April 12, 2007

• Riot in Uganda over Mabira Forest Giveaway

  
  This morning I got a call from my foster son, who was caught in an environmental riot in downtown Kampala, Uganda over the Mabira forest giveaway. http://www.monitor.co.ug/news/latest.php

  BBC News is now reporting three dead. BBC NEWS | World | Africa | Deaths in Uganda forest protest

  The president of Uganda is proposing to give away a third of the Mabira forest, a national preserve for decades, to a sugarcane company. A planned peaceful demonstration turned violent as the demonstrators went onto a closed road and the police, breaking their promise, fired tear gas and bullets.

  The sugarcane comany is owned by the Mehta Group, based in India, so some rioters branched off into ethnic violence, targeting Indian and Chinese businesses.

  On a personal note, my foster son got out of downtown Kampala safely, in a taxi that went the back way, but still had a stone thrown at it.

  • 11:07 am
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