SOS: Mexican Maquilladora-Type Industrial Zone Comes to War-Torn Acholiland

SOS: Mexican Maquilladora-Type Industrial Zone Comes to War-Torn Acholiland 

 

There is a buzz on Acoli Forum (AF), an internet discussion group for Acholi, a component of the Lwo group from East Africa, which echoes the age-old cynicism from the time of Jesus Christ; the rolling-up, as opposed to the rolling-out, of red carpets for prophets in their own homelands and among their own people.This well-placed sentiments arises from the fact Acholi elite were warned to prepare for rentseeking in a post conflict Acholi that would jeopardise livelihoods and land rights of the population locked up in the concentration camps. Such foresight, was the voice in the wilderness, of the Acholi Economic Development Conference, in Stockwell, London, five years ago. Today, the organisers have been vindicated, but with much regrets for lost opportunities at the Stockwell Initiatives, that remained on paper. 

 On Acoli Forum -where the Stockwell Initiative was conceived-speaker after speaker has decried the wisdom of heralding private investments, with the creation of industrial parks, curved out from disputed lands from which inhabitants were forcibly gun-butted out by the army of Uganda dictator, General Yoweri Museveni, as a counter insurgency measure a decade ago. Ominously, and a further vindication of the Stockwell Initiative, the dictator has recently introduced land amendment bills to preempt the return of peasants to their land, and deny them legal rights to the land, which he in turn seeks to distribute among his cronies and corporate friends, in the name of private investments, or resettle his migrant pastoralists tribesmen from western Uganda. And get this; in 2000, when drought killed some of their animals in south western Uganda, a natinal disaster and emergency was proclaimed by parliament for the pastoralists and their cattle, but such measures were vetoed by Gen. Museveni for the Acholi in northern Uganda, where insurgency, counter insurgency, hunger and opportunistic diseases were killing more than the 1000 a week documented five years later. The schemes to alienate land forcibly vacated by peasants confined in concentration camps, had so far been resisted by parliamentarians and community leaders from the Acholi region and throughout the country. But it seems that, like all autocrats, dictator General Museveni cannot take no for an answer, particularly from unarmed civilians and politicians. A triggerhappy fellow, whose penchant for violence has dogged him from the rocky grazing pastures of Ankole to the FRELIMO resistance combats in the jungles of Mozambique, he is rumoured to have recently locked up his ministers at his country home in Rwakitura, southwestern Uganda, and stood astride the doorway with a bazuka and a grenade and ordered the cabinet to endorse a plan to acquire 40,000 Hectares of land and award to the famed Madhvani Group, for sugar cane growing in Amuru district, in war- torn Acholi. Again, this is part of the land the army had forced the Acholi peasants off. Since the bureaucrratic approach seems slow and drawn out, the government has decided to use all avenues at its disposal. Such a one that would raise little suspicion, they thought, is the private development scheme, that would appeal to the private greed of individual investors, particularly Ugandans in the diaspora, to invest in the war-torn region by buying government-serviced commercial lots, created in Mexican Maquilladora-type industrial zones, to put up their businesses. Private greed sometimes trump community and kinship loyalties, and has worked well in Acholi inside and outside Uganda over the years. Even so, there are still some who are keen brothers' and sisters' keepers, in the face of enormous personal loss and possibilities for selfish self-enrichment at the expense of their own communities. They are legitimately asking, why a private investment development arm of the Uganda government, would not have among its organisers, sons and daughters of the soil from Acholi, particularly when it is dealing with sensitive issues of land and mode of development in that region? The Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) plans an investment conference in Gulu, the northern town, and Kampala, on the themes of attracting diaspora private investments to northern Uganda, the land of the Acholi people, for the last 25 years torn by conflict and government neglect. We believe the question why there aren't Acholi in leading these private ventures search conferencing, is asking what are its SWOT for Acholi, not just for Acholi in-country and in the diaspora who have the wherewithals, but its multifaceted impacts on Acholi society, region, future and PRDP strategy as it tries to dig itself out from 25 years of mayhem and societal breakdown. Granted, the Acholi cannot control how, where, and when private individuals and capital want to invest. However, when such capital investments and plants are sited in Acholi, there must be a benchmark for what kinds of industries and how they fit in Acholi's broader development and land -use planning strategies. It is not enough for the investment arm of the state to want to create an industrial park in Acholi, there must be some acceptable benefits to Acholi society, and the economic activities safe, but not pandering to speculators and Ma and Pa investors that entirely depend on family labour rather than employing skilled man or woman power from among the populace and beyond. Given the weak and even absent regulatory instruments and capacity of the local district council, it is no exaggeration to say that such benchmarks are not being contemplated, nor anticipated, even when they have already granted 300 acres of land for such activites. It would be complete self-deception, if the UIA and the district authorities think that they will create a Mexican Maquiladora-type industrial zones in Acholi, where capital is king and workers' welfare, occupational and evironmental health and community rights are unconscionable luxuries. Wise investors will behave proactively, even if Norbert Mao's district council and Yoweri Musevni's government and UIA do not require them to do so, and observe minimum industry standards to avoid heavy costs in the future when a more responmsible district council and government are in place. And this cannot be far off; in fact sooner for a more responsible and accountable local government in the whole of Acholi. The government, UIA, and Gulu Municipality and District Council are pushing the discreditied notion, that after 23 years of war and destruction, all Acholi region needs is an industrial park, and a handful of family-run businesses that do not employ anyone outside clan settings, as the equivalent of European Marshall Plan after the 2nd imperialist war or Roosevelt's New Deal in the United