Kayihura's Police was a captive force

CROOKED POLICE

Now that tables are turning on Gen Kale Kayihura, I  see social media posts praising the notorious Kayihura's Police as professional. Such considerations are for the deluded, and perhaps those strange to professionalism, them being crooks or duplicitous. 

The circumstances under which Gen. Kale Kayihura operates are understandably crafty and murky – a crooked political and legal environment. The laws of a country are the laws enacted by the ruling class, to secure their social, economic and political interests; and to maintain status quo - dominance.

The Police's performance under such a regime is defined by the nature of the political actors in power, and their inherent interests. When the regime is crooked and repressive, the Police will also enforce their crooked and repressive laws.

The Police is an instrument of power.

To evaluate the performance of the Kayihura's Police as professional or unprofessional, one needs to analyse the crookedness of political actors in power. In these lights, the Police has been quite predictable, and a reflection of the dishonesty of the dominant political actors.

This force was effective in assuming the political responsibility of protecting the Museveni regime in power. The Police even revised the purpose of its founding under the advent of colonialism. That is, to protect the colonial establishment and its imperial agenda.

This Police is exceptional in its' mission of protecting the Museveni establishment and Museveni's "imperial" agenda.

Gen. Kale Kayihura is member of the political and ruling class. He has to share the spoils of their time by serving a function, however diabolical it is to the people's aspirations. In that line, the Police, as political tool is overly militarised, politicised, and effectively repressive.

Since the regime in power is also crooked, it enacts laws that undermines fundamental liberties - the enjoyment of unalienable rights. The Police must act to constrain Ugandans that way, by controlling all avenues of mobility – freezing Ugandans into their throats and spots. Duct-taped and immobilised.

Ugandans cannot talk, associate or move freely without Police sanctions.

Our phones are tapped, private conversations are recorded, media outlets are switched off air the moment its panellists disagree with status quo, persons are jailed for airing anti-establishment views.

When your rights to associate must be permitted by Police, then you are in police custody – jail. The Police is an effective instrument of repression in this manner.

In essence, any semblance of a civil force withered with the departure of Gen. Wamala. Gen Kayihura brooded a militant political police in the realms of Nazi's Gestapo.

It is a little wonder that the Inspector General of the Police acts as the de facto Political Commissar of the ruling Party. This Police is a captive force, serving a rogue regime.

Few proposals for immediate revamp, post-Musevenism.

First, I propose that the Police recruitment and administration be decentralised such that each district administers its own Police department, suitable to its size and local purposes.

Second, the functionality of continued quality assurance, integrity and training be left to a small highly specialised National Police at a Directorate, or the National Police Bureau, under a suitable Ministry. In addition, this crème de la crème force should handle intelligence and superintends over investigations of complex cases as well as coordination or regional and international policing matters.

Third, each district or amalgamated policing region should be mandated to promote its exemplary officers to the highest possible ranking of IGP, so that there shall be National Conferences of IGPs that discusses, examines, and harmonises crime reduction and other policing matters.

Under this Museveni regime, the political circumstances that the Police and other security organs must operate, discourages professionalism. There is nothing professional in undermining the constitution, extorting,exploiting or torturing Ugandans.

To set the police free, we must first remove this regime.

End.

Mwenda, reading too much junk does not make one intelligent

A Post Card to a Fool

Many right thinking Ugandans will agree that Andrew Mwenda’s condescending and patronising attitude towards Ugandans should end, henceforth.

Mr. Mwenda must not be left to his own vices; else his intoxicating self-deception will most likely inflict upon him an irreparable damage, and also may corrupt the minds of the gullible.  

For years, we have allowed Mwenda to lurk in his foolishness unchallenged. That free public space Mwenda enjoys, accustomed the person of Mwenda to his noises.  The Mwenda we have now is close to a fraudster or a desperado- lunatic.

Not that anyone is bothered with Mwenda's slurs and condescension towards the opposition. What is more pressing is that Mwenda needs an urgent rescuing from himself, from his delirium to re-orienting to Uganda's common man realities. We would hope that if Mwenda becomes acquainted with such common  truths, he may shut the dink up!

Interestingly, intelligent people are measured, sensitive, self-assured, toned-in, and never starved of public attention to announce themselves like Mwenda. Their deeds and dispositions speak aloud.  

