Editorial Update:
I beg to join the ethical discourse on which of the 2 delegations of the talking parties at the Juba Peace Talks, has, or doesn’t have moral authority to speak of alleged crimes committed within and outside Uganda. Uganda’s NRM Kampala Regime argues that the record of LRA’s alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity do not permit the rebels to have moral authority to pin-point, outline and speak of war crimes committed by soldiers of Uganda army. Uganda further argues that the ICC indictment and warrants of arrests for 5 top LRA commanders deprives the rebels any moral ground to speak out about crimes committed by the regime within and outside Uganda.
It is a well known fact that while still a rebel army, Museveni’s National Resistance Army waged a brutal vicious bloody war in the regions of Buganda where his rebels attacked and blew-up civilian public facilities, hijacked an air craft, robbed peoples co-operative banks, massively massacred lots of people including immigrant settlers from other regions of Uganda, supporters, sympathisers and members of Uganda Peoples Congress party in Luweero. But roughly after 2 and a half decades, Ruhankana Rugunda who had been part of those acts of terrorism, finds guts to rebuke LRA as alleged war criminals with no moral ground to speak about NRM's war criminal record.
If allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity should be the moral ground to deter one of the 2 talking parties from having any moral ground to speak, then, Uganda’s NRM regime has committed worst war crimes and crimes against humanity, fomented rebellions in Rwanda, Burundi, DRC, Kenya, etc, that should expressible and eternally deny the regime’s delegations moral authority to speak about LRA’s crimes.
In an attempt to white wash what in my view is just a tip of the icebergs of the NRM regime criminal record briefly exposed in Juba, Uganda has instead counter-outlined, what it believes are grave enough allegations to throw LRA into the rubbish bin of “the morally unfit to speak.”
Furthermore, why must one really seek for permission to speak about something as public as the record of an international criminal rogue state ruled by dictator Museveni.
In their ruling on Dec 2005 in a case by DRC against Uganda, the International Criminal Justice judges found Uganda (read, NRM regime) guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Uganda also was found guilty of illegal entry, occupation, looting and exploitation of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Unfortunately in that process, the regime chose to denounce the role of NRM’s army in the massacre of over 350 people at Barlonyo north of Lira town in northern Uganda. Instead the regime blames the Barlonyo massacre on LRA rebels. The Barlonyo massacre and others which were carried out in Lango during the 2 decades of Museveni’s tyrannical reign are touchy painful issues that burn through my bones and marrow, begging for answers. Over 350 people of my own kith and kin were massacred by Uganda government covert mobile soldiers. I do not lightly take their violent cruel mass death. Much as the regime and the ICC blame the LRA for the Barlonyo massacre, I have and still do try to find out more about it, and all I get is a uniform answer that covert mobile soldiers of the NRM regime carried out the Barlonyo massacre to instigate Langi to join Museveni in his genocidal war of vengeance against Acholi, that should have opened the gates of hell to a tribal war between the 2 neighbouring tribes.
While the regime denies its soldiers committed the Barlonyo massacre, the regime has not explained what its northern Uganda’s chief of military intelligence for northern Uganda, Col Otema Awany and UPDF soldiers were doing in the early morning hours at the scene of the massacre. Immediately after the massacre, Col. Otema Awany and soldiers of Uganda army hurriedly buried some of the charred corpses in sallow mass graves. It was protesting angry local residents that stopped army from dumping the remaining corpses in mass graves. Why would a government army intelligence boss bury / hide away what should have helped in the investigation of a crime / massacre, unless if its national army was responsible for the Barlonyo massacre?
The ethical discourse on who has the moral rights to speak about crimes, has swept the NRM regime with such ferocious force that even the regime’s kleptomaniac underwear thief Mr. O. Opondo has joined in the fray demanding that crimes should not go unpunished, forgetting that he has until now dodged the mill of justice.
The regime’s mouthpiece, the New Vision Newspaper in an Editorial of July 21, says LRA is a defeated small rebel group whose demands must not be granted. The editorial advises the rebels to forget ever being part of a government of national unity. It says the best it can offer LRA is to intergrate the rebel soldiers into the UPDF. To the NRM, one is only a criminal if he or she has picked arms against the regime, but one’s crimes are washed away if one joins the regime.
To the regime in Kampala, the 2 decades old northern Uganda multiple problems can only become a national problem, if there shall arise a major northern Uganda massive rebellion against the regime! Meanwhile, dictator Museveni says, no talks or talks, there shall be peace in Uganda because he will annihilate LRA and any other groups that pick arms against Kampala! In other words, he is re-asserting his beliefs that power, equality; fairness, justice, liberty etc belong to those who are militarily strong and powerful.
In its vain arguments to dissuade Ugandans from the path of armed rebellion, the regime, which came to power through armed rebellion against a constitutional legal civilian government, urges Ugandans not to rebel but follow the constitution and rules of the state!
Meanwhile, after finding itself faced by a surprisingly well focused organised LRA delegation in Juba, the NRM Kampala regime is trying to create a split within the rebellion ranks, through claims that the regime is directly communicating with Kony and Otti. As a sign of difficult times in Juba, the regime has even formed what it is now called, “the support peace talk’s team” in Kampala to keep their peace talks emissaries afloat.
As the regime continues in its chest-stamping acts of moral uprightness, other international human rights watch groups and the people of northern Uganda see it different. Take a look at the regime’s closet of rotten bones of crimes committed by soldiers of Uganda army within and outside Uganda.
Godfrey SAyoo, ELUM ANIAP, Cologne Germany, July 21, 2006
The absence of Kony doesn’t jeopardise the Juba Peace Negotiations
Neither Kony nor Otti has abandoned, nor have they back-tracked on their intent and commitment to negotiations. None of the 2 had indicated that they were to participate in the negotiations. Above all, in a meeting with Dr. Machar at Nabanga this week, Vincent Otti didn’t introduce anything new, but reassured southern Sudan government of the authority of the LRA delegation. Otti also reaffirmed the mandate of the LRA delegation to negotiate on behalf of the LRM/A. The AFP news agency quotes Otti to have said, "I cannot go to Juba myself. Let this delegation go. We have blessed them to negotiate with the Ugandan government with a full mandate. I will go to Juba sooner or later," and that, “Kony would sign a deal if one was reached,” It is coming to almost a month since that delegation has been in Juba.
How do the above statements jeopardise peace negotiations?
The only party to the negotiation that has been changing goal post is the Kampala regime. After learning of the LRA call for negotiations, the Kampala regime has done the following; --issued a 60 days ultimatum, but later extended it to September. –-said it would negotiate with LRA excluding the five indicted five top military leaders wanted by the ICC. –-said it would not sit down and talk with indicted “criminals terrorists,” but now the same Kampala regime says, the neogotiation wouldn’t be genuine nor its outcome binding unless one or both of the indicted five top leaders participate.
Before LRA did a human face-lift to its political wing by naming its peace negotiation team, the NRM Kampala regime, its backers, governments and organisations in USA and Europe claimed it was impossible to engage LRA because it neither had a political wing nor a political agenda. They went further arguing that business can only be done with LRA, if its leader Joseph Kony publicly named a spokesperson / and his representative (s).
After LRA has done exactly that, the proponents of the views above, with ease are changing goal-post by questioning the genuineness and credibility of the political representatives named by Joseph Kony witnessed by the authorities of southern Sudan. None else except LRA and its leadership can say who genuinely represents their course and interests. That being the case, why then on earth, should the NRM Kampala Regime or anyone else still dispute and doubt the genuineness of the persons named on LRA negotiation team?
Would the NRM Kampala regime allow LRA determine who is a genuine member of Uganda’s NRM ruling party, or who should genuinely speak on behalf of the regime, or who should be on the government negotiation team to Juba? Did the LRA ever dictate on which governments or NGOs should be present at the negotiations. No they never did.
It isn’t LRA, but the Kampala regime eratically back-tracking and constantly changing goal-posts. If contradictions and communication break-down should warrant the collapse of the negotiations, then the Kampala regime has done its grave part that should threaten the Juba negotiations.
