WHY MUSEVENI WILL NOT DARE TO BLACKMAIL GEN. MUNTU OVER COUNTER INSURGENCY ATROCITIES
CHANGE OF GUARDS - Uganda's longest serving army chief (1989 -1998), scandal free and incorruptible, Gen (Rtd) Muntu is set to launch a new political party to wrestle power from Museveni whose 33 years military dictatorship is detested by Ugandans. However, as has always been the norm, Museveni must be considering how best he will blackmail Gen. Muntu. He often accuses his former comrades in arms turned political opponents of past incompentence, war attrocities and corruption scandals.
In 2006 during his Third Term campaign trail in Apach District, Museveni accused his main challenger, Dr. Besigye of having deserted Uganda and fled to South Africa. He said; "He left us fighting the LRA. He is an accomplice in the gruesome Barlonyo massacre. Col. Besigye and his group were on the side of those who caused the Barlonyo massacre."
Museveni's leutenants have repeatedly made unsubstantiated allegations linking Dr. Besigye to purchase of junk helicopters and undersize uniforms when he was the army's Chief of Logistics (CLE). In February 2006 while addressing NRM supporters in Jinja, Gen. Saleh said that "it was Dr. Besigye as the CLE who inspected and recommended that the helicopters were in good condition." Dr. Besigye has repeatedly challenged the regime to institute criminal proceedings to no avail.
Around July 2005 while addressing a refrendum rally at St. Kagwa Primary School in Bushenyi, Museveni castigated Muntu for having left military service;
"A young man like Muntu; how can he leave the army to start running around like he is doing now? Now, what made him leave the army? Were the wars over in Uganda? He is now talking endlessly."
At the time, Muntu was the opposition FDC chief mobilizer.
In 2012 Gen. Muntu assumed the presidency of the major opposition party, the FDC. Museveni got worried that he might have to contest with Gen. Muntu in the February 2016 general elections. During the 27th NRM anniversary celebrations in Kasese, Museveni accused Muntu of having failed to effectively plan for the army during the northern Uganda insurgency.
".........the first problem NRA faced after capturing power was the delay in the modernizing of the army, after being reduced from 100,000 to 50,000 officers and men. Some quarters took the views that we should spend less on the smaller army. We, therefore, ended up with an under-equipped and smaller Army. This made our people in the North to suffer under Kony and the cattle rustlers of Karamoja for much longer than was necessary. When the Army was reduced in 1991, its leadership should have straight away adequately equipped it."
In 2013 Gen. Ssejusa fled the country to the U.K where he launched stinging attacks on the regime. During the NRM 28th anniversary at Mayuge on January 26, 2014, Museveni declared intentions to probe his army's atrocities during the northern Uganda insurgency. He said;
"……......there are incidents to be ashamed of. Apart from the Mukura incident and the Bucoro pit incident which were reported, there were other incidents that are coming to light now, ….. I don’t know why the people did not report those incidents. At Kamunyu wanainchi were killed by elements of our army for no reason at all after the army had been attacked by the rebels; there were incidents of looting property including cattle, and other incidents of indiscipline reported in Nwoya. I am going to follow up all those incidents, unearth the culprits if they are still alive so as to hold them accountable and compensate the victims or their descendants.”
He was blackmailing exiled Gen. Ssejusa who was making alliances with the exiled northerners. Fearing indictment in international jurisdictions, in December 2014 Gen. Ssejusa mysteriously returned from exile. First, it had been the then army chief, Gen. Katumba Wamala who in January 2014 disclosed that the army would investigate NRM atrocities in Teso thus;
“….we will go back to those areas and find out whether the population has some issues to raise.”
To date, no probe ever took place. Museveni's army counter insurgency operations in northern and eastern Uganda took place during the reign of Gen. Tumwine 1986 - 1988, Gen. Saleh 1989, Gen. Muntu (1989 - 1998), Gen. Jeje Odong, Gen. Kaziini, Gen. Aronda and Gen. Katumba. Most of the heinous crimes took place between 1986 - 2006. Throughout all this time Museveni was the Commander in Chief and Minister of Defence.
In 1991 Museveni bypassed his then Army Chief, Gen. Mungu and instead deployed his then Minister of State for Defence, Gen. Ssejusa to conduct the notorious Operation North. After a lengthy brutal campaign, Museveni responded to local and international outcry by recalling Gen. Ssejusa from the said operation and instead detailed Gen. Muntu to proceed to the northern region to clean up the mess.
In 2004 Museveni succeeded in having the ICC indict top LRA insurgents. In July 2004 at Okwang village, 24kms north east of Lira he told Journalists that;
"I am ready to be investigated for war crimes … and if any of our people were involved in any crimes, we will give him up to be tried by the ICC and in any case, if such cases are brought to our attention, we will try them ourselves.”
In June 2005 Museveni told the UN news agency IRIN that;
" The ICC is free to investigate UPDF soldiers for any war crimes and crimes against humanity."
He welcomed the ICC involvement in hunting down LRA's Joseph Kony saying that it helped in dealing with Khartoum.
"Khartoum is fully aware of the consequences of dealing with somebody under the ICC indictment."
In 2010 the then ICC chief Prosecutor, Louis Moreno Ocampo said that the ICC was analysing complaints against the Museveni army. Unfortunately, the ICC opted to only investigate the LRA.
On 6th April 2012, while speaking at the memorial service for the late John William Eluru in Teso, Museveni said that
“the government would conduct investigations on all atrocities allegedly committed by his NRA during the period of insecurity in Eastern and Northern Uganda in the 1980’s in a spirit of embracing national reconciliation”.
In March 2015 when the current ICC Prosecutor visited Uganda to drum up testimony against LRA's Dominic Ongwen before the ICC, she was confronted with the question of atrocities committed by Museveni's army and she responded thus;
"At the moment, I can't be able to say I will investigate or not be able to investigate UPDF. At an appropriate time, I will come up with an appropriate statement on the situation. The ICC has the mandate to try war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. If the actions of the government troops amount to these crimes, the ICC has a right to look at them."
From the a foregoing, it can be authoritatively argued that Museveni uses the threat of probing the northern insurgency war atrocities to blackmail his former comrades in arms turned political opponents. However, this time round if he dares to apply the same blackmail on Gen. Muntu, the the latter is most likely to challenge him to institute the probe not only for the northern Uganda insurgency but also for other armed conflicts including the Bush War and Kasese. Of course, for obvious reasons, Museveni can't and will never institute such a probe. Otherwise, such a probe would highly implicate him as the chief accomplice and advocate.
Therefore, blackmail using war atrocities will not apply and other means will have to be devised to counter Gen. Muntu.
INFORMATION IS POWER AND THE PROBLEM OF UGANDA IS MUSEVENISM
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