YOWERI MUSEVENI SECTARIAN SEEDS

Recently Yoweri Museveni took to social media to react to recordings that have been circulating on social media which he describes as having been initiated by “irresponsible people to spread falsehood”. He went ahead to call those people stupid, uninformed, enemies and criminal opportunists who who were using sectarianism to try and profit politically. The Dictator tried to act like no Sectarian seeds have been planted in the Uganda society by him.

The said recordings are featuring verbal attacks between ethnic Bahima to which Museveni claims to belong and the Bakiga to which Mbabazi belongs.

In his rebuttal he went ahead to highlight the following:

1. “Freedom fighters who mobilised all Ugandan communities that we came across to create a powerful NRA and NRM can not disapprove any of our communities because they all helped us to build this strength.”

His 1981 – 1985 so called Bush War was a sectarian war that mobilised the southerners and westerners to dislodge the northern and eastern region domination of government and the military.

He exaggerated Buganda’s differences with Milton bote and he preached sectarianism in order to win Buganda’s support. In the same regard, he deceived the Baganda by joining hands with Prof Lule and making him the Chairman of NRM while he at the same time undermined the Baganda dominated fighting groups like Kayira’s UFM. He deceived all the fighters and civilian supporters that this was a national mass revolution.

2. “In December 1978 I recruited 200 boys mainly Bakiga at Nyamiyaga Primary School in Tanzania. After we crossed into Uganda on 11th February 1979 I recruited a lot of Bakiga and Banyankole girls and boys till the fall of Iddi Amin.”

The so called Bakiga and Banyankole girls and boys were actually Rwandese refugees from refugee camps across the border in Uganda well knowing that they were refugees who were exempted from participating in the internal politics of the host country leave alone serving in the armed forces.

That is how he came to personally reject to recruit now Maj (Rtd) John Kazoora after inquiring into his ethnic background. His actions automatically led to the creation of a force (RPF) that was later to spark off the 1994 Rwanda Genocide. He intended to build a personal army (FRONASA/Red Army) to counter the UPC Bairu in Ankole and the northern dominated main exile force of Kikosi Malum under the command of Oyite jok, Tito kello and Zed Maruru and others.

3. “I utilized the skills of boys from Kaberamaido whom we had earlier trained in Mozambique to train the 200 at Nyamiyaga Primary School.”

The boys from eastern region who had earlier been recruited by Jack Maumbe Mukwana and had undergone military training in Nachingweya in Southern Tanzania were later frustrated and ejected by Museveni from FRONASA in preference for his own home boys in the likes of Salim Saleh, Rubereza, Fred Rwigyema, Cheif Ali, Ivan Koreta and a few others. This was for purposes of forming his own Southern Bantu dominated army. He was later in his writings to describe those boys from the eastern region as having been city lumpen recruited from Nairobi.

4. Some of the Banyankole and Bakiga boys who qualified went for leadership training at Jinja and Monduli. Many of these are the ones that helped me to start and prosecute the resistance and and helped to train a large number of Baganda boys in the Luwero triangle.”

The leadership training took place following a reorganisation of the new post Amin Uganda army (UNLF) – an exercise that saw the elimination of Rwandese refugees from the army but he retained them as his private army to be used later in the bush war. He divided the Cadet training at Monduli between the pro Museveni cadets under Sam Katabarwa and the the pro Obote cadets under Namiti Kagata. Upon graduation and return to Uganda, it is the bulk of these officers from mainly Nyabushozi that formed his first top command positions in the bush. The training of fighters in the bush was mainly done by soldiers who had served under Iddi Amin but he did not want to assign them field command positions leave alone acknowledging their role.

5. “Later when we had the opportunity we recruited fighters from the whole country on the quota basis.”

That opportunity came in 1986 when he took over power but its now 30 years and the army’s top and strategic command positions are held and dominated by his ‘home boys’!!!!! This phenomena is now being extended to the Police Force.

6. “We don’t look look at people’s tribes, religion or sex when we are determining whether they are good or bad. We look at their capabilities, their ideology and loyalty. Sometimes we look at their discipline but the other three take precedence.”

There is level of truth in this assertion more especially with regard to loyalty. In order to build a personal army as his political base, he has been emphasising political clarity thus NRM cadreship to unsure personal loyalty to himself and of recent to his son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba. Like in number 5 above, there are some areas in the security forces that are ring fenced for certain communities only. It is very unfortunate for him to grade discipline as fourth in terms of parameters. That accounts for the record breaking phenomena of armed robberies by senior army officers and killing of civilians by his army in the history of Uganda.

7. ” When you hear somebody claiming to be a leader, talking about tribes, religion………as a yardstick for determining people’s usefulness, you should know that he/she is a failure and a danger to Africa. He/she is a parasite. He /she is an opportunist.”

Here he was referring to his political opponents i.e Mbabazi and Speaker Rebeca Kadaga.

The later is implicated in another WhatsApp message that hits at “Banyarwanda” and Banyakole domination of politics in Uganda for the last 30 years since Museveni took over power. “It is disheartening you the Basoga people are a vehicle being used by Banyankole and Banyarwanda to fight fellow Basoga…….. John Patrick Amama Mbabazi, is he from Kanungu or Burundi…………the Banyankole have been in power for 30 years, where is our stake as Busoga? …………………tired of using us for 30 years.” reads part of the recording that is linked to Speaker Kadaga.

The Speaker of Parliament is among the first four top most government official and is a member of Musevenis’s ruling party. Museveni has not directly reacted to this particular recording that has gone viral simply because it is attacking Mbabazi. Instead, he is now using the said Speaker Kadaga to facilitate the ammendments to the Anti-terrorism Act in order to use it against Mbabazi’s financial muscle.

Once he has achieved that, Speaker Kadaga will pay the price in her own currency. Because, he knew that his administration will be based on sectarianism, the first law he enacted after taking over power was the Sectarian Law in the Penal Code yet 30 years down the road nobody has ever been convicted of practising sectarianism.

The country is more divided along the lines of sectarian and economic deprivation than he found it in 1986 yet his Ten Point Program stipulates Unity as number one. He has created the right and wrong tribes, the right and wrong religions, the ‘Tuli Mukintu’ (we are economically in the eating) and the onlookers, thus the Wenyeinchi (owners of the state) and the Wanainchi (residents in the state).

Christopher Tumwesige