Gen Wamala Mutumba's near-miss Assassination: Arms proliferation undermining security.of person and persons

 

GUN VIOLENCE

 "Gen Wamala Mutumba survived an assassination," one person wrote to me on WhatsApp at 6:30 am ET on Tuesday, June 1, 2021.

 My social media feeds then flooded with gory images of a perpetually subdued and frightened General Mutumba Wamala. Another picture of his black SUV parked with blood running under it, suggesting fatalities. I then learned that Gen. Mutumba Wamala was attacked by gunmen while on his way to a funeral. That he had lost a daughter and a driver in that senseless violence. 

 Reflecting on this whole scene, I have raised concerns over the increasing proliferation of society with small arms and light weapons (SALW), which continues to undermine the security of persons and property.

 This election year, the presence of small, light, and large firearms in the hands of civilians seemed to have peaked in previous election years. Overall, Ugandans are some of the most suppressed and unhealthy global citizens, constantly fearful of the state and gun violence - a social determinant of health!

 The images of random people dressed in civilian clothes brandishing pistols, assault rifles, AK47 with other firearms, and acting lawlessly affirms that Uganda is either under a lawless society usurped by organized criminals or under a military dictatorship.

 The extent of the problem is widespread as we see Uganda traders getting killed en route to the lucrative South Sudan market or in Kasese, Mbale, and so forth. Every Ugandan lives in utter fear and uncertainty, knowing well the pending tragedy of armed robbery or state-inspired drone kidnaps. It gives relevance to musician Ronald Mayinja’s epic song, “Bizeemu”, laments of Uganda returning to its darker days of state terror in the 70s and 80s.

 Uganda developed policies and an action plan on SALW and yet the rapid rate at which guns are getting into the hands of assailants highlights the criminal nature of the state or its inability to subvert organized crime. Others go as far as observing that these senseless crimes and assassinations are state enterprises.

In trying to understand assassinations versus armed robbery or other forms of targeted gun-killings in Uganda, one must revisit concerns over possession of military stores.

 Innocent youths are languishing in deplorable prison facilities and safe-houses on fictitious accounts of possessing military stores – meaning owning artifacts, objects, or items such as ammunition that the army has a monopoly on. However, the real assassins roam our streets unfettered.

 Various reports indicate that the arms from police and military armory are finding their way into the hands of robbers. One such case was detailed in the Daily Monitor story of February 17, 2019, entitled: "why are criminals using UPDF, police guns to kill and rob?"

 In that report, Police officials admitted that their guns get stolen often while the staff is reporting on duty. Herein lies the complicity in this gun crime if police officers have difficulties protecting their own weapons and accounting for it. For instance, the guns recovered in an armed robbery-murder case CRB 270/2018 registered at Bweyogerere Police Station were confirmed to belong to the army.

Ugandans generally avoid possessing guns or weapons and this trend has been consistent from Idi Amin era. It was the NRA's Kyaka mkyaka programs that strove to demystify the fear of guns, grenades, and probably even landmines among the Wanainchi, thereby raising the appetite for guns locally.

 Not long ago we saw Mathew Kanyumunyu gun Akena down at Lugogo - an act that dented this nation’s conscience. To this day no one has explained the circumstances under which Kanyumunyu came to own a gun nor has he been held accountable for the possession and misuse.

 The near-miss shooting of a decorated army General, Wamala Katumba, on Tuesday, June 1, 2021, seems like a sequel to the gruesome murder in cold blood of Arua Municipality MP, Abiriga. These patterned events have an everlasting shocking effect on the mind of ordinary Ugandans and enforce the pervasive sense of insecurity to person and property.

 Ironically, Museveni who claims Uganda is so peaceful and vowed at inception never to preside over a country where insecurity is commonplace, has himself perpetuated and justified violence - and gun violence in particular.

 I am raising this concern over small arms and light weapons proliferation in society because the existential threat is surreal and is growing rapidly. Uganda has entered a phase of exploitative and predatory socioeconomic relations. In stable and democratic nations, such phases are moderated with the state ceding more democratic rights and independent judicial systems for mediation. In Uganda, however, we see the opposite trend. The more predatory the relations of production, the more the state applies its hegemonic subduing force against the exploited.  The place of violence in our society is firmly etched in its social, economic, and political processes.

