RONALD SSEBLIME: Where is the security for persons and property?

STATE VIOLENCE

In the 1990s, a then beaming Museveni would appear on TV promising security for persons and their properties. In fact, this promise featured prominently on their Leninist ten-point program.

While parts of Uganda enjoyed tranquil, this assurance was merely an assurance against a possibility of a past regime resurrecting. The main narratives were that insecurity in Uganda was caused by “murderous” and “chauvinist” northerners who were bitter for having ceded their colonial-era privileges of dominating the army.

Since 1986, a different group has dominated the army at every rank level with northerners and others marginalized to the periphery or even to corporate security. Unfortunately, Uganda still experiences violence, insecurity and torture that are occasioned and complicated by greater uncertainties over safety of persons and their properties.

The legacy of war in Northern Uganda remains a major scar in the conscience of this nation for complicity, of its victims for being inarticulately ephemeral, and its perpetrators – for genocidal intents. The same narratives that sustained these senseless wars have continued to divide this nation that has now come to a full circle for another liberation.

Importantly, the post-war era has also transformed how Ugandans view guns and those who own or use it, as ordinary brutes irrespective of whichever region they hail from.

One could ascertain that it was easier for Museveni to deceive Ugandans during times of war with a false promise of security to gain support he needed to legitimize his rule.

The narratives of violence in Uganda, however, begins and for now, ends with Mr. Museveni. Museveni has been the active ingredient of violent insurgency for most of Uganda’s history of violence from the 1970s. This is not a secret or desecration of the man. Read his biography where he boasts that Amin ruled over him for only a few days, and narratives of electing violence to dismantle the Obote establishment.

Mr. Museveni has dominated the framing of both narratives of violence and that of peace in this wretched country to suit is agenda.

When Sgt David Ssali shot and killed Mr. Ronald Ssebulime at Nagojje in Kayunga District, a person already hand-cuffed in police custody, it woke up people to ponder whether this affirms Mr. Museveni's promise for security of person and property, or rule of law.

Extra-judicial killings have instilled in Ugandans of all files and ranks, a pervassive sense of disillusionment in an unprecedented manner.  The violence we experience now is sectarian, which signifies a shift away from its traditional frontiers of the bushes into state organized urban and rural crimes.

The cold-blooded murder of a suspect in police custody, however, reveals a deeper concern over the contempt security operatives have over the sanctity of life of civilians and even of their own.

Assassination of Former ASP Kirumira, Andrew Felix Kaweesi, Joan Kagezi, Suzan Magara, Abiriga and several Muslim clerics were all works of professionals which suggests a linkage with state operatives.

These violent episodes were not random, rather systematic with unique manifestations. In Northern Uganda violence now manifests in land grab, forceful eviction of civilians, in Buganda, assassinations, Lusanja-type evictions and opposition tear-gassing.

Everywhere in Uganda, violence manifests in different forms such as corruption, dereliction of duty, extra-judicial murders, delayed salary areas, kidnaps for ransom and others. The impunity that accompanies these acts of violence is what amplifies its effect. Impunity suggests that the violence is insurmountable and subordinates both law enforcement (Police) and judiciary (Courts) which have lost their legitimacy as mediator of conflicts in society.

The question we have asked without an answer is whether the promise of security for person and their property has translated into the safety for Mr. Museveni, his lieutenants, family and regime.

End.