Letter to a Kampala Friend - Gen. Kazini and Maj-Gen. Muntu Should Reveal Kony Mystery
The Monitor (Kampala)OPINION
August 11, 2003
Posted to the web August 11, 2003 Muniini K. Mulera
Kampala Dear Tingasiga,Seventeen years after the start of the war in northern Uganda, there is no end in sight. The war is escalating, the orgy of killings of civilians is on the upswing, and the killing fields have spread south east [again] into Lango and Teso. Just last week, The Monitor informed us of the latest carnage in Teso.Once again, a Uganda People's Defence Force [UPDF] helicopter gunship killed unarmed Ugandans in Abarilela and Wera sub-counties in Katakwi district on Friday. The following day, rebels attacked Atirir, 15 kilometres north of Soroti town on the Soroti-Lira road, and were seen planting land mines.The whole thing is utterly depressing. Hundreds of thousands of our people, including little children, have been killed, mostly in Acholi. Our women have been raped. A million Acholi people are homeless, living in squalid camps, bereft of human dignity, psychologically traumatised, reduced to nameless statistics on spreadsheets of the Uganda government and numerous agencies at home and abroad.There was a time when I believed the line that most of the terror and carnage in Acholi was the work of Maj. Gen. Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army [LRA.] Though I knew that the National Resistance Army [NRA]/Uganda People's Defence Force [UPDF] had committed atrocities against the civilian population, [and called for severe punishment of the culprits], I had faith in the good intentions of Lt. Gen. Yoweri Museveni and his army in their prosecution of the war in Acholi. Not even the very disturbing revelations that some army commanders were using the war in Acholi to enrich themselves shook my belief that the overall mission and objectives of the army, and Museveni's political vision for pacification of northern Uganda were honourable and worthy of my support.To be sure, I believed then, as I still do, that the UPDF had a constitutional obligation to defend the lives and property of all Ugandans from armed attacks by the LRA and any other armed rebels. I also believed that the UPDF had the discipline and the capacity to do this in northern Uganda, just as they had done in Buganda during the Itongwa rebellion and in the Rwenzori Mountains during the rebellion of the Allied Democratic Forces [ADF.] Not any more, Tingasiga.The conduct of the UPDF and of the political leadership of Uganda has extinguished the trust and optimism that I had invested in them. That Lt. Gen. Museveni and the army have failed to contain and resolve the conflict is a fact that needs no elaboration.That some members of the UPDF, an army which has the constitutional obligation to protect Ugandans, have perpetrated some of the most gruesome atrocities against non-combatants is not mere speculation. That Museveni has lost the political currency and moral authority to help put brakes on the country's interminable civil wars is evidenced by the escalation of armed conflicts by a whole new set of rebels. [The claim that the current fighting in northern and north-eastern Uganda is by the remnants of Joseph Kony's LRA is a piece of fiction that the Kampala authorities have weaved to keep the country and the international community in the dark.] It should not surprise anyone then that some of us have given up hope of witnessing the total pacification of Uganda during the reign of Museveni. Certainly, it is very unlikely that the UPDF will defeat the rebels, a point that was underscored by former army commander, Maj. Gen. James Kazini, when he addressed a crowd of well wishers in Masaka a few days ago. "I cannot understand how Kony can continue killing innocent people in the north for all these years without any cause. That is really a big puzzle to me," Kazini said.Recall that the same Gen. Kazini assured Ugandans last year that he would deliver Kony's head on a platter by the end of 2002. Recall also that Gen.Kazini informed us earlier this year that Kony and the LRA had been vanquished, evidence of which was a display of the LRA leader's treasured Kaunda suit that he had had to abandon to the UPDF fighters who missed him by whisker. The Gen. Kazini in Masaka sounded like a man who was at a loss as to how to bring an end to the war, a very discomfiting state of affairs when you think about it.If one of the country's top soldiers is baffled by the war in northern Uganda, pity the rest of us who depend on filtered reports from the killing fields. Gen. Kazini should be comforted by the knowledge that at least he "has been there" and knows some of the reasons for the persistence of the war, though the need to deceive the public compels him to feign ignorance. Furthermore, Gen. Kazini's purported puzzlement may soon be resolved if we can persuade former army commander Maj. Gen. Mugisha Muntu to share his knowledge of the real reasons for the continued violence in northern Uganda. Gen. Muntu, a respected soldier and East African General Assembly legislator, told the East African Conference on Political Succession held in Kampala last month that the Uganda government had failed to defeat the rebels for "different reasons." He did not share the reasons. I believe that Gen.Muntu owes it to all Ugandans to reveal the reasons for the government's failure to resolve the war in northern Uganda. Perhaps he has already revealed what he knows in the "proper forum."However, this is not the time to play a hide-and-seek game with knowledge about a war that has had a direct impact on millions of Ugandans, and threatens to engulf half of the country in flames. This is the time for frank submissions before the people's open forum, in the hope that a knowledgeable population might find [or demand] lasting solutions. For example this is the time for Gen.Muntu to debunk the view that the war has persisted because the LRA enjoys the support of the Acholi people. This was a view that was proffered by Mr. Ssemakula Kiwanuka, minister of state for Luwero Triangle, who told the same conference that "no guerilla can succeed without the support of the local population". Which begs two questions.First, why would Kony find it necessary to torture, kill and loot the property of people who support him? Second, why would the Acholi people continue to support a rebel group that was wreaking deadly havoc among them?One awaits with great anticipation Gen. Muntu's revelation of the real reasons for the persistence of the war. It would be a major step towards finding solution to the nightmare in northern Uganda.
"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the state."
- Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels - Hitler's propaganda minister
