Practically the whole of West Nile fell within the Monr-Wari District, one of the three districts of the Lado Enclave. Other Belgian stations built included Dufile (1899), Wadelai (1900), and Yamba near Metu in Madi (Harris 1959: 19; Middleton 1963: 87). The period 1898 to 1914 was characterized by anarchy and skirmishes between the Lugbara and the foreign invaders comprising slave raiders and poachers, and imperial forces of occupation. In 1900, the Belgians set up bases in the towns of Lado, Arua and elsewhere in the Enclave, with some 1500 soldiers under an officer named Chaltin (Harris 1959: 19; Leopold 2009: 466). The stations were kept secure by armed askaris called by the Lugbara Tukutuku after the sound of their guns. By 1898, the Belgians were the sole organized military force in the Enclave (Leopold 2009: 466), ushering in the establishment of prisons. The Belgians were content to acquire the support of the surrounding chiefs without going any further afield. The Belgian administration created chiefs called Makoto who were in charge of mobilization of resources in the communities (Middleton 2013: 203).
The name ‘Arua’ came into use between 1892 and 1909. The to and fro movements from the villages to the colonial headquarters to visit relatives who were kept under custody gave the place its name Aru-a, meaning ‘in prison’ or ‘from prison’ or ‘to prison’. Leopold (2005a:31) has a slightly different explanation of the suffix but emphasizes the derivation from the Lugbara word for prison. The place was originally known as Onzivu after the Onzivu clan, who were displaced by the Belgians and British, forcing them to relocate beyond the present day Barifa Forest to Muni where Muni University is established now. The fact that the Lugbara associated the colonial headquarters with the notion ‘prison’ suggests that the colonial station and incarceration was a striking innovation in their local experience. Indeed, imprisonment had no part in precolonial Lugbara justice. My research found that they perceived the colonial administration, its system of law and order, and the introduction of prisons as causes of increased social and economic instability and disorder.
Prison Labour Resources under King Leopold II’s Administration among the Lugbara (1898-1910)
The Belgian period witnessed the introduction of prisons among the Lugbara people, as a detention place for offenders, as well as slaves. Whereas there were no laws to protect the natives under the Belgian administration, colonial law criminalized communities that failed to satisfy the unceasing Belgian demands for foodstuffs and other resources. The punishment was imprisonment with hard labour. The Lombroisan law influenced the Belgian practice of prison labour as resource. King Leopold’s territorial expansion ‘was not inspired by anything other than the political and economic value of what it might absorb or attain. Its sole principles were those of greed’ (Stengers 1969: 261-278). The prisons and prison labour became tools for the economic agenda of the Belgian administration in West Nile and among the Lugbara. According to Rasil Opindu who was the daughter to Awudele, an ally to the District Commissioner Sir Alfred Evelyn Weatherhead, and wife to Opindu the Colonial Court Clerk, the Belgian soldiers subjected individuals and communities considered deviant to hard labour including working on roads and constructing colonial stations. Individuals were released in exchange for animals and grains (Interview Rasil Opindu, 14th May, 2014). Sila Amaga in his narrative noted that, whereas King Leopold’s administration among the Lugbara was ruthless, it was more severe among the communities in the contemporary Democratic Republic of Congo where punishment included cutting off the limbs of individuals who had failed to supply the economic resources such as labour, rubber, grains and animals (Interview Sila Amaga, 12th May, 2014).