Intelligentsia do not permit shouting when making a point in a civil conversation, nor do they hide in cooked-up statistics to score cheap points. Intelligent people stand out as genuinely interested in public discourses – and they appear gathered and intelligent from the onset.

In that light, Mwenda appears as an intellectual fraud, imbued simply with traits of intellectual obesity - someone over fed on a monotone of fake news, textbooks, and statehouse revisions. This "super-intelligence" posturing without common sense affirms that reading too much does not translate into intelligence.

In reality, Mr.Tamale Mirundi - his humanly limitations notwithstanding - deserves larger public space that Mwenda. Personally, I would rather suffer listening to Nadduli or Kasirye Ggwanga than tolerate Mwenda’s condescension and utter posturing that lacks depth, character, and style.

 Uganda is not short of intelligentsia, who, when given the right space and time, would expose Mwenda’s mediocrity, consigning him to the ranks of carpetbaggers or head boy of court jesters.  

Ultimately, insulting the intelligence of the entire nation is more than we should permit. People who read books written in western capitals do not give up their homegrown mannerism and wisdom. No matter how read one is, if you cannot relate that knowledge with wisdom and common sense, then you become a mere effigy - symbol of extant enlightenment, an alien obscurantist. It leaves you erudite but unrefined, aloof and foolish all the way.

When colonialists came to Africa, they rode on the backs of Christian missionaries to lay claim to vast lands of Africa; upon their capture of territories, these colonialists abused and exploited Africans in all manners possible. When Museveni came to power, he reproduced the same colonial modes of operations complete with colonial laws and a steady rise of the born-again Christian.

The sum effect of these religious organizations served to soften the cruelty of the repressive regimes.

However, the use of rogue scholars enabled stereotyping of Africans that lessened their human value as uncivilized, savages, unbaptized etc, in light of European civilization at the time. That kind of rogue intellectualism gave relevance, and justified colonial rule. In modern parlance, Mwenda is the equivalent of those rogue colonial scholars. His paid mission is to shape the structures that would regenerate relevance, and justify Museveni’s life presidency project.

However, quasi-professional obscurantist like Mwenda aggravates the dichotomy that already exists between a Uganda molded in the realms of “NRM truths” or untruths, and that organic truth, which emerges out of every day struggles of the common man.

The NRM’s duplicitous narratives of having restored peace in Uganda, championed democracy, restored economy stability leading to a middle income status; that corruption is good for the economy, and so forth, falls flat on its face when carefully scrutinized from the common man's standpoint -hogwash! The NRM’s truth exists in the shadows of every day truth of trials and tribulation of profoundly exploited, disempowered, and impoverished Ugandans.

When Mwenda tries to stupefy the nation, that a continued Museveni dictatorship is enviable and inevitable after three decades, you frown given their agenda to grab our land. Certainly, reading too much does not equate to being intelligent, does it?

 The deception that power belongs to Ugandans, and that these disempowered people can use their power as they so wish, appeals mainly to deluded minds. How would one console themselves with such nuisances, given the overly militarised, policed, and constrained socio-political spaces?

In sum, the conservatives who have ignored Mwenda, have done him a disservice. Mwenda needs constant reminding that his voice has reached a saturation point far beyond a threshold. No one takes him seriously anymore - not even himself.  Mwenda also exemplifies a fact that reading too much anecdotal materials does not make anyone intelligent. Instead, it stupefies. Mwenda is such a captive, and a man deeply ensconced in a vicious midlife crisis. Let Mwenda deal with his personal inadequacies without projecting it on others – let him suffer alone with his stupefying intellectual obesity.

The End.

Pathology of dictatorship: How Museveni’s rule has deformed Ugandans

PATHOLOGY OF DICTATORSHIP

 To understand the Museveni’s mindset, we have to listen to the verbiages and scorn of regime corollaries like Hon. Anite, Abiriga, Opondo or Naduli. The Museveni’s regime speaks more articulately through persons with dissociated characters.  These are people are permanently deformed by the Museveni powers.  

The unwarranted deployment and heavy presence of various instruments of state repression at Parliament this week has exposed the UPDF. It justifies the utterances by Hon. Anite on the position of UPDF in the life-long ambitions of their founder.  This is not about national security.  The UPDF is the real face of this regime.

