Access to Rural Non-Farm Livelihoods - Natural Resources Institute

1.7 History
The general area that is now Rakai District was once an independent kingdom called Kooki
which ruled by the Kamuswaga. However, in 1886 it fell to the Kabaka of Buganda, and
became part of the Buganda Kingdom, although the Kamuswaga was allowed to remain as
the County Chief. Later, under British rule it became part of Masaka District. It was declared
a district in its own right in 1974 during the Amin regime, although its boundaries were only
demarcated in the late 1980s.
In the 1940s and 50s many Banyurwanda Bahutu farmers came from Rwanda to Rakai in
search of land and work – some obtained small plots and stayed, and became
“Bagandanised”. Then, when Kayibanda came to power in Rwanda in 1962, Banyurwanda
Batutsi pastoralists and their cattle also started to come to Rakai. However, in 1994, when the
RPF came to power in Rwanda the Batutsi largely departed again after more than a
generation – unfortunately for Rakai, this resulted in an unexpected, abrupt, and significant
decrease in tax revenue from cattle sales. This is slowly being reversed as a result of inmigration
of Banyankole Bahima pastoralists from Mbarara District in search of pasture and
water for their herds in the face of loss of communal grazing lands to ranching and crop
production, and drought in their home area.
The main events in the recent history of the district are primarily traumatic shocks. In 1978-9
Mutukula was the point of entry for the invading liberation forces seeking to overthrow the
Amin regime, and the district was heavily fought over for a period of three months, leading to
extensive loss of life, looting of livestock, and destruction of property 18 .
This was followed soon after in the early 1980s by the outbreak of AIDS, with the first
records in Uganda from fishing villages on Lake Victoria in Rakai in 1982. In the early days
of the epidemic little was known about the disease and its transmission, and death rates were
very very high, with devastating costs in terms of care for the sick, burials, large numbers of
orphans and widows, and loss of productive labour, many of which are still felt today. As a
result the district became the focus of numerous NGOs, although their assistance has largely
been palliative, and has not always reached those in the more remote rural areas.
The district was spared the worst of the depredations of the Obote II regime, in contrast to
nearby Luwero, but suffered further armed insurgency in the period leading to the overthrow
of the Okello regime in 1985/6 – at this time livestock losses were particularly high.
Natural disasters in recent times include drought in 1987, floods associated with El Nino in
1998, and a period of prolonged drought/poor rains in 1999/2000, which was continuing at
the time of the research. During the 1980s nematodes attacked banana gardens, and in the
1990s mosaic attacked cassava. Currently coffee wilt is spreading in places. East Coast Fever
(ECF), Contagious Bovine Pleuro Pneumonia (CBPP), rinderpest (RP), and foot and mouth
disease (FMD) outbreaks and epidemics kept cattle markets closed for much of the 1990s.
Famine relief had to be distributed in 1992, although the roads were in such poor condition at
the time that it failed to reach the more remote areas.
18 Including the complete razing of the entire town of Kyotera, bar a single building.
8