UGANDA: It is more than a century since British forces annexed the hilly farmland kingdom of Bunyoro in Western Uganda.
King Kabelaga is remembered as a great military strategist who did not give up without a struggle. He was arrested in 1899 and the new colonial masters divided much of his land between more amenable local kings.
But now his grandson wants the land back and has begun a fight for compensation.
Lawyers acting for Solomon Iguru, king of Bunyoro-Kitara, are due to lodge papers at the Ugandan High Court next week seeking the right to demand compensation of £3 billion (€4.4 billion).
They allege that British soldiers, under the command of Henry Colville, consul of Uganda, waged a bloody campaign of oppression as Bunyoro was annexed under the British Protectorate of Uganda in 1894.
Henry Ford Mirima, press secretary to Iguru I, said this week: "They pillaged, looted and were responsible for the deaths of more than two million people.
"The British found a peaceful, friendly place and they just attacked. It has put our development backwards for all these years."
He added that the time elapsed since the alleged crime should make no difference.
"The king couldn't do it before because it was difficult to do as part of a colony, and then it was a very costly affair to bring it to court," he said.
The case against the British Crown includes handwritten diaries kept by British officers during the campaign, collected from the Public Record Office in London.
It is being drawn up in parallel with a second suit against the neighbouring kingdom of Buganda.
It was awarded a handful of Bunyoro counties by way of thanks for siding with the British.
Now the present day Kingdom of Bunyoro-Kitara is seeking the deal to be declared illegal and its land returned.
King Kabalega was the last absolute monarch of Bunyoro.
He was detained for 24 years in the Seychelles for resisting British colonial rule.
Uganda's kingdoms were abolished in 1966 but were reinstated - with purely ceremonial kings - during the 1990s.
The 133-page claim reads: "Great Britain is responsible for acts of reprisals that caused malicious destruction of foods, livestock, crops, banana plantations and cultural property.
"British troops totally disregarded the food requirements of the civilian population, which subsequently suffered from starvation, malnutrition and diseases that reduced it from 2.5 million to a mere 100,000 people by 1900."
No one from the British High Commission in Kampala was available to comment.
The legal battle has parallels with a land dispute in neighbouring Kenya.
Masai herdsmen are demanding the return of land they say they leased to British colonialists in 1904.