Mountains of the Moon

THE MOUNT RWENZORI REgion is today more famous for its armed rebels and smugglers than the scientific and anthropological treasure trove that it has always been.

Famously known as the Mountains of the Moon, the Rwenzori have over the years attracted mountain enthusiasts who are enamoured by their snow peaks and magnificent glaciers.
Early in the last century, Italy’s Duke of Abruzzi led an expedition to the Rwenzori, and for more than their 100 years, the geography and the people of the Rwenzori region have been the subject of a range of academic and popular writing.

On the occasion of the Abruzzi centenary celebrations in 2006, Fountain Publishers of Kampala have published, Rwenzori: Histories and Cultures of an African Mountain, edited by Cecilia Pennacini and Hermann Wittenberg.

The book, a compilation of academic papers covering the disciplines of anthropology, linguistics, political science, history, literary studies, music, religion and lexicography, attempts to cover and document the unique cultural and historical heritage of the Rwenzori region straddling western Uganda and eastern Congo. The editors notet, “The essays collected in this book bear testimony to the extraordinary interest of the Rwenzori massif…”

In this interdisciplinary volume, contributions from leading Western and African scholars of Rwenzori history and culture, provide fascinating insights into one of Africa’s most complex and dynamic socio-political environments.

The authors of the papers discuss issues of vital concern in African studies, throwing new light on ethnicity and nation, modernity and tradition, violence and state ethnicity, modernity and tradition, violence and state formation, as well as the fluid interplay between language, culture and identity on the one hand, and the geography of the montane environment on the other.

ACCORDING TO PENNACINI and Wittenberg, major issues is “the increasingly difficult existence of pygmy communities — Basua/Bambuti/Batwa — throughout the region, subject to marginalisation processes caused by old cultural attitudes, as well as the recent establishment of natural parks that forbid them to continue their traditional hunter and gathers economy.”

The Department of Anthropological, Archeological and Historical Territorial Sciences of the University of Turin has been carrying out ethnological researches in the Great Lakes Region of Africa since the 1970s, mainly in Uganda and Congo.

The researches are co-ordinated through the Italian Ethnological Mission in Equatorial Africa, supported by that country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and have been directed by Pennacini, an anthropologist at the University of Turin since 2005.

In a paper titled, The Rwenzururu and the Kingdom, Tom Stacey writes: “Consider these mountains. Consider the phenomenon of creation, this massif on the equatorial girdle of the world, some 45km in length overall, and 23km wide, with its clusters of might peaks of which, until recently, five were glaciered and the entire upper canopy under permanent snow.”

In his description of the magnificent mountains Stacey says “…Do you know there is no such place in the world that compares with Rwenzori? Its glaciered plateaux lie at 16,000 feet; its peaks rise to nearly 17,000 feet, over 5,000 feet higher than the greatest mountains of Europe. The vegetation and wildlife of Rwenzori reach almost to the snouts of its glaciers, and of course overlap the outer fall of its snows. It is a world of its own.”

Its abundant rainfall contributes as much as half of the waters that feed, via the Semliki valley, the Central African reaches of the White Nile, notes Stacy, further saying, “The territory above, say, 11,000 feet, induces the famous surreality of gigantic species among its prevailing vegetation of senecios, lobelias, heathers and helichrysums, which occur nowhere else on the globe except on a far lesser scale on other East African heights: Kilimanjaro, Kenya and Elgon.

“To our Rwenzori we ascribe an unprecedented array of unique species for so compact a piece of territory, a mountain island, as it were — all the species derived from its combination of attitude and climate; its 15 species of mammals, some of them formidable and famous like the Rwenzori black leopard, the Rwenzori Colobus, and the hyrax; its 25 species of reptiles; its 18 unique birds, including the brilliant turaco, and its daringly designed sunbirds, its score upon score of strictly Rwenzori, insects, mosses and fungi,” writes Stacy.

Historically, social formation in the Rwenzori region began with migration of peoples to the Semliki from the seventh century onwards, from all directions — west, north, northwest, southwest and south, according to Arthur Syahuka-Muhindo in the paper, Migration and Social Formation in the Rwenzori Region.

The earliest migration constituted the Batembuzi society, which gave rise to the Bachwezi who, in turn, formed the first political associations in Kitara. Spatial population distribution in the early state-nation redefined the context of population movements within the region, thereby redefining the context of settlements and political relations among groups, says the author.

