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New Vision (Kampala)March 11, 2004
Posted to the web March 11, 2004 Geresom Musamali
Kampala
Rwanyarare tells President Museveni to read Prof. Samwiri Karugire's masterpiece
THE Uganda People's Congress (UPC) presidential policy commission (PPC) chairperson, Dr. James Rwanyarare, has advised President Yoweri Museveni to learn from history.
"What amazes me is that people read history only to pass examinations rather than to understand and learn lessons from it," he said during yesterday's weekly press briefing.Quoting from the late Prof. Samwiri Karugire's book, The Roots of Instability in Uganda, Rwanyarare said Museveni learnt history to pass examinations but was not applying the lessons to get Uganda out of its political problems.
Rwanyarare recommended Museveni to read a book by army general and intellectual Santsui, whose theme is never to deny your enemy the weapons with which to fight you, but at all times deny them the reason to fight.
He said the rate of political oppression indicated the opposition would soon have few alternatives for fighting back. Rwanyarare said history showed that Ugandans had the potential of liberating themselves from oppression."I do not think that if this violence drives the people to react with violence they can be blamed," he said.
Karugire was Museveni's confidante and senior presidential adviser.He was also Customs and Excise Department chief and father to Museveni's lawyer son-in-law Edwin Karugire.
"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
