Konjo people
Bakonjo | |
|---|---|
| Total population | |
| 850,646[1] (2014, census) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Rwenzori Mountains of southwest Uganda | |
| Languages | |
| Konjo language |
The Konzo (pl. Bakonzo, sing. Mukonzo), or Konzo, are a people located in the Rwenzori Mountains of southwest Uganda. Numbering 850,646 in the 2014 census, they live on the plains, hills and mountain sloping up to an altitude of 2,200 meters. Traditionally agriculturalists and animal husbanders, they farm yams, beans, sweet potatoes, peanuts, soy beans, potatoes, rice, wheat, cassava, coffee, bananas, and cotton, while keeping goats, sheep, and poultry. They speak the Konjo language and practice traditional religions and Christianity. Konzo speakers also live on the western slopes of the Rwenzori range in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.[2]
The Konzo were part of the armed Rwenzururu movement against the Toro Kingdom and central government that reached heights in the mid-1960s and early 1980s.[3] In 2008, the government recognized the Rwenzururu Kingdom, formed by the Konjo and Amba peoples, as Uganda's first kingdom shared by two tribes.[4]
Since July 2014, secessionist ambitions have led to armed clashes in which dozens have died.[5]
Notable Bakonjo include Amon Bazira, a political figure instrumental in the negotiations that ended the 1980s conflict, and Charles Mumbere, named the Omusinga (king), of the Rwenzururu Kingdom.
References
- ^ "2014 Uganda Population and Housing Census – Main Report" (PDF). Uganda Bureau of Statistics. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 October 2017. Retrieved 17 April 2018.
- ^ "Konjo: A language of Uganda", Ethnologue (accessed 7 June 2009)
- ^ Prunier, Gérard (2009). Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-537420-9., 82-83
- ^ "Uganda: Welcome Rwenzururu", editorial by the New Vision, 31 March 2008
- ^ Marie-France Cros, Séparatisme des Nandes en Ouganda : des combats font 87 morts, La Libre Belgique, 30 November 2016. Accessed 1 December 2016.
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