Is militarism the biggest threat to Uganda’s peace and stability?

COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama |  The signs are ominous – the growing militarism is steadily revealing itself as the masked bandit it always has been.

In May 2024, the Human Rights and Peace Centre (HURIPEC) at Makerere University released a gem of a report, ‘GUNS, BREAD AND BUTTER: Militarization of Economic Sectors and Public Institutions in Uganda: A Socio-Legal Analysis’.

Dr Busingye Kabumba, HURIPEC acting director, notes that the report demonstrates the depth and breadth of militarization/militarism in Uganda – examining, “how we got here, and how –if at all–we can escape it.”

One of the various definitions of militarism, cited in the study, describes militarism as the belief that pivots the military and its methods of use of force and the threat of violence as the best means of solving societal challenges.

President Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Movement (NRM) regime as the longest-reigning regime since Uganda gained independence in 1962, has entrenched the military as the supreme body in Uganda in its fusion of the regime and the state.

The army chief, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, also Museveni’s son, in his speech at the 44th Tarehe Sita anniversary, stressed the centrality of the army in Uganda’s governance structure.

Highlighting the Supreme court’s January 31 judgment on military courts as unfortunate and acceptable, Kainerugaba said, “The UPDF and its predecessor the NRA – which we honor today – provided the lasting solution to the tyranny, killings and lawlessness that for so long plagued Uganda.

The UPDF, without doubt, remains the foundation upon which democracy and socio-economic transformation in our country will be realized.” The army chief ’s statement is quite at odds with Articles 1 and 2 of the Constitution which stipulate that power belongs to the people, grounding the Constitution as the supreme law of this black, yellow and red land.

In recent weeks, we have been treated to vulgar scenes of brute force that have trampled on the blood, sweat and tears of the revolutionary ideals of the National Resistance Army (NRA)/NRM and thus, the Luweero bush war. Dear reader, in the manner of seasoned criminals returning to a crime scene to marvel at their handiwork, let us revisit some of these scenes.

Scene 1: In the last court appearance of opposition doyen, Kizza Besigye and his co-accused, Obed Lutale, an armed security operative stood prominently at the front of the court. Clad in black, wearing dark shades in a brightly lit courtroom, the armed operative stood facing the seated public, his back to the bench.

Dear reader, we must pay attention to the pose – the armed operative stands in between the people and the bench. In his pose, the armed operative is all-in-one: judge, jury and executioner.

The Supreme court having declared military courts unconstitutional and illegal, the armed operative now stood armed to the teeth, in a civilian court. A vulgar display of unabashed power.

Scene 2: In more harrowing scenes from the National Unity Platform (NUP) campaign rallies in Kawempe North, armed and masked soldiers like rabid beasts descend upon unarmed civilians, violently whipping and lunging at them.

The sight is as disorienting as a hitherto unknown warzone in Kawempe North. The valiant efforts of an unidentified female soldier struggling to hold back the violence of her masked colleagues cannot go unnoticed.

Of course, the NRM candidate has suffered no such setbacks- her campaigns have been a sea of yellow tranquillity. The flagrant double standards tell us that the opposition should wear yellow to achieve peaceful rallies and throw off the bloodhounds of state violence.

Scene 3: A man stares straight ahead- dressed in all-black, save for his freakish orange and tan headgear. His tan mask is macabre – fit for Halloween revellers dressed convincingly as armed thugs. His gun, slung across his torso, is long and mean.

The masked armed operative vs. the people. The display is both melodramatic and intimidating. I turn to a few of President Museveni’s favorite citizens, the children of the bazzukulu. I show these bazzukulu (a boy and girl, 10 and nine years respectively) the picture of the masked operative.

I ask them to guess his day job (his night job seems torturously obvious). The two bazzukulu stare at the picture, their faces muddled with questions. Why is he wearing a mask? Why is he carrying a gun? Why is he dressed in all-black?

Why does he have the Uganda flag on his uniform? Why is he so unmoving, so still? Momentarily, they chorus, “He shoots people!” “Where do you think he works?” I ask. Their confusion deepens.

The answer on their lips is at wars with the picture in front of them. Their eyes dart between the Uganda flag on his uniform and the mask on his face. “Police?” they respond questioningly. “Why does he look so scary?”

