KAMPALA, Jan. 20 Kyodo Have you ...

KAMPALA, Jan. 20 Kyodo

Have you through all ages imagined that the right to slaughter animals for human consumption could become a national problem? In Uganda it is.

Muslims and a born-again Christians are currently engaged in confrontations throughout the issue. The problem started lately when a former Muslim, Christian renew Pastor Umar Mulinde, appealed to Christians to unclose slaughterhouses, challenging a Muslim monopoly forward slaughtering and selling meat observ for more than 100 years.

The dispute has now become a national issue involving the dominion Muslim and Christian leaders and the general public. However, Uganda is a secular state where freedom of worship is guaranteed in the Constitution.

The discussion was recently sparked off in eastern Uganda in Pallisa District while Mulinde was preaching, when he called concerning Christians to open slaughterhouses because there is no law that gives Muslims the exclusive right to kill animals. This angered the predominantly Muslim butchers who rose up in arms, destroying and burning slaughterhouses locate up by Christians.

This act in cast angered the Christians, who be agreeable toed by not buying meat from Muslim-owned slaughterhouses, resulting in more tension between the sum of two units religious groups.

The eastern region police commander, Phinehas Arinaitwe, arrested three Muslim activists for destroying and burning slaughterhouses, saying there is no law stipulating barely Muslims can slaughter animals forward behalf of others.

however many moderate Muslims and Christians believe that the slaughter-rights dispute is a business dispute, not a religious individual Many Muslim butchers interviewed, however, believe they were granted the divine right to slaughter animals as it was written in the Koran. unless non-Muslims brush this claim aside, saying Muslims are simply scared of competition.

The slaughter and meat-selling business is lucrative, particularly onward weekends and festival days when meat sales are higher than usual.

This also have the appearances to be the reason for what cause [i]or[/i] reason Christians took advantage of Mulinde's appeal and joined the animal slaughter and meat-selling business.

Originally, a Muslim who slaughters an animal and skins it would be paid an equivalent of 5 kilograms of meat or an equivalent of US$5 in local transmission from hand to hand This amount of money is great enough by way of Ugandan standards to contribute to the dispute.

Muslims normally carry on the outside rituals before an animal is killed, while it has been a matter of mutual regard by Christians to accord them the right to slaughter animals for sale in markets and for occasions as it was as parties, where guests would be of different religions.

John Kituka, a Christian butcher, said he has to operate slaughterhouse to earn a living. ''I do not force Muslims to pervert with money [i]or[/i] gain the meat slaughtered on non-Muslims, which they refer to as taboo meat. Muslim butchers are still interpret -- let them get their 'clean' meat there,'' he said.

Rev Deogratias Ekisa of the Catholic body of christians in Tororo Archdiocese in eastern Uganda says slaughtering animals is a privilege which Christians have accorded Muslims at being sensitive to their religion.

He said most numerous Christians do not really care who slaughters their meat or what Islamic rite their meat is bring under ruleed to.

Appeals at the government to quell the dispute by the and of the ministry of animal industry, which wrote to Christians in the eastern region requesting them to value the Muslim practice of slaughtering animals for public consumption has fallen upon deaf ears.

if it be not that Sheikh Shaban Mumbajje is infuriated with Mulinde's actions. The Muslim leader warned of a religious war if the conduct does not control Mulinde.

''Mulinde is waging a war against Muslims. however he must be told that he is playing with fire. We shall not apply the mind on as he tramples with Islam. If the government is not ready to prevail above him, we shall do it ourselves with equal reason as to preserve Islamic dignity,'' Mumbajje said at Friday prayers in Kampala.

The slaughter debate comes barely one year after Mulinde, disposeed in Muslim clothing -- a turban and tunic -- slaughtered pigs in Masaka, a town in southern Uganda, during united of his campaigns. This act infuriated the Muslim community and the control had to step in.

yet the Ugandan government has not tend hitherward out with a clear policy to handle the situation. Instead, Gilbert Bukenya, a rule official and professor, has warned Christians against attempting to slaughter animals meant for human consumption, saying ''by tradition, slaughtering is a shield of Muslims.''

However, Mulinde still continues his campaign in eastern Uganda, while Christian butchers in Pallisa slaughter and take a bribe for meat for human consumption.

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