OPINION: Make the Liberation Day celebrations about all Ugandans, not just Museveni
For Yoweri Museveni to follow Idi Amin and Milton Obote in celebrating the liberation by some Ugandans, of some Ugandans from some other Ugandans, is to feed the vicious cycle of national division that has brought unspeakable sorrow to Uganda.
Why?
If Museveni is serious about promoting national reconciliation, he should construct a cenotaph in every sub-regional headquarters to commemorate the lives of all Ugandans who have died in political violence since 1966.
Almost everyone of the 45 millions Ugandans is related to, or knows someone who has been killed in political violence in the last 50 years and their body was never found and given a decent burial
The names Joseph Bitwari, Alex Ojera, Ben Odur Adoko, Francis Walugembe and millions of ancient and more recent victims, many of whose skeletons lie in the valleys and hills across Uganda, would be engraved on the Cenotaph in their respective home towns.
A young Munyankole girl was buried somewhere in Apac municipality, having committed suicide when Idi Amin killed beloved boyfriend, Chris Okot Etin, who was a Uganda Commercial Bank executive in 1973
The local community, led by their RDC, would gather around the cenotaph for an annual remembrance event.
The president would, on a rotating basis, attend and speak at such an event. The symbolism, especially to the families and friends of the victims would be phenomenal, bringing some closure to the pain.
Let me elaborate
All nations, big and small, have fought a civil war in their history. From France to Algeria and Angola; from China to Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic; from the United Kingdom to Uganda and the Central African Republic; from Russia to Cambodia and Viet Nam; and rom the United States of America to Nigeria and Zimbabwe.
None of these countries, except Uganda, continues to hold a partisan and therefore false victory celebration.
False because there is neither a victor nor vanquished, only losers, when brothers kill brothers in a family dispute.
Constitutionally, Uganda is a family home to all Ugandans, making the 1980-96 Luwero war a family dispute over an alleged rigged election, which became an exercise in fratricide.
But Museveni’s annual Liberation Day celebration is only following a familiar path, well-trodden by his predecessors.
President Museveni at Kololo last Wednesday.
Idi Amin celebrated his “Revolutionary Day”, 26th January, marking his bloody military coup which had toppled Milton Obote. The families of the reported 500,000 Ugandans who lost their loved ones in the aftermath of that coup looked on.
Milton Obote celebrated his “Heroes Day”, 27th May, commemorating his return from exile, when he landed at Ishaka, Bushenyi (not Lira), and kissed the ground. Those who had prayed Obote would never return to Uganda alive also looked on and marked their time to serve revenge.
And, for the last 36 years, president Museveni has celebrated his “Liberation Day. Widows and orphans of the reported 300,000-500,000 Ugandans who lost their lives in the so-called Luwero Triangle have also been licking their wounds. The unburied skeletons make sure they never forget.
Like Amin and Obote before him, Museveni appears not to have grasped the fundamental point, that the cumulative impact of his partisan, self-serving celebrations is to perpetuate a pattern of the national division that had been started by his predecessors.
To underscore Museveni’s difficulty, some Ugandan with a cruel sense of humour has informed us on her social media account that the ‘Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Henry Oryem Okello was at Kololo to celebrate the violent overthrow by Museveni of his late father and former president Tito Okello Lutwa!
We are concerned that Uganda will remain a fool’s paradise it has always been since independence until we develop a central nervous system that enables us to feel each other's pain.
In practice, this means not celebrating an event, which reminds a significant part our population of their loss in whatever currency - treasure, political or the life of a loved one, or all of the above.
Anyone out there, near Museveni, listening?
Sam Akaki
Apac sub-county, Maruzi county.