In its latest attempt to discredit the LRA delegation, the Kampala regime has intentionally chosen to describe the LRA team as a group of un-informed and influential `diaspora´Ugandans. But the Kampala regime’s peace team has a member, Uganda’s state minister for International affairs Mr. Oryem Okello, who himself lived in London until he was lured back to Uganda to pick and lick cramps soaked in the blood of his own kith and kin. Furthermore, the NRM Kampala regime is a mixed grill curtail of Rwandese, Ugandans and Sudanese. Yet, LRA hasn’t questioned Oryem Okello’s citizenship nor of any other member on the regime’s team.
Uganda’s dispaora mainly comprises of the following gropus.—Ugandans who fled for safety from the NRM Kampala regime. Ugandans who migrated for greener pastures. Irregardless of the reasons, a Ugandan in diaspora has a duty towards her/ her people, region of origin and nation, hence the very reason why the 15 men are gathered in Juba to speak on behalf of Uganda north of the river Nile.
The Juba negotiations must help to explain why daughters and sons of West Nile, Acholi, Lango, Teso, Bagishu, Japadhola are refugees in foreign lands. May Juba offer an opportunity for a gross re-unification and a moment of re-intergration and ex-changes of experiences.
So whose business is it to dictate who should or shouldn’t be on LRA negotiation team, unless if there are some moles Kampala would like slipped into the LRA peace team. Let the Kampala regime restrain its cadres from arrogance. Let the parties and other groups with interests in the Juba peace negotiations, treat one another and all with ultmost humility, dignity and respect, keeping focus on the issues at hand. Let the regime desist from issuing further ultimatums on when the talks should end. The war that has gone on for 20 years cannot be resolved based on threats, through whims and wishes. Let the root causes and the effects of the war be discussed, solutions be found and a concerted way forward be agreed upon.
Before accepting to participate in the Juba negotiations, the Kampala regime claiming to possess intelligence report, threw stones of mistrust in southern Sudan, accusing its leadership of using LRA as a political tool in a power struggle.
Museveni, while announcing his readiness to participate in the Juba negotiations, said he accepted to talk because there were no ready partners in his neighbourhood to support his military option to further fight, kill or capture Kony and anilihate LRA. He also said he accepted negotiations because he did not want LRA to disrupt his friends’ new and young government of southern Sudan. In a nutshell, northern Uganda and its 2 decades conflict, insecurity, untold inhuman sufferings are absent from Museveni’s generous caring-heart. The sufferings of the inhabitants of northern Uganda cannot compell him to immediately seek for a peaceful means of ending the war.
Meanwhile, it is sad that the Kampala regime would only consider LRA peace team as genuine if it has a military representation on its. This notion of the military here, the military there, the military everywhere and in all matters, exposes Uganda as a state pervaded by the culture of military supremacy. It also means in essence that nothing binding can be done without the involvement and endorsement of the military. Hence the underlying reason why the Uganda delegation from Kampala comprises of more security / military personnel, ISO, ESO, CMI, ministry of internaal security etc.
The NRM Kampala regime must know that the peace negotiations is an admission that the military option has failed, hence Juba becomes a political forum to arrive at some political end. Juba is not a moment to further war, but a venue and moment to get into a serious political search and discussion of the causes of the war and how to end it. It would only make sense for both military forces to converge in Juba if the 20 years old war in northern Uganda had been a mock military exercise between 2 forces.
The Juba negotiations is also an opportunity for the Kampala regime to open up the 2 decades old Pandora box of litanies of the ills of regional repression, wars, discrimination and segregation policy and practises north of Uganda. Juba negotiations if handled well, should offer a golden opportunity to reconcile south and north of Uganda uniting the split Uganda into one republican nation.
The negotiations should also serve as an opportunity to understand the reasons and causes of the 2 decades of rebellion against, and rejections of the NRM regime. Let those who had only seen the LRA as religious cult fighting to govern Uganda on the 10 commandments etiquette, come in droves and pay attention to Juba. In that respect, Uganda shouldn’t have sent military men, but politicians to the negotiations in Juba.
Meanwhile, others argue that LRA is not serious about negotiations and that the Juba one is deemed to fail as it happened to all previous negotiations. Therefore refusing to participate in the Juba brokered negotiations only smacks of stupidity and lack of interest to ensure the northern Uganda war and the sufferings is brought to an end. As I have stated in the past, I will not tire to repeat it, that let LRA fail to present and argue their case, let them also fail to ensure that the Juba process succeeds.
Writing in an opinion commentary on the Juba negotiations published in the regime’s own newspaper, the New Vision of July 10th, 2006, Professor Mahmood Mamdani notes; “Public opinion in the whole country (and not just the north) is savvy enough to realise that the Juba talks are an initiative of the new South Sudan government, and that Kampala’s participation in it is at best reluctant,”
Allow me to comment also on Museveni’s pledge of amnesty and promise to protect Kony from the ICC warrant of arrests. No act of Amnesty passed by Uganda government can stop the ICC, the EU and USA from pursuing the arrest of the 5 LRA commanders. That could only have happened before those warrants were issued.
So let neither Museveni nor any member of his government, nor anyone in Uganda lie that they can convince the ICC to drop the case. Let Museveni not lie that he will take his “fight” against the ICC to the AU and UN Security Council. Don’t we recall the schene of the AU and presidents of Africa that gathered one night and saw Taylor off to Nigeria in what they termed imunity and protective asylum in the interest of peace in Liberia? Yes, as they dethroned Taylor, the ICC seated in Siera Leone was out to arrest him. They said no, it would not happen. We won’t allow it. But after sometimes, Taylor was arrested from Nigeria, dragged through Liberia, Siere Leone to Netherlands. No African leaders, nor the AU came out to protest Taylor’s arrest nor his defence. Even his own brother-in-law Nigerian President Obasanjo, obsessed with the thirst for political power traded Taylor off for a place at Bush’s breakfast table. How then can the AU and all presidents of Africa help Museveni fend Kony off from the ICC arrest warrant. When that time comes to arrest Kony and his collegues, governments and human rights groups of donors governments will threaten to close the aid tap on Uganda unless the 5 LRA commanders are handed over to the ICC.
Meanwhile it is painful to hear the Kampala regime arguing that the ICC should drop the arrest warrants, or that Uganda will defy the ICC because the regime was now ready to apply the Acholi method of resolving conflicts! Wasn’t it the Uganda government that refused to listen to pleas from Northern Uganda and Acholi leaders not to proceed with the ICC? And when did it occur to Uganda that Acholi method was a better option than going to the ICC? However, all is not lost because the UN and EU can, pass a resolution in the UN Security Council, calling on the ICC to drop the case against the 5 LRA commanders in the interest of peace in northern Uganda. This a tall and very difficult order considering the perception of justice in Europe and America.
I find it unacceptable that the NRM regime which is responsible for several crimes and failures in northern Uganda, is offering amnesty to another party in the 2 decades conflict. The regime through its army, cadres, policy and programmes offended the people of northern Uganda. How then does it offer amnesty. The desire, resolve and decision to offer amnesty must originate from the victim of the war not the offending party in the conflict. It is the people of northern Uganda that can offer amnesty to the regime and LRA rebels.
After analysing how the Burundi, DRC, Sudan and Eritrea-Ethiopia conflicts were resolved, one cannot resist to conclude that previous local attempts to solve the northern Uganda conflict failed because governments of USA and the EU refused to get involved. I am confident that if USA and EU exerted their maximum backing and made themselves physically present in Juba, the Uganda government - LRA negotiations would succeed.
In recent successive statements Uganda called on the United Nations to raise the threat of force against Lord's Resistance Army rebels, and to put pressure on Sudan and Congo to ensure the LRA is serious about peace talks. Uganda's representative in the southern Sudanese capital Juba, Busho Ndinyenka said, "The military option must not be forgotten," and that, "They must know that if they are not serious about talks there is a military option." It is not lost on anyone that failure to end the war through peace negotiations could mean continued military confrontation with all its effects. However, the million dollar question is, where the theatre of that military confrontation should be. Shall it be in the already war ravaged northern Uganda, in the secured peaceful opulent south of Uganda, in southern Sudan, or in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The latest search for an end to the war was not Uganda’s initiative, but LRA that called for peace negotiations to end the 21 years old war in northern Uganda. Furthermore, available evidences and testimonies on all failed previous peace initiatives indicate the NRM regime, its supreme military arm and Museveni never want the war to end. Museveni, through careless, stupid and arrogant presidential decrees, statements, ultimatums and senseless military offensives targeting peace-venues, have thwarted every past peace initiatives, most of which were results of attempts by northern Uganda locals and LRA. At one such incidence, soldiers of Uganda army shot and injured a Catholic Missionary Priest on the knee accusing the priest of supporting and giving medicine to LRA rebels.
