By Zacharia Kanyonyozi
Photos: Wikimedia Commons\YouTube Screenshots
The Museveni Junta came to power through violence and it maintains itself through violence. So much so that Dictator Museveni has described himself as an expert of violence.
The Junta’s violence is perpetrated in three ways: the structural, the psychic and the physical.
Physical violence is Dictator Museveni’s favorite instrument of power and control.
It is what got him into power and it involves inflicting bodily harm on opponents, real or imagined, of the Museveni Junta.
In March 2022, Human Rights Watch published a report which set forth, in gory detail, years of enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests, detention, and torture by Dictator Museveni’s Internal Security Organization (ISO) operatives.
The report revealed that ISO had tortured and abused detainees in illegal detention centers. However, this was a tip of the iceberg as Deputy Dictator Muhoozi Kainerugaba personally supervises torture on a gargantuan scale.
Black Star News writer, author three times over and winner of the English PEN 2021 Pinter International Writer of Courage Award, Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, said of Baby Doc Muhoozi in 2022: “…he tortured and threatened me himself.”
Adding, “Chris Damulira, the director of crime Intelligence and his office is in Naguru easily accessed via that Road opposite Kabira Country club in Bukoto. Him, Maj. Denis Kakande (Muhoozi’s aide) and Dick Ndyamuhaki (CID of Cyber Crime, Kibuli) are the ones kidnapping and delivering Ugandans to the torture chambers (CMI and SFC), on behalf of piglet Muhoozi.”
The second type of violence they use is psychic violence. This is inflicted upon Ugandan’s psychic identity and involves the subjugation of indigenous peoples and their values through the demonstration of might to keep them cowering.
This has been done in the North and East of Uganda as Charles Rwomushana, a Junta critic, said in 2018:
“Museveni’s legitimacy and justification in Central Uganda and Western Uganda was peace and security which precisely meant killing the Acholi, Langis and the Iteso. ..
These formed the bull work of the Obote Uganda National Liberation Army. ..
The Acholi and Itesots had to rot in concetration camps for the Baganda to kwebaka Tulo. ..sound sleep. ..
Museveni refused to declare a State of Emergency for Northern and Eastern Uganda when they got ravaged by drought and famine but was swift in doing so for the Ankole when cows got flu and cough.”
Then there’s structural violence derived from the social structure itself with one region or category of people echeloned at the top and others echeloned at the bottom of the food chain, as it were.
In this vein, those from Dictator Museveni’s stronghold, the west, are given preferential treatment over peoples from other regions.
To do this and get away with, Dictator Museveni muzzled all dissent.
On August 10, 2005, Kololo Airstrip, at the Funeral service of Ugandans that, a few days earlier, had died with then Sudanese Vice President, John Garang in a helicopter crash, Dictator Museveni outlined his plan to muzzle dissent and free thought:
“These newspapers, I am the elected leader of Uganda. I therefore have the ultimate mandate to run their affairs. I will no longer tolerate a newspaper which is like a vulture… I will simply close it. Finish. End. Gasiya tu…”
Despite the newspapers being gagged, The Daily Monitor released the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) detailing this structural violence.
This report came out on November 8, 2023 and it stated, in part, that “Ugandans hailing from western Uganda control a huge slice of top jobs in government agencies.
According to the report, people from Western Uganda hold 4489 or about 36% of the 12520 public service jobs in the country.
Buganda region follows in this category at 24% followed by the northern region at 20% while eastern Uganda trails at 19%. The report further stated that up to 47% of all CEOs of government agencies are people from the West. The northern region holds 20%, followed by the central region at 18% while the eastern region has 15%.”
With all this violence, Dictator Museveni must be aware that vengeance is simmering amongst Ugandans. To avoid the fateful eruption of Revanchism (the politics of revenge), he must leave now.
