Tag Archives: their

Bahima must accept their Luo ancestry, stop military adventurism and psychological warfare

People all over the world are proud of their ancestry and culture. Those who do not know their ancestry and culture are busy reconstructing them and making necessary changes including names.

On the other hand Bahima and their Batutsi, Bahororo and Banyamulenge cousins are busy hiding their Luo ancestry and their nomadic and militaristic culture. They are doing so because they do not want to lose the advantages they have enjoyed since aristocratic Europeans from Belgium, Britain and Germany falsely described them as intelligent and superior white people born to rule others.

They are afraid that if they accept their Luo ancestry then they cannot continue to claim that they are white people because Luo are black people. If they accept that they are Luo people then they cannot continue to claim that they are intelligent and responsible for civilizations that Europeans found in Uganda. They are afraid that if they accept that they are Luo then they cannot continue to claim that they are born leaders.

They are afraid that if they accept that they are Luo from southern Sudan then they will accept their nomadic and warlike culture and low level of civilization. They are afraid that if they accept their Luo ancestry then they will lose western support.

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Bantu people must reclaim their glory as a pre-condition for development

The second half of the 20th century was marked by decolonization in Africa. New flags and anthems replaced colonial ones albeit after bloody wars in some cases, new names replaced colonial ones: Gold Coast became Ghana, Upper Volta became Burkina Faso, Northern and Southern Rhodesia became Zambia and Zimbabwe respectively, etc. Presidents and prime ministers replaced governors. The principal idea behind all these changes was to reclaim African pre-colonial glory.

The first half of the 21st century should be devoted to the decolonization of epithets (terms of abuse) or distortions introduced before or during colonial days. These epithets were deliberately coined and have been repeatedly applied since then to the present day in 2010 to keep down Bantu people (as opposed to Bantu-speaking Nilotic people). You still hear some Bahima and Bahororo boasting that any one of them is worth 1000 Bairu, others are telling us with confidence that their women are more beautiful than Bairu women. Ms Kesaasi confirmed this in April 2010! To repeat, these epithets are intentionally used to devalue Bantu people irrespective of their education, work experience and even wealth.

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Bahima and their culture of winner takes all

To understand why corruption has reached an unprecedented level in Uganda’s history and there are no signs that it is subsiding, Ugandans and their development partners need to understand the pastoral culture of Uganda’s present leaders. From time immemorial pastoralists including Batutsi, Bahima and Bahororo (Batutsi from Rwanda) live in hostile environments marked by shortages of pasture and water, droughts, epidemics like the 1890s rinderpest, bovine diseases and cattle theft.

In the Great Lakes Region pastoralists lived in fragile ecosystems which rendered them vulnerable and forced them to engage in fighting for survival. Most of the wars in the region since the arrival, in the 16th century, of the Nilotic Luo-speaking Bahima and their Batutsi and Bahororo cousins have been related to land and cattle. They have fought to expand territory and increase their herds, dispossessing the losers. Accordingly, they developed a mentality of winner takes all which has been carried over into governments in Uganda and Rwanda.

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When someone treats you like a slave you have got to defend yourself

According to Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary a slave is, inter alia, (1) a bond servant divested of all freedom and personal rights; a human being who is owned by and wholly subject to the will of another, as by capture, purchase, or birth. (2) one who has lost the power of resistance, or one who surrenders himself to any power whatever… (3) …one who labors like a slave.

A number of developments with reference to the Great Lakes Region (especially Rwanda and south west Uganda) have forced me to revisit the issue of being a slave. First, my visit to Burundi, DRC and Rwanda in January/February 2010 and the detailed stories I heard in formal and informal settings in addition to information from other sources has made me realize that groups of human beings in the region have been deprived of their human rights. Reports about massacres or should we say genocide of Hutu people in Rwanda and Eastern DRC committed by Tutsi, the hidden mass graves of brutally murdered Hutu people some of them under buildings in Rwanda and DRC, the comments from people who should know better but think Hutu people – all Hutu people – are barbaric, wild beasts, genocidaires and assassins that deserve to be punished made me wonder where the world is headed.

