This article was published in a book International Law and Indigenous Peoples edited by J. Castellino & N. Walsh.

Pour qu'un barrage contribue avec succès au développement durable de la société, les populations locales doivent également en bénéficier. Cette vidéo de 5 minutes examine les défis relatifs à l’obtention d’une compensation équitable pour les personnes affectées par la construction de grands barrages, et définit les différentes étapes pour s'assurer que les agriculteurs expropriés puissent bénéficier d’un accès sécurisé à de nouvelles terres

This article examines the evolution of policy recommendations concerning rural land issues since the formulation of the World Bank’s “Land Reform Policy Paper” in 1975. That paper set out three guiding principles: the desirability of owner-operated family farms; the need for markets to permit land to be transferred to more productive users; and the importance of an egalitarian asset distribution.

Northern Uganda is currently recovering from a 20-year long civil war that left the area in ruins. One of the groups, the Lord’s Resistance Army, orchestrated brutal mass murders and abductions forcing nearly two million people to live internally displaced people’s (IDP) camps for over 10 years. The war particularly affected the people of Acholi and Lango sub-regions which had previously suffered sporadic attacks by armed Karamajong cattle rustlers from north eastern Uganda.

The colonial and postcolonial legacy of the “Lost Counties” land issue has recently resurfaced as a contentious ethno-political issue in Uganda. The aim of the paper is to critically examine the politics of belonging and land rights in relation to Ugandan land legislation and the “Lost Counties” issue. The empirically basis of this paper is primarily derived from field work in Kibaale District, during the period January to July 2004.

Well before the effective ending of the protracted Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)

insurgency in northern Uganda in July 2006, and at a time when the entire rural

population was displaced into camps, concerns had emerged around land, in particular

in the Acholi sub-region, where the war had been most intense and longest lasting

(Adoko & Levine 2004). Through forced displacement, almost all rural Acholi

families has been prevented from occupying their land for many years, years in which

Indigenous, mobile, and local communities all over the world have for millennia played a critical role in conserving the earth’s patrimony. They have protected forests, wetlands, rangelands, watersheds, hunting grounds, rivers and streams and other water catchment systems that are to day the basis of prosperity for all nations. “Community” husbandry of these resources has been done for a wide range of reasons ranging from economic, cultural, spiritual, aesthetic to many others.

The ways in which people obtain land in Uganda are changing fast. Land that used to be secured through inheritance, gifts or proof of long-term occupancy is now more commonly changing hands in the market. Those with wealth and powerful connections are frequently able to override local rules and gain access to land at the expense of poorer individuals. Government-backed agribusiness investors receive large areas of land with benefits for some local farmers who are able to participate in the schemes, while other smallholders see their land access and livelihoods degraded.

Unfolding analysis reveals two types of land disputes prevalent in postwar northern Uganda: cases that involve a legitimate cause of action and those that do not.1 Since mediation and alternative forms of dispute resolution rely on parties’ willingness to negotiate in good faith, cases featuring ‘bad faith’ and land grabbing—where powerful parties intentionally exploit another person’s vulnerability in order to illegally2 claim land—pose a serious challenge for local land dispute mediators. Such mediators must wrestle with whether and how to remain neutral in the face of injustice.

Uganda’s northern region was traditionally inhabited by communities with predominantly pastoral lifestyles. As the country began developing administrative structures in the region, most clans found themselves settled into agro-pastoral communities. The elders found it imperative to demarcate areas of land to fit different uses, with areas for family settlement and cultivation clearly separated from other areas for communal use. Land was either demarcated by the leaders of a particular settlement or by the dominant clan for the benefit of everyone else in that area.

Northern Uganda is the scene of one of the world’s most volatile and spontaneous processes of reintegration. There are approximately 1.1 to 1.4 million people in the Acholi sub-region at the time of writing3 ; 295,000 internally-displaced persons (IDPs) remain displaced either in IDP camps or transit sites. Approximately 800,000 Acholis have already left the camps and spontaneously returned home over the last three years.

Conflict associated with land has increased substantially following the return of peace to the Acholi Region with the return of internally displaced people (IDP), population growth, and increases in the value of land. The area is heavily dependent on agriculture and conflict related to land access seriously threatens to undermine development and the social, political and economic stability of the Acholi Region. This study involved community members, key informants, and statutory and traditional leaders in three sub counties in each of the seven Acholi districts.