NATO must disarm Museveni or arm opposition
By Sam Akaki
18th April 2011:- The sharp contrast between the West’s response to the state-sponsored terrorism in Libya and Uganda would be comical if the consequences of Museveni’s use of violence as a state policy were not so tragic for the people of Uganda and the Great Lake region. Let me elaborate.
Last week, as NATO was finalising plans to arm the Libyan opposition to defend themselves, and intensifying the use of 340 jet fighters, military helicopters and ships to deplete Muammar Gaddafi’s military, communication and command structures in order to protect Libyan civilians; in Uganda, General Museveni’s Apartheid-like army and police were terrorising the population across the country with impunity; indiscriminately firing rubber bullets, live ammunition and tear gas to disperse unarmed civilians who were demonstrating against the unaffordable food and transport costs, which are rocketing, daily.
In Kampala, the main opposition leader and three times presidential candidate Dr Kizza Besigye was shot and wounded in what some observers believe was an assassination attempt, or at least a dress rehearsal for a public execution. Several opposition MPs like Jack Sabiiti, Wafulla Ogutu, Nathan Mafabi and Kampala Lord Mayor-elect Erias Lukwago were arrested and bundled onto pickup trucks like chicken thieves. Thousands of people were wounded including a pregnant woman.
Even school children were not spared. They were caught in a cloud of poisonous tear gas recklessly fired by the trigger-happy soldiers and policemen around their schools. Many of the children were rushed to hospitals for emergency treatment for sight, hearing and breathing problems.
In Gulu, north of the country, the army used a harmer to crack a nut, deploying artillery weapons to disperse demonstrators and on-lookers. Seven people were killed and many wounded. The leader of the Democratic Party, Mr Norbert Mao was arrested and dragged along the street like a petty criminal. His only crime was to participate in the demonstration, which is legal under the constitution. In an effort to cover up the carnage, Museveni’s government ordered local radio and TV stations not to broadcast live coverage of the rampaging army and secret police.
We are watching you, says the US!
In a statement that would make bad men laugh and good ones cry, the US embassy in Uganda has responded to the blood-bath by saying President Obama’s administration was “…keeping a close eye on the escalating violence between state security and protesters”, according to a Ugandan daily newspaper.
How many more unarmed civilians must be killed or wounded; and how many more innocent school children must be blinded or condemned to slow deaths through tear gas poison before the US and its allies stop watching and start to act to protect Ugandan civilians?
Give me liberty or give me death!
You could be forgiven for thinking that 18th century US politician Henry Patrick was speaking for contemporary Ugandans when he made his timeless “Give me liberty or give me death” speech, delivered at the third Virginia convention, held in St. John’s Church in Richmond, to discuss relations with colonial power, Great Britain on 23rd march 1775:
“…We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation?…There is no longer any room for hope. Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death”, Henry Patrick said.
Ugandans went to the polls in 1996, 2001, 2006, and 2011 hoping to vote out General Museveni or at least win enough seats in Parliament to curb Museveni’s excesses. On every occasion, the European Union, Commonwealth, as well as local election observers declared that the elections had been rigged because Museveni’s ruling party and State were one and the same thing.
Ugandans also went to the Supreme Court but the Judges, most of them card-carrying members of Museveni’s ruling party, made the extraordinary ruling that the elections had been rigged, but not rigged enough to alter the final outcome! The opposition petitioned the government to introduce specific constitutional, legal and administrative reforms necessary for free and fair election; but these and their demands for the reconstitution of a non-partisan Electoral commission were ignored.
And they have taken to the streets to exercise their constitutional rights to peaceful demonstration, but Museveni has responded by sending armed soldiers with orders to shoot and kill. Consequently, as the demonstrations that started last week will show in the next weeks and months; Ugandans are now left with only one option – to repeat after Henry Patrick and demand: “give me liberty or give me death!”
This leaves the United Kingdom, the EU, USA and the UN with three simple choices: Disarm Museveni; arm the opposition to protect innocent civilians; or become willing collaborators in genocide through inaction as they did in Rwanda in 1994. END. Please login to www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories and anytime mid-week for our news updates.
