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Demonizing the victims: the Acholi and the Jewish
Experience
There are similarities between the two leaders in
favouring and promoting hatred that would lead to the crimes of genocide.
Killings that lead to the crimes of genocide are
usually preceded by psychological preparations. Museveni effected it through a vilification of the Acholi, as a group, by presenting them as responsible for the atrocities in Luwero. This provided justifications for "revenge" killings of the Acholi by the predominantly southern NRM/A soldiers. To continue stoking the flame of hatred and xenophobia against the Acholi, as a group, Museveni skillfully resorted to the indignity of displaying, for partisan reasons, human remains and rattling human skeletons as a political campaign ploy. The various derogatory remarks about the Acholi people made by Museveni and his associates were interspersed with dehumanizing references of the Acholi people as inferior, primitive, backward and savage. In 1986, the NRM/A political commissar, Commander Karusoke Kajabago, referred to the Acholi people as biological substances, implying that they were deserving of extermination. The domestic internalization of the demonic ideology consigned the Acholi people to enemy status, within their own country, upon which acts of debasement and genocide are acceptable. Thus, what is aroused in the population is not so much hatred, although hatred is part of it, but indifference. The Strategy of Genocide: Implementation and
Ruses
[a]. Concentration Camps: If we examine the phenomenon of concentration camps, we find that it is characteristic of most genocide. First, the concentration camps were created through a great deal of ruses and deception through out Germany and Uganda. The infamous concentration camps in Treblinka and Auschwitz were presented by the Nazis as industrial centers rather than what they really were. To effect the deception, the gate of Auschwitz still bears the infamous inscription, "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Brings Freedom). Although some Jewish victims might have thought that the violence was part of Hitler's repressive measures, they had no idea what Treblinka and Auschwitz, among others, signified for them. The extreme success of German propaganda was evident from the German murderers themselves who witnessed that, "down to their final moment before liquidation, they (Jews) believed they were going to be transported to some other place." Museveni's ruse in moving the Acholi population
into concentration is similar to the Nazis. Initially, the unarmed civilian
populations were encouraged to run for sanctuary to UPDF detaches, to churches
and to police stations during UPDF and LRA firefights, but they would return to
their homes after the hostilities. But soon, the UPDF innovators and architect
of the final solution saw this as a strategic blessing. The Acholi were to move
into the concentration camps for protection from combat hostilities. When the
Acholi realized that those camps were death camps, they resisted and stayed in
their homes. A victim cried, "we were told that these camps were for our
protection, but we are brought here to be killed." The UPDF made mandatory that
the unarmed civilian population must relocate permanently to designated
concentration camps and those refusing would be deemed LRA sympathizers. Within
48 hours, the UPDF air force strafed those unarmed civilians who were reluctant
to move, militia groups killed whoever remained to collect food and property,
villages were burnt and artillery units fired live shells indiscriminately into
unarmed civilian communities.
[b]. Some Deceptive Linguistics of Genocide: "Work"
and "Protection"
The language used by the Nazis and the UPDF are comparable and similar. The Nazi concentration camps were mostly referred to as "work camps" and never as death camps, which was what the camps were in practice. The UPDF spoke of the concentration camps as "protection villages" and never as death camps, even when the reports of the Government of Uganda such as Suffering in Silence (January 2005); Health and Mortality Survey Among Displaced Persons in Gulu, Kitgum and Pader Districts, Northern Uganda (July 2005), and Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reports describe conditions, which evidently meet the threshold of genocide. Part three Continues
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