Letters
Jan 17, 2004
Iâve lost hope in Movement
The time for stocktaking for Uganda as a country and individuals who have been at the helm is now.When the Movement came to power 17 years ago, it found a messy economy and rampant abuse of human rights.
The Movement promised a fundamental change. We fell for it. Even the skeptics gave the NRM a chance. We wanted to be proud to be called Ugandans again wherever we lived. We wanted stability, not a situation where we changed governments like the inner wear. We wanted to be able to buy salt and sugar in our shops.
So, 17 years on, where are we? What indices can we use for stocktaking? There has been a lot of positive ground covered, as the economists will refer us to the data. But for the majority of Ugandans, it is, sadly, dashed hopes.We continue to wallow in conflict.
The past regimes in Uganda, whatever their record, might even stand up tall and say, yes there was death at our time but never was there social destabilisation to the scale and duration we have experienced. Patriotic Ugandans will agree that the suffering of the people in the North and North East has ramifications on Uganda as a nation.
The economy could not be better with millions living in camps.I was an ardent Movement supporter as long as they gave me hope for a real change for the whole country.
I am now wondering if the Movement is really the messiah we hoped for after all. Not with the amount of corruption we see, not with the self-seeking among the leadership who seem to care for their well-being and narrow interests rather than for Ugandaâs future.
Rev. Richard Pius Okiria,
Yale University, USA.
"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