The major achievements of the over three decades of Museveni’s rule, is the total transformation of Uganda through a systematic process of mortification and degradation. By mortification, Museveni has broken down the social identities of Ugandans, creating an environment in which he became the sole proprietor of societal stability, laying personal claim over the nation’s resources, taxpayer’s money and now fixing his gaze on the last possession - land.  To benefit fully and personally from the mortification, Museveni must rule perpetually infinitum. Unfortunately, Article 102 stands on his way.

Many Ugandans who resisted the mortification process fled the regime’s excesses and found a safe sanctuary abroad. These former victims have now become the sources of income with enormous remittances to sustain the regime’s rogue economy.

However, the regime still finds it appropriate to deprive these Ugandans in the diaspora, their citizenship rights byy selling to them dual citizenship rights at a colossal fee. This money is unaccountable for in services to the diaspora population. We shall revisit the issue of diaspora repression in light of this development later.

 However, dual citizenship for Ugandans who are citizens by decent should have been waived as a privilege.  Progressive societies encourage dual citizenships for economic gains. For instance, the economic triumph of China is the spread of Chinese communities that import Chinese made goods all over Europe and North America.

The real agenda behind this illegality of selling dual citizenship is to deprive indigenous Ugandans their citizenship rights, and to equalize the rights of aliens who have taken over citizenship of Uganda by force. 

The question of citizenship is central in the mortification process because it alienates Ugandans from their cradle land. This serves for political coercion and renting loyalty.

The second achievement is degradation, or internalization of their mortification. The degradation proceeded started since 1980s propaganda that dichotomized and problematized past leaders and old political institutions, rending any formal social activities dysfunctional. On the other hand, it propelled the ruling military regime as liberators. The sustained ideological manipulation also unfortunately deified the person of Mr. Museveni, who has, himself internalized his power and got deformed by it.  

The systematic degradation ritual includes the repeated violation and disregard of electoral laws – always using state machinery to undermine the democratic process, and state inspired corruption. Prof. Moses Khisa succinctly highlights a number of these mechanisms in his seminal 2016 article, “Managing defections in Museveni’s Uganda: a lesson from 2016 elections”.

Dr. Khisa identifies three major mechanisms through which degradation occurs: state patronage using elite inclusion and co-optation as political baits; coercion and repression using military, police and various intelligence agencies that kidnaps, tortures and “disappears” dissenters; and use of informal social networks and endowments (brown envelops, useless medials, and praise of opponents).

 The objective of this degradation has Ugandans dispossessed of the self (identity), leading to distorted identities and expectations; resigned to fate (retreatism) and accepted their conversion, as repressed, powerless secondary citizens without alienable rights in any spheres of life.

The final submission to Museveni’s colonization now manifests by people like Abiriga, Anite, and others striving to incorporate themselves fully into the lifelong ambitions of the dictator. I think Hon. Ibrahim Nganda referred to these power-deformed people lightly as fortune hunters.

END

Museveni's land grab scheme only invites legitimate resistance

MUSEVENI LAND GRAB

When you read the article by Kiira Municipality MP, Hon. Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda in the Observer  (See:  When Muzee goes, people will understand we never had a govt”), you get a clear sense that it is bureaucratic lapses in planning and budgeting, that causes unnecessary delays and cost over runs in government projects. Not that citizens are refusing to give land. 

These corrupt NRM cadres plan, budget, approve, and secure loans on government project way before gazetting and settling land negotiations with landowners. Why is Museveni not addressing these glaring internal flaws, tightening his government, and making it lean and efficient?  

Whereas former Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin expelled Asians from Uganda, Mr. Museveni is determined to expel indigenous Ugandans from Uganda, if not resisted. Already, this regime is selling back birthrights at a walloping US$400 to Ugandans who fled its earlier violence. These are signs that Ugandans are on track of losing their to their land and property rights. 

The vested interest of Mr. Museveni in amending land acquisition laws is suspicious and calls for public scrutiny. Mr. Museveni’s own Party’s legislators have rejected the proposed amendment.  Why is the President becoming so obsessed with usurping land from Ugandans?

