By Zacharia Kanyonyozi
Photos: YouTube Screenshots\Wikimedia Commons
Uganda Dictator Yoweri Museveni last weekend asked for forgiveness from God and from the people of Acoli for the death and devastation that the Acoli have suffered under the jackboot of his militaristic misrule.
At a prayer function organized by his daughter Pastor Patience Rwabwogo in Gulu city, Dictator Museveni owned up to the “mistakes” of his dastardly Junta and prayed for forgiveness and reconciliation.
“We are here to acknowledge those mistakes as our own,” said Museveni in a prayer that he read out to the residents.
First, it is impossible to read what you just read with a straight face. It is so laughable!
Two, we know and are learning more that the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) was a welcome distraction to the Museveni Junta used to pile on the atrocities against innocents in Northern Uganda.
Ethnic cynicism and war profiteering on the part of the Museveni Junta ensured the LRA war, which began in 1987 but dates back to 1986, severely devastated the Acoli sub-region leaving over 1.7 million people displaced, an estimated 100,000 dead, and 75,000 others abducted by LRA rebels.
A 2007 report by the UN cited an “overwhelming number” of respondents blaming both LRA commander Joseph Kony and Gen. Museveni for the conflict.
Many of them said they believed that government troops as well as rebel guerrillas were responsible for atrocities committed against the local population.
In a predicable twist and totally contrary to his apology, Gen. Museveni added in his prayer on Saturday, that also the “stubbornness of the people themselves who either deliberately or unknowingly failed or to embrace government programs.”
What government programs? I believe he meant to say government pogroms!
For, as Milton Obote once warned, Gen. Museveni is a consummate liar.
Here are some of Gen. Museveni’s true views about what happened in Northern Uganda:
- Moreover, Dictator Museveni is the very same person who said: “The rebels attacked us (NRA soldiers) at a place called Corner Kilak 20 miles South of Kitgum (Town). They came in while singing and shouting; our people (NRA) massacred those chaps. They approached our troops frontally. This gave us a very good chance because they exposed themselves; so on Sunday (January 24, 1987) we surrounded them and massacred them. We massacred them very badly. (Standard – Nairobi – January 21, 1987)
- “Our role is to wipe out insecurity … if we have to eliminate those chaps by force, we will do it”. (Daily Nation – Nairobi – January 26, 1987)
- “I don’t know about torture. I have educated myself on many things but on torture I have not known the boundary between what is torture and what isn’t torture. I know the NRA tie these people (rebels, etc.) when they catch them. They tie their hands backwards. I am now being told that is torture. It is the traditional method. (Daily Nation – Nairobi – January 26, 1987)
- “I don’t think we are destroying people’s crops. We are destroying rebel crops and stores.” (Daily Nation – Nairobi – January 26, 1987)
But let us stop there, dear brethren, or the ironic smile that you had on your face at the start of this article might be moistened by the bitterest of tears.
We do not want that.
However, we do want to say that the Acoli were dehumanized by the Museveni Junta in the much the same way Apartheid dehumanized black people in South Africa.
The result of this dehumanization is a proud people have been cowed by violence and the threat of violence by the Museveni Junta.
This is why several Acoli leaders and their followers are joining the ruling party, the National Resistance Movement (NRM).
The have been given a Godfather deal: You either join the NRM or you will be exterminated.
The good thing is that we keep score and so does God.
So Dictator Museveni will one day pay for his crimes against humanity.
