Fr Rodriguez no rebel ally
Maj. Shaban Bantariza's statement that security officials in northern Uganda have recommended the deportation of Fr Carlos Rodriguez for "spreading false information prejudicial to national security" is all too familiar.
Fr Rodriguez is no LRA sympathiser. He is only highlighting the plight of hundreds of thousands of innocent people caught in the unending war between [Joseph] Kony's LRA and the UPDF.
Those who have been on the receiving end of the violence of the insurgents and that of government forces know the ambivalence of such situations.
The LRA is a nasty piece of work, but it is also true that many in the group are children forced to fight against their will. Furthermore, many victims of this war do not believe that the UPDF has always been there to protect them.
Among accusations raised against it are atrocities against innocent civilians and failure to protect the population. You do not need to be a military genius to conclude that the spectre of the 'ghost soldiers' and the corruption of senior army officers undermined the discipline, fighting ability and morale of the army.
UPDF officers cannot expect Rodriguez to repeat after them that Kony has been defeated; that the war is finished and that the army is just mopping up. He has heard all this before. The UPDF is suffering from a credibility deficit. The test is this: whom do the people believe; the UPDF or Fr Rodriguez?
Rev. Amos Kasibante,
University of Leicester - UK.
"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