 This Museveni land usurpation scheme has shifted the boundary of trust and patience among Ugandans. Imagine that former regimes implemented every national development without grabbing land from citizens. Historically, the traditional land tenure systems have existed in various parts of the country and yet Dr. Obote built schools and hospitals, Amin built hotels, presidential lodges and Mpoma Satellite station without grabbing the land.

 The contentions in the proposed Land Amendment Bill is the agenda to acquire lands deemed necessary for public interests forcefully, and then later consider a compensation value for its owners.  Moreover, there is no guarantee for fairness and transparency in the land valuation processes. 

Additionally, the compensation is based on what the government decides, and the evacuated victim of such land grabs cannot refuse or negotiate.  If there were to refuse, government would dump the compensation package at a nearby courthouse.

By any measure of sense, this proposal is frivolous, dehumanizing, and heinous. Museveni wants to deprive Ugandans of their rights to land and property, and such should invite legitimate resistance nationwide.

 Mr. Museveni should know that his regime is not trusted with its reputation of unrivalled corruption.  Mr. Museveni;s own declaration that he is not anyone’s servant, and that he is pursuing his own ambitions has change public opinion of him, making this land amendment is rightfully suspect.

 Mr. Museveni should attend to the current investigations of dubious land deals learn why the public has little faith in his proposal. If this land amendment is imposed on Ugandans, the reality of mass displacement, unjustifiable suffering, and dehumanization due to homelessness, famine, and conflict for subsistence space will overwhelm this country.   

In developed capitalist societies where governments are the sole authority over land, the challenges of housing and homelessness are a hallmark. Any sensible Ugandan will never support this land amendment proposal. Let Museveni take the land by force like they have done in Amuru. 

It is up to Ugandans to give up their rights to their land under these dubious schemes.  Otherwise, Museveni should allow a legitimate land acquisition process, consistent with current laws and market rules to prevail.  His priority should be ending corruption and inefficiencies within the planning and procurement divisions in government. The National Development Plan should reflect future government projects allowing a planning space of 20-30 years. Such a plan would allow preservation of lands for national development in advance. Where citizens are affected, the state should respect property rights, and apply social justice principles to compensate citizens at an agreed market price.

END

Bashing Besigye's Radicals only justifies Elite's "Do not disturb" sign

ELITE DRAMA

Many Kampala–based elites have indulged in a rendition of bashing Dr. Kizza Besigye’s brand of politics and labeling his avid supporters as intolerant, radicals and people blinded to loyalty.  I wish these elites could reflect on their own contribution to the change agenda in Uganda.

This anti-KB slur-train originated from an unscrupulous section of elites who turn to bashing Besigye to whitewash their tainted conscience and justify the "do not disturb" attitude toward change and matters of accountability. People who use uncharitable slurs to describe Besigye and his impassioned supporters should first pass credibility test. How less radical are they?

Recently, these sordid commentators enjoyed the two-second fame that accompanies celebrity bashing. In the process, they exposed their ulterior motives and hanged their gullibility on the wire.  A recent such cynical attacks in the media cautioned people to flee town from an advancing KB’s radicals.

Uganda is full of such jokers. These are elite who may be socially conscious and yet political adolescents and blinded by their morbid powerlessness. The ambivalence of such groups always resulted in betraying the change agenda. In fact, most of the so-called Besigye radicals are average Ugandans whose sincerity and love for their country subordinate elite’s parochial pursuit for affluence.  This group threatens the marginal elite for their uncompromising resolve for change in the socio-political environment.

In the contrary, it is a fact that traditional Besigye-bashing party are known for their propensity towards brown envelops and affluence. They could not gain rent from status quo without excelling in this enterprise.

Incidentally, our elites have remained indifferent to calls for change. Instead, this group scorns change agents while sitting on their hands on top of the fence.  When the call for action beckons at them, they quickly flush the “Do Not Disturb” sign at change agents.

Uganda is weary of the monopoly of Museveni and it only debases us for an elite nation we are, to exist in three decades of a one “visionary” rule. The elite should be debating the requirements of the change process and materialising a post-Museveni Uganda instead of demoralising change agents. Unfortunately, you find these elites too engrossed in their narcissistic mindset to see the public utility of such efforts.  