 There are many people postulating as to why Gen. Mutumba Wamala was targeted. One dominant narrative is that the General was interfering in mafia exploits. One thing is clear, with or without these street hypotheses, the assassins were professionals. Although they lacked the precision and finesse with which Kirumira, Kawesi, Kagezi, and Abiriga were diced, indeed, these gunmen were not amateurs.

 The bigger question is, who are these highly specialized and precise assassins? Obviously, they are not ordinary irate civilians attempting to settle land disputes or business grievances. These were highly trained hitmen with a high level of sophistication. The nation should know before the next scene of murder because we no longer know who shouldn't possess weapons in this society.

END

Primer on Methodology

 

Can democracy grow “organically” in this era of neoliberalism?

HOMEGROWN DEMOCRACY

I read Dr. Moses Khisa’s article in the DM of April 17/21 entitled; “The Problem of Promoting Democracy” and extracted three interesting premises which I thought are worth a rebuttal.

The first premise was that the reductionist act of casting a vote and enthusiastically supporting one’s candidate while unaware of the socio-political context in which such an exercise was designed, simply aid in afflicting the mind of an overzealous nation with utter delusion. The second premise was that democracy cannot be an import. It must be grown from inside, organically, through protracted citizens’ activism and struggles. The third premise, and perhaps a classical observation was that a viable democracy depends on a viable state.

I found Dr. Khisa’s piece evocative. There are more versatile political scientists who could, perhaps, rebut this piece. On my part, I am compelled to respond to the three premises as follows.

Premise 1 – on derision and delusional anticipation of change through the reductionist act of casting one’s ballot as democracy, I do agree with the author. Indeed, democracy is not merely validated by an event of voting or running crazy after a sloganeering candidate of choice. This observation has been the convergence point for many of us who, for the longest time, dissuaded the legitimate section of Uganda’s opposition from validating sham elections disguised as “democracy” where the habitual candidate and incumbent organize it behind closed doors.

The opposition must not wait for the next elections to begin organizing and engaging the fascist regime in a meaningful dialogue. We have learned that most last-minute deals have degenerated into transactional politics – the dominant means of survival among the “Abazukulu” politicians.

With the many draconian laws that curtail human liberties and freedoms to organize, the Ugandan version of democracy has become an illiberal ritual of validation. Indeed, participating in this kind of democracy makes prominent politicians compete with invalid votes because the incumbent already holds the leash to the “valid” outcome.

Premise 2 – On growing democracy organically from within, I disagree with the author. In the era of neoliberalism, foreign interests such as multinational corporations have amassed for themselves so much power, influence, and privileged situatedness with sacrosanct legal rights. In an authoritarian environment like Uganda, multinational and transnational corporations have enough dirty money to write the course of “democracy”, to shape public policies without input from the people.

In the Ugandan scene, I hear a cacophony that the small Indian businesspeople pay more taxes than all Ugandans combined. In another, that MTN - a multi-national corporation is a top taxpayer in the country. Ironically, a 2019 Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC) study found that domestic investors in Uganda pay more taxes than multinationals.

The cumulative impact of this propaganda is to undermine citizens’ capacities to nurture democracy through legitimate civil activism and holding the authorities accountable. The space for exercising civil rights is already violently curtailed because the state, itself under captivity from the armed junta, considers citizens as unworthy elements in shaping the nation’s destiny. The state survives on taxes. If the taxpayers are foreign investors or multinational or transnational corporations, that shifts the allegiance of the state to the ones who pay taxes. Neoliberalism itself is anti-statist for its exploitative agenda. It, however, expects a strong state intervention when the marginalized masses threaten its exploitative nature.

Further, democracy as an idea, ideal, or practice is inherently alien to and highly contested in the continent. The nations that might grow their in-house democracy, are nations that chose democracy as a compromise over annihilation from anti-imperialist wars. Democracy is not “native” to any of them.

Premise 3 – On democracy as dependent on a stable and a neutral, thus a viable state, I agree and reiterate that the relationship must be mutually reinforcing.  

End.

 

 

Why power discussion is central to health equity.

 

HEALTH EQUITY AND POLICY

Reading Amb. Rudi Veestraeaten and Prof. Rhoda Wanyenza’s article in the Daily Monitor of April 7, 2021, about health equity as the theme for this year’s World Health Day was refreshing.

The article applauded Uganda’s strides towards affording Ugandans a certain level of health services, mostly that reduced maternal-child mortality and so forth. The article also identified key areas where efforts have lagged mostly due to government underfunding of the health sector. It further identified emerging health challenges such as early teen pregnancies, a barrier to accessing health information, and specific sexual and reproductive health services reaching the poor.

