----Original Message Follows----
From: james ssemakula <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED], Buganda Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [UNAANET] Northern Killings Bring Out Racism of Ugandans-- Federalism The Answer
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2003 09:00:05 -0700 (PDT)
Personally I think Mr. Mulera is intellectually dishonest, if not not an out right liar, to say the least!
I was similarly incensed (sp) that he is resorting to "tarring and feathering" the Baganda in this war in which we are just as helpless to stop the carnage as most other Ugandans.
He lied when he claimed/implied that the Baganda are silent and/or indefferent to the senseless slaughter and the camps in Northern Uganda. The facts of the matter are that had Mr. Mulera cared to read the newspapers he writes in regularly he surely would have been struck by the fact that Baganda have spoken out against the war and have advocated talks with the 'rebels'. Our Kabaka is on the record, on several occassions, for saying speaking out on the matter and advocating a peaceful resolution of this conflict.
Our Nnabagereka is on the record speaking out agaist the war, and advocating a peaceful resolution. Religious leaders in Buganda are on the record, as are other significant Baganda in speaking out against the war.
Even we, the little guys, have spoken out against this war on many an internet fora, that Mr. Muniini professes to read. We wrote unequivocal volumes against the horrors of Kanungu and the subsequent lack of meaningful government action -- as archives of various internet discussion groups attest.
Even some Baganda military officers, albeit retired, have publicly expressed unwillingness to fight in this senseless war.
Contary to his hollier-than-thou pontifications in the column below, Mr. Muniini is on record speaking out for continued war -- right here on UNAANET! The archives of UNAANET can prove this beyond a speck of doubt: Mr. Muniini -- and others -- have recently argued against negotiating with the rebels to bring this war to an peaceful end.
For him to speak from both ends of his mouth about how he is disturbed about state sponsored 'unintended murder' or "colateral damage" as he euphemistically puts it, not only shows what kind of hypocrite we have in our midst, but one who seems to be unaware of the definition of the term 'murder' and its distinction from manslaughter.
Where was Mr. Muniini morals when the Baganda were in the throes of the infamous "Luwero Triangle"? Has Mr. Mulera heard of the prayers offered by the people of this same Luweero area -- who were brutalizes by "them" -- to use Mr. Mulera's crass terminology -- for peace in Northern Uganda?
Where were his sensitivities when the people of Nakulabye or the students of St. Mary's College, Kisubi were so brutally killed by Obote's goons? What about the thousands of Baganda massacered by Obote and Amin in 1966? Are these lesser tragedies because they happened to "us", again to borrow Mr. Mulera's strange termeinology?
If this is the sort of thing we can expect from the Reform Agenda's ideologues -- even in their "private capacities" , Uganda is in very serious trouble, since the Reform Agenda seems to be in need of reform itself.
Is Mr. Mulera man enough to withdraw this article?
Ssemakula
Rehema Mukooza <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
Chadiha & Mulera & Members:
I've read the article below and I've come to a conclusion that FEDERALISM is the answer.
We live in 2003 now, and Ugandans still identify themselves as "we" and "them". The Unitary system of governance has forced people who do not like each other very much to be forced into working together without any accountability at all.
Federalism or call it Federo, will bring about a creation of the Northern Regional Federal State of Uganda, with it's own regional gov't to take of the regional matters, and at the same time it shall fall under the Federal constitution and government of Uganda.
If Uganda was lead under federo. What is happening today would not have happened at all. This could be highly preventable by all means available to Ugandans with a Federal structural form.
Dr. Muniini K. Mulera has talked for quite over some time now about racism or tribalism in Uganda. He has also addressed the issue of Bakiga settlers in Bunyoro and other parts of Uganda. He runs a www.banyakigezi.com website where many of you people here can learn alot of things about the Kigezi region in Uganda.
Though, Mulera has done alot of good things. There is one important issue he seems to overly forget. I do not want to come to conclusions but I've not seen him do the following. I've not heard Mulera come out in the open and support Federo for the Kigezi region. I've heard him talk much about bringing the Banyakigezi together ideologically, politically, but not under a true Federal Kigezi State that could give the Banyakigezi some power to run their business or region peacefully.
My questions to Mulera are:
How can you bring Banyakigezi together without advocating for Federalism, a Federal Kigezi State to give the Banyakigezi the true power to control their destiny??
