KASESE- Residents who are accused of encroaching on the Railway Land in Kasese Municipality request for pardon by the government.
The residents through their lawyer, Mr. Geoffrey Mishele, made the remarks today afternoon during their mediation meeting between the Uganda Railway Corporation that was facilitated by the Justice Centers of Uganda at the District Multipurpose Hall in Nyamwamba Division.
Counsel Mishele in his presentation to the delegates from the Corporation indicated that he was having two civil suit files of 134 plaintiffs against the Railway Corporation. Counsel Mishele noted that he had files I and II.
The first file with civil suit 39/2021conatins 43 plaintiffs who claim to have entered the suit land as early 2005 and claim to be having agreements signed by the Railway Corporation workers, David Sebek.
File 2 with 91 plaintiffs under civil suit 40/2021; claim that they entered the suit land as early as 2001 when the ADF was ceasing. They argue that when the ADF attacked the people, they were forced to move from the highlands to the low lands and obtained pieces of land.
They note, when the ADF ended, the rest of their people went back to different areas and they remained, other stated selling pieces of land in the face of local leaders by then in 2001.
Now, through their lawyer, since then, the Uganda Railway has never challenged their occupation until 2021 when they got notices instructing them to vacate the land within a period of thirty days.
The residents through their lawyer propose to government that, they however recognize that Uganda Corporation has been in Kasese and is a government project that they can benefit from.
They suggests to the corporation to think of diverting the railway line or look for an alternative route so that they remain on the land that they have developed.
The second option, that if the Uganda Railway Corporation can’t make a diversion and intends to maintain the earlier route, they request that those in the high risk areas be compensated, and those that are not in high risk areas be pardoned and relate with the corporation as lawful occupants.
While if the corporation doesn’t want the plaintiffs on their land, it should consider compensating them because all the development projects on the suit land were established in the face of the corporation.
However, the Senior Legal Officers from the Uganda Railway Corporation whose names are withheld from the press did not conquer with the submissions of the plaintiffs.
According to them, President Museveni has directed that they reclaim all the pieces of land belonging to the corporation across the country and that land was acquired by the government more than 100 years back.
The Legal Officers insisted that the government acquired a land title s early as 1962 that was inherited from the East African Railway and Habas Corporation.
Therefore, they maintained their earlier call for the encroachers to leave the land, arguing that there was no compensation because government did not have money.