States after The Great Depression. Those of us opposed to unregulated and unplanned post conflict development in Acholi, are conscious of the level of social breakdown and deprivation that 23 years of war have wrought on the people here. We know that pushing private investments that will have no immediate and measurable impact and benefits for millions of people dispossessed by the war, is the equivalent of the American Slaves after the abolition of slavery. Without anything, they were set free into a world where White society had families and businesses and industries and wealth and social status, but the freed black slave none. The impact of that has set back the black race in America centuries back. This is not what we want to happen in Acholi as it comes out of decades of war and social breakdown and deprivation. Already, there are ominous signs that, indeed, Mexican-type Maquilladora is coming to Acholi. Consider the following utterances and you can almost sense the arrogance of capital and complete disregard for community rights and interests, right out of 18th Century mercantile capitalism, rather than 21st century, where socially responsible investments and social responsibilites and social as well as ecological sustainabilities are by-words. Moreover, it is completely at odds with the structure of the new economies-knowledge creation and management as opposed to physical plants as the means for generating and building wealth. This is what an Acholi diaspora entrepreneur, supportive of a plannned private investment schemes in Acholi, drawn up by the investment development arm of the Uganda government, the Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) had to say in a missive to his fellow countrymen and women on Acoli Forum: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ A. I will not spend a lot of time trying to convince potential Acholi investors to come to Gulu. There are more than enough investors from the rest of Uganda, Sudan, Kenya, UK, India, China, USA, Canada, etc! who have already registered! B. 2. There are many local businesses in Gulu, Kitgum, Pader, Lira, Arua, etc that are looking for partners to invest in their businesses. There are hotels, private schools, commercial farmers and agro-processing plants that have submitted detailed prospectuses to UIA to help them find partners to inject capital and expertise into their enterprises in return for part ownership of their businesses. Some are even offering to sell 100% of their businesses. If Acholi investors do not take up their offers, they are ready to sell to Baganda, Banyankole, Indians, Sudanese, Americans, British, Australians, Canadians, etc! C. So if we do not participate and take up the available opportunities, we should not cry that foreigners are taking over Acholi! Never in the history of UIA have they promoted investment in one region of Uganda. Why do you think that for a three day conference, one full day is spent in Gulu? Why did they not go to Arua, Lira, Soroti, Mbale, Jinja, Mbarara, Masaka or Kabale? It is because the opportunities that are now available in northern Uganda are unprecedented! D. Mr. Levi Ochieng of UIA announced that with the help of Gulu Municipality, Gulu District Council and Gulu Chamber of Commerce, UIA had acquired over 300 acres of land along Moroto Road in Gulu to build an industrial park similar to the one UIA built in Namanve that now houses Coca-Cola amongst many other companies! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Anyone with rudimentary knowledge of how wealth has been generated and accumulated in Uganda in the last 23 years will know that, even if every Acholi who can were to invest in Acholi, they will not be able to stave off foreign capital penetration of the region. The issue of investing in Acholi by indigenous Acholi is not to stop other investors of different nationalities or ethnicities investing in Acholi. The issue however, is conflict sensitive investments; a shorthand for socially responsible investments, which in Acholi region's case, must take onbaord the impact of the conflict on certain aspects of life and commodities and activities and issues such as land rights, ownership, use, and ownership. Relatedly, businesses in Acholi region are forced to partner or sell not because it is more profitable, but because open, unregulated competiton in land markets and such other imputs will put them out of business because they cannot outcapitalise or outcompete the southern or western Ugandan or even diaspora Acholi investor. For most investors from outside Acholi region, they are either government big wigs, or have the backing of powerful elements withing the state. Therefore, Acholi non-participation in this dubious scheme is not because Acholi do not want to invest in Acholi or that Acholi do not want private investments, but it is because Acholi are impoverished, and the only thing they got going for them is that they still have their land that hopefully, they can control how to use it and when to sell if it were to come to that. Finally, it is not extraordinary for rentseeking capital to move from one place to another. It is therefore not any newfound, compassionate or charitable gesture towards Acholi that UIA must convene a conference for the sole purpose of highlighting Acholi as the place to invest. It is precisely because capital is saturated in the southern part of the country, whether in industrial plants, real estates, agriculture, and trade, and Acholi region is an open country in capital terms, where land, is aplenty, and people impoverished and therefore likely to sell land at very cheap prices for speculators who look at emerging southern Sudan and Eastern Congo and look past the hordes of impoverished inmates of camps and see only dollar signs dazzling their gazes. Therefore, poverty, lack of capital in the hands of most Acholi, and the possibility of acquring large tracts of land, add to the fires of speculation that proximity to southern Sudan and Eastern Congo, with their comparable lack of manufacturing industry and trade, make Acholi the best place to gamble your fortunes in the hope of reaping huge dividends, even just by sitting on you land lease or acquisition, waiting to make a killing. But the question is; must every Acholi, even the socially conscious, add to this mad rush and scramble, without a care for pertinent consideration for conflict sensitive investment, and 21st century strategies of socially responsible investing or corporate social responsibilities? And, how does this strategy fit in with Acholi's own struggle with postconflict reconstructions and development planning? And finally, where in the world, has discretionary, private investment-led strategy been successful for responding to large scale natural and man-made disasters, such as war in the case of northern Uganda, with large, displaced, and dispossessed large population?