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The Monitor (Kampala)EDITORIAL
February 28, 2004
Posted to the web February 27, 2004
Kampala
The Cambridge International Dictionary of English defines a disaster as "an event which results in great harm, damage or death or serious difficulty."For all intents and purposes the word 'disaster' can be used to describe the situation in northern Uganda. Parliament was right to declare the north a disaster area.
An entire population has been displaced, the society has been fractured, thousands of lives have been lost, socio-economic activity has ground to a halt in places, disease and hunger mounts.
How about the rape and defilement of the womenfolk by men suspected to be infected with HIV/Aids? What about the daily abductions? What about the children who have never known the meaning of peace? There are many questions.But our government has the audacity to argue the technicality that only the President has constitutional powers to declare a part of the country a disaster zone. This is a cynical and shameless resort to politicking.The state's response to the House declaration brings into question its sincerity on this conflict.
>From the daily down-playing of numbers of people killed by the Lord's Resistance Army rebels, propaganda pronouncements on rebel strength to blatant lies about the situation on the ground, it has become clear that the government has chosen rationalisation as the standard procedure.You now have a contemptible preference to bury heads in the sand instead of facing up to the painful truth.As the government rationalises, innocent Ugandans continue to die with insufficient attention being paid to their plight.
Our rulers say declaring the north a disaster zone will not help or change anything.We disagree. A declaration will focus the international community in a more specific fashion towards this tragedy.Today, the calamity of the north is not receiving as much attention as it should. In fact, before the massacre of more than 200 people at Barlonyo camp in Lira District last Saturday, it was largely regarded as a low-intensity conflict.
Many people have forgotten that for nearly two decades death and deprivation has been the lot the northern peoples have experienced in abundancy.Government must face up to the reality of things and start treating this conflict as a major disaster event.
"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