Immediately after southern Sudan government announced of their determination and collective effort to end the war in northern Uganda, all hell broke loose, as outraged governments and human rights bodies in USA and Europe condemned southern Sudan leadership for offering food to LRA. They were further outraged by southern Sudan’s offer to broker peace negotiations between Uganda and LRA rebels. They argued that southern Sudan leadership should instead have arrested LRA military leaders wanted by the ICC. The proponents of the above school of thought argue that arresting the 5 indicted leaders would end rebellion in northern Uganda! How sure can one be of this kind of theory? They further argue that prosecuting LRA military leaders would serve the cause of justice in northern Uganda! They further argue that impunity should not be tolerated.
What does “impunity” and “justice” mean? What would happen to the all the human rights abuses, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by government soldiers and cadres in the north of Uganda? How can the ICC ensure there is no “impunity” to “justice” in a region where there is no justice system, with neither a civil policing force, nor functioning courts / judges, whose role has been taken over by the Military. In the case of northern Uganda, the ICC only concerns itself with the conduct of LRA? How can one say that the arrest and trial of LRA leaders shall have served total justice and that there is no “impunity” to justice when it is a fact that NRM’s soldiers and cadres have broken international and humanitarian laws governing the conduct of military forces in war theatre. Before the formation of LRA rebellion, and to be exact, right from 1986, Museveni’s NRA army entered and occupied northern Uganda whose inhabitants they treated as enemies, thousands of whom were massacred, hundreds buried alive in graves, many people roasted in train-wagons, children, women and men raped and sodmonised, hundreds intentionally infected with HIV/AIDs virus, crops and foodstuff burnt down and looted, homes razed down, animals rastled etc. How then does one go about seeing that justice is done without impunity from 1986 upto date.
Godfrey Ayoo ELUM ANIAP
Director RRIA, Cologne, July 14, 2006
In an article published in the Uganda government newspaper – the New Vision of June 23rd, the NRM Kampala Regime is reported to have further expressed doubt in the credibility and genuineness of the persons named to represent Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in peace negotiations with Uganda government in Juba.
Before LRA did a human face-lift to its political wing by naming about 16 persons to its peace negotiation team, the NRM Kampala regime, its backers, governments and organisations in USA and Europe claimed it was impossible to engage LRA because it neither had a political wing nor a political agenda. They went further arguing that business can only be done with LRA, if its leader Joseph Kony publicly named a spokesperson / and his representative (s).
It is therefore alarmingly socking that the proponents of the views above, with ease are changing goal-post by questioning the genuineness and credibility of the political representatives named by Joseph Kony witnessed by the authorities of southern Sudan. None else except LRA and its leadership can say who genuinely represents their course and interests. That being the case, why then on earth, should the NRM Kampala Regime or anyone else still dispute and doubt the genuineness of the persons named on LRA negotiation team? Would the NRM Kampala regime allow LRA determine who is a genuine member of Uganda’s NRM ruling party, or who should genuinely speak on behalf of the regime, or who should be on the government negotiation team to Juba?
Annoying too is the notion that the LRA team must only be considered genuine if it has a military representation on its peace negotiation team. This notion exposes Uganda as a state pervaded by the culture of military supremacy. It also means in essence that nothing binding can be done without the involvement and endorsement of the military.
Meanwhile, the regime also argues that it will not sit down to negotiate with LRA top commanders wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) seated in the Hague. Why all these fuss when the names of persons on LRA negotiation team appearing in government’s newspaper – the New Vision, are of those not indicted by the ICC? Why then doesn’t the NRM Kampala regime accept to participate in negotiations with LRA? My interpretation is that the NRM Kampala Regime fears opening the 20 years old northern Uganda pandora box laden with litanies of the ills of regional discrimination and segregation, and demands that might be laid on the table.
What a golden opportunity it should be for those who all along had parroted the notion that LRA is a religious cult fighting to govern Uganda on the 10 commandments etiquette. As a Christian and someone living in Europe; the rules, constitution and culture of Europe are deeply rooted in the 10 commandments! Wasn’t it European Cultural and Religious Conquests that taught Africans including Ugandans to hold dear to the 10 commandments, obey and observe them as golden rules governing relations between Man and God, and, Man and Man?
Yet others still argue that LRA is not serious about negotiations. As I have stated in the past, I will not tire to repeat it here, that let LRA fail to present their case and let them also fail to ensure that the process succeeds. But such an hypothetical argument is no reason for the NRM regime not to enter into negotiations. Therefore refusing to participate in the Juba brokered negotiations smacks of stupidity and lack of interest to bring to an end the war and the sufferings in northern Uganda.
In an interview with Reuters late on Thursday last week, Uganda through its envoy Mr. Busho Ndinyenka dilly-dallied further calling on the United Nations to raise the threat of force against Lord's Resistance Army rebels, and put pressure on Sudan and Congo to ensure the LRA is serious about peace talks. Uganda's representative in the southern Sudanese capital Juba, Busho Ndinyenka said, "The military option must not be forgotten," and that, "They must know that if they are not serious about talks there is a military option."
On a lighter note, a Ugandan Minister Otafiire says that there is no need to sign a treaty whose content and terms cannot be understood by Joseph Kony. Might that have been the reason for which the NRA never respected the Museveni -Tito Okello peace agreement because in their view, the Okellos were unable to understand the negotiations that was brokered by Moi of Kenya.
The latest search for an end to the war was not Uganda’s initiative, but LRA that called for peace negotiations to end the 21 years old war in northern Uganda. Furthermore, available evidences and testimonies on all failed previous peace initiatives indicate the NRM regime and dictator Museveni never want the war to end because it serves multiple ends. Museveni, through careless, stupid and arrogant presidential decrees, statements, ultimatums and senseless military offensives targeting peace-venues, have thwarted every past peace initiatives, most of which were results of attempts by northern Uganda locals and LRA. At one such incidence, soldiers of Uganda army shot and injured a Spanish Catholic Missionary Priest Father R. S. Carloz on the knee accusing the priest of supporting and giving medicine to LRA rebels.
It is not lost on anyone that failure to end the war through peace negotiations could mean continued military option / confrontation with all its effects. However, the million dollar question should be, where the theatre of that military confrontation shall be. Shall it be in the already war ravaged northern Uganda, in the secured peaceful opulent south of Uganda, in southern Sudan, or in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Immediately after southern Sudan government announced of their determination and collective effort to end the war in northern Uganda, all hell broke loose, as outraged governments and human rights bodies in USA and Europe condemned southern Sudan leadership for offering food to LRA. They were further outraged by southern Sudan’s offer to broker peace negotiations between Uganda and LRA rebels. They argued that southern Sudan leadership should instead have arrested LRA military leaders wanted by the ICC. The proponents of this school of thought argued that arresting and prosecuting LRA military leaders would serve the cause of justice. They further argued that impunity should not be tolerated.
What does “impunity” to “justice” mean? Is justice colour blind? Is justice race-bias? Where were the advocates of “no impunity to justice” when south African black victims of apartheid were made to let the architects and perpetuators of the evil white racist apartheid regime go scot-free in the name of “Truth, Justice and Reconciliation” Commission. Headed by the black African Anglican Bishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, the commission served as impunity’s gown adorned by whites south African against justice. Might one therefore call it selective impunity that drags the blacks into the jaws of justice but sheilds the whites from it. There cannot be any justification that there was no mode of justice to deal with the perpetuators and victims of apartheid system and regime? There isn’t a single moment in the history of south Africa when those governments and organisations in USA and Europe protested the Desmond Tutu’s Commission.
In the case of northern Uganda, the ICC only concerns itself with the conduct of LRA? How can one say that the arrest and trial of LRA leaders shall have served total justice and that there is no “impunity” to justice when it is a fact that NRM’s soldiers and cadres too have broken international and humanitarian laws governing the conduct of military forces in war theatre. Before the formation of LRA rebellion, and to be exact, right from 1986, Museveni’s NRA army entered and occupied northern Uganda whose inhabitants they treated as enemies and the dregs of Uganda, thousands of whom were massacred, hundreds buried alive in graves, many people roasted in train-wagons, children, women and men raped and sodmonised, hundreds intentionally infected with HIV/AIDs virus, crops and foodstuff burnt down and looted, homes razed down, animals rastled etc. How then does one go about seeing that justice is done without impunity from 1986 upto the period of 2002. All one hears are talks of “no impunity” to “justice” in northern Uganda!
