There’s something brewing in Northern Uganda – or so it seems. There might be an arrest warrant coming out for Norbert Mao, the Yale Law School graduate-cum-Local Council 5 Chairman for the Gulu District. Apparently, he’s mixing with the Ugandan Patriotic Front, a new rebel group in the region (or so officials say).
Currently, public opinion is split over the army announcement that Uganda Patriotic Front, a new rebel group, is being nurtured in the thickets of Murchison Falls Park and surrounding Districts to kick President Museveni’s government out of power forcibly.
This is after Gen. David Tinyefuza, the coordinator of national intelligence agencies, on Thursday described as “utter rubbish” talk about a looming rebellion, which he said is recycled outdated information.
Acholi politicians named as masterminds of the nascent rogue group came out forcefully to deny any complicity.However, the Defence and Military Spokesman, Maj. Felix Kulayigye, who initially divulged the rebel scheme, said yesterday he spoke the truth and army investigators who dug up the now contested information are not “daft.”
“The UPDF discovered what was a nascent rebellion that was about to be started by some individuals in the Diaspora with some politicians in northern Uganda,” he said.This was rather a more guarded statement from the Major compared to his explicit accounts earlier in the week that Gulu District chairman, Mr Norbert Mao was an “accomplice and adviser” to UPF, and allegedly participated in editing their manifesto.
And Mr Mao, he said, is on security watch and could be arrested after the Gulu boss penned an unexpected newspaper article admitting he knew of an upcoming rebel formation, but considered the information “trash, a threat of armchair rebels.”
This paragraph is particularly pertinent:
But Acholi politicians, many fearing arrest, say the alleged rebel grouping is being trumpeted as a ruse to malign and lock them up jail ahead of the expected 2011 general elections since they have in the past made it impossible for the ruling government to win votes in the region.
At risk of being a conspiracy theorist, I would suggest that Museveni will lose in the upcoming elections unless he can think of a good excuse to call off his so called “multiparty politics” in the fear of regional destabilization. A new rebel group would do just the trick!
For those of you with a limited understanding of Ugandan politics, let’s just say that there’s a lot of controversy over how the Southern-based Nyankole government under Museveni has been treating their fellow citizens up North. First of all, when the Brits ruled Uganda the region around Kampala was favored in terms of money and development. Northerners were used to stack the armies. Later on, little changed. The North was hit with a violent rebel movement, the Lord’s Resistance Army, which on top of its bizarre millenarian ideals, wanted to destabilize the Southern based government and implement Northern majority. The LRA, at first seen benefactors by trying to assert Northern rule, turned against the Northern tribes and started abducting their children and raping the women.
Northern Ugandans remain understandably bitter: on top of the countries fitful North-South development patterns, their region continues to lack the infrastructure and funding to start thriving after two decades of war. They’ve had Museveni’s army meddling in the Internally Displaced Persons camps (rape) while pretending to defend citizens from the LRA (by fleeing when they came). No punishment for the Uganda Peoples’ Defense Forces. As Gulu emerges from this violent conflict, the region remains shackled politically, economically and socially.
All together, this spells a disaster for the upcoming 2011 Ugandan elections. Museveni has extended term limits to run again. He’s been leading the country since 1986. Admittedly, the opposition in Uganda is also limited. Partially because they have a hard time thriving under Museveni’s scrutiny, but it also may be that there isn’t a leader ready to take on the job yet. These are details that I know little about having not been in the country this past year. However, I would keep an eye on the region. Destabilization in Uganda will only spell bad news for fragile countries like Kenya and Southern Sudan (the 2011 referendum I imagine will also be somewhat disastrous.)