SOMALIA: Why Ugandans "want to hear" that their 40 soldiers were killed by Al-Shabaab

Over the Easter weekend, the Somali militant group is reported to have carried out simultaneous attacks against the positions of the Ugandan contingent under AMISOM. FOUR Ugandan soldiers are reported to have been killed and a few others injured. However, controversy has arisen in Uganda where the population feels that the army is not being sincere in their casualty figures.


This is not the first attack by the militants but whenever it occurs, the regime has always attempted to conceal some information leaving the population to speculate. While it is a practice world over for the military to conceal its own casualties in order to mitigate the morale of fighters, the Museveni regime seems to have sinister motives. Museveni's army has been with the Somali Peacekeeping Mission since 2007 and has been marred by corruption, exploitation and abuse of personnel and blackmail. Museveni has used the mission to blackmail the west against his dictatorship and to attract foreign exchange.

At home, most Ugandans view Museveni’s army as the regime's coercive tool. Its management is based on high level patronage, nepotism and sectarianism. It is partisan with a lead mandate of keeping Museveni in power through suppression of political dissent. It is no secret that UPDF is Museveni's personal army. In November 2016 (26th, 27th), the same army carried out a coldblooded massacre of over one hundred innocent citizens in Kasese.

It is against this background that helpless Ugandans feel some relief and justice when such a partisan and repressive personal army is attacked in Somalia. They are interrogating the images showing more than four coffins. They feel cheated when the number is small but how did we get to this????

INFORMATION IS POWER AND THE PROBLEM OF UGANDA IS MUSEVENISM.