Now that's a novel tourism strategy

Serious questions arise from an odd headline coming out of Uganda

'Immediately develop Lord's Resistance Army Massacre Sites to Boost Tourism' argues Boniface Okot

https://www.africa.com/uganda-develop-lords-resistance-army-lra-massacre-sites-to-boost-tourism/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=uganda-develop-lords-resistance-army-lra-massacre-sites-to-boost-tourism

Barlonyo, Uganda, one of LRA's massacre sites. Image: Wikipedia commons

Yes, you read that right. An active terrorist organization leaves behind 20 years + of xenophobic death and destruction, and a government official wants to invest in tourism at the very sites of the extremists' bloody rampages. He insists that it's "cultural heritage tourism."

A practical reason he cited, which no one can argue with, is the need to identify and properly interpret the mass graves for those coming to mourn or seek information. "The absence of graphic images and artefacts that depict the tragic events make it difficult for visitors to connect with history," a report noted.

In this way, the government seems to be testing tourism as a means of gentrifying the sites and crowding the terrorists out. Is Uganda past this phase? Or is Uganda's main creditor, the Bank of China, giving it callous advice in return for financing an oil pipeline that's touted as "both a carbon bomb and a human rights disaster."

Tourism at massacre sites: a bit chilling, don't you think? or is it a proper thing to create spatial order around these sites before the locations and the events are lost to living memory? The task seems less touristical and more monumental if the design is to be done properly, to honor the dead in the same way as we do elsewhere. Seems like we are compelled to do so partly in a way to create tangible evidence that such an evil exists, to remind future generations as well.

It makes me think of whether there would ever be a monument movement, something to memorialize those who lived through or lost their lives during reconstruction and Jim Crow. Could these be localized and yet common? As if there were a marker design somehow for lives taken.

And could these be somehow in perpetuity, as they sort of run with the land. Whoever buys the parcel must tend to the marker and preserve it for the next generation.

These and other questions arise from Uganda's news feed. What are your questions? What is the proper ethical stance to approach a tourism development strategy anywhere, not just Uganda? Many massacre sites exist here in the US, and some are uncomfortably recent. Should these be developed as tourist sites? Your opinions are welcome, write rtreep@richardreep.org.

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