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The 25th January monkey on Museveni’s back
Author: Gawaya Tegulle. PHOTO/NMG
What you need to know:
- We have the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI), an outfit that makes SRB look like altar boys in Rubaga Cathedral and an agency whose record should have caused the impeachment of President Museveni years ago!
Now as we all know, there was a small problem that the National Resistance Army (NRA) faced when it marched into Kampala, 38 years ago. By 25th January, 1986, they had effectively taken over the capital city and had thrown out the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA).
But the NRA stubbornly and strategically refrained from announcing their victory that day, for the simple reason that it was the anniversary of the day that Field Marshall Idi Amin Dada overthrew the government of Dr. Apollo Milton Obote in 1971.
Until 1979 when Amin was shown the exit by the Tanzanian Peoples Defence Forces (TPDF), 25th January was always a public holiday in Uganda and was celebrated seriously.
Anxious not to be associated with Idi Amin, whose atrocities against Uganda and its people are well documented worldwide, the NRA announced their victory the following day.
Mr. Yoweri Museveni and his team, very strategic chaps, it must admitted, discerned they would forever be embarrassed, having another “Liberation Day” coinciding with that of Idi Amin.
That would be the proverbial monkey on the President’s back. And in his initial years, the President made every effort to appear different from past leaders: swine, he called them.
A few days ago, a group of regime sycophants from Bushenyi renewed calls for the President to be promoted to Field Marshal, essentially a 5-star general, the highest rank in the militaries of the modern world.
How that would be done when Mr. Museveni retired from the army 20 years ago is another story, but in Uganda anything is possible, especially in an army with a clear and widely acknowledged track record of rewarding the undeserving.
If they get the Field Marshal deal done, then it would properly erase one of only two remaining differences between this regime and that of Idi Amin; the other being that the Ugandan currency today doesn’t have the President’s face on it – unlike the Idi Amin and Obote days. In all the other aspects, just about everything compares well.
In terms of institutions, the comparison is simple to make. Take Idi Amin’s dreaded State Research Bureau (SRB). If you didn’t know better, you’d mistake it for an outfit of high calibre intellectuals whose lives are dedicated to research and innovation.
But that was until you fell into their hands. It is safe to say that the Most High probably found it unconscionable to throw into hell anybody who had been dispatched into eternity by the SRB because of the gruesome torture that was Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) in those quarters.
Now we have the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI), an outfit that makes SRB look like altar boys in Rubaga Cathedral and an agency whose record should have caused the impeachment of President Museveni years ago!
And we need acres of space to discuss the military and the police when it comes to human rights abuses, featuring state-inspired torture, grabbing of properties and enforced disappearances.
And we have not even talked about regime apologists, untouchable individuals whose nests are feathered by the public purse, who have access to military deployments and who keep their own safe houses, where they freely incarcerate those who offend them. The Internal Security Organisation (ISO) seems to have improved quite a bit of late, but CMI remains a rogue entity.
The economy has grown, doing far better than the Amin days – but wealth remains in the hands of a handful of people, while debt and poverty run the show in the rest of the citizens.
So, no matter what the regime propagandists claim, the 25th of January monkey is still firmly perched on the President’s back.
Gawaya Tegulle is a Lawyer