“The Semliki valley was the melting pot in which many different groups of immigrants to the region coalesced into clans before moving east into the heartland of Bunyoro-Kitara, where they mingled with immigrants from the north, northeast and south, to form the Bakitara people,” notes the writer. “The Semliki valley also experienced reverse emigration of groups such as the Bakitara, or Bachwezi, from the heartland Bunyoro-kitara, who were fleeing the violence associated with state formation.”

THE LANGUAGES OF THE Rwenzori region are discussed by Oswald K. Ndoleriire in the paper, Language Use and Attitudes in the Rwenzori Region. These are Lubwisi, Lukonzo, Kwamba (Rwamba), Bulebule, Runyabindi, Rusongora, Rutoro, Rutuku, Luhiju and the Venoma people who are considered as a sub-group of Kwamba speakers, among others. Kiswahili and English are also widely spoken in this region.

Today, in Kasese District, there are a number of ethnic majorities and minorities. The 1991 Uganda Population and Housing Census documented 35 different groups, in Kasese district alone.
Ndoleriire’s paper discusses how people circumvent linguistic barriers to fit in.

It also highlights the exemplary language use of the Bakonzo, who do not hesitate to put aside past and even present ethnic rivalries for better communication. “All in all, the future of language use in the region looks bright, except in cases where some languages and dialects could become extinct; and should this happen, it would be a great loss of human heritage,” he observes.

In their paper, Continuity and Change in Bakonzo Music: From 1906 to 2006, Serena Facci and Sylvia Nannyonga-Tamusuza look at continuity and change in terms of performance practices, the types of instruments used, the various contexts of performance, musical structures and meaning.

In Rwenzori: A Bridge of Cultures, Baluku Stanley Bakahinga Mbalibulha notes: “Rwenzori presents to us an interesting area. It is one of the exceptional areas where a mosaic of cultures (both indigenous and immigrant groups) has converged. All the groups, irrespective of their sizes, are worthy of respect because of their respect of their cultural values, mutual or otherwise.

“In spite of the pressure on the resources and occasional outbreaks of ethnic conflict, Mount Rwenzori and the adjacent Rwenzori region serve as a symbol to which all these outline cultural groups look for posterity. The pastoralists will need the rivers, water and pasture while the cultivator needs the soil, and the hunter needs the forest and the wilderness. In this way, all Rwenzori’s cultures use the environment for cultural enrichment.”

Luca Jordan’s paper, Ambiguous Borders: The Case of Rwenzori focuses on the Rwenzori as a border that separates Uganda and Congo. This border, established in colonial times, has been the core of continuous tensions between and within the two states.

ON THE UGANDAN SIDE, it was the base for the Rwenzururu Movement, the National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (NALU) rebels and recently the Alliance of Democratic Forces (ADF).

While the ADF has been accused of being a terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda, it is said that NALU received support from former president Mobutu Sese Seko’s government to destabilise President Yoweri Museveni’s administration.

In the Congo, Rwenzori was the operational zone for the Simba rebel movement soon after the country’s independence in 1960. In the mid 1990s, the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Democrati Kisangani, Mouvement de Liberation (RCDK-ML), a rebel movement led by Mbusa Nyamwisi, a Banande warlord, controlled the territory of Beni and Lubero and consequently the borderlands with Uganda, notes Jordan.

In conclusion, Wittenberg writes: “The future of the Rwenzori Mountains and the communities that lie around them is today closely bound up with the geo-political machinations and wars that have engulfed the Great Lakes region,” in the paper, An Epicentre of Empire: The Rwenzori Mountains in the Western Imagination.

“Ironically,” Wittenberg adds, “The hopes of local Rwenzori communities are not only linked to the return of peace, but also a continuation of colonial myths about the Mountains of the Moon.

In order to draw tourists and attract development, the Rwenzori will in all likelihood continue to be inscribed with a Western history that obscures local cultural knowledge, traditions and histories.

The mountains have thus retained, to this day, the names conferred on them by Abruzzi, with only a small change from Ruwenzori to Rwenzori. But otherwise the imperial names remain. In what is now a national park, only one lowly feature is named after a Ugandan: the John Matte hut on the trekking circuit.”

The Duke of Abruzzi named the two highest summits Margherita and Alexandra, after the queens of Italy and England respectively.