My rejoinder is that the two dignitaries could have been clearer by not mixing the pursuit of health with healthcare. And this is the "problematic" prevailing in health equity debates, especially when a non-committal term such as "disparity" is used to ascribe inequities. Critics have identified the persistence of positivist science as central to this aberration such that we must be deliberate to discern health from healthcare in every conversation.

Health inequity consideration arises from social and economic conditions, most of which are unfair but also avoidable. Health care pertains to downstream curative approaches which are narrow in scope. Health is the general wellbeing, and it depends on social, economic, and environmental determinants (Social Determinants of Health), whose resource distribution is moderated through public policies. How these resources are produced and distributed across the population defines inequities in health. For example, the closure of schools and workplaces during the pandemic and subsequent failure for parents to feed or pay fees for their daughters to return to school contributed to a national teen pregnancy crisis.

For health equity to materialize, society should question imbalances in the distribution of power and privileges in a way that paves way for equity public policy - itself a social determinant of health. Rudolf Virchow demonstrated this correlation during the 1847-8 Typhus epidemic in upper Silesia. Rudolf developed the term “social medicine” to reflect the need for social, economic, and cultural factors that he deemed central in the typhus etiology and identified the lack of participatory voices (alienation from politics and democracy) as contradicting local efforts to contain the outbreak.

Virchow’s experience translates in the Uganda scene by the increasing socio-political disempowerment of Ugandans through the rampantly fraudulent and violent socio-political processes. The chronic and pervasive corruption and violence against the people disempower citizens from holding their state managers accountable for inequities in their health experiences. When people feel that they have no voice in how their society should be managed, their input in the public policy processes diminishes to their own detriment.

Today, very few Ugandans can seek accountability for failures of government to deliver services relevant to health. Take, for instance, we all know the importance of education and early childhood development, accessible healthcare services, employment and working conditions, infrastructure and built environment, etc., have on the health of every community. These services are often delivered within a community, requiring community input in ensuring that they are made accessible and culturally relevant. Without the political clout and community voice, the government has felt no obligation to elevate these services to an acceptable level rather than divert service delivery to the private sector. Social services are constantly on the decline among the poor majority indicating a loophole in the policy processes, but also a strong favor for the market orientation.

Most revealing is the new concept of equity in this aegis of neoliberalism. The government is steering Uganda into the money nexus, and yet many Ugandans are not prepared. In effect, commodification has augmenting exclusion in understanding the dynamics of the money economy and its distribution, thus, equity now means the ability to pay from out-of-pocket to gain access. 

Moreover, monetary income is the most important element in the market economy. In the Ugandan context though, the market orientation is exclusive of the majority with soaring unemployment across the population affecting the social and family context. That experience further strains social relations as everyone depends on the other. This is made worse because liberalism thrives on individualism which is literally tearing families apart.

Lastly, health equity has been redefined and Ugandans should see it for that. The true meaning of health equity is that individuals, and not the government, should cater to their needs using out-of-pocket resources, which is driving families to catastrophes. The idea that healthcare is the solution to poor health is untrue. We must escalate investment in a socio-politically empowered community and in their public health systems. The 2008 WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health stated it succinctly that what makes people unhealthy or healthy are found in the communities and not in healthcare facilities.

END

War Mongering during elections is unconstitutional.

WAR MONGERING

In 1996, Dr. Kawanga Semogerere of DP teamed up with Hon. Cecilia Ogwal of UPC to give Museveni a ran for his money. I was a high school student watching Museveni lie through his teeth. I was also an avid admirer of Ms. Ogwal, not so much of Semogerere, because he played a significant role in legitimizing the fraud that the Museveni regime has become and the decline of DP.

I was a regular at my HSC debating club during the 1994 Constitutional debate that resulted in Uganda's 1995 Constitution. That Constitution lacked in many ways, but it was a document that designed a clear democratic path for Uganda.

I could say some democracy because many of the critical levers that may have cemented Uganda's democracy were also made vulnerable to manipulation by Museveni's regime agenda.

The 1995 Constitution also gave Ugandans hope through term and age limits and a civil language that encouraged civil society organizations and opposition political parties to fetter. These are critical platforms that mediate between citizens and the state.

That Constitution also assured Ugandans that civic engagement was a right and not criminal – that citizens could protect the state from intruders and pronounce themselves over Uganda's territorial integrity using state machinery.

