{UAH} Should Ugandans oppose armed struggle completely?

According to Julius Nyerere Gandhi and Martin Luther King opposed violence completely. Nyerere was not a follower of this philosophy. So am I.

Here is what Nyerere said that I share. "I have opposed violence. I have said don't use violence for nothing, because we can achieve our own independence without the use of violence. At least let us try and see. If we fail, of course, that is a different thing…"(Bill Sutherland & Matt Meyer 2000).

This is what I have been arguing for. Let us try non-violence and if NRM uses excessive force, then we reserve the right to self-defense. But let us try non-violence first. The attempt after 2011 failed because the opposition groups did not come together but the idea was and is still valid. War begets war and military victors employ force to govern as they used it to force out of power the government they opposed.

We should not use force in the first instance, only in self-defense. NRM is already weakened and we would not like to see military groups that have been quiet all this time come together to capture power when the civilians have done the struggle without violence. That is what happened in Ethiopia in 1974 and led to a bloody civil war.

Eric Kashambuzi  

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