The porous Mount Rwenzori region is more known for the armed rebellions and smuggling that have engulfed the area – than the unique cultures and histories of the people who dwell on this massif straddling western Uganda and eastern DR Congo.

A new volume of academic papers covering the disciplines of anthropology, linguistics, political science, history, literary studies, musicology, religion and lexicography attempt to cover and document the unique cultural and historical heritage of the area covering both the Ugandan and Congolese sides of the massif.

The book, Rwenzori: Histories and Cultures of an African Mountain edited by Cecilia Pennacini and Hermann Wittenberg and published by Fountain Publishers in Kampala was written on the occasion of the Abruzzi centenary celebrations in 2006, “the essays collected in this book bear testimony to the extraordinary interest of the Rwenzori massif…,” the editors note.

In this interdisciplinary volume, the editors say contributions from leading Western and African scholars of Rwenzori history and culture provide fascinating insights into one of Africa’s most complex and dynamic socio-political environments.

The authors interrogate questions of vital concern in African studies, throwing new light on issues around ethnicity and nation, modernity and tradition, violence and state ethnicity and nation, modernity and tradition, violence and state formation, as well as the fluid interplay between language, culture and identity on the one hand, and the geography of the montane environment on the other.

For more than a 100 years, the geography and the people of the Rwenzori region have been the subject of an extraordinary range of academic and popular writing, a heritage to which the authors of these papers both contribute and reflect on, the editors note.

According to Pennacini and Wittenberg among major subjects, “Is the increasingly difficult existence of pygmy communities — Basua/Bambuti/Batwa — throughout the region, subject to marginalisation processes caused by old cultural attitudes, as well as the recent establishment of natural parks that forbid them to continue their traditional hunter and gathers economy.”

The University of Turin, department of anthropological, archeological and historical territorial sciences has been carrying out ethnological researches in the Great Lakes Region of Africa since the 1970s, mainly in Uganda and DR Congo.

The researches are co-ordinated through the Italian Ethnological Mission in Equatorial Africa, supported by the Italian ministry of Foreign Affairs and have been directed by Pennacini, an anthropologist at the University of Turin, since 2005.

“Consider these mountains. Consider the phenomenon of creation, this massif on the equatorial girdle of the world, some 70 miles (km?) in length overall, and 40 (km?) wide, with its clusters of might peaks of which, until recently, five were glaciered and the entire upper canopy under permanent snow”, Tom Stacey writes his paper titled, The Rwenzururu and the Kingdom.

“…Do you know there is no such place in the world that compares with Rwenzori? Its glaciered plateaux lie at 16,000 feet; its peaks rise to nearly 17,000 feet, over 5,000 metres, higher than the greatest mountains of Europe. The vegetation and wildlife of Rwenzori reach almost to the snouts of its glaciers, and of course overlap the outer fall of its snows. It is a world of its own,” Stacey continues in his attempt to describe the magnificent mountains.

Its abundant rainfall usually contributes as much as half of the waters that feed, via the Semiliki, the Central African reaches of the White Nile, Stacy notes. “That territory above, say, 11,000 feet, induce the famous surreality of gigantic species among its prevailing vegetation of senecios, lobelias, heathers and helichrysums, which occur no where else on the globe except on a far lesser scale on other East African heights: Kilimanjaro, Kenya, and Elgon.”

“To our Rwenzori we ascribe an unprecedented array of unique species for so compact a piece of territory, a mountain islands, as it were – all the species derived from its combination of attitude and climate: its 15 species of mammals, some of them formidable and famous like the Rwenzori black leopard, the Rwenzori Colobus, and the hyrax, its 25 species of reptiles, its 18 unique birds, including the brilliant turaco, and its daringly designed sunbirds, its score upon score of strictly Rwenzori, insects, mosses, fungi,” Stacy goes on.

“Do you know this place? Its hidden gulches? Its high, steep sided, silent lakes, its literally impenetrable forest – swathes of helichrysums (impenetrable to man), the ferocious descent of its temperatures nightly within the space of a single hour from the heat of a European summer’s afternoon to below zero; its comparable caprice of meteorological changeability in a matter of minutes, from clear heaven ward infinity to an assault of hail, snow and fog?”

Although Stacey acknowledges importance the Duke of Abruzzi’s expedition, he is quick to criticise the Duke of not mentioning the prominence of the Bakanzo guides and porters in his findings and account of the expedition.

