Uganda: Notes On Concealment Of Genocide In Uganda-By Apollo Milton Obote. Part 1

Dictator Museveni

 

Museveni loves and spends money on praise singers like this man; but not those who criticize him.  

 

 

(Below are excerpts from the late Ugandan president Milton Obote’s seminal document–Notes On The Concealment of Genocide in Uganda).

“I am acutely aware of the venomous attacks, which befalls anyone who dares to point out and provide evidence that under Museveni, Uganda is a Police State. In 1987, for instance, I wrote a Paper entitled “Massacres and the reign of Terror in Uganda”. I pointed out that Museveni and his army were engaged in “orgies of carnage and destruction which traverse the whole country, from East to West and from North to South”. The evidence I presented was not even given a cursory examination by those who speak loudest about human rights. Instead it was twisted and turned around to heap attacks on me. The wars in the North and East were totally disregarded and I was called to account for the Luwero war as if the past and not the present must always be the issue. In other words, the present day massacres must not be exposed or discussed at all”. 

 

Lusaka, Zambia- April 1990:  In 1971, there was a military coup in Uganda. The International Media called Idi Amin the leader of the coup, “a gentle and harmless giant” for about two years, when, in fact, Amin’s reign of murder and terror began on the first day of the coup. The international community and the Human Rights Organizations took the cue from the media and, with the exception of Tanzania and Zambia, also saw nothing wrong with Amin’s murder and terror. Amin’s crimes were therefore effectively concealed for two years.

Today, Uganda, under Museveni’s militarist regime, has had a state of genocide since 1986. However, Africa and the rest of the world speak a language which Ugandans, who have been and are in the throes of massacres, find it difficult to accept as human language; the language which cleanses Museveni and his militarist regime. The objectives of these Notes are to place on record the evidence of the genocide by the international community, media and Human Rights Organizations.

On February 28, 1990, an academic from Oxford University and I exchanged views on some agonizing and distressing events which have been and are still the lot of Ugandans as well as on the attitude of the international community, media and Human Rights Organizations. During our conversation, I learned of the International Symposium on Uganda due in Ontario, Canada, and that the sponsors were World University Services of Canada – Queens Local Committee. Ten days later, a Ugandan living in Zambia brought me the Prospectus of the Symposium.

It is to be hoped that the organizers of the Symposium will succeed in their aim: ‘The Search for Peace in Uganda” and that they would be able to confirm or reject, to quote the Prospectus, “the myth that with the departure of Idi Amin and Milton Obote everything in Uganda is now fine”. The organizers have an uphill task.

Africa and the entire International Community, since January 1986, have been saturated with propaganda, biased reportage and downright disregard of the facts of the situations in Museveni’s militarist Uganda. The international media and human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Minority Rights Group and International Alert have painted Museveni and his regime in glowing colors that to them there is no myth. According to them, Uganda, under Museveni, is rapidly recovering from the agonies of the past and there is much improvement.

These Notes presents the opposite view that Uganda, under Museveni’s regime, is a Police State where genocide has been and still reigns even as I write;

         Entire villages have been and continue to be destroyed by soldiers of the regime as legitimate and proper action against “rebels”;

         Foodstuffs in the fields and in granaries in the so called “war zones” have been and continue to be uprooted, burnt or destroyed allegedly to deny succor to “rebels”;

         Water wells and boreholes in the “war zones” have been either poisoned or dismantled;

         Entire livestock in several Districts have been looted by the National Resistance Army (NRA), the soldiery of the Museveni regime;

         In the Districts of Gulu, Kitgum, Lira, Soroti, Kumi, a large part of Tororo and now Kasese- (population 2.8 million 1979 census)- where the NRA soldiers have wrought their greatest havoc, those not massacred, arrested or detained are forced by the soldiers to go to Concentration Camps where many die on various accounts of torture, and from lack of food, water, medication and protection against inclement weather;

         Women in Concentration Camps and in the “war zones” are at the mercy of the NRA soldierly to abuse as they fancy;

         Soldiers known to be infected with contagious diseases including the deadly HIV are posted to these Concentration Camps where they are free to mix and abuse the female inmates. The Concentration Camps are in fact cauldrons of genocide where the vulnerable groups (the children, pregnant women and elderly) are taken to die. The list is not exhaustive;

 

I am acutely aware of the venomous attacks, which befalls anyone who dares to point out and provide evidence that under Museveni, Uganda is a Police State. In 1987, for instance, I wrote a Paper entitled “Massacres and the reign of Terror in Uganda”. I pointed out that Museveni and his army were engaged in “orgies of carnage and destruction which traverse the whole country, from East to West and from North to South”. The evidence I presented was not even given a cursory examination by those who speak loudest about human rights. Instead it was twisted and turned around to heap attacks on me. The wars in the North and East were totally disregarded and I was called to account for the Luwero war as if the past and not the present must always be the issue. In other words, the present day massacres must not be exposed or discussed at all. 

My 1987 Paper is now a “prohibited document” in Uganda and Ksagenda Atwoki, the Administrative Secretary of the Uganda Peoples’ Congress (UPC) is now on trial because of being in possession of it. Atwoki has been reported by the BBC as having said that Museveni’s well known wars were wars by the regime against the people. He was arrested and detained but was later charged with “being in possession of a prohibited document” despite the fact that the Paper had never, to date, been gazetted as “prohibited” in accordance with the Uganda law of sedition. Atwoki remains charged illegally but the real reason for his suffering is because he dared to expose Museveni’s massacres.

The detention of Serra Muwanga, an erstwhile friend of Museveni’s and Chairman of the Uganda Human Rights Activist, is another case in point. Muwanga had given an interview to African Concord which the Magazine published. Museveni was bitterly irritated that Muwanga had expressed concern on gross violations of human rights by the National Resistance Army (NRA) – Museveni’s personal army which now rules the country. Muwanga was detained and placed under hardship regimen. On release, and in poor health, Muwanga was warned by a senior officer of the NRA that the NRA does not arrest a person twice; meaning of the warning was that the sentence for a second arrest is death. He took the advice and left the country. Meseveni has justified Serra Muwanga’s arrest, detention and flight by saying that Muwanga had “criticized the army”- his number one instrument and rule of genocide……..To continue next week.   

 

 

 

 

 

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