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Tanzania, Uganda Resolve Border Dispute

The East African (Nairobi)
NEWS
March 17, 2003
Posted to the web March 19, 2003

By Faustine Rwambali
Nairobi
TANZANIA AND Uganda have reached an agreement to resolve their 24-year old
border dispute.
Kagera Regional Commissioner Major General Tumainieli Kiwelu told The
EastAfrican last week that the agreement was reached at a recent meeting held
in Mbarara, Uganda.
Among the objectives of the meeting was to work out modalities of moving
Ugandan citizens with their cattle and the no-man's-land issue.
Maj Gen Kiwelu said that the major issues were the repatriation of Uganda
citizens who entered Tanzania illegally; replacing destroyed border beacons;
and dealing with cattle from Uganda which were grazed on Tanzanian territory.
He said the meeting agreed that, by April 4, all illegal Ugandan immigrants
should have left. As has happened along the border between Tanzania and Rwanda,
unplanned settlements and cattle overgrazing have contributed to environmental
degradation in Tanzania.
Maj Gen Kiwelu said that, in order to clearly demarcate the no-man's-land, the
current distance of 15 km between beacons should be reduced: "We agreed to
reduce the distance to between two and five kilometres," he said.
In January, Tanzania and Uganda were once again on collision course when a
boundary beacon at Bubare village was destroyed by unknown people. Tanzania
also claimed that some Ugandan citizens had constructed their houses on its
territory.
Efforts by the two countries' officials to resolve the dispute were frustrated
when a technical committee appointed to remap the boundary aborted in June
2000. Tanzania was unhappy with some of the issues raised by Uganda in a
meeting between the two side at Mutukula, Tanzania. At the time, Uganda claimed
that the boundary passed some 300 metres inside its territory. Some border
beacons were removed by Amin's soldiers during the 1978/79 war. Amin had made
similar border claims.
Soon after the aborted June 2000 meeting between Tanzania officials from the
Ministry of Lands and Uganda's Ministry of State, Uganda claimed that there was
a "one latitude that passes 300 metres inside" its territory.
However, Tanzania on its part dismissed the claims as baseless, saying the
argument that the one-latitude passed 300 metres inside Uganda territory was
yet to be lodged officially.
The June 2000 meeting advised Uganda to write an aide memoire stating clearly
that it was disputing the present border.

   

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