“…These works give a few lines to the Bakonzo he recruited, without whom (1 venture) he could not possibly have achieved what he did… The prince and his ghost-writer speak of 80 Bakonzo, all presumably hunters from the Mubuku valley, whom he recruited for the first three legs of the ascent, to the rock shelter of Bujongolo, above the bamboos, the expeditions base camp of these, fifteen were selected for higher port…, and there is not a moments speculation as to why a Mukonzo might be unwilling to breach the snows of their Olympus. They were commended for cleverness with their sticks on the climb, but remain uncredited for knowing all the tracks and intricacies of covert routes and tunnels which and ascent entails.”

In August 1962, Isaya Mukirane declared the mountain wide Rwenzururu independent, with himself as president. “Independent, I would say, that August of 1962 of the kingdom of Toro, and thus of Uganda and indeed of Britain itself, whose writ as the colonial power still had a couple of months to run.

Isaya made his declaration from his new Kahindangamo - his drum headquarters – in that self same Buswagha territory of highland southern Busongora where he had first mooted the Bakonzo Life History Research Society (BLHRS),” Stacey recalls.

“Fearful preventions and assaults were visited in those early years of the kingdom of Rwenzururu. Yet miraculously it survived. There are those among us here who grew up in the midst of it, those of that self-same kingly family. It survived a ruthless assault in late 1964 by Uganda’s military, recently shed of its British officers, sweeping the highland ridges, burning, looting and shooting anyone in flight. It survived the death of Rwenzururu’s first king, Isaya Mukirane, on 28 August 1966. It survived a devastating assault in September 1967 by Ugandan troops, which ravaged the seat of government, its palace and parliament building, and put the community to flight,” Stacey goes further.

“Yet, first under the regency, and an effective premiership, and at the end of the decade after the formal installation of Isaya Kibanzanga’s 18-year-old eldest son Charles Wesley as Omusinga, king of Rwenzururu, the highland state had reasserted its presence and taken shape…”

According to Stacey: “The ending of the kingdom’s administrative and political separation from Uganda (and likewise from Congo, in that there was anything coherent from which to have seceded from) was a planned, rational and orderly affair, carefully negotiated with government in Kampala. It took place on 15 August 1972, precisely 20 years to the day after Rwenzururu’s declaration of its independence, at a massed rally and formal ceremony at Kasese…”

Social formation in the Rwenzori region began with migration to the Semliki from the seventh century onwards, from all directions – west, north, north-west, south-west and south, Arthur Syahuka-Muhindo notes in his paper, Migration and Social Formation in the Rwenzori Region.

The earliest migration constituted the Batembuzi society, which, as it differentiated, gave rise to the Bachwezi who, in turn, formed the first political associations in Kitara. Spatial population distribution in early state redefined the context of population movements within the region, thereby redefining the context of settlement s and political relations among groups, Syahuka- Muhindo goes on.

“The Semliki valley was the melting pot in which many different groups of immigrants to the region coalesced into clans before moving east into the heartland of Bunyoro-Kitara where they mingled with immigrants from the north, north-east and south to form the Bakitara people,” Syahuka-Muhindo notes. “The Semliki valley received in reverse emigration groups of Bakitara, or Bachwezi, from the heart land Bunyoro-kitara, fleeing the violence associated with state formation.”

Beginning with the rise of the Bachwezi dynasty, the population began to drift westward. Cattle keepers and agriculturalists fleeing the economic coercion imposed by, first, the emerging Bachwezi ruling group and then the Babito group, moved westward until they reached the eastern slopes of the Rwenzori Mountains.

Pastoralist groups occupying the Savannah grassland plains of Busongora increasingly extended their grazing activities to the Semliki valley where the Abasonga people already practised cattle keeping.

According to Syahuka-Muhindo, westward population movement; resulting from state formation processes in the Bunyororo-Kitara heartland, notably the rising power of the Babito, increased from the 17th to the 19th century. “Warfare and political centralisation in the Bunyoro, Nkore, Mpororo and Toro kingdoms tended to push groups of people to the peripheral areas of these emerging polities. From the Bunyoro-Kitara heartland, populations moved westward and southward. Where the Toro kingdom formed, population moved further west into Busongoro, the Semliki valley and subsequently into the Rwenzori mountains.”

