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Letter to A Kampala Friend:
By Muniini K. Mulera In Toronto |
National shame in the killing fields of north
March 1, 2004
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Dear Tingasiga, Fifty Ugandans murdered at Abia in Lango on February 5. While some call the killings a massacre, President Yoweri T. K. Museveni calls them a hiccup. Memories of another debate ten years ago come flooding back. In 1994, US President Bill Clinton and his officials argued that the mass murder of 500,000 people in Rwanda was not a genocide. Does it really matter how many have fallen in the latest carnage in the killing fields of Uganda? What if "only" a dozen have been murdered? What if the number is closer to 1,000? One recalls that the deaths of about 50 to 80 students at Kasese's Kichwamba Technical College in June 1998 were universally referred to as a massacre. The people of Lango react to the latest carnage the only way they can. They march into Lira, to weep together, to demand justice and to demand protection. Elsewhere in the country, life goes on. No doubt the people in Acholi know exactly what their brethren in Lango are going through. Oh yes, the news from Lango is sickening, even frightening for fellow citizens in the peaceful southern half of the country. People talk about it, write about it, preach about and pray for divine intervention in "the north." But that is as far as it goes. No supportive marches in other cities. No collective demonstration of solidarity with fellow Ugandans who stare death in the face everyday. Is this a reflection of our inherited prejudice towards Ugandans from the northern region? You see, on the day of the massacres, a friend called to share the news. "Those people are finishing each other," my friend announced. No my friend, I tell him. It is not those people. It is our people. We are killing each other. It is not a war in the north. It is a war in our country. We are in this together. His silence suggests he is hearing this thought for the first time. We have lessons to learn from North America, where massacres of another sort have occurred in recent years. On December 6, 1989, a woman-hater called Marc Lepine killed fourteen female students at Ecole Polytechnique, an engineering school in Montreal, where he is a student. He then turns the gun on himself. Fourteen women murdered because they are women. The horrible event is instantly called The Montreal Massacre. No debate about the semantics. Canada bows its head in collective shame. This country that is permanently narcotized by its peace and prosperity is awakened to the reality of misogyny, male violence and sexism that lurks in its midst. The lives of those 14 women are so important that the government of Canada declares December 6 the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. Fourteen years later, the Montreal Massacre haunts this nation, and informs its efforts to prevent similar tragedies. On April 20, 1999, a couple of Columbine High School students in Littleton, Colorado, propelled by mind-altering drugs, killed 12 of their schoolmates and one teacher, wounding 23 others before turning their guns on themselves. America is shocked. The Columbine massacre becomes a major milestone in the disintegration of the American soul. To one and all, the carnage at Columbine is a massacre. Not a hiccup. All Americans, brown and pink, ebony and orange, Christian and Jew, rich and poor, Republican and Democrat, join together in a collective process of mourning. The rest of the world, including Africa, joins them. Even as the tears roll down their cheeks, what occupies Americans, and their cousins north of the border, is the search for answers and for strategies to prevent another Columbine. Five years later, the soul searching continues. Columbine is America's collective shame. Uganda has had many Columbines, and then some. From Nakulabye in 1964, through Mbarara [Simba Barracks] in 1971, to Luwero in the 1980s, Ugandan blood has flowed in great torrents. Recently, we have added to the catalogue - Mukura, Katakwi in Teso; Corner Kilak, Bur Coro, Atiak, Acol Pii, Pader in Acholi; Kichwamba in Kasese; Kanungu in Kigezi; Karamoja; Abia and Barlonyo in Lango. These are a few that have made the headlines. Hundreds of thousands have died in "less newsworthy" encounters with armed fellow citizens. Yet after each event has been reported, and exploited by those who seek political capital out of the bloodshed, life goes on as if nothing has happened. What lessons have we learned from our forty-year experience with self-destructive violence? On March 17, 2000, over 500 people perished at Kanungu in what was reportedly a ultic murder-suicide. Or was it? Four years after Kanungu, Uganda has moved on with its business. What happened at Kanungu, who died, who killed them, where the surviving criminals are and other vital questions seem to have vanished from the national agenda. Those interested can read about it in the report of The Uganda Human Rights Commission. But do not bother the state. There are more important matters to deal with. Like Kanungu, and all the other killing fields, Abia and Barlonyo will soon be forgotten. Many in the southern districts will continue to declare Uganda a peaceful country. It is only those people in the north who are finishing each other. Indeed we already have signs of this denial of reality. Did government ministers not try to scuttle a motion by Mwenge South MP Dora Byamukama urging government to declare the war-ravaged areas as human disaster areas? If the killing fields of Acholi, Lango and Katakwi are not a disaster area, then what is? Of course one understands why the government is not eager to declare the disaster area a disaster area. Egos, of which some of Uganda's rulers have in large measure. Fear of loss of sovereignty. That sort of thing. Declaring the war zone a disaster area might invite demands for mobilising the international community to come to Uganda's assistance, including possible military intervention. So the Kampala rulers issue declarations of their abhorrence of donors interfering in the internal affairs of the country. Yet this is an anti-donor, anti-foreign sentiment of mere convenience. The same Ugandan rulers gladly accept donor money, and even complain that the donors have not let them spend more of the borrowed money on the army. I guarantee you, Tingasiga, that if the survival of the Kampala regime is ever threatened they will not hesitate to invite foreign military intervention to save them. One hopes they - and all of us - attach the same currency to the lives of the children, women and men of Lango, Teso and Acholi. The disaster in northern Uganda is our collective shame. |
� 2004 The Monitor Publications
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