Godfrey Ayoo ELUM-ANIAP (Cologne Germany, June 27th, 2006)
The NRM Regime squanders another opportunity for peace negotiations
The Monitor Newspaper’s recent report of a LRA peace message to Museveni following meetings between top commanders of LRA and leaders of southern Sudan should have been a reason of hope that the door to peaceful negotiations had not been shut on the war in northern Uganda. One would have therefore expected the NRM regime in Kampala and the international community to have embraced and pursued the peace offer by LRA.
Unfortunately, Uganda’s NRM regime oncemore has squandered that opportunity.
As it has done in the past, the NRM regime has reacted with the same arrogance and stupidity of issuing ultimatums to the LRA calling on them to denunce rebellion in 60 days or else the armies of Uganda and southern Sudan would finish LRA off! The NRM regime has gone as far as pronouncing death to Kony and Ottii if they ever return home (Uganda)
That kind of language and attitude cannot entice LRA to peace negotiations. What would Museveni have done if LRA had issued an ultimatum calling for his resignation or face full military wrath of LRA? Not even in their peace messege did they peg a warning of death to Museveni if he refuses to take LRA peace offer.
Come to think of it, the NRM regime has over and over again vowed to finish off the LRA in vain. Meanwhile other cadres of the regime say, well, the LRA are calling for talks because they are in a military fix. Others, that it is the fire power of the UPDF that has pushed LRA into calling for peace talks. Yet others have gone miles further alleging that LRA has no more fighters, hence the reasons for proposing a peaceful end of the war.
Although I do not claim to know the reason for the current relative quite in northern Uganda, I cannot help to ask what would happen if hostilities are resumed replacing the relative quite with insecurity. What then shall you say? What would happen after the 60 days ultimatum will have expired? Are we that short in memory to have forgotten the consequential back-lashes of `Operation Iron Fish´ on the inhabitants of northern Uganda?
It would be only logical and sensibly safe to enter into negotiations with LRA and seal a deal that shall be a garranttee for security and an end of the gradual genocide and degrading inhuman condition in northern Uganda.
Oncemore, the regime has lied by promising what it cannot give because it is beyond its control, i.e to garranttee safety to the four LRA commanders indicted by the ICC. The Kampala regime must learn that it cannot have it in both ways. It can only be one or the other.
Reacting to the latest press release from Uganda’s State House, the ICC’s spokesperson, Ms Sandra Khadouri says the International Criminal Court expects Uganda to meet its obligation to arrest the four indicted leaders of LRA and hand them over to the court. She says Uganda referred the case to the ICC court and must hnour its commitment. Ms Sandra Khadouri further explains that the charges against Kony and four other LRA commanders were serious international crimes.
What a pack of dilemmas it must be to those genuinely advocating for peaceful settlement of the war in northern Uganda.
Then comes in the the International Community notably the UN, US, EU and AU that are engrossed in the latest phrase of LRA becoming a regional problem. Wouldn’t that have been reason enough to impel the international community to have embraced the latest LRA offer for peace negotiations?
All one hears are calls for a joint regional operations against LRA, calls for a special UN envoy to coordinate the regional effort to destroy LRA. In other words, you are calling for indiscriminative massacres of those abducted `boys´and `girls´women, children, being `held´ captives by LRA.
On its part, the US has thrown a spoke into the wheel for peace in northern Uganda. The US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer says Washington wants to get rid of LRA rebels by the end of this year. Frazer argues that LRA rebels needed to be stopped, and this meant capturing their leaders soon and that it is a priority of President Bush's administration to get rid of the LRA before the end of this year. With that kind of partisan view, the US has lost ground to facilitate any peaceful search for the end to the war.
So the LRA offer for negotiations has fallen on waxed ears.
Normally, one would have expected the international community, the UN, the EU and the AU to have spoken out on the latest offer for peace negotiations by LRA. Instead, the news has been greeted with dead silence because in my view, they console themselves that northern Uganda is witnessing some relative quite.
Suppose you are wrong?
Therefore for total peace to return to northern Uganda, the U.S, UN, EU and AU should rise up to the challenge and this time go a little further by constituting a neutral international peace team to pursue the LRA on its latest offer for peace.
It is a lot much cheaper for the International Community to materially, morally and politically commit itself to pressure the Kampala NRM regime to pick up the LRA peace offer that has been irrationally and arrogantly torn to shreads by dictator Museveni.
Godfrey Ayoo ELUM-ANIAP,
Cologne Germany, May 19th, 2006
04/27/2006 12:34:09
Yes, news of the NRM dictatorship’s plan to “let my people go” to their respective ancestral land is welcome.
Any contrary views advocating for the continuity of holding people in IDP camps would be considered inhuman, heartless and sadistic to the decade long sufferings of the inhabitants of northern Uganda.
In anycase, it was first the NRM regime that used indiscriminative bombardments, strapping of people, drove people out of their homes and ancestral land into IDP camps in an act the NRM regime proudly excused as, "to deny water to the fish!"
Museveni is not serious on his announced plan to resettle the displaced persons of Acholi, Lango and Teso to their homes. Had Museveni been serious and genuine, he would not have rejected the UN plan to post a Special UN Envoy to northern Uganda because the envoy would have been a major boost to the resettlement and reconstruction programme being taunted in Uganda. The envoy would also have assisted in monitoring the security situation.
So, what has motivated the NRM regime’s northern Uganda resettlement and reconstruction plan?
Much as it may sound stupid and far-fetched, dictator Museveni only listens and reacts fast to external interests, demands and pressure. He never listens to the people of Uganda especially those inhabiting northern Uganda. It would therefore be wrong to suggest that Museveni at his own volition, has grown a human heart for his arch enemies.
However, the most important question that has not been answered is; why has the Uganda dictatorship adopted its current posture on the IDP camps in the regions of Acholi, Lango and Teso. Different sources from Uganda and others from outside, say the north Uganda resettlement and reconstruction plan is motivated by:
the direct diversion of some donor aid / funds to NGOs working in the north of Uganda.
donor governments’ pressure caupled with sharp threats to suspend aids / funds to the regime unless the IDP camps are dismantled and the displaced resettled in their ancestral homes.
citing the dismantling of IDP camps and resttlement of IDPs as precondition for the release of foreign aids/ funds to the NRM regime.
rising voices pressing the UN and in particular the Security Council to take drastic steps on northern Uganda.
latest indication of interest by some members of the U.S Congress to pressure the Bush administration to take punitive measures against the NRM Kampala regime, including cancelation of U.S military aid to Uganda.
Has the war ended and, is security restored in northern and eastern Uganda. How would soldiers of Uganda army that had failed to protect the displaced within the limitations of the IDP camps, ensure security in the expanded territories more vast than the IDP camps?
What concrete proofs does the Uganda dictatorship and its military have, to assertively say, Yes, the LRA has been defeated, the war has ended, and security has been restored. Meanwhile there are voices that say, well, with the five top most military leaders of LRA indicted, the war is now over. They say, with the five military leaders indicted, the LRA is like a headless chicken that cannot talk peace with its opponent! Others say, the LRA is now a defeated disintegrating force running around for their lives, to and fro, between the DRC and Sudan. So, they conclude, the LRA is in its dying moments. How sure can they be. So, what else, save for the hypothetical views, do we have as concrete reasons to conclude that the war has ended and that security has been restored.
Or might it be our own wishes for the end of the war that has blurred us from asking serious questions on matters involving lives of roughly 1.7 million persons displaced in northern and eastern Uganda. So one jumps at any suggestion however fluid that projects dismantling the IDP camps and resttlement of persons to their homes.
Unless there is a concrete seal of cessation of hostilities between the fighting forces, and some concrete machanism put in place to monitor security, it will be a big gamble to hurriedly drive the people into the jaws of death in northern Uganda.
