Jomo Kenytta is son of Kabalega-a Ugandan!!!

[pinyowacho]

So uhuru is in kenya illegally? daily nation*- the untold story of kenyan refugees in uganda skip to the navigationchannel.links.navigation.skip.label. Skip to the content. The eastafrican|business daily|ntv|daily monitor|the citizen|mwananchi|nmg investor briefing thursday october 2, 2008news business indepth sports magazines op/ed blogs transitions go loginusername: password: submit not registered? click here forgot your password? politics|africa|world|provincial stocks|forex us elections|aug 7 bomb memorial football|athletics|cricket|rugby|golf|hockey|tenni s|motorsports|talkup! football|smart company|living|horizon|money|weekend|saturday magazine|lifestyle|buzz editorials|opinion |cutting edge|cartoon|letters outside the box|charles onyango-obbo|lg|macharia gaitho|jaindi kisero|mutuma mathiu| job offers|cars|real estateshomeop/edopinion opinion the untold story of kenyan refugees in uganda share bookmark print email email this article to a friend friend's email address your email message submit cancel rating by charles onyango-obbo (email the author) your email message send cancel posted wednesday, october 1 2008 at 18:37 in summary kenyan women transformed from refugees to expatriate spouses. Bunyoro is very fertile but sparsely populated. Recently, to use the mealy-mouthed expression, a local daily in nairobi reported that relatives of some kenyan refugees in uganda are crossing the border to join them. By any measure, that is quite unusual. It was the first time i heard of people getting on the bus and going to join their refugee relatives in the country where they have taken cover. However, in this case, anyone who has been to eastern uganda where the kenyan refugees first arrived, and now in the south-north areas of bunyoro where they were moved, wouldn’t be surprised. In the east of uganda, the hardworking kenyan women who are landless at home, found ugandan men with fertile plots, but who couldn’t find a companion eager to till the soil. Before you could say kenya, there had been several east african unions, and the kenyan women transformed from refugees to expatriate spouses. And their relatives back in kenya became ugandan in-laws. The ones who moved south-north found even richer opportunities. Bunyoro is very fertile (this is the place where uganda’s rich oil reserves have recently been found) but sparsely populated. The main reason it is sparsely populated is that at the beginning of the 20th century, a revolutionary king called kabalega, much loved by modern ugandan nationalists, came to power. He went on to engage the british in an anti-colonial war that, in terms of the destruction, easily puts the mau mau rebellion in the shade. The british adopted a vicious scorched-earth policy to defeat kabalega, leaving the place a wasteland. To this day, the population numbers have not fully recovered. The unintended consequence of the british tactics, is that large parts of bunyoro lay fallow as the rest of uganda was being farmed. Sudanese refugees were concentrated in this area, partly because it could take the pressure without batting an eyelid. in defeat, the great kabalega was exiled to the seychelles island, together with another of his nationalist allies, buganda’s king mwanga (the chap who ordered the execution of what later were to become the uganda martyrs). last year, kenyan newspapers had stories claiming that the founder of independent kenya, former president jomo kenyatta was not a native of central kenya, but was born to a pastoralist family in the rift valley. well, wait and hear this. In bunyoro, it is taken as gospel that mzee kenyatta was the son of kabalega; that the king fathered him as he journeyed through kenya on his way back to uganda from exile. Kanu leader and deputy prime minister uhuru kenyatta, is fondly referred to by the grey-haired there as “our son”. to make matters more interesting, there is a large population of “kenyan luos”, descendants of luo fishermen who worked on the nearby lake kyoga, and as labourers on various colonial projects. Word has it that, again, kenyan families that had only a barren half acre, were overcome by the opportunities when they found there was land which they could farm, after paying a small tribute to the local political fixer. Word reached their relatives, who upped and went to see if they could get a piece of the action. How could they get away with this? you might ask. One of the reasons is that uganda — and rwanda — are different from the other east african community countries because they are largely countries of exiles and refugees. 1 | 2 next page »