Democrats must now stand up to govt violence
By Nathan Iron Emory
11th July 2011: The truth must be said out whether it seems amiable or terrible, whether it’s dressed in white or in the red of war. Let us all be frank and honest. Let us tear away the veils in our faces and be plain in our speeches. Calling a spade a spade is freedom of expression.
So what lessons have Ugandans learnt since the emergence of Yoweri Museveni to power 25 years ago? For a start, the National Resistance Movement [NRM] ideology holds high the institution of oppression as a principal agent of power retention.
Since coming to power by force of arms, the NRM regime has perfected the ancient art of treating political opponents as enemies. Political opponents have been put to death in detention facilities, political assassinations have been carried out, and in some cases the NRM has simply obliterated entire communities and tribes under the cover of war.
Museveni himself has been quoted threatening to send his political opponents six feet deep; consign them to die in Luzira, or “I will dispatch them to other world”! When I examine these utterances in the clear light of day, I am convinced that these were real expressions of intent. No clear thinking person should glorify or justify such utterances.
Have Ugandans ceased to be rational people or has the NRM regime turned Ugandans into an uncivilized bunch; never bothered about the fundamental principles of humanity and justice? Have we failed to grasp the truth – that any voluntary threats to kill or any voluntary killing of another human being is crime against humanity?
Museveni’s UPDF, Police, and Intelligence Agents have sadly overcome the fact that murder is a crime. They believe they have the right to kill. They have justified killing their political opponents by saying the State has the power to do so. Obliteration and persecution is accepted as necessary. It is a tool, like knife!
The only question is whether it is used to achieve this or that. Has the desired end been achieved? This is the only question the cultivators of murder permit us ordinary Ugandans to ask. To the NRM regime, Uganda’s soil requires a certain amount of human blood to be fertile. And why must that blood always be the blood of democrats and tyrants?
Reading from the scripts and from the mood across the country, very soon, proponents of democratic freedom shall make huge demands of accountability from the reactionary NRM regime. The French Revolution was an example of that type of demand for outstanding murder accounts to be settled.
As Museveni was swearing himself in for a 5th term in office, his men were administering excessive brutality upon innocent democrats. None of these men stopped to think about their callous actions. They whipped honorable men, whipped ordinary men and women, shot, wounded, and killed innocent citizens in cold blood.
Our children are impaled by toxic teargas. Thousands are arrested and detained without trial in horrible sites of torture. In short, it was the revival of all the barbarity of former times in eyes of visiting Heads of States from Africa. This was an operational order to save NRM’s crown and keep away the rights of man at bay.
The Chinese must be laughing all the way to their banks; thanks to the teargas they supplied to the NRM regime. Americans must be happy that their armoured Hammers were put to “great” use on the streets of Uganda. They have made it possible for a few men to terrorise hundreds. In the same spirit, Ugandans will in time adopt appropriate measures to respond to the NRM’s agenda of destruction.
The situation in Uganda is driving democrats to perceive desperate measures of self defense. This is the spirit that all democrats in Uganda should adopt. The events of 12th May 2011 proved all the passive souls wrong, and the vibrant change activists right in their convictions.
In the end however, both the passive and the active concurred on one fundamental point: That the merciless actions of the NRM have strengthened the people’s resolve to search for democracy, peace, justice and accountability. END. Please login to www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories and anytime mid-week for our news updates.
