It was on one of those hectic late afternoons in the office when music producer Tabu Osusa came on the line: “I am having a beer next door, at K’Osewe. If you have a moment, please pop in. There’s someone I would like you to meet.”
I was about to explain that it wasn’t particularly a good time, but I quickly swallowed my words. It is rare that Mr Osusa calls with such intense excitement. After all, K’Osewe, or Ranalo Foods as it is formally known, is only short distance from my work station at Nation Centre on Kimathi Street. Within minutes, I was shaking hands with an enormous man Mr Osusa introduces as “the chief of Migingo”.
He did so tongue-in-cheek, but Juma Ombori actually looks like a chief and behaves like one, especially the kind we see in those Nollywood films – articulate, gently authoritative, and usually with two or so smaller people around them.
Though not muscular, Ombori’s heavy frame could easily earn him a role as Okonkwo, the “tough” Nigerian character in Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart. And things are indeed falling apart for Mr Ombori on Migingo Island on Lake Victoria where he tries to make a living.
As chairman of the local beach management unit, he has to shake off intimidation by Ugandan security to keep speaking out on behalf of the troubled Kenyan fishermen operating on the once-peaceful island that is now the subject of a territorial dispute between Kenya and Uganda.
That’s part of his role as the one responsible for “coordinating and managing fishing activity” in the area. Beach units are institutions under which fishing communities are formally organised.
To Mr Ombori, who I later learn is about 50 and operates between Nyandhiwa township in South Nyanza and Migingo Island, the Migingo dispute is extremely strange. He has witnessed the development of events that led to the controversy from the very beginning, having operated around the area from 1986. And he cannot comprehend why Kenyan authorities keep looking the other way over the matter.
When old maps indicating that Migingo was in Kenya were released, Mr Ombori thought their tribulations would be a thing of the past in a matter of days. This feeling was buttressed when President Kibaki, Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka all declared that the island was indeed within Kenyan boundaries.
How wrong he was. The ownership declaration only resulted in the lowering of the Ugandan flag. Nothing else changed. The Ugandan officers are still imposing heavy levies on Kenyan fishermen. “The government is giving us lip service,” he declared with resignation. The two other men in his company moved from an adjacent table to signal that it was time to go, and the “chief of Migingo” gave me an appointment for the next day.
It was at the Ambassadeur Hotel where the one-time chairman of Ahero Town Council spilled his heart out about the tribulations of Kenyan fishermen operating on Migingo Island. It was in 2002, Mr Ombori said, that due to heightened piracy on the lake, Ugandan fishermen operating closer to the Kenyan waters made an application for security.
In Mr Ombori’s view, although the piracy also affected Kenyans and Tanzanians, the Ugandan fishermen were more at risk, mainly because they had better fishing gear, including motorized boats. At that time, Kenyan fishermen used wind-assisted canoes. “The Suba DC advised the Ugandan fishermen that the Kenyan Government could not go deep into Ugandan waters. They went back home and collected home guards from their country,” Mr Ombori said.
“The home guards would go tour the waters on their side and part of our side. They would surrender their guns to Kenyan authorities and go to Remba Island.” But because high tides would at times stop them from going back to Remba Island, he said, the home guards would camp at Migingo Island.
“Then came the Ugandan marine police to man the waters for the Ugandan fishermen. They camped at Migingo because of its proximity to the fishing sites and started asserting authority.” That was in 2004 and apparently it would be just the beginning of things to come for suddenly one morning, Mr Ombori and his fishing compatriots noticed a Ugandan flag flapping high above them.
“We started wondering what was going on. Upon enquiry, we were told that the flag was simply to safeguard the place so that whoever approached the island would know that there was an authority there. They said that without the flag it would be dangerous for them as the forces manning this lake,” he sid.
At that time they were about 50 fishermen on the small island. Each of them had to part with Sh3 per kilogramme of fish caught as payment towards the security provided by the Ugandan marine police. But it wasn’t long before the levies charged against Kenyan fishermen in particular started rising. That’s when Mr Ombori and his counterparts realised something wasn’t right.
Taxes would be imposed on anything. The Ugandan officers, he said, would charge for fishing safety today, for use of “wrong” fishing gear the next day, and then ultimately arrest the fishermen for “being in Ugandan waters” the day that followed. “We were not afraid to pay taxes,” Mr Ombori said.
“But we didn’t like the idea of giving out money that ended in people’s pockets. There were no standards. You would give Sh50,000 today. The following day, they would demand Sh70,000 or Sh80,000. That’s what caused all the chaos.”
The fishermen started appealing to the Kenyan authorities. Their argument was that if Uganda was charging them for using “Ugandan” waters, then Kenya also needed to institute taxes against Ugandan fishermen who were using Migingo Island, which they had all along known to be on the Kenyan side.
For being vocal, Mr Ombori became a target of intimidation by the Ugandan officers. “There was no government presence in Migingo to support us. We were fighting on our own,” he said. The battles didn’t yield much apart from bringing the issue into the open and a few statements here and there by the Kenyan Government. And even after Kenya declared that the island was in Kenya, Mr Obori said nothing changed.
And, as if to support his position, 12 Kenyans, 11 of them fishermen, were arrested in mid August and held in Uganda for a week, having been charged with “kidnap”. The story is that the Kenyan fishermen were arrested for protesting against the theft of mobile phones from a Kenyan trader operating in the island.
The suspect, it was reported, was Ugandan, and no action had been taken even after reports were made to the Ugandan police on the island. Kenya eventually protested through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but the fishermen and the Kenyan trader were released only after their counterparts in Migingo had raised a total of Sh48,000 fine levied against them. Each had been fined Sh4,000.
It is incidents such as these, and the casual attitude of Kenyan authorities, that worries Mr Ombori. He and his people just cannot understand it. For a man who claims to be among the first fishermen to pitch camp in Migingo Island and whose life depends largely on fishing in the lake, such intimidation and harassment can be truly painful.
Which makes his reconciliatory attitude about the issue something to admire: “We experience these problems, but we don’t want to stay in dispute because of Migingo. If we have to share resources, it has to be done officially. Let’s accept what is Ugandan and what is Kenyan, so that we can start living in harmony.”