Some one may now begin to say, well, listen to this guy, he sounds like a supporter, member or sympathizer of LRA. All I am advocating for is a clean break from the war, that should usher in security, as the springboard for peace, resttlement, reconstruction and reconciliation in northern Uganda. All the above can only be done by creating an environment that shall bring the NRM regime and LRA to talk peace and end the war.
So many a time, it has been said that the LRA has no political objectives nor agenda! Well, call them to a peace negotiations and let them either produce or fail to produce a convincing argument for the war. Only then shall we say, well, you LRA, you have finally failed to lay out your grievences on the table. Let us also discard this view that because the five are indicted, therefore, none else can represent the LRA at any peaceful talks.
The trendy lamping up of anyone and everyone as LRA supporter or sympathizer simply for articulating divergent views from the NRM dictatorship, shall not help in the search for an end to the war, restore security and peace in northern Uganda. It is for those very reasons that governments of Europe and the USA have failed to arrive at the solution to ending the northern Uganda war because those who gave/ give advices are labelled LRA supporters or sympathizers.
Finally but not least, I still see no reason why the African Union, the European Union and the United Nations cannot deploy foreign troops in northern Uganda. When it comes to Uganda, they talk of amiccably seeking first for the consent of the NRM regime in Kampala, but to Sudan, they arm-twist Khartoum to accept the deployment of foreign troops.
For God and My Country Uganda
Godfrey Ayoo, ELUM ANIAP - Cologne, Germany, April 26th, 2006
Office of the Prosecutor - International Criminal Court (ICC), Maanweg, 174, 2516 AB, The Hague, Postal Address: Po Box 19519, 2500 CM, The Hague, The Netherlands.
March 24th, 2006
Dear Mr Luis Moreno Ocampo
Re: Open Letter on the Trial of Mr Thomas Lubanga Dyilo
The ICC Special Siera Leone indictment of Charles Taylor while he was a sitting president of Liberia, the warrants of arrests issued for five top LRA leaders and the most recent news of the trial of DRC rebel leader Mr Thomas Lubanga Dyilo by the ICC, should be proof that the ICC shall bring to justice those who bear the greatest responsibility for serious crimes in the world including Africa. Your court has therefore proven that neither a sitting president nor a rebel leader can with impunity commit crimes and go off scot-free.
However, the trial of "The Union des Patriotes Congolais" (UPC) militia leader Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, shall not have fully served justice to the DRC and Africa, if the ICC excludes Uganda’s dictator Museveni for the active support he gave to Thomas Lubanga and his militia group of - "The Union des Patriotes Congolais" (UPC) Justice obliges the ICC and the government of the DRC to pay special attention to numerous UN and Human rights reports that indicted the Uganda military regime to have assisted in the formation, training of DRC children as soldiers, supply of arms and fighting along child soldiers of the UPC Militia.
The ICC Special Siere Leone Court indictment of Charles Taylor, the arrest warrants issued for top leaders of the LRA, the coincidental trial of Thomas Lubanga and the growing support to call that Charles Taylor be handed over to the special ICC Sierra Leone court, should be a challenge to the governments of western democracies, that of the DRC, and the ICC not to let Museveni off the hook of ICC justice for similar crimes that Charles Taylor was indicted for. Anything less, shall be a mockery to the ICC, an abuse and dis-service to justice and a demonstrations of un-even selective justice. Like Charles Taylor’s litany of crimes, Museveni, has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity that included killings, mutilations, cannibalism, rape and other forms of sexual violence, sexual slavery, the recruitment, training and use of child soldiers, abduction, the use of forced labor by Uganda army and Lubanga’s UPC Milita.
In its ruling on Siere Leone war crimes, the ICC said, “President Taylor and his alleged RUF collaborators bear the "greatest responsibility" for war crimes against humanity "by engaging in notorious or widespread, and systematic attacks against the civilian population of Sierra Leone" and that "at all times relevant to this Indictment, Charles Ghankay Taylor supported and encouraged all actions of the RUF and AFRC/RUF alliance and acted in concert with Foday Saybana Sankoh and other leaders of the RUF AAFRC/RUF" The warrant of Arrest appealed to "all national authorities, international and INTERPOL to take all necessary actions to have President Charles Taylor arrested and turned over to the Special Court for Sierra Leone."
Based on the premises upon which the War Crimes Tribunal indicted Charles Taylor and subsequently issued an arrest warrant for his alleged support to the rebels Revolutionary United Front (RUF), there should be ground enough for the ICC to indict Uganda’s ruler Museveni and his military commanders indicted for having provided political and military support to Congolese armed groups including the UPC militia, whose trail is marked with abundant evidence of widespread violations of international laws. Otherwise, letting Museveni off the hook of justice, would be a betrayal of the tens of thousands of African victims of the worst possible crimes imaginable committed by Thomas Lubanga and Museveni during the DRC conflict.
Mr. Moreno Ocampo, your repeated pledge to bring to justice those who bear the greatest responsibility for serious crimes, shall find meaning if your office brings Uganda’s ruler Museveni to the ICC docks and include him as the second defendant along with Mr Thomas Lubanga Dyilo.
Finally, The DRC government, Thomas Lubanga and his UPC Militia, the people of eastern DRC, and above all UNICEF and others should be witnesses to bare testimony to Museveni’s role on the Thomas Lubanga case.
Yours Sincerely,
Godfrey Ayoo, ELUM-ANIAP (Director RRIA, Cologne, Germany)
MUSEVENI WON, DEMOCRACY SHRUNK, BUT THE FIGURES TELL ANOTHER STORY --
Democracy in
Ugandans went to the polls three weeks ago, the country’s first multiparty election since President Yoweri Museveni came to power at the head of a guerrilla army in January 1986. They were, however, the country’s third general elections, the previous two having been held under a “no party” system, in which political parties were severely restricted, and not allowed to field candidates or run on a partisan platform.
In the end, Museveni won with 59 per cent of the vote. His main challenger, Dr Kizza Besigye, got 37 per cent, while Ssebaana Kizito managed 1.5 percent. Independent candidate Abed Bwanika got 0.9 per cent and Miria Obote, former President Milton Obote’s widow, who became the country’s first female presidential candidate, scraped 0.8 per cent.
For an external observer interested in more than just who the winner would be,
the bigger story about the latest election in
First, for a country that has a population growth rate of 3.4 per cent per
year, the least one would expect is a similar growth in the population of those
who want to participate in electing her government. Instead, the
The shrinking can be explained, but not the lack of growth. In 2001 there were allegations of ghost voters. Indeed, the electoral register was cleaned, so the number of voters on the roll came down. So while this gives us an explanation of the shrinkage of the register, it does not shed any light on why it has remained stagnant. Statistically, the voter roll should have grown by at least 17 per cent, meaning there should have been 12.5 million registered voters. The point is that even before the February 23 election, 2 million people had been disenfranchised, and the burden of representation multiplied. The turn-out of 7 million, or 68.6 per cent, of the registered voters further implies that another 3 million people did not participate.
The problem, however, seems to run much deeper. Democracy in
The total votes of all the four districts is much higher than all the votes from the northern region. With this kind of situation, who needs the north? It is instructive that that’s where Besigye beat Museveni with a wide margin.
An
even more interesting statistic is that the number of registered voters in
Is
it that that there are underage or ghost voters in
Is it that Kenyans are less interested in registering to vote, and Ugandans are far more zealous?
Such is the internal contradiction of
All this begs the question of whether the elections were rigged. It depends on who you ask. All the independent media were in agreement that they would be rigged even if the only evidence they adduced was that of alleged previous rigging in 2001.
In the end, the Daily Monitor independent tally centre had Museveni winning with a smaller margin - 51.6 per cent, versus Besigye’s 45.6 per cent. These were interim and inconclusive results since the government security forces closed down the centre and intimidated everybody else into not announcing anything other than the results being given by the Electoral Commission. Of course there was the usual vote buying, voter intimidation and outright vote theft in some polling stations. All these under the glare of international press and election observers.
It is amazing how a strong force of 40,000 election monitors - one for every 25 voters, and two per presiding officer - could not do much, with the sole exception of DemGroup, a consortium of local Ugandan NGOs. Otherwise, the Commonwealth and European Union were quick to make their call. Their verdict? The elections were generally peaceful.
