Uganda is divided into two groups, there’s a government working so hard for unity, development of our country, well-being of us the citizens & building good PR to attract tourists & foreign investment.
On the other side, we have the second group; the opposition & its sympathisers. Unfortunately, these are doing all they can to undermine government, fail its every effort in achieving the above goals/agendas.
This is in total disregard of our National interests, security and stability. They’re willing to use any opportunity to failing government even if those methods endanger the life and property of Ugandans, provided their selfish petty agendas are fulfilled.
We also have the ideologically bankrupt idle pseudo-intellectuals who want to debate over every petty issue.
They assume; they’re the most knowledgeable, and must always lend their opinion to how government handles issues. They want to come off as experts on every issue but unfortunately most of their arguments are shallow, uninformed and biased. This pettiness & selfishness has really disorganised the political space of our country sowing seeds of hate amongst the citizens.
In the past few months our country has had a number of terrorist attacks where innocent citizens lost their lives. These have been very sad moments for our country. These attacks started with the attack on Gen Katumba Wamala who narrowly survived but lost his innocent daughter and driver.
Using cameras and other methods, our security forces were able to identify the attackers, establish other terrorists they were working with and started pursuing them. Some were arrested others put out of action as they resisted arrest or attempt to harm our security officers.
In all these operations government kept us informed and some of the information was verified by the media personalities who visited the crime scenes, interviewed the witnesses whose narrative corresponded with Government’s officiaI statements.
After the infamous 9/11 terrorist attacks on the USA, all its citizens came together to support government in defending their country. At that time many joined different areas of service including the military.
In our neighbourhood here in Kenya the whole country united when they were attacked by terrorists in 2019. When some western media houses published photos of dead bodies from the West Gate terrorist attack, this was met with very hostile resistance from Kenyans on twitter.
Unfortunately, in Uganda our opposition politicians & their sympathisers are doing the complete opposite. Opposition politicians and some idle ideologically bankrupt pseudo intellectuals in their desperate agendas to undermine and fail government are literally supporting and defending terrorists.
They have concocted all sorts of narratives, to justify these terrorist attacks & also accusing our security officers pursuing these terrorists of “extrajudicial killings”.
Compatriots we can all agree the people being “killed” are terrorists not innocent citizens, bystanders. Take an example of Mugamba Moses Mudasiru aka Kalyowa aka Moze; when security officers came in to arrest him, he was found assembling a bomb that he was planning to detonate later that day in Bwaise.
The funny part of all this is that the media house starting this idle talk reached the crime scene and talked to neighbours who confirmed the said terrorist resisted arrest, attempted to escape and indeed the security agencies had been following him for a while.
Unless these politicians & their ideologically bankrupt selfish intellectuals want to tell us that, security forces should have let this terrorist escape and later continue killing innocent civilians.
Some of these ADF terrorists like Sheikh Muhammad Kirevu were beneficiaries of the 2005 Amnesty. The 52nd battalion under the command of former CDF Gen David Muhoozi established an amnesty commission in the Congolese city Beni to have an agreement with all ADF rebels who were willing to surrender.
Out of the estimated 1200 rebels, only 50 came out to seek amnesty including Sheikh Mohammed Kirevu. These got civil starter kits and cash to resettle in Uganda. Amongst them, those who wanted to join UPDF like the late Maj. Kiggundu Mohammed were allowed.
It’s regrettably sad some of the beneficiaries of this programme deliberately abused the terms of that agreement continuing with their rebel activities. One wonders how well do those defending these ungrateful terrorists know them? Or they’re deliberately shielding terrorists well knowing their criminal acts?
From its foundation, NRA has been fighting terrorism battling different terrorist groups with different agendas and methods. The NRA started with the military junta that was terrorizing innocent citizens of Uganda.
After its defeat, former Government soldiers formed different terror groups that kept changing names all these were defeated including the LRA and ADF. Nowhere in the history of NRA fights, against these terrorist groups, has it ever victimised innocent citizens basing on tribes or religion, it has rather defended citizens from such sentiments advanced by these terrorist groups.
It’s very wrong for anyone to falsely claim our security forces are persecuting a specific religion. Let’s also understand some high-ranking members of our security forces and government are actually Muslims therefore cannot attack their own.
A terrorist is a terrorist, and in their assaults, they even kill their fellow Muslims.
We also need to respect and value the life of our men in uniform. Serving this country shouldn’t cost anyone his/her life. It’s very right for any officer to shoot and kill any terrorist if he/she threatens the officer’s life.
In countries like USA if an officer asks you to put your hands where he can see them and you refuse, he has every right to shoot you immediately. As a country let’s stand together and fight terrorism.
Frank Asiimwe Mulekwa
NRM Kampala District Publicist.
