MILITARISM
As we enter the year of electioneering, members of the high command of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces have launched their threats to the population with talks of potential insecurity. UPDF must strive to be professional despite the force’s history which adheres them to their founder and the incumbent, who is also a likely candidate in the same elections of 2021.
State Minister for security, Gen Elly Tumwine, Commander of Land Forces, Brig. Peter Elwelu and recently a Capt. Sula Serunjogi has vowed that Presidential hopeful, Hon. Robert S. Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine will never be the commander-in-chief of the UPDF (meaning President of Uganda).
Elsewhere, active army commanders skirt the country to campaign for the incumbent, Mr. Museveni using military facilitation and security apparatuses to intimidate, illegally detain and threaten voters.
On the village paths, the regime pours its military adorned in full war gears and armed to the teeth to scare the population from voting for any other candidates than Mr. Museveni.
This militarization of every aspect of the state and state functions is the distinguishing feature of this military dictatorship. While it is hard to pinpoint any one specific activity of the UPDF which is professional, the population understands clearly that the UPDF is a personal outfit for protecting Mr. Museveni’s power.
Ironically, the NRM should have been very proud of Ugandans coming out in large numbers to participate and vote in elections peacefully. They have always pointed at the 1980 elections as one that deprived people of their true voices in a messy election. Instead, the UPDF makes voting and elections very traumatic by creating violence. It is mainly during elections (and riots) when the army comes out in full war mode to intimidate, shoot, kill, abduct, torture, mime or abuse civilians. Sometimes we come to think that the UPDF is a redundant army of sorts.
Professionalism is a key aspect of every profession which permits safeguards in its functions and a minimum expectation upon which its public image is branded. In the case of the UPDF, like their sister cadre institutions, the Police and Judiciary, they appear blunt when dealing with other threats such as floods, landslides, terrorism, but sharp and firm when dealing with any political circumstances that threaten the status quo.
With 2021 general elections coming up, many military officers will continue to remind us that only Museveni will remain commander-in-chief of the UPDF. This revelation is important to us given the history of the force and the rank files of its key officers. Like the armies before it, the UPDF has demonstrated a great propensity for ethnocentrism, something they will quickly deny and accuse whoever points it out as practicing sectarianism.
Ugandans should worry because by the UPDF ring-fencing the Presidency for Mr. Museveni after 34 years, our democracy becomes stale – meaningless. Such statements also undermine any pretense that Uganda is a democracy and that Mr. Museveni is elected regularly to retain his seat.
The chaotic nature of the elections in which the militarized police conjure up with paramilitary and security operatives to coerce the population already brings little hope for democracy. The unfortunate implication is that UPDF is constantly reminding Ugandans that the only way to access power is by launching a war. Clever enough, they have cut down the bushes, appropriated or sold the land into sugar cane and tea estates making it difficult to find a bush.
Given the level of peace that the UPDF claims to have established in Uganda, a professional force should remain nonpartisan and keep out of civil affairs. The force should withdraw its members from Parliament, embark on professionalizing and nationalizing its force ranks, and where possible, focus its attention on protecting the integrity of the state and territory from people who are deformed by power.
End.
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