Left in its 1995 form, that Constitution could have delivered Ugandans to unimaginable triumph on several fronts, such as a peaceful transfer of power from one President to another or from one political party to another. This feat is vital because there has never been such an experience in Uganda's entire existence.

Suppose the Constitution was so clear on avenues through which Ugandans could legally participate in democratic governance and see that their will to be governed is respected. Why do we always get into this war-mongering mode at every election since 1996?

In philosophy and African wisdom or even in moral discourses, one does not get a valid result from a fake process. You cannot be pregnant by eating a mango. This concept feeds into the logic of mathematics and all sciences. Machiavelli failed society as a desperado by claiming that the end justifies the means. In lawful and organized philosophical or scientific society, only the means matter.

In 1996, when Dr. Semogerere picked Mrs. Ogwal as his running mate, Semo was demonized as Dr. Obote's empathizer. Musevenists went to Luwero and displayed skulls by the roadside, attributing that to wars of Obote. Spooky stories of ghosts of Obote and the northern hate-mongering filled the airwaves. The threat of going back to the bush was the highlight of that campaign.

Many Baganda shunned Semogerere and treated him as an Obote ally, a traitor, and an anti-progress that the NRM had brought. You may understand why the north is cold about a Muganda Bobi Wine.

In 1999 when Col Besigye jumped off the NRM bandwagon to challenge Museveni, the regime did not take it lightly. It blackmailed, threatened, and went ballistic on all fronts, accusing Col Besigye of planning wars, being an enemy of the state, and so forth. A similar pattern came on in 2006, 2011, 2016, and so forth. From 2006 to this date, there has never been a Presidential candidate not charged with treason.

Hon. Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu and Lt. Gen Henry Tumukunde have treason charges looming on their heads in this campaign.

In sum, it is a pity that the 1995 Constitution, even when fraudulently amended several times, did not remove Ugandan's rights to unseat an incumbent as treasonable. Some of the provisions within 1995 constitution, as amended dubiously, still recommend the preservation of human rights and rights to civil liberties, right to participation in civic discourses. Above all, it upholds that elections every five years.

If contesting against the incumbent constitute a threat to national security/war, or leads the state to kidnap, shoot at, detain without trial, torture, or murder citizens who are practicing their constitutional obligations, then what is the worth of a constitution disorder?

END

 

 

IEC should afford integrity and fairness to 2021 Elections

 SAVINGS ELECTIONS

 The gory scenes of Police vandalizing Hon. Robert Kyagulanyi's vehicle on his nomination day and battering his adherents conjured up frighteningly with the rather comical scene where the same police violently violated the FDC President, Hon. Patrick Amuriat. These events may serve the dictatorial regime, but it deprives the 2021 Elections of its much-needed integrity, decency, and fairness.

We should not tolerate violent elections or unfettered state violence against the opposition.

Images of scenes where journalists are battered to a coma while on duty tells a tale of tyranny and leaves quite impactful trauma in the mind of those who experience or witness it.

Those who care to read into and internalize this regime's militant engagement with the public rightfully have a very low expectation of 2021 Elections. As a social critique, the only plausible claim to any NRM ideology is militarism and its raw violence.  The conduct of the 2021 elections embodies this militarization in as much as the militarized agricultural programs or COVID-19 lockdown measures. And, the violence just increases at every subsequent election without an end in sight.

Comrades Kyagulanyi and Amuriat must take heed of these trends. I know they are doing their very best to remain level headed, calm and peaceful, however, even Chinua Achebe advises that any handshake which goes beyond the elbow, turns into something else. Solving sociopolitical problems using rampant and unjustifiable use of excessive state violence only helps to radicalize our youths and subdue our population. Thus, undermining the democratic processes.

The COVID-19 lockdown revealed a snippet of how meticulous militarism can go on a civilian population. The violence effectively immobilizes and disengages the opposition from interfacing with the voters and then generates voters' apathy towards the electoral process and its outcomes.

For democracy to occur, its tenets must be alive, and freedoms must be afforded to all.  How possible could Candidates Kabuleta traverse over 145 districts in 60 days when the only Candidate Museveni with rights to fly choppers and use the media unfettered?

The Byabakama's electoral commission has played its part in undermining the integrity of the elections covertly and overtly by their policy of non-action against police brutality on opposition candidates. Without equal access to the electronic media, this digital or so-called smart election is itself a big fat farce.

