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TUESDAY REFLECTIONS With Kintu Nyago Column |
Shall we learn from our history, please?
June 1, 2004
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I am currently in Yumbe, and it is here that last week�s signing of the Sudanese peace deal found me. The atmosphere here is bustling and this region and Uganda, stands to benefit tremendously from the Sudanese peace dividend. However my main concern is with the current phase of our political transition. And it is important that we draw correct lessons from our past. We need to avoid being like the Bourbons of Europe, best famed for living through life but learning nothing from their long history.
On learning our lessons right, there is a lot we can draw from the month of May exactly 38 years ago, during that fateful year of 1966. Here I am prompted to borrow from Shakespeare, whose works I incidentally taught extensively in the Eastern Cape, years back, and pronounce that �Beware the Ides of May!� A quote, albeit from a different context, out of Julius Caesar, in reference to the warning Emperor Julius Caesar received from an ordinary street side soothsayer, about an impending catastrophe he faced that March. But alas! The mighty and vain Caesar, just recently famed for going, seeing and conquering barbaric Gaul (read France), before turning his victorious Legions on Rome and being pronounced Emperor, was in no frame of mind to take simple advice. Only if he had he listened�! Returning to May 1966, varying interpretations are usually offered around this time in relation to events that led to �the Battle of Mengo�. I will add, dispassionately, to this debate. Events that led to Mengo, that year, were primarily triggered from the failure of the then ruling party, the Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC), to effectively mediate and democratically handle its internal conflicts. In turn these spilled over and resulted in a national crisis that we are still recovering from. Earlier, after being humiliated by the loss of that referendum on the �Lost Counties�, President Frederick Muteesa, and his inner circle, had opted to disband the Kabaka Yeeka, and instead instruct its membership to join the UPC. This bolstered the political strength of his close ally, UPC Secretary General Grace Ibingira. A move intended to edge Prime Minister, Dr Milton Obote out of party leadership, through legitimate means, and in effect out of state power. Hence the Muteesa-Ibingira faction�s trouncing Obote�s group in crucial regional party elections in Buganda, Ankole, Bunyoro, Busoga and Bukedi. Indeed, the �writing was on the wall� for the Prime Minster! But �the last straw intended to break Obote�s back� emerged through the famous Daudi Ochieng motion, that same year. A motion the Prime Minister dismally lost, in a UPC dominated Parliament! It is only the luckless John Kakonge, whom Dr Obote had earlier humiliated, at the infamous 1965 Gulu Conference, who opposed it. In all certainty this was an embarrassing �vote of no confidence� in Dr Obote�s government. The legitimate and proper way forward was for the Prime Minister to either call an emergency UPC Delegates Conference to discuss this crisis, resign from his leadership positionor call for a snap election to renew his mandate with the people (read our famed peasants) or indeed part or a combination of all mentioned. However, in his wisdom, Dr Obote responded to his legitimate political challengers through coercion. Hence his ordering for the arrest of leading UPC ministers, including Secretary General Ibingira, who were opposed to his rule, in a Cabinet meeting, of all places! This clear violation of constitutional rule is what prompted Mengo Lukiiko, then the last check to an illegitimate government, to issue the motion, ordering the central government out of Buganda. In response and in typical fashion, Dr Obote dispatched his prot�g�, then, Col. Idi Amin to storm the Lubiri and apprehend Muteesa, dead or alive. Fortunately the Kabaka fought off and eventually eluded them. But the events that followed, sunk this country into its �Dark Ages�. The main moral here is that as we contemplate the re-entry into full blown multi-partiyism, there is need to ensure that we have parties that are both transparent and accountable to their membership and Uganda, and that truly abide by the spirit and letter of our Constitution. Otherwise, we are bound to re-live the nightmarish experiences of our past. [EMAIL PROTECTED] |
� 2004 The Monitor Publications
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