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Why do citizens simply look on?
When I recently posted an announcement on an Internet forum calling Ugandans to join the demonstration against NRM-Zero in Boston, I got a disturbing but revealing response from a Washington-based Ugandan diplomat. He posted three Latin words on the message board: ODERINT DUM METUANT. This means, �Let them hate so long as they fear us.�
The adage is attributed to Lucius Accius, a Roman poet who lived in 170 BC. This seems the new NRM strategy for staying in power.
The Movement government cannot stand the growing opposition to Kisanja (move to amend constitution to remove presidential term limits). It has thus decided to literally whip the opposition into silence.
The outrage of caning northern Uganda MPs, who were legitimately consulting their constituents, has been mentally processed by cynical Ugandans and tucked away into that part of their memory where they file incidents of state repression. We have become so adept at operating like zombies whenever the state abuses the rights of opposition politicians and activists that even the flogging of our honourable MPs does not seem to stir up any anger beyond those directly affected.
Joseph Musasizi a.k.a. Saasi (Besigye�s brother who was arrested last week) has become just another statistic: Another member of that prominent opposition (Kizza Besigye) family that has been sent to the cooler as a rebel suspect. That too is something we can simply file away in our very tolerant conscience and go about making our usual deals.
Years ago, I had a difficult time convincing my cousin to believe in the adage that people get the leaders they deserve because he argued vigorously that we did not deserve Idi Amin.
Today, I realise that we were both probably right but we disagreed because we were reflecting on the same idea from different perspectives. He believed that Uganda was a God-loving nation with mostly good and honest people who should never have had to suffer the rule of a dictator.
I, on the other hand, believed that Edmund Burke (1729 � 1797) was right when he said: �The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing�.
Two decades after we had that argument, my cousin and I are both lawyers and while he works with the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) to ensure that people like Saasi end up in prison, I am in exile working with those Ugandans who refuse to sit around doing nothing as evil triumphs.
The Movement government has carried out a targeted campaign of terror and repression for a very long time now and I only became fully conscious of it in 2000 when I became politically active.
Criminalising the opposition is a well targeted and executed policy by the military intelligence which will continue to work until Ugandans collectively say: �NO� to this outrage.
Immediately after the 2001 elections, I was among a crowd of people that escorted Kizza Besigye to the CID offices for the first of several appearances to answer fabricated treason charges. Kasese town was partially burnt by alleged rebels and a mysterious letter appeared out of the blue from alleged rebel elements �thanking� Besigye for delivering to them a consignment of arms.
The whole plot seemed so ludicrous that I thought anyone could see through the simple-minded scheme. How wrong I was then and how little things have changed!
Since then, Winnie Byanyima (Besigye�s wife) has been put behind bars, little Anselm (their son) has been arrested at a border post, and many other uncelebrated Ugandans are in prison over unsubstantiated allegations of treason.
And so Saasi becomes the latest member of the forgotten PRA suspects. Twenty-two of them were paraded in Arua some time ago just like the ones that were paraded in Koboko last week. The fate of the first 22 is unknown even after they complied with the requirements of the amnesty law and publicly denounced rebellion.
The one that got away, Dr. W. Okungu, is in Sweden waiting for his umpteenth operation to try and correct the disfigurement that he got while passing through Uganda�s torture chambers. How is it possible that God-fearing Ugandans and the international community can stand by and look on with ambivalence?
One final quote that I recently picked says: �How fortunate for leaders that men do not think�. That one is attributed to Adolf Hitler, 1889-1945.
The author is a member of the opposition FDC and lives in the U.S.A. | 