 The IEC must establish a clear rule to enable all Candidates equal and unencumbered access to the media. In Uganda, the NRM has consolidated its control over the media/press and press freedoms. The media is over-infiltrated, censored, surveilled, and most governed by the regime's cadres and operatives to the detriment of freedom of expression. As such, intellectual debates over the media have been curtailed and intellectualism has declined profoundly. 

 As it looks, Presidential Candidates, Hon. Robert Kyagulanyi and Hon. Patrick Amuriat will not be tolerated on the media waves to reach their audiences. I can predict that the regime may tolerate Hon. Mao and Gen. Muntu more for their benign presence on election tracks. Already Kyagulanyi is not even allowed to visit a district other than his own home in Magere or campaign venues.

 Further, the conduct of the militarized NRM police is a sobering indicator that there will not be any fairness in the 2021 elections. The so-called Independent Electoral Commission serves a mere functionality of legitimating an already flawed process if they cannot protect candidates and subdue the police. You could see how the Commissioners were so self-absolved and least bothered that Hon. Amuriat walked bare feet to his nomination at Kyambogo. That insensitivity ought to be called out. 

 The main conclusion is that the integrity and fairness of 2021 elections are on the line. The IEC should guarantee access to the media, control the police, and ensure free access to district facilities. 

End.

 

Raiding Opposition offices reveals the limit of Democracy in Uganda

 DICTATORSHIP

We woke up on Wednesday to the news that a combined force of the Ugandan army and police had raided the offices of Presidential hopeful and the charismatic youthful legislator from Kyadondo East, Hon Robert Ssentamu Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine.

Both the army and police have not explained their motive or whether there is a formal investigation. The armed forces detained more than 100 supporters of the NUP party. But the marauding forces took literally every document, computers, and whatever they could land on to stifle the nascent party from organizing itself to challenge the dictatorship in the forthcoming elections. The police confiscated nomination, promotional items, and apparently some money intended to pay for NUP flagbearers in the just-concluded parliamentary nominations.

The raid on the NUP head office is not the first of its kind and will not be the last. The Forum for Democratic Change Party, Uganda’s largest opposition party has suffered its own episodes. The same combination of army and police have raided party headquarters at Najjanankumbi multiple times and at critical times, to carry away computers and sensitive party documents before, during, and after elections.

The problem is that Ugandans take these violent state assaults as a mere episode, thereby ripping it of the context in which such acts should be assessed and understood.

The limits of democracy in NRM’s Uganda has been apparent and yet we fail to read it correctly. John Stuart Mills once expressed his fears of how monstrous democracy can be. Mills was concerned with the tyranny of the majority over the minority and argued that such tyranny could generate and impose on the population certain moral rules and culture that the people may not necessarily want. Lenin was more cynical about democracy and many prominent scholars have asked whether democracy even exists.

In Uganda, where the military dictatorship is preoccupied with violence, what passes for democracy is what Lenin prescribed as the opportunity to spread propaganda to the backward strata. The origin of liberal democracy is exactly what democracy is now reinforcing in Uganda. Democracy arose as resentment to the monarchical monopoly over power. Democracy aimed at ensuring that ordinary people made decisions on how they wished to be ruled and served. This gave prominence to equality in society, recognized individual will and rights, which must be exercised freely among free men (and later women).

The conditions that constituted a “free man” has eluded Africans and particularly, Ugandans, making our democracy stale.

The freeman in Africa was demolished by events leading to and including colonialism. The violent way that states in Africa were formed must be examined formally elsewhere. However, both the colonial state and hegemony were entrenched through absolute violence. 

Franz Fanon ably linked the colonial psychological violence to pervasive psychiatric problems for the colonized. Elsewhere you read about physical violence, seclusion, deprivation, and so forth. These forms of violence have a transgenerational impact that must be properly studied and understood. It seems that chronic repression deforms society in as much as a chronic monopoly of power deforms its bearers.

The Ugandan state has maintained this finesse of colonial violence and the Museveni regime not only usurped that violent state apparatus, they even sharpened it.

In such a suppressive condition, the free will of man is also squashed. There remain men without liberty and freedom, but only dependent men whose "free will" becomes their token for subsistence. That free will becomes the preserve of violence. Under such a condition, liberation is reduced to a personal endeavor to supplicate the regime’s middle class, for whatever they can spare.

There is no democracy without free will. This pervasive state violence means Ugandans will not be able to change their government through the ballot in the next thirty years. Those who try to challenge the tyrants will be violently raided, even killed.

END.