Daily Monitor: Walk The Talk On Past Atrocities. POSTED SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 2016 | BY- EDITORIAL
On Wednesday while campaigning in Teso sub-region, the Forum for Democratic Change presidential candidate, Dr Kizza Besigye, visited a mass grave in Ogooma village, Nyero sub-county in Kumi District where remains of about 300 victims of the insurgency were buried. The victims are believed to have been killed by the government forces, National Resistance Army (now UPDF), as they fought the rebels during the insurgency in Teso between 1987 and 1993. Besigye promised to establish a truth and reconciliation commission to inquire into the atrocities and establish the perpetrators if he is elected president next month. On the same day, President Museveni on a campaign trail in Sheema district promised to compensate 30 families of about 300 Muslims who were killed in Kiziba village, Kagango sub-county in Sheema after the overthrow of Idi Amin in 1979. They were killed because of the religious association with Amin, who also was a Muslim. Mass graves of similar retributive atrocities are spread across the country in Luweero, West Nile, Acholi, Teso and other parts. They were committed by the various government forces and the dissident groups from the Amin, UPC to the NRM era but there has never been an effort to establish or prosecute the culprits. There has only been talk of compensation for the victims or the survivors, which also has never happened. Justice must be done in terms of compensation for lost property and lives. Other people like the Uganda Peoples Congress president Olara Otunnu have made similar calls for truth telling and reconciliation in the past but their voices were ignored. Suddenly, the issue of reparations for atrocities has now become an election issue. It’s time for the country to set up a truth and reconciliation commission to dig deep into all these atrocities, identify the perpetrators and have reconciliation between the victims and their tormentors so that the issue is concluded and closed. It should not be a matter to be revived only at every election time for the sake of electioneering and be forgotten immediately thereafter until the next campaign. Compensation alone is not enough. People lost lives and property. Compensation can make up for the lost property but the wounds of bereavement or torture of the victims or survivors and their relatives and families can only be cured by genuine reconciliation. This will put the animosity between the tormentors and victims to rest and place the country on a fresh start of harmony. monitor.co.ug/Let-s-walk-talk-past-atrocities
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