Little Island, Big Dispute

Kenya and Uganda are in a row over a small island on Lake Victoria that lies near their shared border. Jeffrey Gettleman picked up on the dispute in a recent NY Times article. I have disagreed with Gettleman’s descriptions of African affairs in the past, but I think he got Migingo right:

It’s a slab of rock, not even an acre big, packed with rusty metal shacks, heaps of garbage, glassy-eyed fishermen and squads of prostitutes, essentially a microslum bathing in the middle of Africa’s greatest lake.

I know because I visited Migingo two weeks ago with a group of Duke University students spending the summer at the Women’s Institute for Secondary Education and Research (WISER) in Muhuru Bay, Kenya. There is not much to be found on this less than 2 acre mound of dirt and tin. It is what surrounds the island that has Kenya and Uganda spending nearly $1.7 million USD to determine ownership.

Fish.

Lots of Nile perch to be specific. As Gettleman reported, Uganda needs the exportable fish that swim in the waters around Migingo to prop up its fishing industry that is currently at 25 percent capacity due to a dwindling supply.

The dispute started in 2004 when Ugandan police landed on the island and raised their country’s flag. It escalated in February 2009 when Ugandan officials began requiring Kenyan fishermen to purchase permits to conduct business. The debate over the island got so heated in recent months that Kenya’s President Kibaki had to quiet calls from within his government for military action against the country’s neighbor and fellow East African Community member.

So which country has a rightful claim to Migingo? As explained in Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper, Uganda may not be interested in the location of the island as much as knowing where Kenyan waters end and Ugandan waters begin. If Google Earth is any guide, Migingo and its sister islands, Usingo Island and Pyramid Island, are within Kenyan territory.

In a report issued to Ugandan officials on July 21, Kenyan surveyors claimed that Migingo lies 510 m inside Kenyan Territory. This is in line with official Kenyan and Ugandan documents dating back to the Kenya Colony and Protectorate (Boundaries) Order in Council, 1926, created when both countries were British protectorates.

A 1973 International Boundary Study conducted by the Office of the Geographer within the U.S. State Department (No. 139) reprinted the boundary demarcation set by the 1926 Order in Council:

…the [580 mile] Kenya−Uganda boundary is delimited in three sectors from south to north: (1) Boundary from 1° south latitude, through Lake Victoria to the Mouth of the Sio River, (2) Boundary from the Mouth of the Sio River to the summit of Mount Elgon, and (3) Boundary from the summit of Mount Elgon to Mount Zulia, on the boundary of the Anglo−Egyptian Sudan [Democratic Republic of the Sudan].
 
The first sector begins in Lake Victoria at the Tanzania tripoint, which is located on the first parallel south and approximately 33°56′ east longitude.
 
“Commencing in the waters of Lake Victoria on a parallel 1° south latitude, at a point due south of the westernmost point of Pyramid Island; thence the boundary follows a straight line due north to that point; thence continuing by a straight line northerly to the most westerly point of Ilemba Island…”

This Google Earth image shows the “straight line northerly” from the “westernmost point of Pyramid Island” to the “westernmost point of Ilemba Island” [not pictured].

Since Migingo is located east of Pyramid Island, which forms part of Kenya’s westernmost border, it looks to be clearly within Kenyan territory. As measured in Google Earth, Migingo is 496 m inside Kenya according to the line I drew from Pyramid Island to Ilemba Island. This compares to the Kenyan surveyors’ estimate of 510 m.

Google Earth, however, is not the best tool for settling this dispute. This program puts Migingo 1.76 km inside Kenya. As indicated in the first map above, Google Earth also places the Kenya-Tanzania border 0.74 km into the Kenyan Division of Muhuru Bay where I have spent the last two months working on a participatory mapping project. I know Google’s boundary is off the mark because I stood on the mark — the triangle stone shown below. The GPS coordinate I captured at this boundary marker reflects the boundary as visible on WISER’s high resolution imagery that was recently acquired from the GeoEye-1 satellite launched in September 2008.

And don’t count out Tanzania of this diplomatic tussle. When I visited Migingo, my Blackberry buzzed with a text message from a mobile phone company welcoming me to the former German colony.

I hope this gets resolved soon. I have a map waiting to be delivered to division officials in Muhuru Bay, a new Division in Kenya that is now part of Nyatike DIstrict. This is important because Muhuru Bay was formerly part of Migori District, which, for moment, is in charge of the upcoming census of Migingo. Presumably, if Migingo is determined to be a part of Kenya, it will fall to Muhuru Division in Nyatike District.

So for now our maps sitting quietly on my computer, awaiting a final decision. If it were up to the the Nairobi hotel staff member who just arrived at my door with a delicious steak sandwich, Migingo would be declared a part of Kenya. Good enough for me.