Gook, I don't think what Muniini is saying is true. the people from the South have repeatedly condemned the war and called for its end.
I can compile you a catalogue of speeches and discussions of people from the South deploring the effects of war. The Kabaka who is the voice of Buganda for instance has on many occasions called for an end to the war. This is what he said just yesterday in the presence of HE the President & commander in chief of the UPDF, "The Kabaka pleaded with the government to end the 17-year-old insurgency in the northern region." Kabaka Mutebi said that he feels a lot of sympathy especially for the innocent children suffering in the north. “We pray that everything possible is done to restore peace in this region,” he said. The Nabagereka of Buganda has gone as far as championing events to raise funds for the victims of the war. The Roman catholic and Church of Uganda prelate's have also condemned violence against the people of Northern Uganda and called for peaceful resolution to the conflict. There is so much the people can do anyway. If the other side in the conflict is bent on fighting rather talk peace, its the people who are going to suffer and we all know that. What the people of the South have done so far never happened when Obote massacred thousands in 1960's and 1980's. Which prominent figure from the North or East came out in the presence of Obote and called for an end to the massacres in Buganda? The idea that the blame of events in the North should be shifted to the people in the South is absolute nonsense. Let those who have fueled this conflict which has caused so much misery help end it. The solution to this bitter conflict lies in the North. LM --- gook makanga <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: --------------------------------- Mulindwa, Munini is a classical case of what he condemns in his article. As long as the NRM/A was killing only the Acholis and other biological substances, it was alright for him. As long as he was still "eating" at the trough of the Victors, it was ok. But now things have come closer to home. A fellow Munyakabale has been identified, isolated and is soon to be crushed! It is only this realization that has now dawned on Munini . It isthis that has woken him from his long "sleep". For us who have always seen the NRA/M/M7 for what it is, we say welcome Munini to this sad realization. Late and little as it may be, We none the less say welcome to the nightmare that you helped usher in Uganda! Gook "You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom."- Malcom X ----Original Message Follows---- From: "Mulindwa Edward" Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: , CC: "Anne Mugisha" Subject: ugnet_: By Muniini K. Mulera In Toronto Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2003 19:11:07 -0400 Ugandans It is very interesting to see Dr Mulera writing this kind of statements today, but I think he is too late to join the rest of Ugandans who have condemned daily these kinds of killings in Northern and eastern. And we must as well remember that Ugandans who are in those areas know full well who have supported their being killed. For let us not kid our selves, killing Northerners was not started yesterday, it has been going on for the last 20 years, so I will not challenge my friend Mulera to go back into history very long ago, so I will ask him only two very simple questions. 1) In the early 80's when Yoweri Museveni stated "Northerners are Biological substances, and many of these people are not fit to live with us" Can Dr Mulera produce where he publicly opposed that statement? 2) When Kiiza besigye stated "Acholis and Langis should be eradicated from Uganda" Can he produce where he opposed it? You see the danger is that today Northern Uganda has become a public case, and there is no one who has done this apart from the Northerners them selves, and if today in 2003 people like my friend and neighbour Dr Muniini Mulera can come up with such sentiments, can you imagine if he stood for the population in Northern Uganda from 1984 when he was the best seller of the NRM government in Canada? There is allot of blood that has been poured in Northern and Eastern Uganda, but we must never delude our selves that it is Museveni alone to blame, for that will be the greatest delusion. Em The Mulindwas Communication Group "With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy" Groupe de c ommunication Mulindwas "avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie" ----- Original Message ----- From: gook makanga To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2003 6:16 PM Subject: ugnet_: By Muniini K. Mulera In Toronto Letter to A Kampala Friend ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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 the se 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 Muk ulas 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 arres t 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 si lent 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Gook "You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom."- Malcom X ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* --------------------------------- MSN 8 helps ELIMINATE E-MAIL VIRUSES. Get 2 months FREE*. ===== LM __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
