Territorial conflicts in East Africa : Uganda-Kenya contestation over Migingo Island, 1926-2009

Abstract

The maritime question has been a veritable subject in international relations as scholars, policy makers and politicians continue to search for drivers behind the ever-escalating contests over renewable and non-renewable resources. East Africa has experienced many territorial conflicts with scholars, journalists and politicians predicting their escalation following the discovery of natural wealth on borderlands. For more than a decade, Uganda and Kenya have been involved in a low-intensity territorial contest over Migingo, a rocky islet on Lake Victoria. This thesis examines the Uganda and Kenya conflict over this island in the period; 1926-2009. It historicizes the ideational structures that shape the controversy, given the fact that scholarly works on territorial conflicts mostly deal with their materialistic triggers. It further analyzes the broad historical drivers of the controversy, the significance of the Island and the implications of the conflict on the ordinary people in their environs and the entire East Africa. Using archival records, oral interviews and documentary sources and guided by the constructivism theory of international relations, the study argues that the Uganda-Kenya contestation over Migingo is about fish interwoven with the desire by either state to guard sovereign rights over the island. The enduring notions of territorial-sovereignty influence the dynamics of the tensions. This is because territorial integrity is without exception viewed as the most cruicial national interest of every nation. Moreover, Migingo is not a mere rock; wealth abounds around it in the form of fish. Access to fisheries resource explains the “benefits beyond territory” that have restrained both countries from war and that can jeopardize that fundamental interest. While the Island is fixed, without any direct economic value, the waters around it have fish. This is a mobile resource that whoever owns the water around the island has ownership of the fish. The study contributes to scholarship on territorial conflicts, borderlands and inter-state relations. It challenges the widespread assumption that colonial borders were well defined with colonial maps as authentic tools of evidence in positioning any territory. The study proposes negotiation as an alternative resolution mechanism other than reliance on colonial maps to address this maritime conundrum.