The Army Brings Insecurity

I am seated at home, in thought.

Most of the news on the fm stations is about what happened last night. The TVs. Even the government station cant miss the big story.

The burning of the Royal Tombs. The grief of the Baganda tribal group. The outpouring of anger and anti-government sentiment.

Then of course there are the things that have happened today. The President going to visit the tombs. And, the humiliation. Why did he go? What did he expect? Does he really think that a humiliated populace will just ululate him?

The army was poured around, and they have been patrolling the streets. They are behind enemy lines, even when they speak the language of the area. In their green camouflage, in their army fatigue, standing out like sore thumbs. Everywhere they go, the populace they are supposed to protect looks at them with a wary eye. The fatigues, the huge guns. They came in a show of force.

7 people killed. Seven lives lost. Of bullet wounds. And only the army has the guns.

Why all these huge egos to support?

Frankly, it is like that terrible anti-homosexuality bill. No, the reason was not the ‘moral one’ to rid the country of Uganda’s homosexuals. That might have been laudable…. But, the reason is the politics of power. Accusing an invisible minority of things which they cannot defend themselves of, and then rallying the populace around them.

Why?

The sweet politics of power.

Yet, I ask myself, why?

In the face of what they had lost, it is inconceivable that the Baganda would have rioted. But, the army was deployed. And, of course, they threw stones at these oppressors. That is what they saw.

Museveni goes there.

Who doesn’t know that he is the president? And, who doesn’t know that despite the fear of the man, the angry traditionalists would be hurling insults at the president? It was their day of moaning. The King’s Tombs had been burnt down. They suspected the government. And, the personification of the government came….

So, seven lives lost. To bullet wounds. Which only the security forces had. The guns.

And, you could have watched the difference. When the President visited, and when the Kabaka visited. The mass adulation, the joy, the mobbing of the vehicles.

The very people who had been chased away, some killed in live fire from police and army, were the ones who were welcoming their leader with joy. No evidence of chaos. No evidence of rowdiness. Of course, the police and army were not there! They were only present for the protection of the president…

Keeping the peace, that is what the police says it is doing. Last year, the Buganda Information minister accused them of fomenting violence. And, it has not been more visible than now.

If the police, hated elements of the state, had not been there, the Baganda would have mourned. And, they would have been calm, and no lives would have been lost. They are very capable of organising themselves, and, the very cultural leaders that they take pride in are the ones who would have rallied them, who are rallying them.

7 dead. Bullet wounds. 25 injured, according to NTV news, a Uganda Red Cross report.

All because of the egos of men.

Ok. Evidently I am politically a naïve person. These things will happen.

I happen to be an invisible member of a persecuted minority, so it will always be like so. I will have to fight my way through the mud of people wanting to make political capital off my pain. They will lie and try to figure a way of making sure that I am made into shit. I will try to hit back as and when I can.

I will try not to be a pawn in the bigger battle. But mate, it is really tough to fight through all this.

Life, it isn’t fair. Never has been, never will be.

gug