How can you solve the Land Wragles of Bakiga in other parts of Uganda without finishing the business (federo) in Kigezi??
Don't the Banyakigezi need a strong base (Federal Kigezi State) to fall back onto??
The Ugandan government ships troops from Southern Uganda who do not understand any Northern Language at all for easy communication and transports these troops in the North. Now, come on. The only language our Southern UPDF soldiers understand is raping of our Northern civilian women and girls.
What does a Southern UPDF soldier care about the North?? He/she does not know any Northern Language other than speaking some poor Swahili to the natives over there. How can such a soldier establish an understanding with the people in that area?? He neither understands the culture nor respects the people?? The only thing our UPDF understands, is the sound of the GUN!
Mulera used some sort of racism himself when he mentioned this, <<"especially from Buganda and the Western region">>. Mulera isolated "Buganda" from Southern Uganda, and he did not isolate the individual entities of "Western region" from Southern Uganda. That shows a high level of racism in the writer, Mulera himself. He has clearly showed that he sees Buganda as a "them" among the Southerners. And that he sees the Western region as a "us" among the Southerners. I'm sorry, Mulera needs to explain something here.
Now my questions to Mulera are:
1st. Why did you isolate and define "Buganda" from Southern Uganda??
2rd. Why didn't you break down or isolate individually the components of "Western region" from Southern Uganda??
3rd. Why did you stand Buganda on its own alone and keep Western region as a whole??
4th. Is there a hidden perspective there??
I believe Federalism is the way forward to deal with this growing racism among Uganda's differently cultured people.
For all those who would love to learn about Federalism in Uganda, I have some good news for you. There is an educational website on federalism entitled www.federo.com that you can visit for more eduation on federalism in Uganda. Try to visit it and get yourselves educated. You can also ask for subscription to their FEDSNET web forum and catch the discussions that are made over there.
A warning! You might not see me there (fedsnet). Due to certain private reasons, I unsubscribed myself. The most important thing is learning about Ugandan Federalism.
Let the debate continue...
Rehema M.
"Dr. Chadiha" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
ARE WE GUILITY? Jonathan
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[input] [input] All results 5 results 10 results 20 results 30 results 50 results Letter to A Kampala Friend
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By Muniini K. Mulera In Toronto
Northern killings bring out racism of Ugandans
August 4, 2003
Dear Tingasiga:
On July 22, 2003, a Uganda People’s Defence Force [UPDF] helicopter gunship killed nine civilians in Obalanga, Katakwi District. The victims were attending a funeral ceremony.
Two days later, a military helicopter gunship killed 13 civilians who were tilling their gardens in Acholi-Bur, Pader District. Many others were injured.
While these killings were duly reported by the Kampala news media, there has been little manifestation of our collective outrage at these massacres of unarmed civilians.
I have scanned the newspapers from Kampala and around the world. The Kampala paers have told the story. The rest of the world’s scribes have been silent on the matter.
I have read postings on UNAANET, an Internet Discussion group that brings together largely sober-minded and empathetic Ugandans in North America. Silence.
Save for statements by a few Ugandan MPs and Prime Minister Apolo Nsibambi’s statement to parliament expressing “the government’s sadness” at the news of the Pader incident, there has been little public _expression_ of outrage by regular citizens. It is business as usual.
Perhaps the explanation is simply that Ugandans have murdered each other for so long that a few more deaths are neither here nor there.
Perhaps we have become a nation of hardened souls, immune from the pain of losing fellow citizens, viewing violent death as part of doing government business.
Yet I doubt that this is the explanation. After all, weren’t Ugandans rightly outraged by the killings of innocent Iraqi citizens by US and British fighter jets during the recent war against Saddam Hussein?
Of course it could be that the deaths of Arabs in Mesopotamia at the hands of Americans engendered deeper emotions than the death of Africans at the hands of fellow Africans. Colonialism has had a deep effect on our self-image.
However, I think that the major reason for the lack of public outrage over the massacres of fellow Ugandans in Katakwi [Teso] and Pader [Acholi] is racism. Uganda-style racism; the old north-south divide.
The truth is, Tingasiga, the massacres in Katakwi and Pader happened to “them,” not to “us.”
They occurred “over there”, in the land of “they” who did it to “us” in the Luwero Triangle and elsewhere before “we” overthrew them from power in 1986.
