Uganda: Demonstrators, Police, Soldiers Share Same Fate

opinion

Dear Tingasiga: Would you rather be called a dreg, an abandoned wretch or a drug user? John Nagenda, senior presidential adviser, media and public relations, who called Ugandan protestors dregs and abandoned wretches, was less harsh than his boss, President Museveni, who called them drug users. It looks like the term "drug users" has become the fashionable description of political opponents, that along with rats and cockroaches, the idea having been authored by Col. Muammar Gaddafi, currently facing a revolt by his subjects.

In years past, we heard of Zionists and imperialists, thugs and bandits and, for a brief moment, biological substances. Were they not called maavi ya kuku (chicken droppings) by one whose mouth never fails to shock? Whether dregs or drug users, the denigrations speak to the heart of the attitude of Uganda's rulers towards the majority of their long suffering subjects. They despise them, at least in between elections, and only pretend to need them when they solicit their votes. Not that the votes matter, except as cosmetic dressing for predetermined presidential election results.

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