{UAH} MAKERERE UNIVERSITY: A MONSTER HAS RISEN?

Picture: Persecuted Makerere University students in Uganda made the "Lumumba" sculpture pictured here from the countless teargas canister explosive projectiles aimed against them for the entire week. I simply added my names as a sort of memorial as I stand with the students and their right to affordable public education in Uganda's struggling economy.

Many Makerere University students are said to have suffered endless sustained beatings, torture, severe physical and psychological injury, even multiple gang rapes of the innocent girls who were simply protesting the unaffordable education at the public university which was once free of charge for all East Africans. It is reported that last weekend some students even just saw HIV infested soldiers break into their dormitories in the middle of the night and started helping themselves on people's daughter's.

Last weekend I called for an urgent return to normalcy at Makerere university (my full statement condemning the violence: https://www.facebook.com/212665596843/posts/10158041148036844/)

However, while the military was promptly withdrawn after the public condemnation, there needs to be a public inquiry that brings perpetrators of rape and torture to book. I would like to actually urge the victims of these acts to not let impunity reign. And I call on all Ugandans including women's organizations and civil society to stand firm behind the victims of rape and torture at Makerere university. These are crimes banned by the Constitution and totally unbecoming of a professional army or police force claiming to protect life and property or maintaining law and order in society. This is simply barbarity of the most primitive order.

Also, the public response that the country received from the education ministry was literally a glorification of violence, treating students as criminals and justifying that by reportedly quoting scripture saying:"...for the one in authority is God's servant for your good. And if you do wrong, be afraid as rulers do not carry the sword for no reason."

This kind of thinking sounds like coming straight from the ruling pigs in the famous book 'Animal Farm' by George Orwell. It's almost surreal to hear such extremist ideology coming from anyone's mouth in this 21st century Africa. Extremists like Mr. AbuBakr AlBaghdadi must have preached the same to the innocent civilians under his terrorist caliphate in Iraq and the Levant. Legitimizing rape and brute force against ones own people and their innocent children using religion. Yet Uganda is a country of clearly stipulated law. A Constitution that supposedly guarantees the fundamental rights and freedoms of all it's citizens, including freedom of expression, and the right to stand against greed, corruption and endless exploitation at the expense of the poor citizenry.

Many people reading the press statement from the First Lady (who is also the education minister) must have thought 'Today a monster has surfaced in our midst."

Following public condemnation by the people of Uganda, myself, civil society, Parliament of Uganda, human rights organizàtions and even the US Embassy in Kampala, the European Union has also released a condemnation of the violence against the innocent students at Makerere university:

1) Calling for the police and the Uganda People's Defense Forces to refrain from their unprofessionalism where acts of violence have been committed against students.

2) Calling the security agencies to investigate misconduct of their personnel and hold those found responsible accountable for their actions.

3) Stop the violence and arrests against journalists performing their duty.

The Uganda People's Defence Force and police have clearly absconded from their primary duty to protect life and property, and maintain law and order in society. Rape is simply barbarity of the most primitive order.

For the record, Lumumba is a famous hall of residence for the students at Makerere University. The oldest and once most prestigious university in East Africa. Many of the regions leaders studied from Makerere. President Mwai Kibaki (Kenya) and Joseph Kabila (DR Congo) are Makerere Alumni. Both the students hall and myself carry the same Lumumba name after famous African independence hero and Congo panAfricanist martyr Patrice Lumumba who was tortured to the bone, then murdered in the dead of night, his body dissolved in boiling acid, and two of his front teeth kept as trophies to this day by a gloating Belgian officer. All done by heartless greed and barbaric brutality instigated by Belgium and the CIA on 17th January 1961, and on the direct orders of President Dwight Eisenhower, simply because the African legend took a firm political stand for the freedom and sovereignty of his people over their own country.

What the Makerere university students have gone through was surely yet another barbaric "order from above" right here in Uganda. Like was similarly the case during the heinous 2016 Kasese massacre.

Signed: Hussein Lumumba Amin

Saturday, November 2nd 2019

Kampala, Uganda.

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