Next? Gen. Museveni killing is his MO…
The idea to restore pre-independence Tutsi and Tutsi/Hima (hereafter Tutsi as a generic word) domination in Rwanda and Ankole district of Uganda was conceived by Gen. Yoweri Museveni and Rwandan refugees in Uganda while students at Ntare School in the early 1960s.
On the basis of one-person one-vote rule, the majority Hutu in Rwanda and Bairu in Ankole won the elections and captured political power at independence in 1962 in Rwanda and Uganda, respectively.
Realizing that the Tutsi did not have the numbers to win free and fair elections in Rwanda and Uganda, Yower Museveni and colleagues decided at an early date to use force, hence they all decided to secure military training. Museveni studied at Dar es Salaam University in Tanzania to have easy access to the Organization of African Unity (OAU) Liberation Committee and liberation movements like FRELIMO based there.
Museveni has throughout his career promoted ethnic bigotry to fulfill his agenda rather than harmony.
When Museveni returned to Uganda, he was posted in President Obote’s office as an assistant on refugees and migrant workers in Uganda thereby identifying and locating where Tutsi lived and worked. This facility enabled him to recruit Tutsi for Front For National Salvation (FRONASA) his initial militia and later the National Resistance Army and Movement (NRA/M).
His movements were “national” in name only. He thrived on promoting dominance by his own ethnic kinsmen when Uganda –and Africa– needs the opposite approach.
In the recruitment process, Museveni picked mostly Tutsi for military training and non-Tutsi for administration, resource mobilization, advocacy and diplomatic networking. Non-Tutsi guerrillas that were recruited in the military were in the rank and file category. The few that made progress beyond were largely subsequently eliminated in one form or another.
During the guerrilla war and after the National Resistance Movement (NRM) captured power in 1986, Museveni and senior officials preached the metamorphosis of Uganda. To many Ugandans, the concept was misinterpreted as transforming Uganda into an industrial state. This meant Uganda would process its raw materials into manufactured products for domestic consumption and export to neighboring countries and beyond to earn the badly needed foreign currency with which to import technology for the transformation and diversification of Uganda’s economy and society.
Metamorphosis would also: end poverty and all forms of suffering in Uganda; restore democracy, free and fair elections, and rule of law; restore respect for inalienable human rights and freedoms, good governance including ending all forms of corruption and sectarianism; restore good neighborly relations, regional cooperation to expand opportunities for free trade and investment, free movement of persons, livestock, capital, goods and services; and, restore sovereignty of the people served by their elected government.
This was welcome news to Ugandans that had greatly suffered since 1971 and for the country’s development partners. However, under all this sweet talk, Museveni had a hidden agenda of turning Uganda into a colony occupied and governed by Tutsi and used as a base for the establishment of a Tutsi empire in the Great Lakes Region during the first phase.
Very early in his administration, Museveni declared that his Tutsi people who had lost their land during the colonial days and since independence in 1962 would have it restored to them. To accommodate Tutsi in Uganda from densely populated Burundi, Eastern DRC and Rwanda, his NRM government consistently argued at home and abroad that Uganda had plenty of unutilized arable land and water resources.
To develop to full capacity, Uganda needed to quickly reach an optimal level of population size, he claimed. To do this, NRM government adopted a liberal policy on Tutsi migration including refugees into Uganda where they are easily accommodated, educated and promoted in all sectors of human endeavor.
The 1995 constitution that was drafted on Museveni’s close watch made sure the Tutsi or Banyarwanda were recognized and given freedom to settle anywhere in Uganda, speak their language and enjoy their culture.
Land reform and the encouragement of rapid urbanization supposedly to speed up Uganda’s development together with willing seller and willing buyer of land resulted in rich Tutsi and their foreign collaborators grabbing land from economically and politically powerless and voiceless Uganda peasants especially in strategic areas where they are producing agricultural produce including foodstuffs like oranges and mangoes for export at the expense of foodstuffs for domestic consumption contributing to periodic famines.
The rapid creation of districts and expansion of urban boundaries especially in Kampala are part of land grabbing and settling Tutsi under Museveni’s policy of ethno-bigotry.
The Tutsi have received massive training at home and abroad while all others are ignored hence producing tensions throughout the country — particularly in the military, police and intelligence fields which they now dominate.
Tutsi have also increasingly occupied senior positions particularly in finance, banking, energy, telecommunication, transport and foreign services. At the political level care has been taken by NRM to ensure that they are strategically scattered throughout Uganda are groomed to contest elections in the NRM and possibly in opposition parties at all levels from parish ward to parliament and presidency.
This is the true metamorphosis Museveni hid from Ugandans who welcomed and supported him during the guerrilla war and since then.
Demographically other Ugandans have been rapidly herded into sprawling urban slums where they have no decent future. They are being compelled to undertake birth control to reduce their numbers so they don’t present a threat.
Economically, large-scale farmers are replacing smallholder farmers and scattered homesteads. Linguistically, Uganda may be reduced to speaking two languages only – English and Swahili.
The good news is that Ugandans are increasingly coming to grips with the causes of their suffering and deprivation and are mounting peaceful defiance to arrest and reverse the destructive metamorphosis under Gen. Museveni’s administration.
Eric Kashambuzi is
Secretary General, UDU and Human Rights activist
