Between the 16th and 19th centuries, there existed the state of Mpororo, which stretched to parts of the present day Ankole, Kigezi and Rwanda. Its ruling family has close ties with the ruling families of the Tutsi in the ancient kingdom of Rwanda. The collapse of the state of Mpororo gave rise to the Kingdom of Ankole, which incorporated some of Mpororo territories.

In the pre-colonial Kingdom of Rwanda, Tutsi occupied a higher stratum in the social system while the Hutu occupied a lower stratum. The kingdom was ruled by a Tutsi monarchy and the Tutsi were cattle keepers while the Hutu were cultivators and slaves of the Tutsi. Tutsi are the cousins of the Bahiima of Ankole. The Hutu are Bantu-Bairu. The Tutsi rule in Rwanda was characterised by abhorrent human rights abuses unimaginable, committed by the Tutsis community against the majority Hutu slave community.

During the Partition of Africa by colonialists, some Banyarwanda were left out of Rwanda altogether. Those who settled under the Belgium Congo in areas of Mulenge Hills came to be known as Banyamulenge and those in areas of Rushuru and Misisi came to be known as Banyarushuru and Banyamisisi respectively. Those near the Bufumbira ranges came to be known as Bafumbira when the present-day Kisoro was added to Uganda in 1918.

In the early 1920s some Banyarwanda, mainly Hutu and a few Tutsi, escaped Belgian colonial repression and the harsh Tutsi enforced labour and fled to Uganda. These were mainly petty Tutsi cattle herders and majority Hutu agriculturalists. The estimated 120,000 migrants settled mainly in the South Western region of Buganda and some parts of Ankole and Kigezi as farm labourers.

In 1926 the Belgian colonialists in Rwanda made some reforms in labour laws where by, subjects were allowed to seek employment abroad. Many Banyarwanda, more especially Hutu who were under the yoke of forcefully working for Tutsi under the Ubuhake arrangement left Rwanda for Tanzania, Uganda, and Congo.

The exodus of Banyarwanda continued through the 1930s and 1940s but this time as economic immigrants. They were coming in search of economic survival by way of casual labour and settled in Buganda, Ankole, Busoga, Kigezi, Tooro and Bunyoro. They worked on fields of agriculture, construction, local government, industries, ginning, cattle herding, forestry, fishing, Kilembe Copper Mines, sugar and cotton plantations in Busoga, etc.

Tutsis & Hutus assimilated in Buganda while only Tutsi assimilated in Ankole through intermarriage with Hima. They took on local names and clans, spoke the local languages, intermarried and acquired land as tenants. Together with their Burundian cousins, they were actively involved in the Baganda led Bataka Movement that was agitating for land rights. It was a coalition of indigenous Baganda peasants, tenants and labourers (Abapakasi) seeking land rights. In the 1940s, almost 35 per cent of migrants in Buganda were from Burundi and Rwanda.

From the foregoing, it can be authoritatively argued that up to the late 1950s Banyarwanda in Uganda were of two categories. First were the indigenous Banyarwanda who had been made part of Uganda by colonial boundaries demarcations like in the case of those from Kisiro who chose to call themselves Bafumbira. Then there were the migrants who came to look for economic opportunities and mostly settled in Buganda and Ankole.

Between 1952 and 1959, the Belgian colonialists began putting in place political reforms in preparation for relinquishing their hold on Rwanda. The Tutsi formed a Union Nationale Du Rwanda (UNAR) as a pro monarchy movement. The Hutu had earlier formed the Party for the Emancipation of Hutu (PARMHUTU). The reforms by Belgians challenged the status quo of the Tutsi establishment/monarchy.

In early November 1959, Tutsi UNAR youth-wingers attacked a prominent Hutu chief, Mbonyiumutwa, but he managed to escape. However, rumours spread that he had been killed. Consequently, Hutu resorted to reprisal attacks against the Tutsi. The violence marked the start of an uprising that has been branded a “Hutu Peasant Revolution”. It marked the beginning of the end of Tutsi domination and opened a new chapter of Hutu/Tutsi ethnic tensions.

Hundreds of Tutsi were killed, property destroyed and thousands fled to Congo and Uganda. Prior to the arrival in Uganda of Tutsi refugees in late 1959, earlier during the same year government conducted a census that revealed that Banyarwanda in Uganda were the sixth largest ethnic group after Baganda, Iteso, Banyankole, Basoga and Bakiga. This earlier Banyarwanda migrants’ arrival provided a local texture into which the new arrivals, refugees could merge. The demand for labour and the physical appearance had helped intermarriage but the tag of foreigners endured thus they were a prey to political machinations.

In October 2009 during the AU summit on refugees in Kampala, Museveni argued that: “Why don’t we think of refugees outside camps because land will not always be there.” Here you could see Museveni’s plan and thinking – strategically positioning the refugees to takeover Ugandan land from the indigenous population.

