Northern Uganda Messenger Post

In " Gambling on Otunnu ", in The Uganda Independent , Ms. Melina Platas takes the political pulse of the country on the homecoming of Olara Otunnu. She sounded out a number of prominent Ugandans on what role if any, Olara Otunnu can play. In their responses, Hon. Professor Ogenga Latigo, Hon. Abdu Katuntu, and Dr. Jean Barya, highlighted a number of issues concerning who Olara Otunnu is, what contribution he can make to the democratic struggle in Uganda, and how the struggle can be organised and led. Not only were some of their comments contentious, but also specious and contradictory. First, that Olara Otunnu is out of touch with the country, the people, and issues. But Olara Otunnu has written and spoken extensively about the NRM dictatorship, corruption, poverty, national fragmentation on ethnic lines, land-grabbing, rights abuses and possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Uganda generally and northern Uganda specifically. It is doubtful that there are esot...

I have been wondering whether god / gods did not create different people with different languages and different spiritual practices, symbols and rites for a reason. It occurred to me that, perhaps different races with peculiar languages and spiritual beliefs systems and rites were purposefully to serve as different but distinct routes of accessing god/gods. And each ethnic group or race, like road networks with bridges and over and underpasses, had markers and identifiers not unlike highways and expressways that lead from our metropolises to the different suburbs and countryside from where people pour into the cities for work and other cultural activities everyday. Come to think of it. Like roads and airline routes, you gotta take the one that takes you to your destination, if you hope to get there. Excepting Christopher Columbus, how many of us would rather head west, when we meant to go east? And see what happened to Columbus; poor Chris! I believe that Africans and other colonised a...

“Nationalists” and “constitutionalists” have criticised President Yoweri Museveni for injecting justice entitlement considerations over land conflicts and compounded historical injustices in Bunyoro Kitara Kingdom ( See Museveni’s original letter on land issues in Bunyoro, DM, 04 Aug 2009 ). The president’s critics evade the fundamental question of justice and historical injustice, by latching on the incidental, secondary claims of civic citizenship rights, rather than the compelling need for justice for Bunyoro Kitara (see Anger over Museveni tribal talk, DM, 02 Aug 2009 ; Bunyoro belongs to all Ugandans, DM editorial, 01 Aug 2009 ). Bunyoro Kitara, like Buganda Kingdom’s quest to repossess their “things,” deserves sympathies and serious considerations. But sympathies alone are not enough; we must provide the correct and just national solution to this problem. We agree with the president in his understanding of what the problems are. There are three grounds upon which Bunyoro deser...

President Yoweri Museveni’s once bright star- visible throughout Africa and the West-is dimmed. How could someone, once revered by the West, be suddenly down on his luck? The answer to this question is long and complicated. For Museveni, it is a combination of indictable misadventures in Rwanda, Congo, and northern Uganda ; corruption , electoral theft, and heavy-handedness in dealing with political opponents at home . Simply put, 23 years in power is a long time. One is bound to make as many enemies as friends- at home and abroad -along the way. Consequently, incumbency reaches deleterious point of diminishing return ; when it has nothing more to offer but personal insecurities and corresponding obsession with retaining power, defending ill-gotten wealth, and protecting cronies. Despite his dwindling political, diplomatic fortunes, Museveni could yet rescue himself from being discarded-like all utility men before him-for becoming a liability, rather than continued asset to his Weste...