Gen. Lokech in Somalia. Columnist says despite his reported heroism outside the country Ugandans must not overlook his role in crimes against Ugandan civilians. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
In Uganda there is an on-going national mourning over the recent death of Gen. Paul Lokech. He reportedly was exemplary in his performance as commander of Uganda’s intervention force in Somalia fighting against al-Shabab militants to keep in power a weak central government.
Don’t count me in as one of the mourners. I refuse. The culture of pretending to mourn oppressors when they die must end.
You and I have observed that every time a person in the echelon of the Musevenocracy paddles far beyond, the regime spittle-lickers want to mourn them as men of great service to the country—Uganda. We should be guided.
Eulogizing despotic apologists is not our business as victims because the culture of pretense is long gone and repugnant to this contemporary world we live in. It was only in the past where a dead criminal’s record of criminality would be sugarcoated and we are past that era!
A loss to the dictatorship is not a Ugandan or national loss but family’s and the cartel of fellow oppressors’ so it is misleading to panegyrize these fallen chamcha’s as national heroes when they should be eulogized in accordance with their deeds of lackeying which are obviously anti Uganda but only pro Musevenocracy.
Heaping all the encomiums onto the fallen apologists of the oppressor as national heroes or service men of the country is mockery to the victims of the brutality as these men are the ones who orchestrate this brutality on behalf, and or on orders of despot Yoweri Museveni.
I am not saying that I wish them death but why would my tormentor or an accomplice of my tormentor, one who glorifies violence; one who beats the drums of dictatorship; one who fuels the dictatorship—fall and I pretend to sweep their impunity under the carpet? Let those who benefit from their impunity, those who benefit from the buttered bread of their actions shower them with encomiastic eulogy on behalf of their cartel but not on behalf of the whole Uganda as a nation.
One cannot fail to respect my feelings as a human being and then you expect me to feel for them when they are called by the creator. We forget that we are just visitors in this world but decide to behave like beasts in total disregard of the fact that we are perishable beings.
National Resistance Movement (NRM) and their deity Gen. Yoweri Museveni are not Uganda nor do they speak on behalf of the oppressed Ugandans. If the despot is holding the country hostage, it doesn’t mean that their archaic inhuman acts should be glorified in the name of Uganda when they die.
The republic of Uganda belongs to all of us Ugandans but if a section of power and resource hungry hyenas took charge with their greed and exaggerated importance, us who have been disagreeing with their warped methods of maladministration, the brutality, pogrom, extra judicial murders and among others—have been treated as pariahs in our own nation.
I would never pretend to panegyrize my tormentors just because they are dead and must be respected. If you are unlucky and you die before me, I will hold my head high and thank God for punishing you for tormenting me.
Maybe the reason why these people oil the dictatorship is that they expect to be mourned as national heroes when they die. We must always celebrate their death as their victims and maybe others will learn not to trade their conscience for spittle-licking the despotic regime.
Gen. Museveni will always use these egoistic generals in the army and police—as apologists and bum-lickers since they always compete for his attention while they subject Ugandans to torture, pogrom, forced disappearance and all the brutal oppression—but in the end, he will always summarize their lives by either targeted assassination or poisoning.
Any sane army or police officer would avoid being used by the dictator to command terror against innocent Ugandans.
These officers who accept to be used in such capricious dealings of the dictator, when they fall, we must celebrate. We must not take part in the vigil mourning their passing but thank God that one of our tormentors’ time to torment has expired.
Columnist Kakwenza is a novelist and survivor of torture under the Museveni regime. He can be reached at [email protected]
