By Gen Mugisha Muntu (Rtd)
This week in South-western Uganda, people from all walks of life made their voices heard. It is obvious that the population is tired of Gen. Museveni’s highhanded and selfish hang onto power. The question that is being asked, is how do we achieve change?
My response now, as it has been for a long time, is that change begins by getting involved. Criticizing from the sidelines won’t help. Calling each other names wont help. And doing nothing certainly wont help. We must each look for ways to get involved in the struggle. We must each do our part in building the country.
From resolving to stand for an LCI position in your village to making the time to go and vote, we all have opportunities to join the struggle. I would like to also take this opportunity to honor and remember a young man who in the past days has been a victim of the regime’s excesses.
Edson Nasasira was only 22 years old. He, like thousands of other residents in Rukungiri was participating in a peaceful, legal and patriotic act of civil activism. He was shot and killed by police, not because he was a suspect in the killings of women in Entebbe or the robbing of billions of taxpayers money.
He was not caught supplying 350 pens to the Bank of Uganda at 125m shillings or illegally dispossessing a fellow Ugandan of land. Edson was simply participating in a rally that had been communicated to the police and at a venue that had been paid for. He was doing his solemn duty as a citizen and getting involved in a process of determining which direction our country should take. For this, he paid the ultimate price at the hands of a rogue police force whose constitutional responsibility it was to protect him.
I have heard many people say, ‘let’s get guns and fight the regime’ or ‘since they are violent, let’s all be violent’. As one who has not only lived through war, but actively participated in it, I have seen first hand, the horrors that come with it.
I have also seen comrades with whom we took up arms to fight injustice, develop a sense of entitlement and eventually become perpetrators of the injustice we so desperately fought to get rid of. It is this injustice that is responsible for Edson’s death. If military action was the silver bullet to achieving democracy, Museveni would have handed over years ago, Uganda would be a regional leader and Ugandans would be living in a properous, stable and equitable economy.
The truth is, no one person can bring the change we all want. Politicians over the years have promised to deliver us from injustice and oppression, only to become the perpetrators of the same. Therefore, if we are interested in change, we as Ugandans must stop putting our trust in politicians and begin putting it in ourselves. We must stop looking for the change we want in others and be the change we want.
And if young people today needed any more encouragement to do our part in building the nation, let us remember 18 year old Aijukire Junior, shot in the stomach by police for participating in a legal rally. Let us think of Edson and the many that have been injured, maimed or killed by government over the past several years, for no reason other than simply standing up to let their voices be heard.
May their deaths not be in vain, but instead spur each one of us towards doing something-however seemingly insignificant- to make Uganda a better place. Not all of you can join in rallies, but you can vote wisely. Not all of you can publicly speak out, but you can privately influences.
Not all of you can stand for leadership positions, but some of you can support those who stand. I have no doubt that if each of us pitches in, we can all build a Uganda in which the collective will of the people overwhelms the singular interests of individuals. That is the Uganda I have fought for in the bushes of Luwero, worked for in the army after 1986, recommitted to in the founding of FDC and sought in my position as party president. We will not stop trying to mobilize Ugandans around this vision.
I hope you will join in too.
Gen Muntu is the President of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC)