Kampala — Oil has not even started flowing but, already, it is causing conflict in Bunyoro, western Uganda where land disputes have erupted.

The two billion barrels of oil discovered in the Lake Albert area have drawn speculators hoping to cash in on rising land values in the area and sparked conflicts in many villages, particularly in the district of Buliisa.

Already oil has changed the fundamental nature of people's relationship to land, according Dickens Kamugisha, the head of the African Institute for Energy Governance. Before oil brought speculators to Buliisa, people were unaware that land was something to be bought and sold, he says.

"Land [used to be] a free good owned and enjoyed equally by all," Kamugisha says. Now it is a commodity. "Oil has monetised things such as land which used to be free, and because people are not used to that . . . the whole social fabric is likely to change."

Because of this, "sooner or later, there may be land conflicts between family members, neighbouring families, community members and communities."

Up to 700 hectares of land have reportedly been grabbed by speculators in Buliisa.

UK oil explorer Tullow Oil, which controls the biggest concessions in the region, is aware that land disputes are "rampant" around their operations in Buliisa. And no one seems more aware of how questions of land ownership could threaten its business than the company. Such land issues are "costly," says Tullow's spokesperson, Jimmy Kiberu. They "cause delays and many social issues." Besides that, "land is quite an emotive issue," he says.

Emotions in Buliisa are apparently already strong enough for murder.

On July 31, what should have been a pedestrian family visit resulted in the death of two Buliisa sisters. Sipora Apio was visiting her older sister Evaline in Kidolovya sub-county when their brother set fire to the hut they were sleeping in. The two women later died in a hospital in Hoima.

Local police say that the family owned land in Beloya near Tullow's Kigogole-2 oil well. "He wanted to eliminate the two sisters so that he could take over the land." says mid-western police spokesperson Zurah Ganyana.

We met Kankabi Busobozi, General Secretary of the Kisiimo village local council, sitting on a bench outside the local administration offices in Buliisa.

About 20 cows and several goats were grazing in the grass a few feet from where he sat.

Busobozi explained that animals roam freely here because; up until now, almost all land has been communally held.

Then he points to what he believes is responsible for dividing his village into two.

One side, he said, is occupied by the indigenes of Buliisa and the other by immigrants from across Lake Edward in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"Oil brought these misunderstandings," he says. "We used to drink together but when the issues of oil reached us, now we [the indigenes] stay in our group and the [Congolese] stay in their group."

In many instances, including Kisiimo, unscrupulous villagers have sold common land to speculators without the approval of the rest of the community.

"The Congolese sold what was not theirs," explains Busobozi.

Congolese residents, who had been living in the area for years, sold land given to them to use upon their arrival in Buliisa by the original inhabitants of the community. The land in question is adjacent to Tullow Oil's Kasamene-3 well.

Busobozi explains why other villagers disapproved of the sale of the land by the Congolese. The land had previously been communally owned. Now, with the land registered in only one person's name, the community at large will no longer be eligible for compensation paid by Tullow for its use. "Since selling the piece of land, the benefits will only go to the owner," says Busobozi.

The implications of the land issue in Bunyoro, particularly Buliisa, are still emerging, but experts fear that if the issue is not dealt with, it could be catastrophic for the people of the region and the country at large.

Land has featured prominently in many oil-based conflicts around the globe. In Nigeria, the displacement of the Ogoni people to make way for oil companies with negligible compensation for their land gave rise to Ken Saro-Wiwa's Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People.

Enter Museveni

It was into this environment of rising tensions, a complex confluence of business, ethnic, personal and community interests, that President Yoweri Museveni stepped in October when he visited Buliisa and promised to resolve the land problem in a mere 14 days.

"In two weeks, I will decide on this land issue," he said. "The titles will be cancelled if they are found to have been acquired illegally." Museveni also told residents being terrorised by crocodiles on Lake Albert to turn the tables on the beasts - and eat them. Both pronouncements were easier said than done.

Merely canceling those already illegally acquired titles by presidential decree will not dampen future speculator interest. With the country moving closer to oil production in the last quarter of next year and plans in the works for a refinery and pipeline, demand for land in the area is only poised to increase and conflict over it promising to heat up.

Stephen Mukitale Birahwaa is the MP for Buliisa. "[The speculators] want to acquire the land by every oil well and the land adjacent to the oil well sites," he says.

The pattern followed by land grabbers is described in a memorandum dated Jan.27 from the elders of Buliisa sub-county to the RDC Buliisa. The elders accuse a Kampala businessman of buying land "secretly and without villagers' approval." "He has been targeting oil well sites wherever detected, exploiting people's poverty and ignorance," they say.

Blasio Mugasa, the county chief of Buliisa explains that villagers are seduced into selling by offers of amounts of cash that are, for them, unprecedented. "[The resident] has never experienced one million shillings but now he has five million in front of him. It's very exciting."

Residents are often unaware of the implications for the value of their land that discoveries of oil may have, so they end up selling for much less than they should. "[Businessmen] are doing business from the ignorance of the people. They are ignorant of the future of the land," says Mugasa.

Besides city speculators, Buliisa has seen the same influx of Balaalo cattle keepers as the rest of Bunyoro. These "outsiders" came to Bunyoro in 2006, after the discovery of oil, and have put further pressure on land as they buy up land, sometimes communally and sometimes individually owned, and fence it off.

There's a strong feeling in Bunyoro that the Balaalo were not acting alone. MPs suggest that the cattle herders may be agents of shadowy forces of government elite and they have been sent in to buy up the land. The buyers often "shabby" and "poor"- not rich enough to afford the land they are buying, according to Buhaguzi MP Tomson Kyahurwenda. "They may be acting as agents of someone else. Most likely these cows belong to some big people," he says.

Oil Bringing Fundamental Changes

Land has always been hard to come by in Buliisa, one of the most densely populated areas in the country. The area is hemmed in by a lake, Lake Albert, a park, Murchison Falls and a river, the Nile. "Land around here is very scarce," says Chief Mugasa.

The 2009 population density in Buliisa is estimated at 738.8 people per square kilometre, several times higher than the national average of 137.1 people per square kilometre.

Bunyoro has always been a patchwork of ethnicities with immigrants from the perennial conflicts in DR Congo and Rwanda coming to settle in waves.

Despite this, there has been little conflict over land up until now, according to MP Mukitale. "This problem was not there until the oil. [In the past] we lived peacefully under the customary land system," he says.

Source: http://allafrica.com