By M. Suleman

25^th Oct 2010

Dear Mr. Abbey [Semuwemba], thanks for your provoking article.  I am weeping as I try to respond to you.  My brother, what you have written is similar to many statements I have heard from many Ugandans; most of them well educated people from Buganda.

I don’t want to blame you for your line of thinking.  It’s just an expression of the trauma that our country has gone through.  We have gone through so many traumatic experiences.  Many of our people in the country are psychologically sick; sick to the extent that they can no longer distinguish facts from opinions, however educated they are.

In your article, you make a number of sweeping statements:  Museveni together with a mixture of “Ugandans”. Which Ugandans and of what profile?  The NRM has its list of heroes.  To you that is what constitutes Ugandans!  Which registered parties supported them?  The UPM was a young party which did not have a base, an ideology, or serious personalities to make it a formidable.

According to you, their intentions were good:  To remove a government with hardly 50 untrained, inexperienced armed men?  To fight an army with seasoned men who had trekked from Tanzania?  Did they have a good chance of winning?  You say most Ugandans supported them!  Which scale did you use?

How could people in the East, North, and West who had voted for UPC now be supporting UPM?  In Buganda and Busoga, people had overwhelmingly voted DP.  Yes, some people in Buganda did not wish to see Obote back.  But does that dislike mean they supported the war to remove him?  Does that also mean they sympathised with anybody trying to remove him?

If Buganda hated Obote, does that then make it right to say [as you say] that the ‘majority of the population’ in Uganda hated Obote?  “Obote stole the 1980 elections”, you say!  Be reminded that by 1980, Ugandan politics was to some extent already based on individual merit.  Only educated, well respected men and women of integrity could become MPs.

DP had such people in Buganda and Busoga.  UPC had them in the North, East, and West. Tiberondwa, Tewungwa, Butagirya, Kutesa, Aliiro Omara, Macmot etc.  Who in UPM could beat such giants?  One needs to be careful with the case of the theft of the 1980 elections.

“Obote committed atrocities in Luwero”, you add!  Kasendwa Ddumba, the former head of NASA, is still in Uganda.  So is Samwiri Mugwisa and so many others.  Why has none of them ever been tried for any murder in Luwero?  On the other hand, the NRA ambushed and killed bona fide Ugandans.  Has the NRM ever accepted, apologised, or compensated their families?  Baganda died in Luwero just like other Ugandans died from the same war.

We must not forget that the suffering that the people of Luwero went through is the same as what the people in the North have gone through.  The only difference is that the north has endured it for 20 years.  That means their pain, suffering, dehumanisation, and humiliation is 5 times worse that what Baganda went through.

“Obote attacked the Lubiri and abolished the Kingdoms”, you say!  Yes, that was abominable, wrong and we must condemn it.  But we must also not lose perspective in our condemnation because the Lubiri attack does not constitute Obote’s entire career.  Secondly, a crime against Buganda is not a crime against Uganda!  We have to be objective and sensitive to those who may not share our hatred for Obote.

Let me also ask you:  The 1979 war was fought by the same UNLA who fought in Luwero.  There were no mass killings of Amin’s men or civilians in 1979.  So how was it that the same UNLA then deemed it fit to carry out mass murders in Luwero?  Whose soldiers have been accused by the UN of committing atrocities in the DRC?  Is it not Museveni’s?

Before Museveni came, most parts of Uganda were peaceful.  But life has never been the same ever since.  However much we adore and love our present leaders, we should be careful not to defend what we are not sure about!  The 1966 crisis, the Luwero war, and the Northern war are all very delicate issues which need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

If we don’t deal with them, we shall have genocide in Uganda.  As Baganda, we have gone through a lot.  But we need to separate our pathological hatred for Obote from the aspirations of our country.  We cannot build a Uganda when we still take our brothers from the North as our enemies.

Which Ugandan from the North could have broken down a school to build a hotel or sell off a forest?  Let us seek to recapture and rebuild Uganda with fellow Ugandans, not divide ourselves more.  END.  If it’s Monday, it’s Uganda Correspondent.  Never miss out again!