{UAH} IDDI AMIN NEVER TARGETED LANGIs/ACHOLIs, THEY TARGETED HIM {---Series forty-three}

Friends

 

This is a writing about a project that was sponsored by the Uganda Joint Christian Council in conjunction with Rotarians for the purpose of building capacity for mediation and peaceful conflict resolution in 20 hot spot districts as the Republic of Uganda was preparing for the 2011 district councils and national parliamentary elections. It is under a heading "EARLY CONFLICT WARNING AND EARLY RESPONSE FOR CO-EXISTENCE: TRF GLOBAL GRANT # 25754: USD 50,500"  Now why is it important for me to post? Because under this study when you go under the sub heading "GENESIS OF THE INVOLVEMENT OF RELIGIONS IN POLITICAL ELECTION POLLS MALPRACTICES IN UGANDA"  He goes after a detail of how we actually got our first gun shot in Uganda. It was not from a Muganda, not from a Jap, not from an Alur, not from a Mutooro,  but from a drunken soldier from The Northern region that wanted a prostitute by force, again it is sex, she refused, he left and came back with a whole pile of Acholi wild dogs. I am highlighting the part that interested me.

 

Again I am going to insist over and over, we need as Ugandans to stand up and discuss The Acholi violence but candidly.

 

 

 

GENESIS OF THE INVOLVEMENT OF RELIGIONS IN POLITICAL ELECTION POLLS MALPRACTICES IN

UGANDA

For the reader who would like to gain more insight into the causes of conflict and violence

experienced during political election polls in Uganda the following short thesis might be of

help in shedding some more light and enlightenment. In Uganda as indeed in many other

African countries like Kenya periodic elections, organized to change or retain political power

both at local or national legislative council levels, have often been accompanied by either

premeditated or spontaneous conflict or violence. The desire to win elections at any cost

including violence and the practice by the election loser to violently dispute poll results has

been more or less institutionalized in Uganda politics to the extent that every time there is an

election in any part of the country conflict and violence before, during and after the election

polls are always to be anticipated.

This political violence which in some cases has been state-inspired has gone through several

historical stages of metamorphosis. The conflicts have been either factionally religiosociologically

influenced or ethnically/ideologically oriented or purely based on personal

greed for power. For instance during the elections leading to the attainment of Uganda

independence the violence, wherever it happened, was basically based on political party

ideological principals although the factional religion factor and ethnic biases were always

very much in the background. Thus election violence was considerably reduced and tamed by

the fact that constituency party candidates were nominated by the party central committees

instead of being decided upon through preliminary party elections. If your party did not

nominate you there was no cause and basis for you to call upon your supporters to raise up in

arms and cause violence.

In recent times however, and with the introduction of party primary election to decide on

party candidate, ideological party principles and the desire of political candidates to win

elections in order to offer service to their people appear to have been superseded by personal

greed for power and wealth. Politics has become the most lucrative form of government

employment. Thus the ideology of winning the elections whatever it takes has become deeply

engrained in the Ugandan political fabric. It is "either I win or he/she loses."

The craze for power has led to different power hungry groups resorting to use of the power of

the gun instead of the power of popular vote at polls. Consequently the country has had to

witness and survive periodic political and ethnic-generated violence and crises since it gained

its independence in 1962. The first gun violence incident experienced in independent

Ugandans was recorded in 1964 in Nakulabye,

a suburb in south-western Kampala

Municipality (at that time), when a drunken soldier from the Northern region of Uganda

entered a beer bar in Nakulabye in search of the services of a woman prostitute. When he

approached a woman and she rejected his amorous offer he misinterpreted this as an ethnicbiased

insult from the snobbish Southern Baganda women who deserved to be punished for

their arrogance.

He left the bar but later returned accompanied by a few friends fully dressed in their army

uniforms and in a feat of rage, sprayed bullets in the bar killing several bar patrons. This

unprecedented violent gun action by soldiers in uniform shocked the entire Ugandan society

to the core for it had never happened before. From the time Uganda became a British

Protectorate at the beginning of the 20th Century Ugandans had never witnessed off –duty

soldiers leaving their army barracks and terrorizing civilians in town. They had only seen and

admired uniformed security forces including army soldiers at march-past parades during

important occasions such as yearly Independence Day celebrations.

From the day of the Nakulabye incident onwards uniformed soldiers became a common site

on Kampala streets and at road – blocks especially after the Obote 1 regime a contingent of

the Uganda Army led by Colonel Amin, stormed the Lubiri (Kabaka's Palace) in June 1966

and ousted Kabaka Muteesa II from power forcing him to flee into exile in London and a

state of emergency was declared in Kampala. It is not necessary to go into the details of the

subsequent almost continuous state of violence and insecurities that Uganda has staggered

through up to now.

