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Ear to The Ground
By Charles Onyango-Obbo |
Ruzindana didn't touch M7's mouth, he poked his eyes
Dec 17, 2003
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President Yoweri Museveni's latest missive, in which he belittled Ruhama County MP Augustine Ruzindana's contribution to the liberation struggle in Uganda, did not have the kind of rage and red pepper that he unleashed against retired army colonel, Dr Kizza Besigye in October 2000 when the latter announced that he was going to challenge the big man in elections.
His Excellency the President said Ruzindana had exaggerated his role in the struggle for freedom in Uganda, in the 1970s while a member in exile of the Museveni-led Front for National Salvation (Fronasa); and that he did not play any part during the Luwero war. Interestingly, Ruzindana had not made a specific claim about being in the bush. He only said the machinations to amend the constitution and have a president-for-life went against what Museveni; he and others had fought for 30 years. Sometimes, in a situation where people are supporting a corrupt and repressive government, someone who wishes the regime bad luck is right to claim that he contributed something. Those, though, are small matters. The most dramatic statement by Museveni, on which I am happy to agree with him completely, is when he said Ruzindana did not have to invoke the struggle to give credibility to his political position: "I need to point out that it is not necessary for somebody to have fought in, or, actively supported the resistance, to participate in the political process in any legal way." The significance of this is that when Museveni criticised Besigye for saying he was running as a "Movement candidate" in the last presidential election, he said it was because he, Museveni, had a greater historical claim than Besigye. When he campaigned in 1996; he asked the country to elect him because the likes of DP's Paul Ssemogerere were dining with the "killers" while Museveni & Co. were fighting them. When he asked the country to forgive his younger brother Lt. Gen. Salim Saleh's "indiscipline"; he said it was because the good general had fought in the bush. So is Museveni finally abandoning the struggle as the founding basis of his political legitimacy? No. Rather the President has demonstrated that the root of the present attempts to lift the term limits, or at a minimum extend the rule of Movement-Museveni, is more complex. What being President has allowed Museveni to be is custodian of the official account of the struggle against Obote I, against Idi Amin, against Obote II, against the 1985 Military Council, and against all the "dark forces" that have threatened the lives of Ugandans since 1986. This official story is supported by the government propaganda machine, and goes mostly unchallenged. The defining aspect of it is that it puts Museveni at the centre of Uganda's fight for freedom - he says since he was a little boy in secondary school. People are given a prominent role by the President if they are in his favour. And they are stripped of glory if they question his democratic credentials like Ruzindana or Besigye has done. Shortly after the (National Resistance) Movement captured power, the seemingly embattled Maj. Kakooza Mutale pushed a booklet of what happened in the Luwero war. It was a breath-taking story. Mutale scrounged to print it, and did not get the support other versions that seem to be close to Museveni's own "Mustard Seed" have received. In the Mutale story, the usual "heroes" we know of today in the official one do not appear there. They have been written out of the Movement's literature. The battles that were lost have disappeared from the record, and have been replaced by a colourful brush-up that selectively promotes a few. The story of the struggle that Museveni says he witnessed, and therefore knows best about, is only one face of what happened. You talk to tough men and women who were in Luwero, and they have interesting accounts of how long Museveni actually spent there. The day Museveni's position as custodian of the "secrets of the liberation" ends, the "Mustard Seed" could turn into a laughing stock. New storylines will emerge. New heroes will be celebrated. It will be a confusing period for the country, for we shall wonder afresh whether an accurate account of the Luwero war will ever be told. Then there will be the northern war. Again the heroes and villains will change. And facts that have been suppressed might come to light and shock us. A year ago, I came to the conclusion that the schemes to remain in control by the President were not motivated primarily by "hunger for power", or wealth as his more acidic critics like Obote claim. Rather by a need to control something that is more precious - the true story of the struggle for freedom in Uganda since 1966. For that is the emotional and psychological fabric which has most shaped what most Ugandans today are. In this war, the targets are not the armed opponents. They will be activist intellectuals like Ruzindana - the people who might have kept a diary, who have the ability to write a new account of the Movement's times and seasons when Museveni's influence has waned, or to author a different history all together. So my friends, as the saying goes, gird your loins. Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] |
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