When President Museveni announced a day of prayer for Uganda which is at a political, economic, social, ethnic and ecological crossroads, it reminded me of what a Congolese man told me when we met in Goma, eastern DRC while on a mission in the Great Lakes region at the start of 2010. He introduced himself as Bosco, a business man in Goma. He told me that Congolese have flocked to churches in search of a solution to their problems, noting that while prayer is necessary it is not a sufficient condition.
Because he attended one of the meetings we held where I introduced myself and my nationality, he spoke to me in Swahili, a common language in eastern DRC introduced by Swahili slave traders. However, realizing that I had difficulties in my responses, he quickly switched to English which he spoke fluently. Let me reconstruct what he said in order to share his views with a wider public.
He told me that during the meeting he attended he realized that I was keen to get to the root of the problem in DRC and in the great lakes region in general. Staring at me with all the seriousness he could muster, he said “Let us call a spade a spade”. He emphasized that without addressing Batutsi dimension and their western backers, the great lakes region will remain unstable. He added that as a historian with a focus on the great lakes region, he has come to that informed conclusion. Short of that, all efforts including our mission’s will end up in failure. I asked him to elaborate.
Bosco said that what many people do not know is that Batutsi live in many parts of the great lakes region under different names. Batutsi are found in southwest Uganda where they are called Bahororo; in eastern DRC where they are called Banyamulenge; and in Burundi and Rwanda where they are called Batutsi. He said that the problem is that Batutsi, as described above, believe – wherever they live – that they are superior, more intelligent, and born warriors to rule over others in perpetuity, a position, he added, has been accepted and is being reinforced by their western supporters.
With reference to Uganda he related Bahororo’s relations with British since colonial days to the present, stressing that Bahororo, notwithstanding their extreme numerical inferiority, are preferred in Uganda politics because they are more collaborative than any other ethnic group. Then he switched to DRC.
Bosco reminded me that the rest of DRC is relatively peaceful except the eastern part where Banyamulenge and other Tutsis live. He recalled that they gained political and economic ascendancy in the mid-1960s when they collaborated with Mobutu and his army to crush the rebellion in the east of the country. They obtained land mostly European farms when Belgians left the country after independence and gained access to the presidency with all the benefits. Since 1996, Banyamulenge have played a key role in removing Mobutu and installing Kabila I and in destabilizing eastern DRC with support from Rwanda, Uganda and western sponsors. He concluded by noting that Banyamulenge and other Batutsi in the region will not rest until they have taken over DRC in one form or another. He feared that that will be a bloody business because Congolese people and their supporters in the region are prepared to prevent that from happening.
Regarding Burundi, Bosco recounted the genocide of Bahutu committed by Batutsi in 1972 which the international community including the then Organization of African Unity (OAU) totally ignored. In answering why this was the case, he said that western powers did not want to expose their Batutsi ally to international condemnation and possible genocide proceedings. The lingering problems in Burundi spring from the fact that the minority Tutsis there still want to dominate the majority Hutus. Then he moved onto Rwanda.
In Rwanda, he said, Batutsi instituted a pre-colonial feudal system, an extreme version of subjugation that reduced Bahutu to serfs on land that was theirs. He observed that Bahutu suffering took on harsher forms when king Rwabugiri (1860-1895) instituted a system of forced labor applicable to Bahutu people only who were reduced to menial labor to produce goods and services for their Batutsi lords. This system was hardened and consolidated by colonialists who in addition denied Bahutu education and by extension jobs and economic and social progress. Bahutu resentment exploded in the 1959 social revolution driving out Batutsi from power and many of them out of the country.
When Batutsi returned in 1994, their sole goal was to regain power and resume their domination and subjugation of Bahutu. The genocide ideology which is the law of the land, he emphasized, has given Batutsi a pass to crush Bahutu dissent with impunity and realize a permanent solution to Bahutu problem. In this, Bosco added, Batutsi have received full military, economic, technical and diplomatic western support.
He concluded that as the post-genocide dust is settling, new information is beginning to trickle in confirming what began as unfounded rumor that since 1990 when Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) army first invaded Rwanda from Uganda more targeted Bahutu have died than Batutsi in Rwanda and DRC. As stigma wears off Bahutu are beginning to reorganize themselves to regain their human rights as stipulated in the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Then Bosco disclosed what all along had been a secret: he has a master’s degree in history and studied at Makerere University in Uganda.
Let me end up where I started. While Museveni’s prayer is necessary, it is not a sufficient condition to heal Uganda’s illness. Uganda’s problem is governance where Museveni and his Bahororo relatives with support of western powers believe ruling Uganda is their monopoly and will not yield an inch to democratic pressure from Ugandans and some donors. That is why force is increasingly being applied to trample on the rights of other Ugandans. If President Museveni’s threat holds that he will behead dissenters, then prayers will not even scratch the surface of Uganda’s rapidly deteriorating political situation.
Therefore solving Uganda’s problem will have to focus on the root cause – Bahororo and their western backers.