Justice seekers: dispossessed through demarcation

Evidence collected for this study suggests that there was a widespread sentiment of anxiety and helplessness when it came to land ownership and the prospect of demarcation. There were two main ways in which people were dispossessed through the demarcation process. First, when the survey demarcated an area, two people would often fall in the same plot – and hence one would have to move.

Second, the survey demarcated an area and reserved space for the construction of roads or other public infrastructure. Those living on that land would have to move as well.

Like with other processes, the demarcation offered opportunities and risks, some would win and others would lose out – and those who would lose out were generally not the already powerful but those who felt disconnected from government. In some instances, people had been dispossessed twice without compensation,⁷⁸ which fed in to a more general feeling of marginalisation (interview Yambio, February 2016). In Ezo, an LRA-displaced person was despondent: “When I came here in 2011, Headman Bazawi gave this place to us. The plot used to be big - including those banana trees there – but then the big people came and decided to give this plot of mine to that other man. So I have no say because they are the people who know what they are doing, but for me I don’t know” (interview, 21 March 2015).

77 The demarcated areas included Hai Kuba, Hai Napere and Hai Suguine. The rest of those areas were not surveyed prior to 2005. (FGD, March 2016).

78 One respondent was displaced by the survey in Hai Napere through which he ‘fell on the roadside’. He moved to Hai Duduma, but was also displaced from there when the demarcation process in 2013 placed him and another man in the same plot.

Interview with Minister of Physical Infrastructure, 27 January 2015.

Minister: We come in and we try to organise it. Of course in the process people are going to be uprooted from where they are.

Interviewer: The Land Act stipulates that people are entitled to compensation when they are uprooted, but we hear of many cases where people are not compensated.

Minister: Yes, but the government doesn’t have the resources to compensate people. You need to budget for that sort of thing. We are running on an austerity budget. For the complete implementation of the Land Act you need resources.

In frightful anticipation of the demarcation process, people sometimes decide to hold off on any investment in the land until they have a firm title to it. Others choose a more aggressive strategy of building on undemarcated or disputed plots in order to confront the authorities with a fait accompli.

Few people reported to take successful action by addressing the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure directly, “as most of them are not aware about the ministry, how it functions” (FGD in Yambio, February 2016). Instead, most took their grievances to their local youth leader or the CLA.

When the demarcation joined two or more people in one plot, the CLA normally measured who had the largest portion (see also case study on CLA). That person was then allowed to buy the land lease, and the others were supposed to be compensated. But the rules that guide CLA-conduct were little-known, and this fuelled suspicions of corruption.

Inhabitants of demarcated areas commonly accused the surveyors of selling off plots illegally to the rich and powerful. Associatedly, the surveyors and road constructors were often seen to avoid affecting the property of rich and powerful people. Instead, they would generally be seen to appropriate less-developed plots. As a symptom of this, people often make a comparison with other towns – Malakal and Wau, for example – where according to them ‘the roads are straight’ and the demarcation process was not discriminatory.

When we questioned a CLA staff member about this practice, he explained: “You know as well as I do who owns those beautiful houses. We survey, give the plan to the minister and he will share it with the council of ministers. They will disagree with the plan” (interview, 16 February 2015). But the director of survey at the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure gave another reason: “We try as much as possible to minimise the destruction of houses. You must minimise the cost, and so a very well built house or church will be avoided because it is costly to compensate. It is easier to compensate a tukul, than someone with a large building. But now the government doesn’t even compensate a single tukul” (interview, 17 February 2015). And this the exact cause of friction. The people who had to leave their plot ended up feeling victimised: especially when they were not awarded compensation.

