HISTORY (UGANDA) SIMPLE FACTS Vs MOVIES FICTION: SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT.
Picture: The much sought "CONQUEROR" T-Shirt made by Cyril, an Amin fan. ------- WHEN THE PEOPLE FOUGHT OBOTE AND HIS SECTARIAN LOYALISTS FOR AMIN. I've been requested by readers to discuss the people during his tenure. So I found this hard example from 1972. Former president Milton Obote, his loyalists and Fronasa rebels attacked the country. "Of the 330 fighters and nine lorries which had started off for Mbarara town that morning, only 46 men and three lorries returned. Amin displayed a huge pile of those who died. In reality they were mobbed by civilians." - That's Yoweri Kaguta Museveni speaking in his book "Sowing the Mustard Seed". The people defended the Amin government even as he had a mandate to fight back any rebel attacks. In the two major fights during Amin's presidency, first we have the 1971 coup that brought him to power, then this 1972 rebel attack that is actually the last big incident during his presidency. How the numbers got from these 300 rebels to a surprising 500,000 without any single other major incident after, is just incredible. As I told the BBC recently, many who were initially announced as killed by Amin, actually came back in 1979 fighting alongside Tanzanian troops to depose him. But nobody mentioned that discrepancy. A serious research can show that 98% of what is written about Idi Amin is the figment of disgruntled, tribal Obote loyalists, themselves puppets of begrudged imperial colonialists who just couldn't accept a black person to be carried by white people. As I said some time back during a discussion, that picture on the T-shirt really hurt. The imperialists then used Milton Obote and some Ugandan opportunists to regain the country for their now commonly known exploitation of Africa. Something they definitely couldn't do with Amin in Uganda. Their scam, intended to clear for themselves the way, was then falsely branded as "Liberation". UGANDA'S WORST TIMES. Asking old Ugandan citizens who were alive from independence til today, it is confirmed that the WORST times for ordinary Ugandans in the country's modern history is the Obote II regime (1980-85) after Amin had left. That is followed inseparably by the Okello-Lutwa government (1985-86). Both were extremely tribal based gangs and we can still find countless skeletons of civilians killed by Obote still scattered all over the countryside. The Luweero triangle story is common only to Ugandans. But how such facts aren't in any international historic narrative is even suspicious. As if they cling on tagging anything and everything on Amin. The Yusuf Lule/Paulo Muwanga days come third (1979-1981). This is mainly because they had been working together with the people mentioned above. THE UGANDA I FOUND IN 1994. In 1994 I returned to visit Uganda for the first time since 1979 when we left with my father. There was hardly any electricity. I discovered something called load-shedding/power rationing in 1994 Uganda. This could never have existed with Amin. I could hear gunshots at night every night. Everything was second-hand (never had I seen that before either in any other country I had travelled), the few taxi's I saw at the international airport were all in dangerous mechanical condition, and a general pathetic state of the countries facilities, towns, roads, buildings, infrastructure and economy, with nothing maintained nor anything new built since those previously established by Amin. It was just clearly deplorabe in comparison to the well maintained cities I recall before we left. I asked myself how could they even say anything about Amin if this is how they destroyed the country? The HIV/AIDS scourge was also contributing heavily to national grimness at the time. Uganda became the Worlds HIV Champion in all categories including in spreading the virus, but also somehow in the diseases management. (Amin first suspected a foreign plot that had missed its target. AIDS broke out in Uganda just a couple of years after he had gone into exile) Notice that overall, these are times where the "liberators" are looting the country and fighting amongst themselves for state power mostly on clearly sectarian grounds. It quickly becomes outright civil war from 1979 to around 1996 where Northern Uganda is still a fully fledged military operations zone with Joseph Kony's LRA, another sectarian war. How such chaos is called " liberation" is a morbid linguistic contradiction with the words meaning. Obviously, to those Ugandans who struggled on a daily basis to survive through those difficult 80's, it was anything but liberty. Many people silently wished that Amin could come back. The peoples suffering seemed to increase with every other new government (5 in 5 years). But simply expressing a positive opinion for Amin literally cost many Ugandans their lives those days. So for years, people were terrified to publicly show their approval for him. I have to admit that since that first day in 1994 when I first stepped in Uganda after 15 years, the situation has improved, including the countrys economy and a semblance of democracy that still needs serious upgrading. However corruption is endemic, patriotism is non-existent and poverty is widespread. A CLEARER PERSPECTIVE EMERGES. Today, a new Ugandan generation free from historical political shackles, is asking for all state companies that were Uganda's pride, all mostly established by Amin, to be re-created. Many are eager to see our countries lost Pan-Africanist status spread across the continent and beyond like was the case previously. They now increasingly understand the treacherous politics that was happening in the 70's - 80's. And that's why they have discarded the fear to assert the Field Marshals achievements for the indeginous Ugandan. Increasingly seeing him today as the most patriotic Ugandan as well as the country's most deserving unsung hero. Written by Hussein J. L. Amin.
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