Miria Obote's apology

From this posting on a message board about Uganda politics during the week after former Ugandan dictator Milton Obote's death, came this exposition on the reality of the Obote legacy:

Its a culture among the Baganda not to talk ill of a dead person, even if that is the only truth there is to be told about him/her.

But as far as Obote is concerned, history cannot help remembering him as:

- the first Ugandan leader to stage a coup (1966);

- the first to introduce the use of a gun in national politics (1966 and 1980s);

- the first to abrogate a constitution (1966) and introduce the culture of Uganda's presidents disregarding the rule of law;

- the first to make Ugandan soldiers see their primary job as that of protecting the president rather than the people, and giving the army an ethnic bias;

- the first to turn prisons from being intruments of rehabilitating criminals to being chambers of torturing political opponents;

- the first to introduce 'detention without trial', the first to sponsor state violence against fellow Ugandans (1966 and 1980s);

- the first president to claim that everything was well and good in Uganda, whereas hundrends of Ugandans were dying everyday at the hands of the national army and many more being butchered in the camps of internally displaced people (like) Luwero (1980s), in Nile Mansions, in Kireka, in Lubiri, in Makindye, in Katabi, in Kololo, in Argentina House, in Mmengo Republic House, in Old Kampala, in Impala House, in Revenue Office, in Standard Hotel, in Basiima House, in the Officer's Mess at Makindye, in Kasajjagirwa, on Arcacia Avenue, (and) all over Buganda;

- the first to abolish most of the universally accepted basic human rights and turn Uganda into a one party state;

- the first president to condone and participate in theft and corruption (gold from Congo);

- the first to introduce sychophancy at the expense of merit into the civil and political life of Uganda; and

- the only President in World history to have been toppled twice by his own army chief.

Wangaala Nnyaffe Buganda!

Now that is telling it like it is. And that has been about the most "open" discussion of Obote's legacy. Until now - when Milton Obote's widow Miria apologized for her husband. The Amsterdam News reports:

In a surprising confession, the widow of former president Milton Obote, Miria, apologized to Ugandans for the wrongs of her husband, Uganda's New Vision Web site reports.

''In the spirit of reconciliation, I apologize to all who feel that they have been wronged by my husband Milton Obote. Please, forgive him,'' she told mourners recently.

Miria was speaking at a funeral service for the twice-deposed two-time president at his residence in Senior Quarters in Lira Municipality.

''Milton would have forgiven you himself had he been able to return home alive in time. He is no more with us. Let the healing process begin. Too much hate and acrimony has caused too much blood.''

The death of Obote in a South African hospital on Oct. 10 has drawn mixed reactions in Uganda.

In Buganda, where several thousands of Ugandans were massacred in the Luweero triangle between 1980 and 1985, hundreds have been celebrating the death of Obote, who they refer to as kawenkene (devil).

At the state funeral, led by Roman Catholic and Anglican bishops and a Muslim sheik, current President Yoweri Museveni laid a wreath on the casket of his former foe during a special session of parliament.

Museveni called for national reconciliation, saying the spirit of forgiveness could even be extended to Obote's successor, the dictator Idi Amin.

Which is ironic, given that even as Museveni's most serious political challenger returns to Uganda, the president does nothing to remove the specter of arrest and charging against Kiiza Besigye. Forgive Idi Amin, charge Kiiza Besigye - that is the world of Uganda strongman Yoweri Museveni. He forgives mass murderers from the past, but jails political reformers in his midst.

One of Uganda's greatest gifts is its abiding national character in everyday people which strives toward reconciliation and cooperation. The Ugandan people have qualities of peacemaking and civil society that we in the rest of the world could do well to emulate. But the awful fact is that they labor toward this DESPITE what the regimes of brutality and corruption there have thwarted - since the first government of the post-colonial era was cut short by machinations culminating in the assassination of Prime Minister Benedicto Kiwanuka. This is a legacy which has created enormous political reticence among everyday people in Uganda. So I am speaking up for them. And why shouldn't I? My tax dollars prop up the Museveni regime. It is time to demand accountability.