Political statistics are not the only confusing things in
The other statistical puzzle is the economy. With GDP growth rates averaging 6
per cent per year for the past 20 years,
Until about four years ago,
Industry is mostly food processing (sugar and brewing), and a large proportion of those in what is described as “service” are either selling beer or riding boda boda (moped taxis). Those involved in real production are few and the service sector is merely a vehicle of transfer earnings. The large size of the service sector also means that income inequities are extremely high.
Today, just over 38 per cent of Ugandans live below the poverty line, up from 35 per cent in the ‘90s. The lowest 10 per cent of the population have only 4 per cent share of the household income, and the highest 10 per cent have almost a quarter of the household income share. No official figures are available on unemployment; just as well. Urban unemployment is estimated at over 60 per cent while underemployment or disguised unemployment stalks the rural folk.
So don’t swoon by high-sounding statistics. The GDP growth rate (9 per cent), the inflation rate (9.7 per cent) and so forth. You are better of remembering that the public debt stands at two thirds of the GDP!
The one success story most people seem to agree on is Universal Primary
Education (UPE). This has worked, increasing the number of children enrolled in
schools by millions. Those enrolled by end of 2004 stood at 7.3 million, up from
6.8 million in 2001. The number of primary school teachers has also increased
to 10,876 from 9,187 in the same period. What does this mean for the quality of
primary education? The pupil-teacher ratio is down to 50 from 54, the pupil-
classroom ratio is also down to 79 from 90, but has quality improved? The gross
and net primary school intake ratios (initial enrolment vs retention) have
plummeted (down 24 per cent and 21 per cent respectively). Perhaps household
poverty is causing huge drop-out rates, thus making the teacher and classroom
ratios look good. The UPE success, however, has created a new headache. What
happens post UPE? Only 9.5 per cent of those who enroll for primary education
get to secondary education. Post-primary education has become naturally too
expensive, what with very high demand and no expansion on physical facilities.
The result is a very expansive and privatised post-primary education. In the
meantime, with that problem unresolved, the National Resistance Movement (NRM)
is proposing Universal Secondary Education from 2008. Besigye’s Forum for
Democratic Change (FDC) and others have no proposal. In terms of broad education
reform, there is no policy debate in
So with shrinking democracy and an economy that flatters to deceive, what choices did Ugandans have in the just-concluded elections? Statistically, five: NRM’s President Yoweri Museneveni, FDC’s Dr Kizza Besigye, Democratic Party’s Mr Sebaana Kizito, Uganda People’s Congress’ Mrs Miria Obote and an independent, Mr Abed Bwanika. However, the contest was for all intents and purposes down to two candidates - the present NRM leader Museveni, and a former NRM ideologue and minister Besigye.
The once strong historical parties DP and UPC had no chance, precisely because
of their controversial history, and because parties were largely banned in
There being no philosophical or ideological differences presented to voters, the people were forced to choose between change and continuity. While they were sure that Museveni stood for what he stated - continuity, it was not very clear whether Besigye could deliver what he was promising - change. It became easier to trust in continuity than to hope for change. The live broadcast presidential debates (ignored by both of the front runners) exposed the contest as that of reformers in a situation where radical change was required. Perhaps that is why Museveni won; Ugandans are biding their time instead of gambling.
If there were any lessons, perhaps the biggest was that a political party must never confuse its objectives. One should not romance with democracy when in pursuit for power, even within the law. This was the difference between the Movement and FDC (with a coterie of democracy activists) — Museveni saw democracy as a means, everybody else thought it was an end.
(Dickson Ogolla - is Nation Media Group’s research manager. He witnessed the election. Email: dogolla@nation.co.ke This article first appeared in Africa Insight, an initiative of the Nation Media Group’s Africa Media Network - * Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org)
Sebaggala not DP member anymore (New Vision Columnists)
Beware of arrogance in politics:
Fr. Carlos Rodríguez
“Why do people here talk with such a low voice?”, foreign visitors new in this country often ask me. I try to explain that this is an obvious sign of ordinary people in Uganda cherishing humility.
In most traditional cultures, values like tolerance, dialogue and patience are held in high esteem and passed on to the younger generations as a yardstick of acceptable social behaviour. Reaching decisions by consensus, no matter how much time it may take, is the usual way forward in local communities to ensure peaceful coexistence.
Raising your voice when talking to others, showing signs of impatience or rigid behaviour and failing to temper your anger are widely considered as bad manners. Those who fail to live up to those standards can expect to be censored, recriminated and –if they prove difficult to correct- even isolated.
I can find plenty of such practical kindness in everyday ordinary life, like the mechanic in the garage refusing to charge me for a small [or not so small] service, the civil servant ready to welcome me after office hours or –at another level- ordinary people reintegrating former rebels who caused them to suffer.
An experienced United Nations official told me once that he had never seen anywhere in the world “such huge capacity to forgive”.
Most people I happen to come accross are flexible, not dogmatic, and you don’t usually take a firm “no” as the final answer. One of the things that keep impressing me more is ordinary people’s great efforts to be pleasant to you or display good listening skills, even if sometimes they may be a bit too fond of making long speeches or “giving advice”, but never mind.
This is why when I read the daily press, particularly in the aftermath of this year’s elections, I cannot help thinking that ordinary Uganda folks are much more normal and humane than their leaders.
These days you can forget about humility or tolerance when it comes to politics, where arrogance seems to have been enthroned as one of the supreme virtues. When you hold power and pay tribute to arrogance you may begin by saying that you will not talk to criminals, terrorists or thugs (or dictators, tyrants).
Later on, you will not entertain their sympathisers and eventually you will end up relating only to people thinking like you. After all, arrogance worshipers claim to have solutions for everything and to understand people’s problems.
Moreover, when you think that you are the only one possessing the whole truth, there is no space for any debate or exchange of different ideas. Being aggressive is called “talking like a man”. Dialogue with your opponent is regarded as a sign of weakness.
Critics are condemned as enemies, traitors and liars, and the more you strive to ridicule them and demonise them, the better. Either with me or against me seems to proclaim the high priests of arrogance. Their acolytes, who live off the big man’s patronage, know that the harsher you are to dissidents the more they will climb.
Moderates and advocators of dialogue can’t expect to go too far and will be gradually sidelined, unless they themselves follow the trend and fall in line with rigidity. Angry faces, rigid posturing, uncompromising attitudes towards opponents are sure tickets to promotion.
I know that politics tend to function that way in too many places in the world. But what becomes particularly distasteful in this country is when you find displays of such undue pride in front of the poor and weakest members of society.
With them anyway, big men can be a bit softer or more ‘understanding’ by telling
them that they have been “misled”, although in the end being on the wrong side
of the political spectrum is tantamount to being guilty of their own pitiful
condition.
Arrogance practitioners can be found practically in every sphere of life
concerning human relationships, not only in politics. The problem is when this
becomes like a virus that comes down from the top and gradually permeates human
relationships in any other place: family life, the place of work, media houses,
religious institutions, schools or any other.
Yet arrogance and any form of illegitimate pride are but signs of deep insecurity. Those who run out of rational arguments are the ones who resort more easily to the language of threats, disqualification and insults. People of deep conviction, integrity and principles are known by their readiness to accept different views. I wish that leaders infected by deadly arrogance could learn from this common man’s wisdom, and not the other way round. lcoromoi@africaonline.co.ug The author is a Catholic missionary working in northern Uganda. 16th March 2006 - http://www.ugandaobserver.com/new/oped/oped200503163.php
Your ballot is a choice for peace or war
Fellow Country men and women of voting age living in Uganda, this Thursday of February 23rd. you the registered voters will go to polls to elect a president and members of parliament. Through your votes and ballots, you shall have constituted the kind of government you want to be governed under, but above all else, the kind of political environment you, the voter wants to live in for the coming five years.
As a fellow country man, due to multiple reasons I am unable to vote. This elections offers to you 2 stark future scenerios of an olive brach of peace or wars. Therefore, as the climax of my contribution to Uganda, I urge you, the registered voters in Uganda, to vote for peace. A vote cast for Museveni is a vote for wars. Never forget dear voter, that you are making a choice between peace or war. Never forget that yours is a choice between ending the insecurity and slow genocide in northern Uganda or laying the ground for an outright uprising by the downtrodden northern Ugandans to stop the genocide in their midst and re-claim their righful place as true equal citizens of Uganda. Your vote this Thursday shall be a choice between the divide-reality of 2 Ugandas in the republic of Uganda. It shall be a choice too between discrimination or equality and fairness. Remember too that yours is a choice between reconciliation or continued hatred that for years have been manipulated by scrupulous politicians for stalking civil strifes, tensions and wars in Uganda.
