Solving the Migingo Island Map Mystery
In a highly inflammatory statement that has caused a hubbub in Kenya, President Yoweri Museveni while visiting Tanzania acknowledged that Migingo Island was located in Kenyan territorial water in Lake Victoria but warned the “Luos†not to fish in its adjacent waters that are in Uganda.
n a highly inflammatory statement that has caused a hubbub in Kenya,
President Yoweri Museveni while visiting Tanzania acknowledged that
Migingo Island was located in Kenyan territorial water in Lake Victoria
but warned the “Luos” not to fish in its adjacent waters that are in
Uganda. This incendiary remark was made after the highly anticipated
survey of Lake Victoria to determine the ownership of the contested
tiny Migingo Island was stalled due to various excuses that made little
sense.
President Museveni’s remark came two weeks after he had met with
his Kenyan counterpart, President Mwai Kibaki, in Arusha and ordered
the lowering of the Ugandan flag on the Island. Despite taking this
step and making a commitment to accelerate the survey of the boundary
between the two neighbours, some progress was being made to end the
mystery over which country Migingo Island belongs to until the
disparaging remarks.
Until Museveni’s statement, there has been continuing confusion in
the region over the location and ownership of the rocky Migingo Island
after the joint team that was supposed to undertake the survey exercise
failed to start work according to schedule on the pretext that it had
not been officially flagged-off by local administrators. Things got even
more confusing when a Uganda technical team returned from the British
National Archives in London without historical evidence to guide the
survey.
The Uganda Media Centre director, Fred Opolot, while briefing
journalists in Kampala last week, revealed that colonial maps the
Ugandan officials had procured from London on the disputed island of
Migingo are “vague” and do not say whether it is on Kenyan or Ugandan
territory. This revelation came to me as a shock, as I was at that
time in the British National Archive, where I had also gone to trace
the location and ownership of the disputed island in the colonial
records.
The various maps that I came across during the two days I spent
conducting research on East African boundaries were clear and adequate
to decisively and amicably solve this dispute. As I ploughed through
these historical records I deeply empathised with people in the region
who have been subjected to propaganda and outright falsehoods about the
location of Migingo Island.
Both the media and politicians, who have made totally biased and
contradictory claims, have multiplied the confusion. A Ugandan
newspaper in March printed a Google Earth map that was not only wrong
but also had three Migingos. It also gave the coordinates of the
disputed island as 2°48’06.82”S and 32°38’45.25”E, which is somewhere
in Mwanza, Tanzania, since Migingo’s locations is closer to 0°54’ S
and 33°56’ E. Ugandan politicians and government officials such as Fred
Opolot also added to the confusion by claiming that maps show Pyramid
Island, that is next to Migingo, to be in Tanzania.
This is wrong as the “Kenya Colony and Protectorate (Boundaries)
Order in Council” (G.N. No. 149 of 1926) that established the
Kenya-Uganda boundary states that it will commence “in the waters of
Lake Victoria on a parallel 1° south latitude, at the point due south
of the westernmost point of Pyramid Island.”
Indeed Migingo does not exist in colonial maps, which refers to it
as Ugingo. In the “mining map of Kavirondo”, that shows a survey of
mineral wealth of the present Nyanza and Western provinces, Ugingo is
shown to be slightly to the north of Pyramid Island, and to the east of
the boundary line.
Kavirondo Mines
The “plan showing revised boundary between Uganda protectorate and
Kenya Colony of 1924” clearly shows these islands to be in Kenya.
Even the 1917 and 1933 maps drawn by the War Office clearly show the
location of Migingo and Pyramid Islands to be in Kenyan waters.
War Office maps-1917 & 1933
That the technical teams composed of highly trained cartographers
have failed to locate these islands on the maps above is a mystery.
These officials owe the taxpayers of the region an explanation as to
why these maps are “vague” and do not show in which country’s territory
Migingo Island is. Unless Opolot was misquoted, then serious questions
should be raised about the capability of the technical team to carry
out the survey exercise, which by the way needs to be carried out in
the open and with the involvement of the borderland communities. It
could also be possible that Uganda government officials do not want to
accept what they see on these maps since they do not reflect the
intransigent stand that they have maintained for the past two years
since the row over Migingo broke out.
Nonetheless, it is quite possible that the Ugandan research team
that went to London also brought back these maps that have convinced
President Museveni to order the lowering of the national flag and to
confirm that Migingo Island is in Kenya. It is quite obvious that his
angered statements are a reflection of the truth displayed in these
maps.
Dr Wafula Okumu is a Senior Research Fellow in the African Security Analysis Program - ISS Tshwane/Pretoria
