{Mining developers in Uganda’s northeast Karamoja region have failed to respect the rights of local residents who communally own the land for raising livestock and cultivating crops, Human Rights Watch said.
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The government and some exploration companies have excluded customary land owners from discussions to develop deposits in the area, the New York-based group said in a 140-page report entitled “How Can we Survive Here?” released today. The hunt mainly for gold and marble has intensified over the past two years as at least three companies started operating without the communities giving full consent, it said.
The East African nation, which has deposits ranging from gold to copper, hasn’t produced large quantities of minerals. The industry could expand “significantly in the near future” as investor interest in oil spreads to minerals, according to a report on the U.S. Geological Survey’s website.
Uganda, classified by the World Bank as one of the world’s poorest nations, discovered oil in 2006 and has an estimated 3.5 billion barrels of crude. London-based Tullow Oil Plc, Cnooc Ltd. and France’s Total SA are jointly developing the finds, which have yet to enter into production. The nation has sub-Saharan Africa’s fourth-biggest oil reserves.
The situation in Karamoja mirrors concerns in Uganda’s oil-rich regions about the possibility of heightened political patronage, corruption and restrictions on civil-society groups that criticize the government’s development plans, Human Rights Watch said. The report is based on 137 interviews between May and November.
Local Approval
The government ensures its development plans for the region have the backing of the local community, Barbara Oundo Nekesa, minster of state for Karamoja, said by phone.
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“It is not possible that government can work against its people,” she said from Kampala, the capital.
Karamoja, a region of 1.2 million people mainly of the pastoralist Karamojong ethnic group, has suffered recurring bouts of violence and food insecurity, with the highest rate of childhood malnutrition in the country, according to Human Rights Watch.
“Mining development could be a real boon to the people of Karamoja, bringing jobs and better security, services, and basic infrastructure,” said Daniel Bekele, the group’s Africa director. “However it is still unclear how the people of Karamoja will benefit, if at all, from mining, or how the government intends to protect their rights during this process.”
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