Migingo: Beware of the anger between brothers and sisters (opinion) - But the Wajaluos are mad, they want to fish here but this is Uganda, says President Museveni

May 15th, 2009

 

 

Nairobi (Kenya) - Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni has stirred the waters again over the Migingo Island with his comments in a BBC interview.

“The island is in Kenya, the water is in Uganda. But the Wajaluos are mad, they want to fish here but this is Uganda. . . ”, Museveni said, adding, “hii nchi huru (this is a sovereign country). . . the border [continues] to go in a straight line to the most northern point of Suba Island. Mpaka inazunguka kisiwa (the border surrounds the island) . . . one foot into the water and you’re in Uganda,” he said.

Incensed Kenyan MPs caused a debate on the issue in Parliament on Wednesday, with many arguing that what Museveni said aren’t the kind of things one utters about “brothers and sisters”, and that his conduct was not good neighbourliness.

There are three interesting things about the Migingo issue. First, brothers, sisters, and neighbours get into border disputes more often than strangers. The reason for that is obvious: They are more likely to live next to each other than to strangers.

Second, perhaps because it is usually men who get embroiled in border disputes, there are two forces that are greater than diplomacy at calming border rivalries – beer and sports.
Thirdly, wars between brothers and cousins have a remarkable capacity to produce colourful stories.

Right now Kenya and Uganda are not the only countries having a Migingo thing between them. As you read this, there is a quarrel between two of Europe’s smallest states, Slovenia and Croatia, over a thin strip of coastline between them.

The dispute dates back to the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, when both countries laid claim to the Bay of Piran. This is an 11-square kilometre expanse of the Adriatic Sea.

Croatia wants the border to be drawn down the middle of the bay but Croatia, which is almost land-locked, says that this would interfere with its ships’ direct access to the high seas.

To demonstrate how bizarre the dispute is, The Independent reports that – in near-Migingo fashion – in a pub perched on the contested border, customers can swallow brandy and chew roast pork in one country, and then use the bathroom, which is in the other.

The pub’s owner has even gone as far as painting a fluorescent yellow line along the floor, marking the frontier between Croatia and Slovenia. But at least they are not as far as Moldova and Transdniestra, a country that the world doesn’t recognise.

In a story that remains surprisingly popular with newspapers and on the Internet, after the Soviet Union collapsed, two thirds of Moldova wanted closer ties with Romania and their neighbours to the west. But the area of the country to the east of the Dniestr River wanted to stay close to Ukraine and Russia.

In 1992, war broke out, and the east split to form Transdniestria. It was bizarre, that one. The soldiers eventually called it the Drunken War, because the officers of the warring sides met every night to have a drink together.

They went away in the morning and opened fire on each other. At night, they got together again to drink for those they had met with the previous night and who they had killed.

Much the same thing happened to Rwanda and Uganda in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in August 1999, although they were both in the country as occupiers.

DRC President Laurent Kabila had been assassinated, and the Second Congo War had broken out. Rwanda and Uganda entered the war as allies, to support anti-Kinshasa rebels in the east. Both armies were based in the mining town of Kisangani.

Tensions soon mounted over several issues, including when the Congo rebel group they were supporting broke into pro-Rwanda and pro-Uganda factions.

One early evening at a popular hang-out in Kisangani, Rwandan and Ugandan soldiers were sharing drinks and playing card games when messages came over their radios.

War had been declared between the Rwanda and Ugandan forces in Kisangani, and officers who were buying each other drinks and playing cards together, were 10 minutes later in opposite trenches not too far from where they had been drinking, killing each other.

source.The East African (Kenya), by Charles Onyango-Abbo *