Dr. "Kapa",
Your futile attempt to stuff words in my mouth is duly noted, and treated with the contempt it deserves.
Ssemakula
ps: let's keep our comments in public as I have no desire to communicate privately with you on matters arising in pulic fora.
----Original Message Follows----
From : <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To : <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
CC : <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject : Re: [FedsNet] Re: ugnet_: Obote's Greed for Power Killed Uganda's Future
Date : Thu, 10 Jul 2003 14:58:56 -0400 (EDT)
"that it was none other than your hero, Obote, who knowing and
intentionally precipitated chaos in Uganda, and that he did so for purely
selfish reasons, namely: greed for power at any cost.
James"
Oh yeah,
James
"...that it was none other than your hero, Museveni, who knowing and
intentionally precipitated chaos in Uganda, and that he did so for purely
selfish reasons, namely: greed for power at any cost.....and .......what
about Luwero, invassion of Rwanda, invassion of the Democratic Republic of
the Congo, genocide in the Congo, Mayhem in Ituri, ethnic clensing and
genocide in Northern Uganda.....these and many others are in James'
esteemed opinion, not purely selfish greed-for-power driven
adventures......but peaceful spreading the word of the gospel according to
ST. James and the word of the Lord M7.
Kapa
>
> Mr. Opoka-Okumu:
> I'll address your tangential point with regards to Kiganda etiquette at
another occassion. What I'd like from you is a response to the more
substantive urgument advanced by Ibingira -- a former
> Secretary-General of the UPC and Cabinet Minister -- that it was
none other than your hero, Obote, who knowing and intentionally
> precipitated chaos in Uganda, and that he did so for purely selfish
reasons, namely: greed for power at any cost. James
> ----Original Message Follows----
> From: "Chris Opoka-Okumu"
> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> To: ,
> CC: ,,
> Subject: [FedsNet] Re: ugnet_: Obote's Greed for Power Killed Uganda's
Future Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2003 21:38:12 -0400
>
> Mr. Semakula,
>
> When you dispute a posting offer a better account rather than than
otesting too much and thus displaying baseless arrogance. You can
educate yourself by reading part of Ian Hancock's article entitled
Buganda Crisis 1964 which appears in the Journal of African Affairs
Volume 69, Issue 275, April 1970 pages 109 to 123. The page below
appears on page 117. As you can see from the last sentence of the second
paragraph which begins with " The real objection to
> Semakula.......".that the esteemed Katiikiro indeed prosrtated himself
before an empty throne to prove his loyalty to the Kabaka as a result of
a motion introduced by a Semakula.
>
> I wonder who the Semakula who sowed so much seed of discord in Ganda
politics that brought much chaos and broughgt down a Buganda government
down in 1964 is. Are you by chance related?
>
> Chris Opoka-Okumu
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: J Ssemakula
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2003 4:12 PM
> Subject: ugnet_: Obote's Greed for Power Killed Uganda's Future
>
>
> Folks,
> In the past few weeks we have witnessed an exchange, on Fedsnet between
Obote's supporters as they have attempts to foist upon us their
> revisionist history and others who would have nothing to do with this
nonsense. One of the ignorami had the temerity to pontificate about
things he clearly has no idea about, e.g. "No amount of laying prostrate
before the empty Nnamulongo could save Kintu." Kintu, you will recall,
was Buganda's Katikkiro during the period of the Referendum on the
so-called 'Lost Counties'. As Buganda's Kamalabyonna and therefore
"Kabaka Ow'ebweru", he was one of handaful of Baganda who did may not
prostrate, much less, kneel before the Kabaka - no matter what his
transgression (if any), according to Kiganda etiquette, custom and
tradition.
>
> Rather than boring you with my opinions, I thought it might be
> enlightening to see what had been written about the events by more
informed and authoritative sources. I turned to a book:
>
> Grace Stuart Ibingira (GSI) 1980 African Upheavals Since Independence.
Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado.
>
> GSI, a trained lawyer, was an insider who witnessed some of the events
he writes about first hand -- having been MP, the UPC's Secretary
General, cabinet Minister (Justice, State) before being detained and
imprisoned, along with other UPC Ministers, for about 5 years by Obote.
He later served in the Amin government as Ambassador to UN (resigning in
Jan. 1974). His better-known book "The Forging of An African Nation" was
written before his detention. These two books should be read by anyone
who wants to understand the workings of the UPC, what happened, when
& why it happened, and just how ruthless & power-drunk Obote is.