That the vast majority of people of Acholi and Teso had absolutely nothing to do with the crimes committed by the pre-Museveni regimes is a truth that must not be allowed to interfere with such prejudices.
That the people of Acholi and Teso are our brothers, our kinsmen, fellow Africans, bound together by a history that we cannot undo, fated to a common destiny, is a detail that must not be accorded room in our consciousness.
To do so would ruin the great illusion of being different from “them” who are from “over there.” It would make it hard for us to say, with a smile, that “they” deserve it.
Whether it is the Kanungu massacre or the violence in Bunyoro, the violent cattle-rustling in Karamoja and Teso or the abduction of girls from Lango and Acholi, many Ugandans see these crimes as purely local matters, of concern to members of the relevant “tribes.” It is “their” problem, not “ours.”
This is the same attitude that has been shown by many people from the southern parts of Uganda, especially from Buganda and the Western Region, in response to the long nightmare that has gripped the Acholi people for nearly two decades.
While few would openly admit to such racist attitudes, many have expressed in private conversations that the nearly one million Acholi in concentration camps deserve the dehumanizing fate that has been theirs for more than a decade.
This is the attitude that almost certainly informs the reaction of many people from south of Lake Kyoga to the recent massacres in Katakwi and Pader.
It is “them,” not “us.”
Another possible explanation for this reaction is that these killings were perpetrated by a UPDF gunship which was presumably hunting for anti-government rebels.
Ours is a society where we ration condemnation of injustice and crime.
Opponents of President Yoweri Museveni’s government find it hard to condemn criminal acts by the regime’s armed opponents. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Some even celebrate the brutality of crazed fellows who butcher fellow citizens in the name of the Lord.
On the other hand, supporters of President Yoweri Museveni and his government feel duty-bound to remain silent in the face of the most indefensible crimes of the state against the citizens of Uganda. Citizens massacred and terrorised by the state in Acholi, in Teso, in Rukungiri, in Kinkizi. Silence from supporters of the regime. Solidarity even in crime.
That is why the latest high profile son of Teso, Minister of State for Health Mike Mukula, is unlikely to condemn the actions of the UPDF which killed “his people.”
Mukula, who has taken to playing an army officer complete with military fatigues and a bayonet, may even appoint himself chief defender of the UPDF, in the mistaken belief that to do otherwise would be unpatriotic.
How one wishes that that other son of Teso, the highly principled Cuthbert Obwangor, was still active in politics! Not for him the antics of the Mukulas of this world.
The question for Mukula and other good Movement cadres is whether mass murder by the state is any less horrifying and less reprehensible than mass murder by, say, Mr Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army [LRA.]
Is mass murder by the UPDF somehow more tolerable than that which was committed by the “rogue armies of the buffoon regimes” which governed Uganda before 1986?
Does this murder by the state, albeit unintended, not warrant the same degree of anger and moral outrage that similar incidents would generate if they occurred in, say, Buganda, Ankole or Busoga?
God forbid, but if similar bombings occurred in Kyazanga, Masaka or Rushere, Nyabushozi, I bet you Tingasiga, all of you folks from south of Lake Kyoga, would react swiftly and angrily.
There would be very loud voices of protest and demands for the immediate resignation of the army commander and the minister[s] responsible.
People would demand the arrest of the trigger-happy pilots of the bird-of-death?
Yet when these massacres occur in Acholi, Teso or Lango the citizens from the southern half of the country carry on with their business as if the country has not suffered terrible loss of lives.
Likewise, one is not surprised that there has not been a word of condemnation emanating from Ottawa, London or Washington D.C.
Had the massacres occurred in President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, the condemnations from these major western capitals would have been very swift and hard-hitting.
It would have been Mugabe killing his people.
But this is Uganda. Museveni’s Uganda, temporary darling of London and Washington D.C. The dead civilian citizens are victims of friendly fire. Mere collateral damage in a fight against “terrorism.”
One is also not surprised that the church leaders in Kampala, the same spiritual leaders who were quick to oppose Museveni’s “third term” project, have been silent on the latest massacres of the peasants in Teso and Acholi.
I think we should all hang our heads in shame.
Our collective silence and the remarkable ease with which our business has continued as usual, even before the blood of Ugandans has dried in the killing fields of Katakwi and Pader, speaks volumes.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
© 2003 The Monitor Publications
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