Yesterday, a story in Uganda’s Daily Monitor caught my eye. It was entitled “Uganda, Kenya police officers in shootout at Migingo Island”.
Yes,
sparring between Uganda and Kenya over that rocky island, which is the
size of a big village, is still going on. The Uganda police deny there
was any shooting, only a scuffle of some sort.
In summary, the story went like this: The Uganda police found a Kenyan with Yamaha and Suzuki boat engines.
Since
Kenyan authorities don’t permit the sale of those types of engines, the
Ugandans concluded that he could only have stolen them. Things went
downhill very quickly from there.
Part of this story is
about that niggling dispute over Migingo. Both Ugandan and Kenyan
politicians have said some funny and hurtful things over Migingo.
My
favourite, is also the one that many consider the most ridiculous. It
came from Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, who said the island
belongs to Kenya, but the fish and water belong to Uganda.
People never stopped laughing, but the man had a point.
He
was thinking almost like a fisherman. Fishermen do understand that
there is a border in Lake Victoria waters. But they also know that the
fish don’t have passports.
You can claim the water,
but not the fish — they are stateless creatures that move around freely
in total disregard of borders. And fishermen don’t go by our logic. So
my interest today is not the island, the fish, the water, but the
fishermen.
"EARLY ADAPTORS"
Some
years ago you will recall, the leaders of the East African Community
decided that they wanted to speed up a political federation.
However,
some EAC members, notably Tanzania, thought the time was not right, and
that the matter should be tested, so committee was set up to go around
asking East Africans what they thought of the matter.
When
the committee spoke to the fishermen, they heard the same message: They
were told that the politicians were behind the times; that the thieves
who steal their fishing boats and nets had already federated.
A
boat stolen in Kisumu, for example, was quickly taken to Mwanza in
Tanzania and sold there. A boat stolen in Mwanza was taken to landing
sites in Uganda. And boats stolen in Uganda were brought and sold in
Kisumu. The criminals are early adaptors in matters of regional
integration. Marxists would call them the vanguard.
Every so often you hear stories of Kenyan fishermen arrested fishing illegally in Tanzania’s portion of Lake Victoria. You never hear about fishing boat thieves being arrested.
Every so often you hear stories of Kenyan fishermen arrested fishing illegally in Tanzania’s portion of Lake Victoria. You never hear about fishing boat thieves being arrested.
You would, therefore, think
that the fishermen want the authorities to police the waters more
strictly. No, you and I would think like that. They want freedom of
movement and fishing over all of the lake because if a Kenyan fisherman
from Kisumu could fish freely up to Mwanza, then he would be able to see
that it was his stolen boat on sale in Mwanza.
FISHERMEN ARE SUPERSTITIOUS
In other words, they wanted the same opportunities as the criminals. Very asymmetrical thinking.
Fishermen
are superstitious. Some years ago, I took a trip to a fishing island
deep in Lake Victoria. There are no women on the island because, the
fishermen believe, women bring “bad luck”.
We left as
the night approached, and I was mesmerised watching the chaps navigating
around the dangerous rocks in Lake Victoria using the stars!
It
was a boat, not a yacht, so there were no toilets. When the fishermen
wanted to take a short call, they would just stand at the edge of the
boat and do their thing.
Not knowing the ways of the
fishermen and travel on the lake, I had sat in the wrong part of the
boat. It was a windy night, so their urine would be blown back and
splash all over me.
I was in desperate need of a bath
by the time we reached the island. Let me just say a fishing island,
full of drunken fishermen, is not a place for the faint of heart.
To appreciate the Migingo issue, you have to hang out with fishermen. They have their own laws.
The
problem with Migingo is that Uganda and Kenya took there police
officers and soldiers, symbols of authority that just get in the way of
fishermen — the state.
Mr Onyango-Obbo is editor of Mail & Guardian Africa. (mgafrica.com). Twitt
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