>
>
> In many ways this fairly well referenced book, uncannily, applies to the
present regime; at time so much so that one would only have to replace
"Obote' with 'Museveni' and 'UPC' with 'Movement' to describe the
current situation. Yet, it was written and published before the Movement
had become a reality (I hear Museveni, Kategaya et al started plotting
its existence much earlier, possibly in their pre-Tanzania days, but
that is another story).
>
> The book has 3 parts:
>
> Part 1: Nature of the Colonial Legacy (ch. 1-4)
>
> Part 2: The Politics and Practices of Winner-Take-All and Their
> Consequences (ch. 5-10)
>
> Part 3: The Future: Some Lessons and Some Basic Principles (ch. 11-13).
>
> Chapters that are especially important for Uganda are (sections are not
numbered in the book, and sub-sections are not given here for brevity):
-
>
> Ch. 2 Uganda
>
> a. Colonization and Consolidation
>
> b. The Approach of Independence and Its Problems
>
> c. The Independence Settlement
>
> Ch. 6 Uganda: Fundamental Causes of the 1966 Revolution
>
> a. The UPC's Resolute Determination to Obtain and Exercise Absolute
Power
>
> b. Efforts to Impose a One-Party System
>
> c. Parliamentary Battles for Reform of Electoral Law
>
> d. Monopoly and Misuse of the Security Forces
>
> e. Efforts to Monopolize Government Power
>
> f. The revival of Primordial Fears
>
> Ch. 7 Uganda: The Immediate Causes of the Revolution
>
> a. The Exposure of Clandestine Involvement in a Foreign Conflict
>
> b. Accusations of Profiteering from the Conflict
>
> c. The Likely removal of Idi Amin and Its Consequences
>
> d. The UPC Stand on Ochieng's Motion
>
> e. The Constitution and Its Restraints
>
> f. The Seizure of Absolute Power
>
> g. The Unrestrained Executive and Its Effect on National Unity
>
> h. The 1971 Coup D'etat
>
> Chapter 2, perhaps because it deals with pre-independence events, is
rather brief. Nevertheless, it attempts to lay the foundation of the
post-independence conflicts, if only in passing - esp. in 2 (c).
>
> Ch. 6 begins thus (my emphasis is italicized, original emphasis will be
underlined, as in the original text.):
>
> "Apolo Milton Obote, as leader of UPC, inherited the independence
government on 9 October 1962. On February 22 1966, he abrogated the
constitution and concentrated power in his own hands. His declared
reasons for this seizure of power are considered in detail later.
However, they were allegedly to forestall Kabaka Muteesa's attempt to
employ foreign troops to overthrow the government and to prevent a
number of his leading colleagues, whom he arrested, from promoting
instability in the party and country. Nothing could be further from the
truth. It is wisely said in jurisprudence that a case should never be
decided without hearing both parties (audi alteram partem). The case for
Obote's seizure of power, which unleashed Uganda's instability, has been
exhaustively stated by him and his supporters since 1966 in the press,
in the Parliament, in court cases, and in varied literature1. But there
has been to date no coherent explanation or alternative interpretation
of what truly happened."
>
> "In 1967 while in exile, Fredrick Muteesa II, the former Kabaka of
Buganda and president of Uganda, wrote a book giving a sketchy
> explanation of what had happened, largely omitting the real story except
for his battle with the Uganda Army2. I can only think of one likely
reason for such an omission and that was fear for his relatives and
friends still living in Uganda, some of them in prison at the time.
Obote had demonstrated his ruthlessness by unleashing his army on
largely defenseless civilians. Accurate disclosures that credibly
contradicted his reasons for his seizure of power might well have
triggered retribution against any of Muteesa's relatives, friends, and
allies within his reach. But why did Obote abrogate the Ugandan
> Constitution and seize dictatorial power? It is my considered opinion
that even without the Ochieng motion (considered later) - which censured
him in Parliament on 4 February 1966 and sparked off the revolution a
few weeks later - there would still have been some revolutionary
upheaval in the country in the subsequent months because of his
> relentless and increasingly ruthless efforts on al fronts to monopolize
power and eliminate all opposition, inside and outside the UPC.
