Gen. Museveni. The champion of torture now denounces torture. Photo: Facebook.
There was once a great bond between Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and Ugandans. It was irreparably broken around 1990 or thereabouts and not attempt by the dictator or the regime to mend it will work. The Misanthropic I-don’t-care dictatorship has lasted for 35 years now.
Museveni has become like the proverbial “Bebwa”—one who suffers severe memory loss—who defecated in “Baijuka’s” garden. Baijuka is, of course on whose memory is great. Surely, Baijuka wouldn’t forget that Bebwa excreted waste in his shamba (farm). Bebwa, suffering from severe memory loss may not remember.
This could be one explanation for the recent speech by the aged despot, when he made a State of Security briefing. The dictator claimed his regime is opposed to human rights abuses and torture by security forces, when in fact, that it the only way he’s been able to remain in power since 1986.
The dictator want to sweep the Musevenocracy under the carpet. Perhaps he knows something the nation doesn’t know and he’s setting up the groundwork for a future legal defense should he ever be hauled before a competent jurisdiction to answer for the decades of crimes—summary executions, kidnappings, torture, and disappearances—going on for forty years now.
Don’t mind the forgetful Bebwa. Our memories are clear.
As long as Gen. Museveni or any of his cronies in the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) regime is at the helm of leadership in Uganda, we will forever loath the entire government. There is absolutely no amount of cosmetic speeches that will ever placate the victims.
The NRM government is a curse and we must discontinue it when Museveni is gone. Otherwise we will become like Zimbabwe where an apprentice replaced his despot mentor and the citizens initially jubilated. Now they are licking their teary misery off their cheeks.
It takes a psychopath like Gen. Museveni who flies off the handle and react violently whenever confronted with the destructive consequences of his regime, to then stand before cameras and spew off nonsense about him being against human rights abuses.
Museveni has presided over Uganda for 36 years and the hallmark of his regime is extrajudicial murder, forced disappearances, torture, and threatening critics or political opponents. So, to now come out and spew BS that his government doesn’t torture, threaten, kill and disappear Ugandans sounds schizophrenic and it’s an affront to the countless victims over the years.
I myself was a victim of brutal torture in the dungeons of the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI). So you can imagine my revulsion—and those of other Ugandan victims—as I listened to dictator Museveni spew utter lies. Can you imagine the trauma he must cause to victims and their families? Never have I, in my entire life, loathed any human being as much as I loath dictator Museveni and his cohorts.
It may sound harsh. But Ugandans who have been tortured by the regime can relate to this statement.
The torture centers are referred to cynically as “safe houses” and they are scattered in Kampala metropolitan area. When I came out of prison, even though it took me quite sometime to heal from my physical and psychological scars—and I continue healing—I couldn’t wait to buy another computer and narrate my ordeal in a new book “Banana Republic, Where Writing is Treasonous.” In that book, I detailed the inhuman torture the rascals in Uganda Peoples Defense Forces (UPDF) uniform subjected me to. I was promptly arrested again and subjected to abuse. My original arrest—the first time—was after I wrote my novel “Greedy Barbarian,” about an odious kleptocratic dictator.
The Bebwas of this country may want to sweep their atrocities under the carpet. They may be developing defenses for when they are one day prosecuted.
They are heartless to make such callous statements.
We the victims will never forget.
Here’s a fitting phrase for the dictator:
A Looter Continua
Torture survivor Kakwenza Rukirabashaija is a novelist and human rights activist. He can be reached via [email protected]
