10 years of "Coffee to go"

European protest actions on 10th anniversary of Ugandan peasants' eviction to give way for coffee plantation in Mubende

Heidelberg, 19/08/2011 - 10 years after the forced eviction of more than 2,000 people by the Ugandan army to the benefit of the German investor Neumann Kaffee Gruppe, FIAN activists are carrying out today symbolic actions in front of Ugandan Embassies in European cities to call for an end of impunity, compensation and effective remedy for the affected evictees.

In August 2001 the Ugandan army violently forced hundreds of families off their land they had lived on in the district of Mubende. This land was then leased out to Kaweri Coffee Plantation Ltd, a subsidiary of the German coffee company Neumann Kaffee Gruppe. Kaweri used this land to establish Uganda's first large-scale coffee plantation. Until today, the evictees have neither been compensated for the total loss of their land and properties nor for the hardship which they had to face after the eviction.

"Most of the evictees still live under extremely difficult conditions on the edge of the plantation to this day", tells Martin Wolpold-Bosien, FIAN International Program Coordinator. "Their livelihood was their land. And this livelihood has been destroyed by the evictions."

The court proceedings that the evictees took up in 2002 against the Government of Uganda and the Kaweri Coffee Plantation Ltd. have been systematically delayed ever since. Even efforts to find an out of court solution to the case have been disregarded by the Government of Uganda and the company.

"As a signatory state of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Uganda is obligated to respect the human right to food under international law", says Flavio Valente, FIAN International General Secretary. "The current living situation in Mubende threatens the farmers' right to adequate food as anchored in the Covenant. The Ugandan government must make amends for the violent evictions which it undertook, and compensate the affected evictees. In addition, the government must guarantee all victims of human rights violations the right to effective remedy and access to justice."

It has been 10 years to the day since the eviction took place - 10 years of injustice, 10 years of impunity. FIAN demands that impunity must come to an end and that the Ugandan government and the Neumann Kaffee Gruppe will be held responsible for the violation of the right to food.

Further Information:

Protest actions will take place in front of Ugandan embassies in Brussels and Berlin; and at the NyeleniEurope Forum in Krems, Austria.
A Petition will be sent by FIAN International Secretary to the responsible Principal Judge in Uganda, and will be handed over in parallel to Ugandan representations in Brussels, Berlin, Denmark, Geneva and Vienna. Further actions will take place in September in Budapest.

See also Open Letter to Hon Justice Bamwine