>
> "At the heart of the Ugandan revolutions of 1966 and 1971 was the
insatiable desire for monopoly of power by the UPC leadership. The
independence settlement had left a separation of powers between the
executive, legislative, and the judiciary branches of government that
assured the ordinary citizens against arbitrary misuse of power, in
addition to giving some limited autonomy to the ethnic groups without
weakening the central government. Soon after independence, the prime
minister set out to concentrate power in his own hands through methods
that involved abuse of authority and resulted in instability. It is
appropriate to examine this process of unsurpation (sic) and abuse
through four basic areas of government: (1) the ruling party and its
philosophy, (2) control of central and local governments, (3) the forces
of law and order and their functions in the new state, and (4) the
primacy of the executive branch and the emasculation of the legislative
branch after 1967.
>
> "The UPC's Resolute Determination to Obtain and Exercise Absolute Power
>
> Some of the most effective pressure exerted through the Legislative
Council in the African colonies' demands for self-government and
independence was to use the very standards of democracy as practiced in
Britain, such as universal adult franchise and representative and
responsible government. Obote was one of the most articulate advocates
of a democratic system in Uganda and his public pronouncements up to
independence (and indeed up to the 1966 revolution) bear this out. But
in fact while he was outwardly espousing this, he was privately
> preparing to use brutal illegal force, not against the colonialists, who
had already agreed to leave anyway, but against any Ugandan political
party other than UPC that inherited power. A few months before
> independence, as minister of justice responsible for constitutional
affairs, I accompanied him to London to press the British government to
advance Kenya's independence date. In our free time, Obote introduced me
first to the secretary of a certain European embassy in London with whom
he had had a long-established contact. When we later returned to our
hotel, my astonishment was immense as he categorically told me ha had
made preparations to overthrow the DP government by force if the UPC
lost the preindependence (sic) elections in April 1962. The diplomat's
country, according to him, had already agreed to provide the necessary
training and materials, such as arms. As a founding member of the UPC
party who had sat in on all its meetings and as its legal adviser who,
with the late John Kakonge, had largely drafted the party constitution
and manifesto, I knew it was never the UPC party policy, in private or
public, to seek unlawful seizure of power from the government, although
we would do everything permitted by law to win elections. This
> assertion, the first to put m on the alert, was followed by many mor e
serious statements and actions. After becoming prime minister, Obote
would often confide in some of his close colleagues (like B.K. Kirya and
myself) that he w ould never under any circumstances relinquish power
voluntarily. He would quote from John Milton's Paradise Lost, relating
how Lucifer, having been deposed from heaven, told other fallen angels,
"to rule is worth ambition though in hell. It is better to rule in hell
than serve in heaven." The implication was unmistakably emphasized that
it was preferable to turn Uganda into chaos in order to stay on top than
to lose to another party in a peaceful election.
>
> "Of course, all (or most) political leaders want to attain, hold, or
exercise power. But what happens when the objective is to attain and
hold power at all costs and for all the time, as was Obote's real
ambition? Conflict and violence sooner or later become inevitable,
especially when there is a powerful opposition as there was in Uganda.
Most of Obote's close colleagues in the party and government looked at
him initially as an honorable man, especially as his statements seldom
betrayed his real intentions. Similarly, Parliament and the country at
large were prepared to give support to his administration. He had a
chance to become a great Ugandan leader; although not charismatic, he
was intelligent, articulate, and a nationalist."
>
> More to come later, as time allows, and/or need arises.
>
> {Aside #1: do you folks know that the man Museveni killed some years
back was not Obote's father? Obote's biological father died in the 1920s
of leprosy and he was adopted by the man Kaguta had slaughtered. Obote's
early education - and that of some of his colleagues - was due to a
Muganda man called Nalwerimidde who had earlier gone to Lango. But this,
too, is another story.
>
> Aside #2: Notice the similarity of language and attitude toward peaceful
transfer of power between Obote (with regardi to handing over to DP in
case of lawful electoral defeat) and Museveni (with regard to handing
over "his army" during the last election). Dictators are cut from the
same cloth.
>
> Aside #3: I hear Ssekabaka Muteesa II wrote 'the real story' and left it
somewhere for publication some 50 years or so after his death. I suppose
that, too, is another story.
>
> Aside #4: My guess of identity of the European country that was read to
assist Obote in overthrowing the government of Uganda is the former USSR
or one of its satellites.}
>