As part of the compensation scheme, the local government appropriated plots from people who had a lot of land. “If someone has 4 plots, we take 1. If someone has between 7 and 10 plots, we take 2 plots. If someone has more than 10 plots, we take 3 plots,” the payam administrator of Yambio confirmed. “This is to compensate someone who has been displaced by the main road” (interview, February 2015). But as explained above, many displaced people never received compensation. It was also unclear whether people from whom a plot of land has been taken with a view to compensate others, should again be compensated somehow. “The demarcation took place in the market area where I had two plots,” an inhabitant of Nzara told us. “One was taken and I have not heard about compensation to this day”

(interview, 11 March 2015).

Interview with citizen in Gangara Emilia, Yambio, 17 February 2015

“In 2013 the demarcation took place, and joined me and my neighbour in one plot. My neighbour who had the biggest portion of the land rushed to the County Land Authority and bribed them, so they gave him the title. The CLA told me and the one who had the smallest portion that we will be compensated somewhere else. But up to date no compensation has come … Let them not only favour those who went to school, educated people, colleagues.

Let them implement the law and follow it”

When people were promised land elsewhere, their responses varied. Some only moved once they were allocated the new plot. But others moved in with relatives for the time being. Still others refused altogether to leave their old plot. This qualitative study has not established how frequent these various responses occurred. But even when people were compensated in-kind with another plot, they were often dissatisfied. The plot would often be in another part of town, swampy, or too far from the roadside or boreholes. When Bangasu town was demarcated and some people’s land fell on the road, “they were given plots outside as compensation, but some refuse to move away,” a citizen called Paul explained.

“They don’t want to move back there – there simply is no business on the plots which are far from the main roads” (interview, 18 March 2015).

The tensions arising from the demarcation were not just between the state organs and the people, but also within communities. This was especially true when two or more people were joined in one plot by the demarcation. “They don’t solve our problem rather they increase tension among the people,”

complained Mary. “This woman has been threatening me with my children. Our relation is not OK.

After the demarcation took place this woman is insulting me day and night without reason. If I am going to stay in this land I don’t want anything bad to happen to me or my children” (interview, April 2015).

These sentiments of despair and anger were very common for those involved in land disputes. It is worth here to quote at length an interview with a dejected disputant in Yambio:

Demarcation for the construction of roads – and the associated displacement of the inhabitants of the demarcated land – was an especially ambiguous phenomenon. Although participants in our kick-off meeting in Yambio generally felt that roads were necessary for development – often even calling it the first step – their construction always raises disputes. Often, good roads were built over older smaller

Interview in Hai Kuzee, Yambio (March 2015)

“My intention of buying these two plots was that in case if I die, I don’t want my children to suffer like the way we have suffered in acquiring land. Because we were many and our father did not care to buy plots for us. It is through education, that I have managed to buy a plot both for me and my young brothers. But I don’t have land leases. When I went to the County Land Authority they told me that I cannot get a land lease for a plot which is undemarcated because it has no plot number.

In February 2015 those survey came and demarcated the area and all plots were safe and I went again for the land lease program. But they told me to hold on, they would come and register people on plots and give it’s plot numbers that is when I will come and get it’s land lease. Those survey came back in April to register us on plots. They just registered my name in one plot and said they cannot register my son in the second one, and one person is not allowed to own two plots in one in this area of Hai Kuzee.

But I could not accept their idea because I have suffered with that plots – uprooting the big teak tree in the plots in order to make it clear. People are now trying to get it from me, but that will never happen. My next step is that I will consult other Big people in the authorities so that I can hear their decision. I will never lease this plot to someone else while I am still alive unless they come and slaughter me. Also how will our relationship be with that neighbour? I think it will be war.”

roads that were typically flanked with houses and farms. And as explained above, it would often be the already-poor people who would be least shielded against the demarcating state.

The lack of transparency of the demarcation process was one of the biggest complaints voiced by respondents in this research. Although the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure claimed to announce plans to demarcate given areas over the radio, people oftentimes complained that they had not been informed about government plans until the bulldozers arrived. And rumours would often further fuel angst-ridden anticipation of an impending demarcation process.