The people’s president, Dr. Besgye has built for himself a reputation that attracts trust and he has been reliable through endurance and self-sacrifice against tyranny. Many of the elites have benefited from political spaces that the regime has unwittingly conceded due to KB’s activism.

However, the elites will not fight constraining laws like POMA but Besigye. Instead, they are critical of Besigye while unbothered about the collapse of public institutions. In fact, their opportunistic posturing is to conspire towards collapsing these institutions.

The ballot, prayers, and compliance shall not defeat a three-decade establishment of Museveni’s system of repression. This realization is the cause of the fault line between defiance and compliance that has emerged in FDC. These ideological positions have merits, and should face the rigors of sober contemplation and testing without throwing each side in the greasy sink.

Lastly, the KB attacks are not value free. First, it serves the state agenda to dislodge KB from the body politics of opposition in Uganda for Museveni to obliterate opposition by 2021. Mr. Tamale Mirundi recently called that “renting the minds of the elites in opponents”. Second, whenever change is about to occur, the forces of inertia emerges, complete with its torque. The closer the change is, the stiffer the resistance. Third, our unpredictable and unreliable elites who treat life as mere theatricals tend to resist change the most. They claim a level of sophistication upon which to frown upon the inconveniences of change and change processes. This lot remains conveniently unconscious of the widespread social inequalities and the political undercurrents that have radically transformed our society from a progressive, liberated and optimistic nation into a den for thieves, doom and pessimism.

END

Museveni's role in forced displacement is understated

FORCED DISPLACEMENTS

Africa with a landmass of 30m Km², twice the size of Europe, and with a population of 1.2billion inhabitants, is also the continent most afflicted with preventable incidences of violence, and natural disasters that cause displacements. The consequences of violence alone, on displacement and human life are remarkable. The 2017 Global Report on Internal Displacement indicates that of the 6.9million internal displacements caused by conflict worldwide in 2016, 2.6 million people were displaced in Sub-Sahara Africa.

Uganda recently enjoyed a spotlight over its unique refugee integration policy by the UN Secretary General, Mr. António Guterres. While Uganda may have the best refugee integration policies, the role of Uganda in causing mass displacement in the region was unfortunately understated.

The UN deserves apprehension over its traditional reactionary responses to situations of conflict and violence in Africa. Uganda, under the 31 years of dictator Museveni has involved itself in unacceptable incidences of violence, leading to mass displacements and suffering- in DR Congo, Rwanda, Southern Sudan and Northern Uganda. In all these instances, the UN stood by and watched, while intellectualising whether genocide were occurring or not.

The UN seems specialised to be present after the facts of conflicts and disasters. One wonders, which other world organization is there to help the wretched of this world averting conflicts and preventing the destruction of human kind and human environments.

The sight of displaced African people and malnourished children with flies on their faces in this twenty-second century is embarrassing. African people deserve better!

Everyday news from Africa is that of tragedy, nothing novel about ground breaking discoveries, world class acts of human excellence or a major scientific breakthrough by an African. Since independence, Africa’s narratives stalled – poverty, war, disease, disaster, dictatorship, malnutrition, high child-maternal death, unemployment, human rights violation, etc. The stories are so usual that people from western hemisphere prefer tourism of Gorillas than waste time on African people.

The UN praises these dictators, in the process it covertly abets the proliferation of the continent with arms, allows predatory trade agreements, and trades in stolen African resources while legitimate African products are excluded from the lucrative global markets. What really is in the UN for the ordinary African people other than relief aid?

The real traitors of Africa are the greedy and unconscionable African leaders who come to power as “liberators” and turn to conspire against the African people as predators.

There is no justification for a leader to stay in power for three decades. Patterns have emerged where such leaders have abandoned the causes of their African people. Many stay in power as captives of foreign interests to exploit Africa by dehumanising Africans.

The longer they stay in power, the more foreign debts accumulate, poverty and disempowerment are entrenched, and human rights violation becomes the mainstay of their hold on power.

The loot exacted on the Gambia by its former deranged despot, Jammeh is one such evidence. However, the wealth of African leaders accumulated at home and those stashed abroad, shows that contemporary African leaders are worse than former colonial administrators. At least, the colonial administrators were clear with their intention to appropriate African resources to feed European civilization. They never pretended to liberate Africa for Africa.