Suffice to mention that some of the state-inspired brief as well as prolonged periods of

violence and insecurity included the military coup of January 1971 by Idi Amin Dada during

which almost all the military commanding officers of the Uganda Army who were mostly

from the Acholi and Langi tribes were systematically and mercilessly butchered in a matter

of few hours and his subsequent liquidation of those whom he saw as threats to his power

during his nine (9) years of bloody rule; the 1979 liberation war spearheaded by the

Tanzanian People's Defence Forces (TPDF) which fought Amin out of power; the short

lived but violent rule of Yusuf Lulu in 1979-80; the very violent 1980 general elections that

retuned Milton Obote and his Uganda People's Congress Party (UPC) back to power; the

1971-1976 bush liberation war that brought Yoweri Museveni and the National Resistance

Movement to power and which saw the so called Luwero Triangle in Buganda become a

depopulated desolate wilderness; the TPDF (Tanzanian Peoples Defence Forces) destruction

of Arua Town and many areas of West Nile as they pursued Amin's solders across the border

into Sudan; the second military coup against Obote government led by Tito Okello Lutwa and

Basilio Okelo; the meaningless but destructive insurgency led by Alice Lakwena in the North

and Eastern Uganda; and the infamous insurgency led by Joseph Kony which witnessed acts

of inhuman atrocities inflicted on the people of Northern and parts of Eastern Uganda.

This article will restrict itself to conflict and violence during political elections in modern

independent Uganda which can be traced back to the period between the beginning of 1960

and the granting of independence in 1962 and which was a crucial period in Uganda.

To quote the late Prof. Samwiri R. Karugire in his book A Political History of Uganda

(page171): " In June of 1960, by way of implementing the Wild Report, the Colonial

Secretary announced that there would be direct elections throughout Uganda to the Legco

(Legislative Council or what is known as Parliament today) in 1961 and that these would be

the elections which would precede the granting of self-government to the Protectorate. This

announcement was a prelude to pandemonium in the political life of the Protectorate. As

expected Buganda vehemently opposed the holding of the proposed elections and a

delegation, led by the Kabaka himself, went off to London to persuade the Colonial Secretary

to postpone the elections until federal status was granted to Buganda in a self-governing

Uganda. This in turn raised a storm of protest in the rest of the country."

Even today 50 years after independence, some sections of the Buganda are still agitating for

a federal (Federo) status of Buganda.

That the Baganda wanted federal status within independent Uganda because they considered

themselves more advanced and superior to the rest of the tribes in Uganda was only partially

true. A more pertinent reason was that the Kabaka and his conservative courtiers could not

entertain the idea of Buganda and especially the Kabaka being ruled by a commoner,

moreover a Catholic, in independent Uganda since Mr. Benedicto Kiwanuka of the

Democratic Party appeared to be headed for winning the elections if they were free and fair.

Factionalism based on religion was not limited to Buganda alone. On the contrary it was

widespread throughout the country especially after the 1955 District Administration (District

Councils) Ordinance which abolished the nomination of District Legislation Councils

Members and provided for universal suffrage election of such council members. Even before

political parties formally came into play such elections were dominated by considerations of

religion factional affiliations. In his book: Roots of Instability in Uganda, (p.45) Prof.

Karugire informs us that "It is not to be supposed that political strife was confined to

Buganda alone because in the period running up to independence, nearly all district councils

became ungovernable owing to factionalism based on religion. As it became evident that

Britain was determined to leave, each faction jostled for advantage and most of the district

councils ceased to function and some of these could only meet in the presence of armed

police."

When the rest of Uganda went to the polls in March 1961 to elect members of Parliament

(Buganda boycotted the polls) religion was more at play than the actual ideology of political

parties. Catholics voted for the Democratic Party (DP) while Protestant and most Moslems

voted for the Uganda People's Congress (UPC). Apart from Buganda, this first national

election which was won by DP was fairly peaceful in most areas of the country. However,

although Benedicto Kiwanuka went on to become Uganda's first Prime Minister or Chief

Minister as he was called, a second election had to be called after the British Government

sided with UPC and Kabaka Yekka ( a party formed in Buganda to nominate Buganda's

Representative Members to National Parliament ) who argued that the March 1961 elections

were not representative of the whole country since they had been boycotted by the majority

of the voters in Buganda even though the Democratic Party had participated and won almost

all the seats in Buganda despite a lot of intimidation.

While it is true that in March 1961 elections DP won 19 out of the 21 seats allocated to

Buganda it is also true that this was achieved from a very small fraction of the population of

Buganda. To shade more light on this issue, here again are some quotations from Prof.

Karugire's book Roots of Instability in Uganda (p45&46):

"The Kabaka's mission to London was a failure because the Colonial Secretary refused to

postpone the elections and, when the delegation returned from London , the Kabaka's

government decided to boycott the elections altogether. For this purpose, the well – honed

machinery of the Kabaka's government was let loose on the population to intimidate or

harass those who might be misguided enough to seek to register and vote. The point has been

made and it needs to be repeated, that the normal police duties in rural Uganda were carried

out by the chiefs and the people, and not the Ugandan police which was only to be found in

large urban centres. Now, with the fearsome machinery of the Kabaka's government geared

to law – breaking, the protectorate government was quite simply helpless; …………"

 

 

Stay in the forum for Series forty-four on the way   ------>

 

EM

On the 49^th Parallel          

                 Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in anarchy"
                    Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni katika machafuko"