Yes, it is true that the NRM has tilted the electoral process in its favour. It is true that the NRM has used state resources at the disadvantages of other political parties. It is true that dictator Museveni is doing everything possible to rig the results of the elections in his favour. It is true that some other political parties and candidates have used lots of money to influence the outcome of the elections. In one way or another either you, or your closed ones, a neihghour or a friend has been offered some political-incentive to influence your voting this Thursday.
I am at pain that those who impoverished you, are the same people or groups, coming around to manipulate and abuse your helpless state of poverty. But they stand before the cameras, make glowing statements of how democractic they are. Shame on them.
Inspite of that, my fellow country men and women, dear registered voters, you are the sole custodian of your vote. None of them has the power over your vote. Neither the state and the incumbent, nor any political party can decide on how you should vote. No. It is your vote, and you alone will this Thursday, make the final choice on who and what party to vote for.
For 20 years we have fought pitched political battles within and outside Uganda so that you, my fellow country men and women can exercise and use the power of the ballot to retain or change your government.
Your ballot is the higest form of political interraction with the state of Uganda, and this Thursday, the future of Uganda for the next five years, will be determined by your ballot. And whoever shall be declared to have obtained the highest percentage of the votes, will not have won the elections, but rather, It will be you, the voters who shall have won the elections.
I therefore caution you again, dear fellow country men and women, do not sell your votes for material gains, because if you do, you will have entered into a pact with a corrupt leader and political party whose government would spend the next five years recovering what they spent out on you. That government will owe you nothing because your shall have reaped your reward in form of salt, suger, soap, a bottle of beer or Waragi, and whatever else was offered to buy your vote.
Fellow country men and women, I can understand that your state of abject poverty compels many in Uganda to accept electoral inducments and bribes, which you are not oblidged to honour. Dear brothers and sisters, the buying of votes is an immoral political act. The one who gives out the money knows it is wrong. It is criminal. He or she doesn’t want to be apprehended for bribbing you. So, you are not oblidged to honor an immoral corrupt contract. When you do, then do not later think you can fight and stop corruption, because by your own immoral contract, you shall have have endorsed corruption. You shall have already sold away your rights to call to order the government you shall have voted for this Thursday.
Fellow country men and women, dear brothers and sisters inhabiting northern Uganda. In most normal circumstance, people laugh out of joy. As I tracked Mama Miria Obote’s nationwide rallies, I was a very happy man. I was happy because for the first time in 20 years I could hear you laugh. So your joy became my joy too, as you celebrated the defeat over NRM counter and unti-democratic forces that had held Uganda hostages for 20 years. Unfortunately my joy was shattered this morning, as I learnt of the deployment of truck loads of soldiers in Orum north of Lira. Using Baralegi as their Operation tactical heaquarters, the Uganda military, has deployed soldiers at Amon Maka (between Adwari and Apala), Okere (between Okwang and Adwari) and one within very close proximity of Okwang IDP camp. The deployment has so much terrified inhabitants of Okwang and and its neighbouring villages.
What ever the case, I urge you, dear fellow Langi, especially you the registered voter- to let this Thursday become a day you will always remember as a moment when you gained your freedom and liberties through the ballot. I therefore urge you to go out to the polling station and cast your vote this Thursday. A vote against dictator Museveni is a vote against military deployment and military terror in northern Uganda.
Fellow country men and women, dear voters, I have passionately followed your arguments on who should or can be president of Uganda.
Within the past 20 years of NRM one party military dictatorship, the military has become a new arm of governance, adopting the supreme key player role. Top officers and foot soldiers of Uganda military have had the last word on almost every tiny bit of issues in Uganda. This is one of the key issues being cited during the on-going nationwide campaigns. - Who can best control the army! - Who of the candidates is the darling of the military. - Who of the candidates is accepted by the military and so on. As a result it is the man with the an AK47 or the man with a gun with the laudest barrel that must be listened to in Uganda. It is unfortunate that this has also found its way into the Uganda civilian mind, perception and intepretations of events in Uganda.
Subsequently and very constantly, I have noticed the unfortunate school of thought passionately propagated by Ugandans considered the vanguard of the elites, especially Uganda's journalists, who argue that in order for one to be president of Uganda, one must be tough, and at best ladden with military experience to control the Uganda Peoples Defence Force or rather the army. My interpretation of this arguments is;
So to the carriers of this school of thoughts say it is only Museveni or besigye and no other civilian president will manage the army. So what does that tell us, that you the people of Uganda are hostages of an unrully state armed group of men and women to whose whims we must all play. No. Take a look at other African countries. Kenya has an army. Tanzania has an army. Zambia has an army. Malawi has one. South Asfrica has the biggest well equipped army in Africa etc. But look at their presidents, they are all civilians. Yet their respective armies are subject to their authority as their commander-in-chief. And so, why Uganda and its army must be an issue?
So the argument boils further that to defeat Museveni, Uganda needs a tough presidential candidate ?
No dear fellow country men and women, it is only your votes that can and will defeat Museveni and other counter-democratic militant forces, who are promoting military violence. Yes, your vote can defeat forces that potray the military as a monster institution needing caging.
As I have already said in the past, I beg to repeat it tonight, that your your interests and that of your family, that of neighbours, community, region, and, that of the nation- should influence your decision and balloting this Thursday.
What kind of country do you want. What kind of government do you want for the coming five years. I magine you you want to end the 20 years old insecurity in northern Uganda which by extension has displaced millions of people and affected Uganda’s economy. I magine you want to fight poverty. You want a revigorated in-come generating and a food productive agriculture. I magine you want a country that is at peace from within and also at peace with its neighbours. You want medicine in your hospitals. You want proper and improved quality eductation. You want re-built infrastructures. I imagine you want your children, brothers, father, mother, and all Ugandans to be treated farely and equally as equal citizens of Uganda. I magine you want a country where all Ugandans from West to East, North to South and Central will be treated as equal citizens of Uganda irregardless of whether he or she is a Munyarwanda, a Mukonjo, a Munyankole, a Muganda, a Munyoro, a Musoga, a Lango, a Acholi, Lugbara, Madi, Kakwa, Alur, Karimojong, A Muteso, a Mugishu, an Japadhola etc. I I imagine you want to live as dignified citizens of the republic of Uganda who shall be proud of being Ugandan and say yes, no matter what.
So if that be the case, your ballot and vote this Thursday is the only secure and absolute key to your desires and visions for Uganda. Do nothing else, but go the polling station this Thursday, and cast your votes. And, after you have cast your ballot, or rather after your have voted, do not leave the polling station but stay around and ensure that every ballot including your own, are counted. It is your political porperty, you have the natural and divine right to watch over it and ensure that no one, not even the NRM dictatorship abuses your ballot / vote. Do not listen to the electoral commission chairman instruction warning you to go away after voting! What does Kigundu want to do with your vote and ballot?
The chairman of the electoral commission, Badru Kiggundu, has no powers to order voters to return home, nor does he have the power to order for the arrest of voters keeping vigil over the ballots from electoral vultures and predators out to doctor the results of the elections. There is also no law which bars people from standing in groups of more than 12 after voting and the threat to arrest people who do so is most disturbing. The illegal pronouncements by Electoral Commission should help you not to desert your ballots and votes to be raped by Kigunndu and other people, or institutions that want to rig the elections in favour of dictator Museveni.
While the Electoral Commission chairman, Kiggundu, has decreed you the voters as outlaws and wants you far away from, or arrested for keeping vigil over your vote, dictator Museveni has instructed his supporters to turn up early, cast their votes and remain on guard at polling stations.
What does Kiggundu expect the other parties (DP, FDC, UPC, Bwanika) to do?
Fellow country men and women, dear registered voters, under the 1995 Uganda Constitution, the Presidential and Parliamentary Elections Acts allow voters to be present until after the counting of votes. The Presidential and Parliamentary Elections Acts allow voters to sit at least 20 metres away from the voting table. No one has the right to chase you away, be it a presiding officer, soldier, or election constable. It is therefore your rights to stay at the polling station after casting your vote. While at the polling station, stay calm dear voters, do not disturb the peace, but zealously watch against acts of tampering of ballot materials of any attempts of rigging.
