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Uganda - Mubende:
Uganda - Mubende: In August 2001, the inhabitants of the four villages Kitemba, Luwunga, Kijunga and Kiryamakobe (approximately 4,000 people) were violently expelled from the land of 2524 hectares they have been living on for years. The Uganda People’s Defense Force (UPDF, army of the State of Uganda) forced them to leave their premises because the semi-statal Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) wanted to lease it to the Kaweri Coffee Plantation Ltd., a 100% subsidiary of the Neumann Kaffee Gruppe (NKG) based in Hamburg/Germany. The eviction was described by the evictees as particularly cruel. The inhabitants were threatened and forced to leave at gunpoint and several of those being evicted were beaten in the process. The soldiers set houses on fire and demolished them, including the fully equipped private clinic of the community and six churches. Movable properties were looted and crops were cut down and uprooted. The Kitemba primary school (a formal school of the villages) has since then been used as the headquaters of Kaweri/NKG Coffee plantation and this situation has created negative consequences on the education of the children at primary and secondary school levels. Following the eviction there was an increase of illnesses and deaths as most of the evictees were cut off from their access to food, shelter, clean water and health care.1
Today many of the evicted live in extreme poverty near the Kaweri/NKG Coffee plantation since the eviction from their land has distroyed their means of livelihood. Although the evictees are living in a dire situation and tried to survive in other areas in Uganda, some of them have found temporary access to land in part of the neighbouring Block number 103, where they have built the new settlement Kyengeza. This enables them to do small-scale farming or work as informal laborers in sourrounding gardens However, the small plots of land are insufficient to provide adequate food to satisfy their needs and their families.1
Since the ‘d-day’, the evictees have been organising themselves under Wake Up and Fight for Your Rights Madudu Group. In 2002, they brought their case to the Nakawa High Court and sued the Ugandan Government as well as Kaweri Coffee Plantation Ltd. for human rights violations and abuses, respectively. Despite the High Court ruling in favour of the affected communities in 2013, 396 families are still waiting for redress, while shouldering 14 years of legal process. The case has been sent back by the Court of Appeal to the High Court for retrial but there is no certainty of when and if the case will move forward.2
By evicting the peasant community without proper rehabilitation and compensation, Uganda violated their human right to feed themselves and related human rights. The legal basis of their displacement is questionable. Moreover, undue violence and destruction were used in the eviction. The state of Uganda should thus provide proper rehabilitation and compensation and ensure the right to effective remedy for the peasants affected by the human rights violations mentioned.3
1. https://www.fian.org/fileadmin/media/publications_2015/ParallelReport_UGA_CESCR54_E.pdf
2. https://fian.nl/15-years-without-remedy/
3. http://www.fian.org/cases/cases2/mubende-uganda-coffee-plantation-by-neumann | 
