Juma Anthony Okuku
9 May 2008
The article: "MUK dons clash over tribalism", that appeared in the New Vision of May 2, was a total distortion of my representation at the workshop. The discussion was about recent Kenyan experience and the lessons Uganda could draw from it.
In the aftermath of the disputed presidential elections in Kenya that took on violent ethnic dimensions, the question arose whether similar post-election violence could occur in Uganda. Those who rule out the possibility of ethnic explosion in Uganda are living in denial.
I argued that it could occur in Uganda for a number of reasons. First, for both countries, ethnicity has exercised profound influence on politics. Second, the conditions that produced ethnic violence in Kenya exist in abundance in Uganda. Third, so long as an ethnically organised state exists in Uganda, the struggle to access or capture it shall have to take on ethnic dimension.
Fourth, the increasingly inequitable distribution of resources along ethnic lines can only create ethnic resentment. Fifth, the tendency by the incumbents, the "hunters", to monopolise power and are tempted to cause a situation where they become life presidents, can easily lead to violent ethnicity.
This is because the ethnic identity of the governor determines who gets what, when and how much. Sixth, the Kenya crisis, like the case of Uganda, was driven by the struggle for resource access as a result of failure to institute reforms which would address political, economic and social inequity and imbalances in power. Finally, more critical in Uganda than was the case in Kenya, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) has presided over the sale of all national assets to foreign "investors" and selected ethno-political elite clients of the regime.
I also observed that those who argue that it cannot happen in Uganda are partly correct. But not for reasons they advance- the capacity to raise Kiboko squads and unleash tear gas canisters onto demonstrators as President Museveni states, New Vision, March 23 .
The major reason is that Uganda does not possess a well-organised and coordinated opposition to galvanise protests on Kenyan scale. All the political, economic and social ingredients for such ethnic explosion exist in Uganda.
From colonialism to the present, Uganda has been organised along ethnic and regional lines. The persistence of ethnicity in our politics is because of the failure to dismantle and reform the colonial state. Instead, all the post-colonial leaders introduced militarism, stifled civil society, particularly political parties and enhanced an ethnically organised state.
These practices run through all the post-post colonial regimes in Uganda. These practices, however, have been perfected by the NRM regime. First, the NRM has not transcended the distinctly regional, ethnic and religious political foundations inherited from the post-colonial dispensation. NRM has reproduced itself on the basis of these alliances.
Through militarism, constitutional manipulation, ethnicity and regionalism, a one-party state was imposed on Uganda, disguised as a "Movement system" based on "no-party" democracy in a "broad-based" government!
I argued that a combination of these and other inequities are a recipe for a possible ethnic explosion in Uganda. Finally, I observed that nationalists, who see Uganda as composed of one people, must ensure the NRM is the last ethnically organised state in Uganda. The presentation was not about the clash about tribalism by Makerere lecturers.
The writer is a lecturer of political economy, Makerere University
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This is sad but unfortunately true. It is often said a thief is the first to call others thieves; or an arsonist is the first at the scene of the fire pretending to be a firefighter - not everybody who claims they are freedom fighters are REALLY who they say they are. Shouldn't actions speak louder than words ? Yes, talk is cheap. And leaders should walk the talk. This has to be the worst sectarian government Uganda has ever had; even Idi Amin couldn't accomplish what NRM has managed to. And to think that they preached and still preach against sectarianism ad nauseum makes the cynicism and the glaring hypocrisy ever so nausating. Shame on NRM for slicing and dicing Uganda. They have, for what now - twenty five years, north against south, bantu angainst non-bantu, bairu against hima, and ghost soldiers fighting ghosts and shadows. Obviously Uganda is in a desparate need for change. At a minimum it doesn't need leadership that has a primordial obsessive complex to cling to guns to obtain and retain power. The Karamojong made guns before NRM thought of dymistying it!