Finally, but not least, dear fellow country men and women, to you, who is about to resign to desperation, despairs, giving up hope and confidence in the elections. You might have decided not to vote at all because you fear the elections is a fore-gone exercise in favour of dictator Museveni. It is your national duty to the nation and people to vote. I call on you to pick up courage, wake up,walk into your polling station and vote.
Finally, dear fellow country men and women, we shall find the appropiate course of action to take if dictator Museveni shall have rigged this week’s elections. May he never forget the reasons upon which he wrapped up his 1981 -1986 vicious brutal and the muderous insurgency in the Luweero Triangle.
For God and My Country – Uganda.
Cologne, Germany, February 19th, 06
I begin by thanking Mr. Van Hecke together with his wife for being supportive to the victims of misrule, who are incarcerated in the concentration camps of Northern and Eastern Uganda. The man’s family is taking care of 2400 African children in the bushes of Northern Uganda. This is a great achievement that must appear in the local Ugandan newspaper to demonstrate how philanthropic a Belgian can be. Thank you very much Mr. Van Hecke. Belgians are just benevolent people. King Leopold II, of Belgium’s massive killings and brutal amputation of the limbs of the pygmies in the “Belgian Congo” never occurred. It was simply a myth. Belgians are just good people. They do not attack anyone. Instead they are attacked by people like Dr. Olara Otunnu as you want to make us believe.
In the article, Mr Van Hecke knowingly and deliberately obscured the facts and direction of Dr. Olara Otunnu’s letter and address that he gave in Sydney. Such an act of obscurantism was done in a manner filled with blatant hatred and unfounded bigotry towards Dr. Olara Otunnu. Any one who knows Dr. Olara Otunnu will tell you that he is a simple man guided by positive religious background and always armed with strong belief in peace as the way forward and sometimes so naïve in the search for peace, -the Nairobi Agreement of 1985-, as to press for peaceful agreement with a Museveni who was preparing for war in the background that later saw the coming of NRM to power in 1986. It is therefore no surprise that he has swept peace awards ranging from German peace prize in Berlin to Sydney peace prize and many others in between. His so called “attack” within the corridors of the European parliament therefore leaves an independent man, who was not at that scene, with a question of as to whether that kind of so called “attack” really took place. That such an accusation lamely appears in the Daily Monitor, as it does now, borders a child’s accusation to a parent over his toy that he claims is “stolen” by a brother as they played together.
Dr. Olara Otunnu’s citing of Article 2 of the Geneva Convention adopted by Resolution 260 (III) of the United Nations General Assembly on 9th December 1948 helps to adduce the Genocide taking place in Northern Uganda today. Here I quote the Article again: “In the present convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) killing members of the group
(b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
(c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part…”
The NRM Government under Yoweri Museveni has destroyed that hope for the would-be up coming Acholi generation. “Everything Acholi is dying”, Father Carlos Rodriguez succinctly puts it. The world is witnessing an absolute destruction of an ethnic group. “The Acholi are now a shadow of their own”, Dr. Olara Otunnu correctly adds. It is therefore only proper to call what is happening in Northern Uganda, especially in Concentration camps, in its correct name. It is genocide; nothing more and nothing less. I once heard someone say: “If a bird walks, quacks and wades like a duck, it must be and is simply a duck”. The activities in Northern Ugandan concentration camps directly point to genocide and it is indeed genocide. No amount of diplomatic campaign can change that. The solution is only one and it is the dismantling of the camps to allow the people go back to their ancestral land and homes.
Finally: Mr. Van Hecke, I was in Brussels a few months ago. At the “confluence” of the two streets Rue de L’Eture and Rue de Chène, in that famous Belgian capital, there stands Manneken Pis (Little boy urinates), Brussels’s landmark if you like it. It is a small bronze fountain sculpture depicting a small boy urinating into the fountain’s basin. Amongst many others, one legend about the sculpture says this: In the 14th Century, Brussels was under siege by a foreign power. The city had held its ground for quite some time. The attackers made a plan to place explosives at the city walls and destroy them. A little boy of Brussels called Juliaanske, now depicted by the bronze sculpture, happened to be spying on the attackers as they made their preparations. At an appropriate time he urinated on the burning fuse of the explosive thereby extinguishing it and by that saved the city of Brussels from destruction.
Dr. Olara Otunnu, not a tall man in stature, will not threaten even a fly. But his writing and Sydney speech, that has caused a “tsunami” of responses and debates around the world on the genocide in Northern and Eastern Uganda, may not be very far from that legendary Menneken Pis to put out the NRM burning fuse of genocide raging on in Northern and Eastern Uganda right now. Time will tell. Alex Awiny Abukha - Loerrach, Germany, Sat, Jan 21, 2006 (Abukha@t-online.de )
PRESS RELEASE, Dec 29, 2006: DAVID TINYEFUNYA - PRESIDENTIAL GUARD BRIGADE MILITARY COUP PLOT - A plot is underway in Uganda not to surrender power to any opposition parties, if dictator Museveni looses in next year’s first multiparty elections in 26 years. An authentic inside government intelligence source disclosed of a scheme by dictator Museveni to use the Presidential Guard Brigade (PGB) to stage a military coup in Uganda. This comes after Museveni and his close political and economic associate cadres learnt from a nationwide intelligence reports that Museveni and his NRM-0 party will most likely loose in the 2006 elections.
The intelligence source, who asked to remain anonymous, further disclosed that based on the nationwide intelligence reports, dictator Museveni, his half-brother General Caleb Akandwanaho alias Salim Saleh, David Tinyefunyza, and some high ranking officers of Uganda Military Intelligence have hatched a plot to use soldiers of dictator Museveni’s Presidential Guard Brigade (PGB) to take over the government of Uganda, and thwart any civilian opposition parties from succeeding Museveni or forming the next government.The source also disclosed that dictator Museveni assigned David Tinyefunza to lead the PGB in stagging the planned fake military coup, which should be carried out while Museveni will have knowingly travelled outside Uganda. Once the Presidential Guard Brigade (PGB) will have successfully taken over the government of Uganda with David Tinyefunza as it’s new president, Tinyefunyza is supposed to `invite´ Museveni back to Uganda and hand over power back to him.
In a substantiative incident at the launch of his nationwide campaigns at Semuto in Luwero on Dec 22nd which adds a lot of weight to the developement above, dictator Museveni said the following about giving up power to Uganda’s opposition parties; “They want to reap what is already ripe. I don’t mind them reaping. But even where they have no input? I wouldn’t even mind but they want to chase away the owner? That is going beyond.” See: New Vision - Museveni launches campaign in Luwero of Friday, 23rd December, 2005, http://newvision.co.ug/D/8/12/472615
We pray that everything possible is done to stop the Uganda Military from meddling further in Uganda’s politics, or refuse to recognise any further military coup and regimes in Uganda.
Godfrey Ayoo, ELUM-ANIAP,
RRIA Director, December 29th, 05
The ruling by the International Court of Justice in the case between the Democratic Republic of Congo versus Uganda. Dec 26th, 05
Uganda’s dictator Museveni must solely bare the consequences of his one man actions following the ruling by the International Court of Justice.
It is not suprising that the World’s Highest Court has found Uganda guilty on several counts after DRC dragged Uganda to the International Court of Justice. The issues raised by the DRC, the descriptions of the criminal acts committed and the decision of the ICJ should open up the eyes of the world community to comprehend dictator Museveni as a cruel disrespecter for laws and human lives. What Museveni and his army are accused of in the DRC have since 1981 been happening in Uganda and still continue.
The issues raised and the ruling by the ICJ are not strange to Ugandans because Museveni unlawfully deployes soldiers against his own citizens, rape and sodomise women of all ages, children and men, uses children as child soldiers and has looted Uganda bare to its skeleton.
It is therefore not if, but rather, when Museveni will have to be dragged to Uganda’s local court or to the ICJ or the International Criminal Court for crimes he committed within and outside Uganda.
Much as the contextual ruling implies that "Uganda" has been found guilty on those counts, in our view, Uganda as a Country and Nation should not be made to bare the burden of paying for the crimes of the convicted international criminal Museveni’s one man regime rotat