By Betty Nambooze Bakireke
May 3, 2004
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In Luganda we have a saying that "ak'omuntu ssi ka nte nti weyakabira jjo ne leero wenakaabir,a" meaning that "the words of a human being are not like those of a cow which maintains the same talk everyday." By this proverb the Baganda wanted to show how unprincipled human beings can be when it comes to keeping their word. In other words, one would rather trust a cow because it never changes its words year and year out. When it comes to politicians it even gets worse. President Museveni was once reportedly said that policemen would rather vote for a cow than him .Of course this is not true but this allegation had only one element of truth; that cows are far better in keeping their words than most of our leaders, therefore worthy a vote for only that reason. The cow's saying came to my mind recently after President Museveni reacted angrily at Justice George Kanyeihamba for saying that it would be both unwise and risky to subject the issue of amending the Constitution to the vote and therefore the decision of peasants. The Learned judge argued that peasants could not properly discern issues of constitutionalism. Museveni found this absurd and wondered how a person of Kanyeihamba's status could abuse his employers; the Peasants. I have no problem with the lifting of the presidential term limits. Neither am I sure if I am a peasant myself or not. But my point of concern is when exactly did President Museveni discover that peasants are very good decision makers? In his speech to RCs (now LCs) of Buganda at Mpigi on October 5, 1995 titled "What did Buganda gain from the new Constitution?" Museveni defined peasants as "these people who cannot read or write; who live on small plots of land; who do not produce fully for the economy, but mainly produce what they eat and are the majority in our country. In political science we call them peasants, although we have no appropriate direct translation in our local languages. Sometimes we call them abalimi in Luganda, meaning farmers; but that is not very accurate because Mr. Kaguta (Museveni's father) and I are both farmers, although our farming methods are very different." In another speech to Makerere University students on June 8, 1991 titled "Building Uganda for the Future", Museveni under the sub-heading "Why is there an African crisis?" expounded on the issue of peasants elaborately. He had this to say: " Alice Lakwena fled to Kenya but the poor girl was being manipulated by the UPC Obote faction. Because they found that they could not fight us on a scientific basis, which means that you aim your gun properly and kill your adversary, if you can, they resorted to intoxicating poor peasants with mysticism and incredible lies. "So we also still have a struggle for a qualitative transformation of politics of Uganda. These criminal opportunists would tell the poor Lakwena peasants that provided they protected themselves with some herbal medicines; they would not get killed even if they were shot with a Gun. These were the politicians who sought to take over power in Uganda - they knowingly sent poor peasants to sure death and would use any other such means as long a, it would help bring them to power "We must stand firm - we cannot accept bankruptcy of men who knowingly deceive ignorant people and make them rush to their death to be mown down by the army. They would tell the peasants 'when you are going into battle, do not look behind you. Those who died were killed because they were sinners who did not follow what we told them. "They looked behind them and they were killed by the Holy spirit. We also told them to make sure that they did not come in contact with their fellow fighters but they did not listen-that's why they were killed . "Those are the type of people who sought to run Uganda! The poor Lakwena girl was being manipulated by criminals who would give soldiers marijuana and get them intoxicated so that they would rush into battle against machine guns, and tell them that somehow, at the end of the day, somebody would be on the radio declaring himself President of Uganda. "In our own Movement, we had similar kinds of primitive tendencies. When we were in Luwero, the peasant would invite me to participate in their ceremonies. They would say; omukulu olutalo lunno telugenda mumaso bulungi kubanga tetunaba kukola byakinansi, meaning that the war was not going very well because we had not performed traditional ceremonies. "They would then say; nga kati bwokoze omukolo, nebwogenda ne mundu emu, owamba Kampala, meaning 'now that you have performed the ceremony, even if you go with one gun, you can capture Kampala.' "They would reason that this was now possible kubanga emisanbwa gya bajjajja ffe kati gyenyigidde mulutal, meaning that since the spirits of our ancestors had been mobilized and were now part of the war effort, we did not have to worry about the actual scientific preparations for waging a war. "Then I would say: Banange bajjajja mubagambe nti ebyolutalo ebya wano babindekere, meaning: 'Please, tell our ancestors that since I am on the spot (conducting the war) let me handle the present situation -- tell them just to bless me! " And my peasant comrades would agree to leave the conduct of the war effort to me. "In this way I would combine collaborating with them with educating them, because I could not allow the peasant ideology to gain the upper hand in the Movement that would have been very dangerous indeed if not totally disastrous. "We also had some of our peasant soldiers who believed that if they carried reeds into the battle, they would not be shot. We had to confront this and rule that any body who said anything more about carrying reeds into the battle would be shot by firing squad. We said we would give him his reed, let him perform his ceremony and we shoot him to see whether or not his reed would protect him." Those were the ideas of Museveni about peasants until recently when the issue of lifting the limit on presidential terms arose. Until then Museveni believed that leaving the peasant ideology gain the upper hand was dangerous. He knew that peasants can be manipulated by bankrupt Politicians, not only those from northern and eastern Uganda where Lakwena passed but also those of Luweero, hence all peasants in Uganda. Museveni has always held the view that one of the causes of the African crisis is having a population where the Peasants form the majority. He has consistently argued against multiparty rule until the middle class becomes the majority. Who then is right about to the peasants? The one who wants them to be denied a direct vote on a constitutional matter or the one who was ready to shoot them for carrying a read into war? Secondly, can a man or woman who doesn't know that fighting armed people with stones is dangerous have the ability to know the dangers of the unlimited terms of Presidency? In his speeches Museveni clearly showed that manipulators turn to peasants after finding out that they cannot win their war scientifically, so they resort to "intoxicating poor peasants with mysticism and incredible lies." The question today is who has lost the scientific battle on constitutionalism? But of course Museveni's ideas were of long ago, Human beings unlike cows are not static in and change by the day. Let the peasants decide on issues, which have eluded the constitutional experts like Kanyeihamba and in this spirit, I propose that Museveni appoints some peasants to the bench. |
� 2004 The Monitor Publications
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