicting over 3,000 families off former ranch 23, 28, 30 and 31 to grow sugarcane. Before the agribusiness companies came in, Badudu and the other small farmers of Kiryandongo planted beans, maize, sweet potatoes, bananas, groundnuts, cassava and mangoes, and they kept pigs, goats and cows. Now, large chunks of land are covered with sugarcane, coffee, soya and maize which are all solely for export, while one of the companies. The communities plagued by the continued forced evictions comprise three categories: The first category consists of people who were born on the land since 1935; the second, those that settled on the land during and after civil wars, including the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) which lasted for 2 decades in Northern Uganda from the late 1990s; and lastly, those who settled on the eviction site at the instance of government in 2011 through the Nyamalebe Landless Association. in September 2021,it was reported that Kiryandongo Sugar Company Limited, has taken advantage of the situation to brutalize, humiliate and forcefully evict locals off their land to pave way for sugarcane growing.The latest case since the suspension involves over 13 (thirteen) families that have been forced off their land by the government’s army, without adequate, prompt, and fair compensation while knowing that the government had floored their would-be protector. One of the local council leaders who visited some eviction scenes on condition of anonymity said that companies’ forced evictions in the area are surging with the protection of the Uganda Peoples Defense Forces (UPDF) attached to the 4th Division of the government’s army. The leader said the evictions are rendering people homeless, and this has been exacerbated by COVID-19 which the land grabbers have always taken advantage of.

An estimated 35,000 people are being evicted to make way for these three plantation projects (Kiryandongo Sugar Limited, Great Season SMC Limited and Agilis Partners). The health of the workers and local people are also impacted by the heavy use of agrochemicals on the plantations as well as the burning of sugarcane. Local residents say that nothing is done to protect them or forewarn them when crops are being sprayed or being burned. Several local schools have closed because the children can no longer access them. Victims of forced land eviction accuse the group of land brokers of perpetrating violence through hiring and using machete-wielding men, private security guards, and police officers attached to Kiryandongo district police to commit violent acts which include: sexual and gender-based violence, illegal arrest and detention, torture, kidnap, demolition of houses, cutting down their food crops, and stealing their household properties among others. It was also reported that the army raided their village in attempts to forcefully evict him and caused a kidnap of several people who have been resisting dispossession.

President Museveni has promised to compensate residents who were evicted from the land housing Kiryandongo sugar factory in Kimogora Village. The President made the pledge while commissioning the $60 million (Shs216b) factory at the weekend