“In Busongora, the Semliki valley, and the Rwenzori Mountains, the different groups of immigrants coalesced into the Bakonzo and Bamba who, in the 1960s, violently challenged the authority of the rulers of the Toro kingdom in the form of the Rwenzururu movement…” “The Bamba and Bakonzo tribes were formed on the periphery of the Kitara Empire.

They thus included remnants of the earliest immigrants as well as a variety of different groups of people – agriculturalists and pastoralists alike – who came to Busongora and the Semliki valley fleeing political and military pressures, or the warfare violence associated with state formation in the kingdom areas to the east of the Rwenzori Mountains, along with those later fleeing the turmoil caused in the 19th century by the Kilongalonga slave raiders and traders.”

“The turmoil of the 19th century pushed these groups into physical and cultural isolation – the Bakonzo in the Rwenzori Mountains and the Bamba in the inaccessible Bwamba plains – thus sealing their fate as marginal tribes in Toro kingdom. These people not only preserved historical traditions elsewhere obscured by the creation of the colonial Toro kingdom and the British colonial state, but retained linguistic forms – Lukonzo and Kwamba – that sharply distinguished them.”

“Thus, although originally part of the Kitara people, the Bamba and Bakonzo became different in relation to other people in the region and so became discriminated against on the basis of tribe of culture. In reaction, they aspired to be recognised as nationalities, leading to their violent struggle to establish the Rwenzururu state,” Syahuka-Muhindo writes.

“…Kitara as a whole adopted the cattle and mixed agricultural-pastoral economy that originated from the Semliki valley. Constantly, modified, the ‘Semliki economy’ formed the basis of social reproduction in the Batembuzi, Bachwezi and Babito eras. Thus, the migrants of the western stream had an extensive impact on the region,” Syahuka-Muhindo observes.

“Apart from the violence associated with state formation, slave raiding, and Belgian and British colonialism, coupled with the ensuing outbreak of epidemic disease, also had their toll on the region,” Syahuka-Muhindo adds. “In the Semliki valley epidemic diseases affecting both cattle and humans aggravated the social situation. Epidemic disease produced traumatic effects similar to those of warfare, acting as a social brake with consequence for community and culture…”

Linguistic evidence clearly indicates the common origin of Banande (who live on the Congolese side) and Bakonzo (living on the Ugandan side), which moreover share many of their most important cultural traits, Cecilia Pennacini notes in her paper, The Rwenzori Ethnic Puzzle. “Despite a small number of differences in the lexical repertory of the two variants (Lukonzo and Kinande), produced after the establishment of the colonial frontier, Bakonzo and Banande speak basically the same language and can understand each other very well…”

The Banande coexist with other people such as the Mvuba, Bavira, Gegere, Hema, Balegga, Batalinge, Lendu, among others. The Batalinge and Bamba are kinsmen, just as the Batwa and Baswa.

In his paper, Language Use and Attitudes in the Rwenzori Region, Oswald K. Ndoleriire summarises the language spoken in the area as follows: Lubwisi, Lukonzo, Kwamba (Rwamba), (Bulebule), Runyabindi, Rusongora, Rutoro, Rutuku, Luhiju and the Venoma people who are considered as a sub-group of Kwamba speakers, among others. Kiswahili and English are also widely used in some areas of this region.

Today, in Kasese District there are a number of ethnic majorities and minorities. The 1991 Uganda Population and Housing Census documented 35 different groups, among others in Kasese district.

Ndolerire’s paper shows how people circumvent linguistic barriers and find ways of communicating with their neighbours. It also highlights the exemplarily language use of the Bakonzo, who do not hesitate to put aside past and even some present ethnic rivalries for better communication. “All in all, the future of language use in the region looks bright, except in cases where some languages and dialects could become extinct; and should this happen; it would be a great loss of human heritage,” he observes.

In their paper, Continuity and Change in Bakonzo Music: From 1906 to 2006, Serena Facci and Sylvia Nannyonga-Tamusuza look at continuity and change in terms of performance practices, the types of instruments used, the various contexts of performance, musical structures and meaning.

“…Christianity and western education, with their ideologies about “traditional” culture, have had an impact on the Bakonzo, like on many other African cultures. Moreover, although a number of the Bakonzo have been converted to Christianity, their belief in ancestral spirits still holds…,” Facci and Nannyonga-Tamusuza acknowledge in their paper that covers both the Bakonzo and Banande.

