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Straddling The Congo-Uganda Border With Two Nationalities - Best Of Both Lives

An open market in Kasese, Uganda a border town home to many Congolese.
An open market in Kasese, Uganda a border town home to many Congolese.
Jacques Kikuni Kokonyange

BWERA - It's market day in Bwera, a Ugandan city on the banks of the Rubirihiya river that separates the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda, east of the Beni region.

Ugandans and Congolese sell from the same stalls. It is hard to distinguish them because they all discuss products and prices in "Kinande," their shared mother tongue. They aren't that different, really. Transactions are carried out in shillings on the Ugandan side, and in francs on the Congolese one. The same merchants do their market rounds on both sides of the border.

Truck drivers with bananas and palm oil from the Congo cross the border and unload their merchandise in Uganda, but on the other side of the border, they show Ugandan ID papers. The same goes for the Ugandan drivers who enter the Congo through Kasindi. When they go through customs loaded with beer, bags of grey cement, corn starch and other products, they pull out Congolese ID, which exempt them from certain taxes.

"I can't tell the difference between a Ugandan and a Congolese when I arrive at the barrier," says an embarrassed agent from Kinshasa who was recently assigned to this border post.

Tax exemptions

Many Ugandans took advantage of last November's elections to acquire a voting card, which serves as a Congolese ID card. For their part, some Congolese also took advantage of the February 2011 presidential elections in Uganda to obtain Ugandan papers.

Patrick Siku, a political scientist from Beni, says that during the last elections, the Congolese Nande people and their Bakonzo brothers in Uganda helped each other out to cross the border and vote for their brethren candidates.

These cross-border populations end up with two pieces of identification that they use depending on the circumstances. According to the Congolese code of commerce, native citizens who export bananas, palm oil or rice and manioc flour are only subjected to paying exit fees and a hygiene tax at customs. They are exempted from fees for the commerce registry, the technical sheet or the commerce registration number, which are mandatory for foreigners, and are extremely expensive. Foreigners also have to renew their residence card with authorities every three months.

Advantages for all

The villages of Kalimio, Thako, Kizumbura, Kabarole and Kamirongo south of the Rwenzori sector are almost entirely inhabited by Ugandans who are attracted to the fertile Congolese lands and have family in the DRC.

Marcelline Kangusu, a Ugandan farmer who lives in the DRC, plants bananas, peanuts and oil palms that are sold in both countries. "We have to have two cards to live and travel without any problems."

Congolese do the same. Not only are Ugandan cities equipped with electricity and running water, they also have cheaper rent - the polar opposite of the DRC. Congolese from border villages and cities therefore come to live there, with their Ugandan ID cards.

"For my two bedroom apartment, I pay 48,000 shillings ($20) per month," says K. J., a Congolese who works in a snack bar in the Ugandan city of Kasese. "All I need to live in peace is my Ugandan ID card. There is no other form of control."

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The Weight Of Trump's Indictment Will Test The Strength Of American Democracy

The U.S. legal system cannot simply run its course in a vacuum. Presidential politics, and democracy itself, are at stake in the coming weeks and months.

The Weight Of Trump's Indictment Will Test The Strength Of American Democracy

File photo of former U.S. President Donald Trump in Clyde, Ohio, in 2020.

Emma Shortis*

-Analysis-

Events often seem inevitable in hindsight. The indictment of former U.S. President Donald Trump on criminal charges has been a possibility since the start of his presidency – arguably, since close to the beginning of his career in New York real estate.

But until now, the potential consequences of such a cataclysmic development in American politics have been purely theoretical.

Today, after much build-up in the media, The New York Times reported that a Manhattan grand jury has voted to indict Trump and the Manhattan district attorney will now likely attempt to negotiate Trump’s surrender.

The indictment stems from a criminal investigation by the district attorney’s office into “hush money” payments made to the adult film star Stormy Daniels (through Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen), and whether they contravened electoral laws.

Trump also faces a swathe of other criminal investigations and civil suits, some of which may also result in state or federal charges. As he pursues another run for the presidency, Trump could simultaneously be dealing with multiple criminal cases and all the court appearances and frenzied media attention that will come with that.

These investigations and possible charges won’t prevent Trump from running or even serving as president again (though, as with everything in the U.S. legal system, it’s complicated).

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