Most disturbing is the effect of displacement in Africa on its economic progress. Displacement immobilizes, confines and destroys labour.  Displacement denies Africa conditions for its labor to harness its resources and feed its children. The armed conflict dehumanises and further alienates Africans from their land and natural resources. Transient state of displacement furthers the vulnerability of children women and persons with disability to diseases and death. Under the current breed of African leaders, living conditions are made impossible such that resourced, educated, skilled and strong Africans must flee the continent to benefit other continents.

END

LAnd Grab: Museveni's colonial-era land grab aims to under-develop Uganda

LAND GRAB

In critical development, colonial legacy is synonymous with under-development of Africa. That a post-colonial Museveni is reproducing under-development by replicating colonial era economic exploitation approaches is quite surprising.

When colonialism took root in Africa, their motives were to exploit Africa and its resources to feed European consumer capitalism. Indigenous Africans were valued only for labour, exploited, and disposed as needed.

Major aspects of the colonial tragedy included Museveni-type land possessions - forced mass displacement, internment in squalor and restricted movements. Leave reserves (villages) were tolerated for purposes of rendering self for labor or colonial duties.

We know well that whatever infrastructure and development put in place under colonial rule were primary to hasten the success in resource appropriation, mostly raw materials, and containment of Africans and to mitigate hindrances. From the railways, schools, hospitals, and Police, etc., these institutions served colonial purposes. Indians and black laborers received residues as rewards associated with labour attachments.

These modes of development disrupted, excluded, deprived, and stalled cultural, social, political, and economic developments of Africa. In essence, it was the development of Europe and under-development of Africa that became the colonial landmark.

I am sure Museveni knows these facts very well given his previous Marxist orientation. That he should replicate these colonial vices to further the underdevelopment of independent Uganda, defeats logic. The widespread land grabs and displacement of Ugandans from their ancestral cradles are no different from Colonial evacuations. Colonial era injustices continue to shape social and economic inequalities in contemporary society. We should be correcting colonial wrongs, and not perpetrators.

The discourse of colonial under-development, and its mechanisms are highlighted in various seminal works by Rodney Walter(1942-1980), Andre Frank Gunder (1929-2005), Amatya Kumar Sen (1933-), Irogbe Kema, Arturo Escobar and a host others. 

Reflecting on the last three decades of Museveni’s regime, we distinguish three overlapping phases; the period consolidation of state power (1986 – 1996); transformation into the state (1997-2001); consolidation of monocracy (2002 -2011), and; transformation of absolute autocracy/Oligarchy(2012 – present).

For Museveni, his promise to professionalize the army marked the initial strides towards his transformation into the state and consolidating monocracy. Thereafter, state affairs became a monolithic one. The promotions of the “Bahiima Generals” typified the ethnicized consolidation of the state in his hands.  

The sectarian overhaul of the state did not end with the army. The appointment of Gen Wamala Katumba and later Gen Kale Kayihura were later to transform, “ethnicize” and militarise the Police. Under the military stewardship, the civil component of the Police force collapsed into a reincarnation of South Africa’s apartheid-era police and Nazi-era Gestapo. The typical Museveni Police specializes in criminal suppression of political dissent, and subjugation serves to maintain status quo. Museveni is fused with the state and Uganda is his personal estate.

The above highlighted processes may not succinctly represent the organizational and structural setup of the complex system that maintains Museveni in power. However, it is obvious that the concept “development” under this regime means anything but development. One of such is developing individuals within the power nexus of the regime, through illicit transfers of public resources to private realms.  Such, explains the under development. The current proposal to amend the constitution to deprive Ugandans of land is one example of coordination failure. This proposal is not only suspect. It is cynical, opprobrious, and abhorrent.

We should operationalise Article 26(b) of the constitution in concert with provisions in the Bill or Rights as empowering practices. Indigenous rights to land should remain uncompromised. Rather, we should allow willing sellers and buyers to engage unfettered; even then, local people should contribute land as their share to an investment, whether industrialization, mechanization or infrastructure developments. Locals should retain shares in every investments and development that involves displacement. This model is untested, and yet has the potential to eliminate imperialist under-development models.

END