Both play the drum (engoma), the makondere orchestra (consisting of side blown gourd trumpets), the eluma orchestra ( a set of 12 to 15 stopped flutes, each producing a different sound), the notched four-hole flute (enyamulere), the musical bow (ekibulenge), the harp (enanga), the lamello-phone (elikembe), the percussion beam (enzibe) and the xylophone (endara) among others. “The endara has always been associated with Kitasamba, the head of the Rwenzori spirits, the god of the Bakonzo…,” Facci and Nannyonga – Tamusuza write. “The endara played together with the drums, has been an important magico-religious instrument among the Bakonzo. It is not an instrument during the Kubandwa thanksgiving ceremony…”

“In conclusion, we can say that while there has been substantial continuity, there have also been a number of changes in the music and dance of the Bakonzo, due to changes in the political, social and cultural environment…” Facci and Nannyonga-Tamusuza write.

In his paper, “Rwenzori a Bridge of Cultures,” Baluku Stanley Bakahinga Mbalibulha notes: “Rwenzori presents to us an interesting area. It is one of the exceptional areas where a mosaic of cultures (for both indigenous and immigrant groups) has converged. All the groups, irrespective of their sizes, are worthy of respect because of their respect of their cultural values, mutual or otherwise.”

“In spite of the pressure on the resources and occasional outbreaks of ethnic conflict,” Mbalibulha adds: “Mount Rwenzori and the adjacent Rwenzori region serve as a symbol to which all these outline cultural groups look for posterity. The pastoralists will need the rivers, water and pasture while the cultivator needs the soil, and the hunter needs the forest and the wilderness. In this way all Rwenzori’s cultures use the environment for cultural enrichment.”

“The future of the Rwenzori Mountains and the communities that lie around them is today closely bound up with the geo-political machinations and wars that have engulfed the great lakes region,” Hermann Wittenberg concludes in his paper, An Epicentre of Empire: The Rwenzori Mountains in the Western Imagination.

“Ironically,” Wittenberg adds, “The hopes of local Rwenzori communities are not only linked to the return of peace, but also a continuation of colonial myths, about the Mountains of the Moon. In order to draw tourists and attract development, the Rwenzori will in all likelihood continue to be inscribed with a Western history that obscures local cultural knowledge, traditions and histories. The Mountains have thus retained, to this day, the names conferred on them by Abruzzi, with only a small change from Ruwenzori to Rwenzori. But otherwise the imperial names remain. In what is now a national park, only one lowly feature is named after a Ugandan: the John Matte hut on the trekking circuit.”

The Duke of Abruzzi named the two highest summits “Margherita” and “Alexandra,” after the queens of Italy and England respectively.

Luca Jordan’s paper, Ambiguous Borders: The Case of Rwenzori focuses on the Rwenzori massif that separates Uganda from the DR Congo. This border, established in colonial times, has been at the core of continuous tensions between and within the two states.

On the Ugandan side, it was the base for the Rwenzururu Movement, National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (NALU) rebels and recently by the Alliance of Democratic Forces (ADF).

The ADF has been accused of being a terrorist group and linked to AlQaeda. It is said that NALU received support from Mobutu’s government to destabilise Museveni’s administration.

In the Congo, the area was the operational zone for Simba rebel movement soon after the country’s independence in 1960. In the mid 1990s the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Democratic Kisangani, Mouvement de Liberation (RCDK-ML), a rebel movement led by Mbusa Nyamwisi, a Banande warlord, controlled the territory of Beni and Lubero and consequently the borderlands with Uganda, Jordan notes. RCDK-ML got support from Museveni’s government.

“…The Rwenzori massif is neither peripheral nor marginal. It is actually a region at the core of many economic interests and political dynamics that overwhelm this mountain chain,” Jordan concludes. “From this point of view, the centre periphery dichotomy, which implies the dependence of the latter on the former, does not have any analytical value: in fact, the central governments seem to be tied to the events which took place in this supposedly peripheral area. The fluidity of the political context in Uganda and overall in the Congo renders any prediction difficult.”

“Until now, the violence in the Rwenzori has constituted an opportunity rather than a problem for many social actors who have fomented social and political disorder in order to affirm themselves. This is certainly a widespread strategy in sub- Sahara Africa…,”Jordan adds.