By Moses Odokonyero
Nov 26, 2004
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A couple of months ago, security men in Gulu shot dead a mad man, claiming he was �a rebel.� The soldiers claim the man raised eyebrows because he was putting on several trousers and shirts. He was shot from the second floor of a security building in Gulu from where he found himself passing through the window and crashing to the ground. The army�s Northern Region Spokesperson Lt Paddy Ankunda later issued a press statement saying they had shot dead a rebel spy at �a key security installation,� that he was �a suicide bomber who wanted to disarm a soldier.� Evidence later emerged that the dead man was not a rebel after all, but a common lunatic around town. More recently a woman was tortured by UPDF soldiers at Koch Ongako camp. All her back and buttocks had big cuts. Unhappy with the torture, a security man tipped off journalists in town and soon we were on a rough bumpy ride on a motor cycle with a photo journalist. I later called a very senior army officer and asked him what the army does to indisciplined soldiers who torture civilians? � That story is not meant for publication. How many children have we rescued from Sudan? You are very stupid. Write that story and you are out of Gulu,� the bully unsophiscated UPDF big wig yelled before switching off his mobile. After that I sat down and thought of how I had been called stupid and wished I had told him that I had stepped in a University lecture room unlike him, but being a keen follower of African history and politics I also knew that in Africa the man with a gun is supreme and dangerous especially if unschooled. Three or so hours later the story, complete with the nasty picture, was in Kampala, both dailies had it, one ran the story vaguely without the pictures, while another found both the picture and story �irrelevant� There are definitely many soldiers without political training in the north. What they are trained in best appears to be just the mechanical pulling of a trigger. While touring Anaka about 58kms South West of Gulu, residents of the area complained of torture by UPDF soldiers. Present on that day was the LCV Gulu Lt Col Walter Ochora, Gulu Local Government Speaker Rev Willy Olango, the District CAO and Operation Iron Fist boss Col Charles Otema Awany. As usual, though the event was covered by the press, it never got its way into the pages. Travellers in Kitgum, Gulu and Pader are often forced by the army to disembark from their vehicles to slash bushes along the roads and fell trees. � Forced labour is very rampant in the Acholi Sub region �. In the districts of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader where the practice has become a rule, travellers are forced to fell trees and slash high ways which is under the Ministry of Works and Communication� the statement partly read. It mentioned no names of the culprits but every body knows it�s the army. That is why when I received the news that MPs from the north had been whipped by soldiers, I smiled with glee, not that I am a sadist. It is absolutely wrong from one angle for a honourable to be flogged, but vastly right in the context of what is happening in the north. I just hope that sensible Ugandans will ask questions such as � If MP�s are handled that way, then what about the wretched unknown little mortals cramped in the stuffy so called protected camps who the editors think are unworthy of space in their papers?� In the north, local radios reported that it was Pader RDC Sylvester Opira who ordered the whipping of the honourables. From the look of things though, it was bigger than an RDC�s order. A day after the MPs received their fair share of what awaits some of them come 2006, I caught up with RDC Sylvester Opira himself in Riviera bar; he was in a great mood sipping a cold beer and puffing a Rex. He cut the figure of a man who had just accomplished a big feat. � I advised those MP�s to suspend their consultations on Sunday. Before I came to Gulu I told them that we are in a delicate period. But most importantly those MPs were doing FDC work and not consultations on the White Paper ,� said the RDC. He then went on to say that � We pay those MP�s well, a small scuffle couldn�t have injured them.�The timing of the consultations of the MPs could have been wrong, granted, but did it warrant such undignified humiliation of the people who should be partners in the search for peace with government? Or most importantly what will the fox say when it sees the dog being flogged at home? The world over governments come, governments go, the country and the people remain. When Museveni finally retires or otherwise as Uganda�s supreme leader we the nosy Ugandans with a nose for being political watchers will ask �Did he deserve a wreath?� [EMAIL PROTECTED] |
� 2004 The Monitor Publications
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