The colonial and postcolonial legacy of the “Lost Counties” land issue has recently resurfaced as a contentious ethno-political issue in Uganda. The aim of the paper is to critically examine the politics of belonging and land rights in relation to Ugandan land legislation and the “Lost Counties” issue. The empirically basis of this paper is primarily derived from field work in Kibaale District, during the period January to July 2004.

The 1995 Constitution of the Republic of Uganda is one of the most gender sensitive constitutions in the world, with clear provisions for promoting and protecting the rights of women. This is also the case in relation to women’s land rights – the Constitution clearly vests land in the people of Uganda, including the rights of women to own and inherit land. Other land laws, including the Land Act, recognize and uphold women’s rights to land as individuals, and as part of a family or community.

Well before the effective ending of the protracted Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)

insurgency in northern Uganda in July 2006, and at a time when the entire rural

population was displaced into camps, concerns had emerged around land, in particular

in the Acholi sub-region, where the war had been most intense and longest lasting

(Adoko & Levine 2004). Through forced displacement, almost all rural Acholi

families has been prevented from occupying their land for many years, years in which

Post-war Mozambique confronted the challenge of reforming land policy and legislation
with an innovative land law that protects customary rights while promoting investment
and development. Most rural households have customarily acquired land rights, now
legally equivalent to an official State land use right. When necessary, they can be proven
by analysing local land management and production systems, resulting in large areas

Unfolding analysis reveals two types of land disputes prevalent in postwar northern Uganda: cases that involve a legitimate cause of action and those that do not.1 Since mediation and alternative forms of dispute resolution rely on parties’ willingness to negotiate in good faith, cases featuring ‘bad faith’ and land grabbing—where powerful parties intentionally exploit another person’s vulnerability in order to illegally2 claim land—pose a serious challenge for local land dispute mediators. Such mediators must wrestle with whether and how to remain neutral in the face of injustice.

Post-conflict northern Uganda has witnessed an increase in disputes over land. This has, to a great extent, been as a result of the armed conflict and its aftermath. Beyond that, other chaotic factors embedded in various social, legal, economic, and political aspects of this society have influenced the nature, gravity, and dynamics of these disputes and the way in which Traditional Institutions and the Local Council Courts have attempted to resolve them.

Northern Uganda is the scene of one of the world’s most volatile and spontaneous processes of reintegration. There are approximately 1.1 to 1.4 million people in the Acholi sub-region at the time of writing3 ; 295,000 internally-displaced persons (IDPs) remain displaced either in IDP camps or transit sites. Approximately 800,000 Acholis have already left the camps and spontaneously returned home over the last three years.

Conflict associated with land has increased substantially following the return of peace to the Acholi Region with the return of internally displaced people (IDP), population growth, and increases in the value of land. The area is heavily dependent on agriculture and conflict related to land access seriously threatens to undermine development and the social, political and economic stability of the Acholi Region. This study involved community members, key informants, and statutory and traditional leaders in three sub counties in each of the seven Acholi districts.

Tenure in Mystery collates information on land under conservation, forestry and mining in the Karamoja region. Whereas significant changes in the status of land tenure took place with the Parliamentary approval for degazettement of approximately 54% of the land area under wildlife conservation in 2002, little else happened to deliver this update to the beneficiary communities in the region. Instead enclaves of information emerged within the elite and political leadership, by means of which personal interests and rewards were being secured and protected.

This paper examines the evolution and the nature of the current forms of land tenure in Masindi District and the extent to which these forms impair or facilitate positive socio-economic changes. Such an examination is vital in light of the fact that there exists no convincing empirically grounded studies on the impact of the official land policies on the relationships between forms of land tenure, social structure and agricultural production.

Over 80% of all land in Uganda is held under unregistered ‘customary tenure’. This means that it is private property, but the owners need no documents to prove ownership. Their claims to the land, and the boundaries of the land, are locally recognised, and this recognition is given the full protection of State law.

The protection given to the land rights of women, orphans and any other vulnerable groups in Northern and Eastern Uganda is probably as good as can be found anywhere in the world. Customary land law is based on three main principles. First, everyone is entitled to land, and no-one can ever be denied land rights. A second principle is that all inherited land is family land, never individual property.