Sweeping problems under the rug can only delay a catastrophe

I fully agree with Museveni that to recommend a solution, we must get to the heart of the matter and find out what the problem is. We have failed to recommend appropriate solutions to problems in the Great Lakes regions because we have not yet got to the heart of the matter. There are two major constraints in our work: western biased or distorted reporting in favor of Batutsi and against non-Batutsi people and cover up of ethnic conflicts.

Western reporting since Europeans arrived in the Great Lakes region in the mid-19th century has been biased in favor of Nilotic Batutsi and against Bantu people dubbed Bahutu and Bairu (slaves or servants). Speke and Seligman began this process. Batutsi who are black people were falsely christened white people through the Hamitic Myth and incorrectly credited with all the civilizations they found in the region especially in Buganda including earth works in the central region of Uganda. They even claimed Bachwezi were Batutsi and Bantu had never had kingdoms and kings or chiefs. It is now confirmed that Bachwezi were a Bantu aristocracy (B. A. Ogot 1999). The history that was written covered royal courts, leaving out atrocities committed against Bantu people whom they treated as slaves or servants or sold into slavery as Makobore did. “The coastal traders were also employed in interstate raids for slaves. For example Makobore, the king of Rujumbura, employed them in his raids against Butumbi and Kayonza”(Bethwell A. Ogot 1979).

External factors in Uganda politics

It would be a big mistake to discuss Uganda politics since independence in 1962 without a consideration of the role of external factors. External support can be in the form of commission or omission. The pre-independence politics was manipulated externally to defeat DP and Catholics and pave the way for Protestant UPC/KY and Obote as leader of the coalition and executive prime minister at independence. The coming to power of Amin in 1971 had a huge external involvement and sustained him in power until 1979. The overthrow of Obote II government in 1985 involved a heavy external hand operating from within and without Uganda. Obote was denied external funding at a particularly difficult time under the pretext he didn’t stick to one of the conditions set by the IMF and the World Bank cut off funding after Kanyeihamba and his colleagues convinced it at a conference in one of the Scandinavian countries on the basis of human rights violations and the World Bank switched support to NRM while still in the bush.

Can Batutsi problem be solved peacefully?

After he was sworn in as president of Uganda on January 29, 1986, Museveni addressed the nation and the world. In the middle of his address, he made a historic remark: “There is in philosophy something called obscurantism, a phenomenon where ideas are deliberately obscured so that what is false appears to be true and vice versa. We in the NRM are not interested in the politics of obscurantism [hiding things]: we want to get to the heart of the matter and find out what the problem is. Being a leader is like being a medical doctor. A medical doctor must diagnose his patient’s disease before he can prescribe treatment” (Y. K. Museveni 1989). I couldn’t agree more. Sadly, Museveni hasn’t practiced what he preached on that day of January 29, 1986. He has hidden his true motive which is to take care of his Batutsi people in the Great Lakes region through creation of a Tutsi Empire where Batutsi will impoverish, dispossess, marginalize and dominate the rest. We have already experienced much of it in Uganda.

How Museveni has used the West to pursue the Tutsi Empire dream

Museveni’s life and energies at least since the early 1960s have been devoted to resurrecting Mpororo kingdom and expanding it into a Tutsi Empire initially in the Great Lakes region of Africa, explaining in large part why Ankole kingdom was not restored as it would interfere with Bahororo/Tutsi Empire project. Although they lost territory when Mpororo kingdom disintegrated around 1750, Bahororo (Batutsi people of Mpororo kingdom) wherever they went including back to Rwanda (it is believed Kagame like Museveni is a Muhororo subject to confirmation, perhaps explaining why Rwanda kingdom was not restored) tenaciously clung together (Karugire 1980) by resisting intermarriage with other ethnic groups hoping that someday their Mpororo kingdom would be resurrected.

In preparation for Uganda’s independence, Bahororo in Ankole demanded a separate district but Bahima rejected the idea. Museveni was old enough to witness the mistreatment of Bahororo by Bahima. At the same time Batutsi of Rwanda including Bahororo suffered a double defeat through the social revolution of 1959 and pre-independence elections leading to independence in 1962.