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The desire to recapture Tutsi power in Rwanda led to genocide and more

I know some Bahutu (Hutu) and Bairu (Iru) in diaspora who supported Tutsi return to Rwanda, by force if necessary, because they had been rejected in neighboring countries – witness their expulsion from Uganda in 1982 – and Rwanda government did not want them because there was no room for more people. Habyarimana government described Rwanda as a country unsustainably overpopulated and recommended that Tutsi should stay where they had been given asylum.

In recognition of Tutsi suffering in exile, the international community put pressure on Rwanda government to negotiate a settlement with the Tutsi-dominated Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) for a government of national unity and the return of Rwandan refugees. The RPF had a different idea – the restoration of their supremacy over Bahutu as they had done until 1959 when Bahutu ‘Social Revolution’ through Batutsi out of power and out of the country.

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The curse of resource abundance in DRC

The abundance of resources in DRC – elephants and their tusks, rubber trees and their latex, vast and varied minerals, fertile soils and adequate rainfall, rivers suitable for navigation that also have waterfalls in sections essential for the production of hydroelectric power, and resilient people – should have turned the country into a first class industrial nation with rich people enjoying a high life expectancy. Instead DRC has been ruthlessly exploited, has suffered keptocracy (government of thieves), wars and massive loss of lives and displacements, and human rights abuses including sexual violence with impunity thereby turning the country into a third class pauper with the majority of Congolese among the poorest on earth. How did resource abundance turn into a curse? But first, let us briefly review the situation before plunder began.

Before the Congo basin became a part of the global community, the Congolese had developed strong kingdoms like Kongo and Luba. Economically they engaged in mixed farming growing a wide range of crops and herding cattle, goats and pigs etc. The foodstuffs were supplemented by hunting wild game, gathering wild fruits and vegetables and catching wild fish. Together they provided adequate and balanced diet in quantity and quality for a healthy, active and productive life. Because they ate well, they developed resistance against disease, had relatively low death rate and rapid population growth.

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Why DRC may disintegrate

During a mission to DRC in January/February 2010, concerns were expressed by people from many walks of life – national and foreign – in formal and informal settings about the possibility of DRC disintegrating. A review of the underlying forces needs to go as far back as the 16th century when hunting for ivory and slaves led to ethnic conflicts and hostile relations. The political, economic and social disruptions that occurred in Central Africa made it easier for Europeans to implement a policy of divide and rule. Weaker communities that had suffered sought European protection while established rivals used European allies against their hostile neighbors.

In Congo, Leopold II and the subsequent colonial government encouraged ethnic isolation or rivalries and hostilities. Some rulers and/or ethnic groups were allowed to exercise hegemony over others. The Luba were favored and enjoyed higher status because they were considered superior to others. These divide and rule tactics created mistrust and antagonism among ethnic groups and weakened national consciousness.

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Uganda will develop only when donors relax their conditionality

Pre-colonial communities that later formed Uganda produced and traded in local and regional markets and consumed a wide range of products based on local endowments. Economic activities included a variety of crop cultivation, herding livestock, fishing, salt extraction and manufacturing enterprises especially those producing iron, wooden, skin and bark products.

Besides a strategic motive to control the source of the Nile, Uganda was colonized to produce raw materials for British industries and a market for British manufactured products. Lord Lugard stated clearly that the growing population in Europe and industrial expansion led to a desire for new markets for manufactured products, tropical raw materials for British industry and foodstuffs to supplement decreased home production and feed increasing British population (A. Seidman 1972). Consequently, Uganda was reduced to a producer and exporter of raw materials and an importer of manufactured products.

Economic discussions by Ugandans before independence emphasized manufacturing enterprises to transform a colonial economy and society, create jobs and add value to exports. However, the British had a different plan. As independence became inevitable, the British government invited the World Bank to evaluate development possibilities for Uganda. The World Bank’s principal recommendation was that Uganda should accelerate and diversify agricultural production primarily for export purposes (A. Seidman 1972).

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