Visionaries bring change first, then embark on revolutionary transformation. To
scuttle change from the worst, to no change at all so the status-quo continues,
is itself idiotic.
We know the condition of Uganda; and it was brought about by none other than
Mu7. To think that Mu7 is better than all these, those who fled from the system
he put in place, is even the worse crime that can be committed by any learnt
Ugandan!
First step first: Bringing change. Then next thing next: Grounding vision.
Let us stop looking at the FDC and NRA/M to see which one is better, when we
know the state of the country! If Mu7 is better, why do we pretend to critique
his system?
That is what I wonder about.
Ocii
Mitayo de Potosi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Greetings Brother Gook.
At one time I had delusions that out there, there was some critical mass of
enlightened Ugandans to be relied upon to articulate the real course for our
country's future.
I don't have such delusions any more !!
Take Munini for example.
How do you leave Kigezi for Canada, and instead of living within civilised
Toronto you choose to go and live into some jungle called New Market?
I don't think the fellow has read a single Medical Journal in twenty years !!
Then there is this Anne Mugisha who was part of the gangsters that run-down
the Uganda Commercial Bank Bank before they gave it away to British
Imperialism. (A Bank that was built with the blood and sweat of our dear ones).
In the article below, like countless other times, she writes a summary of
some superficial and meaningless text.
Have you ever seen her write some analytical piece on either our local or
international issue?
And she purportedly is one of the leaders in FDC; can you imagine? !!
And the situation is not any better in either DP or UPC !!
I am pained and embarrassed to acknowledge that on the issue of 'being smart
and enlightened', on our national scene, gangster/criminal/dictator Museveni
beats all these idiots hands down .....
For fools, slavery is our lot.
==========================================================
July 19, 2007
Rising above evil OPINION Anne Mugisha
I happened upon a profoundly humbling book by South African psychologist
Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela and promptly regretted my lapse in following
developments in the northern Uganda peace talks.
While I have continued to follow the headline stories I have not fully pursued
the behind the scenes efforts by well meaning ordinary folks in finding long
term solutions to very complex social issues. In her book 'A Human Being Died
That Night,' Ms. Gobodo-Madikizela who worked closely with the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu; transports her
reader into exploring the mind of apartheid's notorious death squad chief
Eugene de Kock.
Her candid analysis of the thinking behind evil deeds leads us to closely
re-examine traditionally held beliefs about crime and punishment and even hard
nosed cynics are forced to re-evaluate the purpose and effect of punitive
justice.
Until I read this book; and I am reading it sparingly, enjoying each paragraph
and hating to see the pages get closer and closer to its end, my understanding
of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was so narrow and amounted to a
political cliché: A mechanism that will be instituted to enable Ugandans at
some time in the future to deal with the mistrust of government institutions
caused by decades of human rights abuses by the state.
Many Ugandans are struggling to understand why the Acholi people would forgive
the evil deeds of both the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the government
after two decades of carnage.
We are so steeped in the traditional legal system where crime attracts
punitive measures equal or greater than the crime, that we cannot fathom how a
community that has been raped literally and figuratively can contemplate to let
off criminals of evil proportions at a ceremony that involves toasting to a
bitter drink. Pumla's book has made it possible for me to understand that there
is such a thing as rising above evil and achieving reconciliation through acts
of forgiveness.
The book also teaches an important lesson to those personally responsible for
crimes against political opponents and who falsely believe that the 'system'
will always defend them. When apartheid ended, de Kock and others who killed
and tortured people found themselves exposed because the ideology for which
they had been sent on evil missions had been defeated.
They were isolated and left to reckon with the reality that they were just
plain criminals who committed evil deeds against ordinary people to defend an
evil system. When they attacked communities in neighboring countries they had
the full backing of the secret police and believed they were defending their
country against 'communists' and 'terrorists.' Today they sit in jails
abandoned by those who sent them on killer missions and without an ideology to
justify their murders.
I thought of those who torture and kill innocent people in safe houses in
Uganda believing that they are fighting terrorism and realized that they are
not dissimilar to foot soldiers of apartheid in South Africa, or those of the
LRA who tortured and maimed innocent civilians in northern Uganda. The foot
soldier always believes that they are committing atrocities for a greater good.
If only they could foresee the isolation that awaits them when they finally
face the consequences of their evil deeds.
Here is an excerpt from Pumla's book:
'
apartheid turned religion on its head and through various church-based
structures
provided a theological vocabulary to disguise the naked evil of what
was being done
Yet when de Kock appeared at his 1995 trial, arrested by a post-apartheid
government but in essence tried by the apparatus of the former apartheid
state
the state attorney set the scene for de Kock's trial by isolating him
from the system that he had served
Those who gave de Kock orders, who once worked hard to protect him from being
found out, were no longer available or willing to go out on a limb for him
this despite the fact that de Kock had received many medals for his killing
raids, including the highest national award for bravery, the Silver Star
'
'Asked by the TRC whether they had authorized the crimes that were committed by
apartheid's foot soldiers, the master architects of apartheid responded time
and again that there was no official policy that sponsored illegal acts of
violence.
Yet when those who spoke out against apartheid were assassinated, died in
police custody, or simply disappeared, when families in neighboring states who
were thought to be harboring ANC members in exile were killed, when cars and
buildings associated with the liberation movement exploded or burned down, no
politician called for the investigation into these mysterious occurrences.'
Each night I pray that I will be around to witness events at Uganda's future
Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
The author is a Special Envoy, Office of the President, FDC.
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