Ugandans need to appreciate dialogue
In her 54-year history, one fact that remains undeniable is that in Uganda, we are low on conflict resolution skills.
We also learn little from history. The latest escapade in Parliament - a Legislature that was founded in 1921 and had never descended into such a late night bar brawl scene - is another episode in a long and troubled history where we believe might settles all arguments here.
As Prof Kasozi wrote in his book, The Social Origins of Violence in Uganda, resolving conflicts through the gun in post-independence Uganda can be traced to the 1964 Nakalubye incident. Then what was apparently a small domestic scuffle ended up with security forces unleashing the terror of the gun barrel on a defenseless population. The government that craved for their alliance refused to apprehend them.
The 1966 crisis was a culmination of a long simmering disagreement between the Buganda government and ruling UPC party.
Led by prime minister Milton Obote, the UPC government became bitterly estranged from the Buganda government led by president Edward Mutesa, which had brought her to power, and now felt short-changed. One must be here stressed to ask if all channels of communication and dialogue had been exhausted before the attack on the Mengo palace - but it was felt then (and still by some) by the principal players that the gun would settle the matter. We know too well the consequence of that decision. Five years later, president Obote was gone - through the gun.
In 1972 when Chief Justice Ben Kiwanuka, Uganda’s first prime minister, was rumoured to be in league with guerilla insurgents, then president Idi Amin could have engaged him. But he was bungled up right from his office. Never to be seen again. Amin was confident the gun had settled the matter. But had it? Later in 1977 when he caught wind of the clergy also being involved in subversive activities, Archbishop Janani Luwum and several cabinet ministers, as had become the pattern, were bungled up at gun-point, never to be seen again alive. Two years later- president Amin was gone through the gun.
Did we ever learn the gun has limitations!
In 1979, president Yusufu Lule was removed from power by a confident civilian elite backed by Tanzanian soldiers. His replacement, president Godfrey Binaisa, could not last a year, especially once he dared reassign one soldier called Oyite Ojok to a diplomatic post. The return of Mr Obote to power could have presented a softening of his hardline stance towards the Baganda.
However, confident of the army’s backing, president Obote showed no appetite to engage in dialogue with Baganda leaders and other opposition elements. As before, four years down the road, he was gone - removed by the very guns he had supreme confidence in. Some would think that this history would have sobered Ugandans to appreciate the limits of the might of the gun. Yet we seem to have a very scanty appreciation of history. The onslaught of the High Court by “Black Mamba commandos” in 2005 to the latest bungling of MPs from the sacred August House, reportedly led by Special Force Command soldiers, all to the cheers of the majority ruling party, shows how much this nation appreciates history. At the time of writing of this article, the US together with Western powers were engaged in an acrimonious exchange with North Korea. It is possible if the matter were to be left to the two key actors alone, a full scale time nuclear war would be upon us. Fortunately, arising from the lessons of the two world wars, structures of dialogue through the United Nations are now in place.
In the civilised world, war happens when all channels of communication have been exhausted.
It is, therefore, the reason why one wonders that almost every time in Uganda we reach an impasse, we rush for guns. Dialogue is an age-old process where parties with divergent positions gradually arrive to a common and sustainable understanding. Above all the objective remains to find sustainable solutions than a rush to a quick but temporal victory. If a society does not value human life as her most precious object, then what else matters to it!
In 2016, the Kasese conflict could have been resolved through dialogue and hundreds of lives spared.
Much as the NRM won the 1981-86 war; “victory” was followed with more than two decades of violence in eastern and northern Uganda, leading to tens of thousands of lives being lost, economic ruin and social decay. May we learn to sit and talk through issues than being so confident that the gun has all answers.
Dr Lwanga is the Dean of the Faculty of Business & Administration, Uganda Christian University, Mukono
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