By Zacharia Kanyonyozi
Photos: YouTube Screenshots
Distinguished elders from Acholi sub-region, led by Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo, said recently that they want to meet Dictator Yoweri Museveni in relation to the “mistakes” he said were committed by his Junta, namely the National Resistance Movement (NRM/A), against the Acholi people.
“Recently you were in Gulu, there was a crusade organized by one of our pastors in this country. You came out clear, there was no mistake, it was unmistakable, you came out and said, you apologized to the Acholi people for the mistakes that were done during your tenure in office. You have done many things, but one of the many things that I have given high moral ground is that statement coming out. You don’t have to be culpable, you don’t have to have done something yourself but if you’re head of family it is in sync with our tradition and the Acholi justice system that the head of the family takes responsibility. Even when you have not sent your children to do the wrong, you take responsibility,” Owiny-Dollo said.
While nobody can fault Owiny-Dollo’s words or his intentions, one must ask: Is it of any use for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion?
Dictator Museveni is not truly apologetic to the Acholi people.
His previous plan to depeople the Acholi sub-region is well known and so his apology is a mere fig-leaf to cover up his naked aggression towards the people in the sub-region in the past.
Also, we must know that his volte-face is part of a ruse to use the Acholi, along with several other tribes, to cynically encircle Buganda because the latter rejected him outrightly.
This is the nature of his politricks.
Besides, Uganda is now effectively a security state. To be sure, a security state is a police state, but a lot more subtle.
It doesn’t put dissidents in prison, but it makes sure they can’t find work. It doesn’t “round up” opponents to execute them, it just “disappears” them.
This blueprint is part of a wider conspiracy by the Museveni Junta’s Securocrats, the military or police officers who advocate state capture by the military and police officers in government.
This conspiracy is aimed at subjugating Ugandans of every tribe or persuasion to ensure they genuflect to the divinity of evil that is Museveni’s Junta.
Owiny-Dollo and others should know that a security state is inherently a state in perpetual fear.
This fear is born of historical animosities, such as that between the Acholi and the NRM/A based on the latter’s genocidal killings of the former.
These animosities were ossified over a period of time through Dictator Museveni’s lust for power and its byproduct of ethnic chauvinism.
This is why Owiny-Dollo and others should be wary of dictator Museveni and give him no further chances towards the securitisation of state by taking him at his word.
We must all appreciate that the Museveni Junta tries to maintain a pro-public stance to hoodwink us all, especially the Acholi, into believing that his regime is not as barbaric as it truly is.
Dictator Museveni should not be given any quarter to fool us by inviting us to a roundtable discussion with him.
Instead, we must mobilize against his Junta which is nothing but a prolonged coup that has subverted the will of the people and the rule of law.
We must stand up against this coup, also known as state capture, by the Museveni Junta.
This standing up could be in the manner that, in Turkey, the people took to streets on 15 July 2016, when a faction within the Turkish Armed Forces, organized as the Peace at Home Council, attempted a coup d’état against state institutions, including the government and president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The Turks organized localised resistance channels to mitigate the possibility of a forced takeover when the people stood in front of military vehicles.
This happened in the context of a political dispensation where the military rules.
In Uganda, it is the same.
Dictator Museveni will always deploy the army when he feels threatened, which is all the time and that is why Kampala is like an armed camp.
So any talks with Dictator Museveni must always bear in mind that Dictator Museveni is a stone cold killer who can only be shaken by agitation instead of conversation.
