By Ahmed Kateregga Musaazi
President Yoweri Museveni cautioned Banyoro to stop referring to territories to Buganda as lost counties arguing that regions of Bunyoro and Buganda are integrated parts of Uganda, so no territory is lost.
He said that the territories lost were such as Bulega on the western shores of Lake Muttanzige (Albert) now in DR Congo, where Omukama John Kabalega was born. He was called “Akaana (son of) Bulega,” as his mother hailed from Bulega.
The 1884-86 Berlin Conference and the subsequent colonial agreements did not dismember Bunyoro only. Even Bakonjo lost most of their people to Belgian Congo now DRC and since 1960s, they fought to secede from both countries and form Yiira Republic.
Bahema in Ituri province are related to our own Bahima and Basongora in Uganda, so are the Lendu and the Alur. The Kakwa in Koboko District, are dismembered between Uganda, DR Congo and South Sudan.
In his book, the 46 Tribes, Bob Astles writes that when the then leaders of East Africa; Milton Obote of Uganda, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania met in Mbale in 1965, they resolved to fight Mobutu Sese Seko, who was the puppet of the imperialists after the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in 1961.
They tasked the matter to Obote who assigned the operation to the Deputy Army Commander, Idi Amin.
Astles says that when he flew with Amin to Kisangani, to rescue Lumumba’s widow and brought her to Arua where he found Mrs. Kay Amin pregnant ready for delivering a baby, little did Obote knew that Gen. Olenga that commanded Limumbist rebels, was an uncle to Idi Amin. Amin was so angered with the slaughter of his tribesmen and wanted to revenge. He recruited his kinsmen like Isaac Maliyamungu, who was his cousin, into the army. He however became friendly to Mobutu after 1971 coup.
So, current operation against ADF rebels and other negative forces in eastern DR Congo is seen in a Pan Africanist fraternity like the way Uganda supported Anyanya rebels on South Sudan in the sixties and SPLA under John Garang in the eighties and nineties until they gained independence in 2011.
Supporting RPF rebels under Maj. Gen. Fred Rwigyema and later then, Maj. Paul Kagame to fight for return to home, Uganda and Rwanda supporting Banyamulenge rebels under the late Laurent Desire Kabila that ousted Mobutu regime in 1997 but fell out with him a year later, sending a peace keeping force to Liberia and Somalia, among others.
In the late nineties Uganda and Rwandan troops were referred as uninvited guests in Congo, a phrase coined by the then President Daniel arap Moi, this time UPDF is officially invited by DR Congo.
According to the Lusaka Accord, which originated in Sirte, Libya with the late Col. Myanmar Qaddaffi hosting the warring countries on DR Congo, all negative forces were to be wiped out of the Congo basin.
As a result, Uganda, Rwanda, DR Congo, South Sudan and Central African Republic (CAR), under a framework of UN and AU had a joint operation against Joseph Kony’s LRA rebels in Garamba forests and he fled to C.A.R. It was commanded by Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba.
Rwanda, South Sudan, and C.A.R. later chickened out but UPDF even reached C.A.R, and Kony almost fled to Darfur and Chad. Even President Hussein Barack Obama provided us with 100 marines that were doing Reconnaissance work.
Another joint operation was by SADC which, using Tanzania’s Air Force, hit greatly pro Rwandan rebels in FDR Congo and President Jakaya Kikwete and President Kagame almost went to war.
So, the mistakes done in the past operations are not expected to be repeated. If there is any country that is supporting ADF and or other negative forces, and it does not change heart or keep quiet, it will be exposed as sponsoring international terrorism.
What should be done, is to help DR Congo, to build capacity in the east so that provincial federal governments are operationalized in South Kivu, North Kivu, Ituri to fill the vacuum being exploited by negative local and international forces.
Regardless of our political affiliation, as a way of fighting terrorism that had hit some streets in Kampala and innocent lives lost, let us support the operation.
But as it is a tradition of UPDF, let ADF fighters surrender, they will be pardoned as it has been the case in the past with some past offenders now integrated in ministries, departments and agencies.
For Masaka City, as we mobilize the army, police and prisons veterans to benefit from Emyoga funds based at constituencies, we shall do the same to ADF returnees if they surrender and are rehabilitated by UPDF. We shall also ensure that they benefit in the Parish Development Model.
Those that are now familiar with life in DR Congo, can peacefully settle in “the new world” and become serious farmers and trade the way Baganda and Muslims settled in Busoga, Bugisu, Ankole and elsewhere and became integrated.
Haji Ahmed Kateregga Musaazi is a veteran journalist and Deputy Resident City Commissioner Masaka City. Contact 256-756/772-836537; Email: hajiahmedkateregga2016@gmaol.com
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