After much pussyfooting over the identity of the masked gunmen, the government finally owned its ‘masked guns’; the infamous Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force (JATT). Officially established in 2002, JATT is cobbled together from the police, army and intelligence organisations.

In 2009, a Human Rights Watch report, ‘Open Secret: Illegal Detention and Torture by the Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force in Uganda’, put JATT at the heart of human rights atrocities in Uganda. HRW reported, “JATT personnel typically operate in unmarked cars, carry out arrests wearing civilian clothes with no identifying insignia, and do not inform suspects of the reasons for their arrest.

Those taken into custody are not told they are being taken to Kololo, and are frequently blindfolded, handcuffed, and sometimes beaten during the journey.”

Today, we can report an improvement as JATT operatives now spot all-black uniforms, serious-looking firepower, and macabre masks. Mwabutsya Ndebesa, on Civic Space’s YouTube current affairs program, contextualizes the macabre masks, remarking that the masks are similar to those worn by Mexican drug cartels- infamous for their depraved brutality (of decapitated heads and dismembered bodies).

Ndebesa also condemns the incendiary and dehumanizing language the chief of defence forces (CDF) freely employs on his social media account on X about the opposition. He warns this is putting the country on a slippery slope to the dark times of yesteryears, especially in a region with a history of genocide and violent conflict.

When the NUP members arrested by JATT appeared in court, they shuffled, hobbled and winced in pain; some spotted massive blue-black bruises on their bodies. At a NUP campaign rally in Kawempe North, a fiery young man shouted into the microphone that he feared nothing revealing that he had been arrested and tortured previously.

Now out of jail, he roared that he was beyond the fear that successfully cripples many Ugandans – the fear of jail and a lifetime of torture with the slight whiff of premature death. Herein lies the booby trap of militarism.

The entrenchment of militarism undermines our prospects for sustainable peace. It is a self-destructive time bomb. The HURIPEC report warns that while state brutality and violence are causing fear among some of the public- “it is also slowly militarizing the citizenry, especially the youth who are adopting military approaches as coping mechanisms.”

Interrogating how militarism has impacted the Uganda Police Force (UPF), HURIPEC states, “Police militarization is increasingly undermining and subordinating the UPF to the military, contrary to the much-cherished principle of civil supremacy and civilian control of the army.

It has turned the UPF into a brutal and violent institution involved in human rights abuse and violations, including torture, kidnapping and murder, among others. Police brutality and violence are also increasingly leading to fear of police and loss of public support for the institution.”

HURIPEC further observes beating back militarism into the barracks is deeply complicated as militarism in Uganda is rooted in our complex political history whose roots go back to British colonization. In the 1970s and 1980s when Uganda was in the throes of a tyrannical regime breathing murderous militarism, a motley crew of young men and women decided they could not sit back and wait for someone else to rescue their Uganda.

These youth, brimming with premium patriotism, took up armed rebellion determined to end the reign of tyranny. So determined were these heroes that they started with a miserly 27 guns.

Dear reader, do you know what it means to face a state that is armed and dangerous with your 27 guns? A state that sees you and your mates as vermin or in the words of today’s CDF, buffoons, criminals, baboons, Zakayo, Neanderthals, dogs? Scholars document that the NRA was partly successful due to the discipline of their fighters and the support among the civilian population – the people!

Frank Schubert in his 2006 article, ‘Guerrillas Don’t Die Easily’: Everyday Life in Wartime and the Guerrilla Myth in the National Resistance Army in Uganda, 1981–1986, wrote that civilians were driven into the arms of the NRA by the brutality of the Obote government.

Schubert quoted opposition stalwart and one of the NRA historicals, Mugisha Muntu, “The main recruiting officer for NRA was Obote himself ”. What a disconcerting state we find ourselves in today!

The NRM, victorious since 1986, has settled unapologetically, lording its 40-year reign over the people while steadily unravelling the gains of 1986. Is the NRM taking Uganda back to the bush? In the words of Mugisha Muntu through his X social media account, “The current reality is inconsistent with the historical mission of NRA”.

The current reality is inconsistent with Article 1 of Uganda’s Constitution: ‘All power belongs to the people who shall exercise their sovereignty in accordance with this Constitution.’

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Olivia Nalubwama is a “tayaad Muzukulu, tired of mediocrity and impunity” smugmountain@gmail.com

THIS ARTICLE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE OBSERVER