By FAUSTINE
RWAMBALI
THE
EASTAFRICAN
TANZANIA AND Uganda are once again quarrelling over border demarcation following last week's reports that boundary beacon No. 32 had been destroyed by unknown people.
There were also claims that some Ugandan citizens had built homes on Tanzanian territory.
According to reports from Kagera region in western Tanzania, the damaged beacon was located at Bubare village.
The two governments have since last week been holding talks to resolve the dispute. The Kagera Regional Commissioner Maj-Gen (rtd) Tumainieli Kiwelu confirmed that the beacon had been destroyed, but said it had not been established who did it.
"The beacon was damaged by unknown people. The two governments consider this as an act of thuggery," he said.
Maj-Gen Kiwelu said that the dispute, which has been going on for the past 24 years, was being discussed by the Ministries of Lands of both countries.
However, to ease the problem, it had been suggested that more pillars be constructed to demarcate the border.
Maj-Gen Kiwelu said this would reduce the distance between pillars from the current one after every 15km to one after every 5km. Efforts by Tanzanian and Ugandan officials to resolve the border dispute hit a snag when a technical committee appointed to re-map the boundary aborted in June 2000.
Tanzania was unhappy with some of the issues raised by Uganda during a meeting at Mutukula, Tanzania. Uganda claimed that the boundary extended about 300 metres, which Tanzania disputed.
Some beacons were removed by the forces of Ugandas deposed dictator Idi Amin during the 1978/9 war over similar claims.
After the aborted June 2000 meeting between two teams headed by Tanzanias Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Lands, D. Mmari, Uganda's Minister of State Baguma Isoke and some land experts at Mutukula border post, Uganda claimed that "it had been discovered that the one latitude passes 300 metres inside her territory."
But Maj-Gen Kiwelu said last week that the argument that the one-latitude extends 300 metres into Ugandan "was not a consensus because it had not been lodged officially."
An information officer in Tanzanias Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, S. Makongoro told The EastAfrican that the ministry "had no official information of the matter," while the Acting Director of Survey and Mapping in the Ministry of Lands and Human Settlements, Zablon Maselle, was not available for comment.
The June 2000 meeting advised Uganda to write an aide memoire stating that it was disputing the present border. In the 1,355-page book, African Boundaries: A Legal and Diplomatic Encyclopedia, Ian Brownlie (1979) asserts that a one-degree south latitude was only referred to in the Anglo-German Agreement of 1890, while the present boundary lines were derived from the Anglo-German Agreement of May 14, 1910 and that the one-degree south latitude was "artificial."
The agreement described the Tanzania/Uganda border as follows: "From the confluence of rivers Kachwambwa-Kakitumba and Kagera, the boundary follows the course of River Kagera as far as the second crossing of the parallel one-degree south by the river Kagera between boundary pillars Nos26 and 27."
Then it follows the line of boundary pillars along the one degree south latitude as far as the intersection of this line with the western shore of Lake Victoria.
The book, one of the major references on national boundaries in Africa, says further: "The one degree south latitude from the Kenya tri-point westward across Lake Victoria and toward the boundary of the Congo was marked by pillars by a Boundary Commission of 1902-1906 and the results recorded in an Anglo-German Agreement signed on July 18, 1906, but was not ratified. The alignment is also described clearly in Articles 1 and 2 of the draft, Anglo-German Agreement of 1914 (Kenya-Tanzania; section 3(c)."
However, it cautions the two countries that the question of the re-demarcation of the border requires attention and that "there were technical problems which could become a basis for more or less accidental border incursions by military patrols and consequent threats to peace."
In 2000, Maj-Gen Kiwelu officially informed President Benjamin Mkapa of the border dispute and how it affected relations with Uganda. He advised that the matter be resolved "quickly and amicably."
Tanzanias Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation described claims of the new "discovery" of the border between the two countries in 2000 as "baseless because the border issue was concluded in late 1970s after the Uganda-Tanzania war."
It argued that in 1978, the former Uganda dictator, Idd Amin Dada ordered his army to invade Tanzania and annex River Kagera to Uganda. This led to a war between the two countries that toppled Amin. After that war, the border dispute was resolved through the Kampala and Mogadishu Accords.
The two countries have since 1979 been in consultations over how to replace the beckons destroyed or removed during the war.
(www.nationaudio.com/News/EastAfrican/current/Regional/Regional27.html)
----- Original Message -----From: acroorca2002 <orc@...>Sent: Monday, February 10, 2003 4:56 PMSubject: [BoundaryPoint] Re: TZUG--- In BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, "Jesper Nielsen" <jesniel@i...>
wrote:
> Brownlie in the news:
>
> http://allafrica.com/stories/200302040546.htm
link has evidently expired
but can you give us the skinny anyway from memory
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