Earlier before independence, the Belgians in Rwanda had notified their British counterparts in Uganda about a planned exodus of Tutsi from Rwanda to Uganda. The British colonialists passed Legal Notice No. 311 of 1959 declaring any such people unwelcome and illegal in Uganda. The Governor, Sir Charles Hartwell addressed the LEGCO (Legislative Council or parliament) thus “…there was no political persecution in Rwanda. The Tutsi who are fleeing Rwanda were either misinformed about the situation in Rwanda or were political criminals.” Members of the LEGCO from the areas where the fleeing Tutsi were settling, Ankole and Kigezi, the likes of Hon. Bikangaga, Hon Katiiti and Hon Babiiha supported the protectorate government. However, the LEGCO members from the north and eastern regions like Hon. Milton Obote, Hon. Obwangor, and Hon. Nadiope vehemently opposed the protectorate government.

On February 29, 1960, Dr Milton Obote moved a motion on the floor of LEGCO calling for the revocation of Tutsi Immigration Rule, thus; “…. the rule of terror was so bad that the people of Rwanda wanted to seek safety somewhere. A number of them wanted to be refugees in Uganda. But I wish the house to know that they did not come as ordinary immigrants. They were running away from acts of violence which were the order of the day in the country. Indeed, these people are kinsmen of the people of Ankole of Uganda and the only thing that anyone of them could do was to go to his fellow brother to seek safety. I am pleading for the whole of the Batutsi tribe who came to Uganda to seek safety. I am pleading for the case of a people who are now being ruled by another race. I am pleading for the principle of offering asylum to those who need it.”

Those against, argued that “…….it was impossible to accommodate such a big number of illegal immigrants with their cattle anywhere in the country, especially since western Uganda was already overstocked, overgrazed, lacked water and the cattle the Tutsi brought with them were diseased and would spread disease in the country.” The motion was defeated.

In 1961 the UN supervised elections in Rwanda were won by the Hutu party, PARPEHUTU. Violent ethnic clashes ensued and more Tutsi refugees fled to Uganda, Tanzania, Congo and Burundi. Around that time, the British in Uganda were also grappling with political violence and instability in some parts of Buganda, Bukedi, Bugisu, and Tooro.

However, refugee reception centres were set up at Kamweezi in Kigezi and Kizinga in Rwampara. Some Tutsi refugees dodged these reception centres by simply going straight to their relatives who had arrived much earlier and settled in Ankole and Kigezi. In 1960 the Uganda government put in place a law, Control of Alien Refugee Act 1960, which prevented these refugees from accessing citizenship by naturalisation. S.18 stipulated that; “No period spent in Uganda as a refugee shall be deemed to be a qualification for being a resident of Uganda.”

In Rwanda, the Tutsi King, Kigeri was deposed and he fled to Uganda where he was a guest of the Kabaka of Buganda, Muteesa who later became President of Uganda.

In July 1961 Tutsi refugees in Uganda under their umbrella organisation, “INYENZI” attacked Rwanda but were repulsed. They attacked again in May 1962 and were repulsed again. The Uganda government warned the refugees against using Uganda as a base to attack Rwanda. In all the attacks, the Tutsi inside Rwanda were left vulnerable to reprisal attacks and hence more were fleeing.

In 1962 the government of Uganda set up the first refugee camps at Nakivaale in Ankole. The deposed Rwanda King’s loyalists, ABADAHEMUKA linked with the Kabaka’s party, KY (Kabaka Yeka) at a time when there was friction between Buganda and the central government over lost counties.

In March 1963, Prime Minister, Milton Obote warned the Tutsi refugees against incursions into Rwanda, thus: “If our hospitality is abused, we have no alternative but to withdraw the protection we granted to these people.” In late 1963, the then Minister of Community Development Kalule Ssetalla told Parliament that “thousands of Tutsi refugees had been pouring into Uganda with tens of thousands of their heads of cattle”.

During the same year, government set up Oruchinga and Ibuga refugee camps in Ankole and Kasese, respectively. The following year, in 1964, four more camps were set up at Kahunge, Rwamwanja and Kyaka 1 & 2 in Tooro and Kyangwali in Bunyoro.

With the fall out between the central government and Buganda Kingdom, the UPC government under Prime Minister Obote expelled the Tutsi King Kigeri who relocated to Kenya. The pressure had also come from Hutus and the Bakiga people in Uganda for the government to prevail over Tutsi invasion of Rwanda. The law of refugees was also amended to “prohibit anyone from keeping refugees without permission from government.”

Refugees were also required to stay in designated refugee settlements. The Director of Refugees was also given powers to deport any refugee who violated the law and those who did not meet the asylum criteria.

In setting up the camps, the government had anticipated that the refugees would stay for a short time and return to Rwanda. Between 1960 and 1964, half of an estimated 120,000 Tutsi who fled Rwanda came to Uganda. By 1967 about 300,000 Tutsi and a few Hutu elites had fled Rwanda. In 1968 Oxfam International appealed to the International community for a special fund to help in the repatriation of Banyarwanda refugees.

• A Tell report / By The Conscious Ugandans