{UAH} Uganda: Museveni, Veterans: What Is the Real Deal?

OPINION

The relationship between President Museveni and veterans (abaazirwanako) was given new symbolism when the president said in Kabarole last week that some veterans had started composing songs urging him to leave power.

This, he said, was the main reason why he had not felt the need to mobilise them to fight against poverty before.

On his part, he boasted: "At least I have somewhere to start from because I planned for myself. I am worried for you."

After 27 years in power, the president has now found it prudent to reunite with former comrades in arms to popularise his message of wealth creation.

Remember this is the group that aided him to capture state power in 1986. At the end of this wealth creation campaign, it would be interesting if the Auditor General told the nation how much the president has spent on the travels and whether investing such travel money in SACCOs wouldn't have been a better idea.

And he was honest with the veterans when he said that for him, 27 years have not been an entirely hard slog. He has somewhere to start from because he planned for himself. It appears, while many of the veterans learnt to fight 'dictatorship', they didn't take advantage of their proximity to the president to acquire poverty-elimination skills.

Instead, many of them have prided in the peace that was ushered in by their sweat and blood, and many of them have descended into slumber (kasita twebaka ku tulo). It is also strange that while the president was planning for himself, he didn't remember to pass on those life-liberating skills to the veterans. What had caused the bad blood between him and the hitherto freedom fighters (abanunuzi)?

How much time is left to help his former comrades?

I really don't understand the place of the veterans in the political and social configuration. Are they former fighters per se and if so, so what? Do they belong to the army or to all former rebel gangs? And if they belong to former rebel outfits, do former members of say the LRA, the Uganda Freedom Movement (UFM) or the Federal Democratic Movement (FEDEMU), Former Uganda National Army (FUNA) and the Uganda National Rescue Front (UNRF) also qualify to be called veterans? I am told there are two categories of veterans.

There is a category that is close to the president. This category is sometimes referred to as abaazirwanako or abanunuzi (liberators). They mainly hail from Luweero. There is also another category that is not exactly looked at in the same light. My perception of veterans, especially the abazirwanako type, has been rather confused. Once, they seem very important and untouchable in that they can decide to invade and occupy a wetland, a forest without the interference of the coercive arm of the state.

They are also a huge vote lobby group. In another sense, they are also understood to be a reserve force of the army. Whatever problems that afflicts them such as poverty, they are victims of their own success. They decided to deal with an individual rather than deal with institutions. And in the cryptic way, the president has answered them. He says he is not Jesus Christ to perform miracles.

And precisely, many veterans thought the president had an answer to every problem of theirs. Recently a bizarre picture was published in the dailies where one of the veterans, Mama Chama, was evicted from a house in Mengo. She insisted the president had given her that house. Did the house belong to the president or was it an institutional one? As some of the records showed, the house was someone else's property.

When Mama Chama was given the house, she didn't bother to regularise the ownership. She assumed everything in this country belonged to their former comrade in arms. Again, what exactly is the place of such people as Mama Chama in the political configuration?

What does the country owe them? Why should taxpayers continue facilitating such people whose undertaking remains fuzzy? The veterans have a choice: to stop feeling pity for themselves, pick up the pieces and move on with their lives, or continue to expect manna from the comrade general.

The author is the Business Development Director, The Observer Media Ltd.

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*A positive mind is a courageous mind, without doubts and fears, using the experience and wisdom to give the best of him/herself.

 

 We must dare invent the future!
The only way of limiting the usurpation of power by
 individuals, the military or otherwise, is to put the people in charge  - Capt. Thomas. Sankara {RIP} '1949-1987

 *"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent

revolution inevitable"**…  *J.F Kennedy