{UAH} What would John Kalekezi tell his son Kayihura today?

By John K. Abimanyi

Just over 50 years ago, Lt. Gen. Kale Kayihura's father was caught up in the thick of pushing for Uganda's independence, using methods that could easily pass off as cases of treason today.

As Uganda geared up for the celebration of its Golden Jubilee of independence this month, Lt. Lt. Gen. Kayihura was instead caught up in the thick of controlling and suppressing dissent from politicians and activists that oppose the regime he serves – basically, he was struggling to control and suppress dissent from people doing the same thing as his father did over 50 years ago. It leads you to wonder what John Kalekezi, the deceased father of Lt. Gen. Kayihura , would tell his son today, were he to return from the grave.

Then a young man in the 1950s, Kalekezi joined the Ugandan National Congress (UNC) and traversed the world, spreading his zealous anti-colonial sentiment. Based in Egypt, his activities were not only nationalistic exhibitions of strong pan-Africanism, but were inclined towards blunt anti-establishment activism. He delivered a paper in Stockholm titled "Colonialism is Incompatible with Peace." He penned anti-colonial writings, and sent them back home through UNC officials like Abu Mayanja.

And just like the current government does to dissenters today, partly through Lt. Gen. Kayihura 's very machinery, the colonial government saw Kalekezi's works as harmful propaganda. It henceforth banned them from the country, in a way similar to how Walk-to-Work protests have been banned in Uganda.

Kalekezi is the 1950s representation of modern day opposition activists and politicians. His life lived the true experience of activism – the persecution that did not only haunt him while he was alive, but followed him to his grave as the Roman Catholic Church in his parish refused to hold a funeral mass for him, because "he was a Communist."

Even his death was shrouded in mystery. He was killed in a plane crash in Kiev, Ukraine in 1960, an accident that left many suspecting foul play, especially from the colonial government.
More than half a century later, Mr Kalekezi's son is now in charge of the regime's instruments of force. And few things signify this irony of ironies as some of the police chief's very words. "They don't want to subject themselves to the jurisdiction of the law," he once told NTV' of opposition politicians and the Walk-to-Work protests. "And their mind set is really to disrupt and cause chaos," he added.

Lt. Gen. Kayihura 's words seem to suggest that there is political space for opposition politicians to voice their views in Uganda, say through demonstrations, as the constitution provides for. But then he seems to turn around on those very words when he denies them this space, because, "they (opposition activists) have well laid strategies aimed at effecting regime change, which is an act of treason."

When fronted with the constitutional right to demonstrate, the IGP said: "Human rights are qualified by article 43 of the constitution, which talks about general limitations on rights and freedoms. That makes it mandatory that the regulator of security, which is the police, regulate all this," he said.

If you were looking for a difference between today's opposition politicians and what Mr Kalekezi were doing, you would have the toughest job. They both complained of oppression from the prevailing regime. They both called for a change of regime.

Kayihura against his father
Going by Lt. Gen. Kayihura 's assessment of the opposition activists, he would thus classify his father as having carried out treasonous acts, in view of the regime of the time. Lt. Gen. Kayihura speaks not only against the acts of opposition activism, but also warn people, especially the youth, from joining the kind of work his father used to do.

In another world therefore, Lt. Gen. Kayihura would be the all-powerful chief commander of the police force, directing where to deploy the most monstrous of teargas trucks and which parts of the city to put off limits for protestors and which kind of protests to be banned and which activists to arrest.

His father would instead be the small, body-bruise-nursing, tear-gas-nursing, regular-visitor-to-Luzira-prison kind of opposition activist who Lt. Gen. Kayihura rubbishes as "hooligans". And maybe there would be that very uncomfortable time when Gen Kayihura would have to order for, or indeed, effect the arrest of his own father. Or would he?

It all leaves you wondering what Kayihura Sr would tell Kayihura Jr, today.

jabimanyi@ug.nationmedia.com

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H.OGWAPITI
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"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that  we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic  and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
---Theodore Roosevelt

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