uganda

As a Nobel Peace laureate, I, like most people, agonize over the use of force. But when it comes to rescuing an innocent people from tyranny or genocide, I've never questioned the justification for resorting to force. That's why I supported Vietnam's 1978 invasion of Cambodia, which ended Pol Pot's regime, and Tanzania's invasion of Uganda in 1979, to oust Idi Amin. In both cases, those countries acted without U.N. or international approval__nd in both cases they were right to do so.

In Uganda, I wrote a questionaire that I had my research assistants give; on it, I asked about the embalasassa, a speckled lizard said to be poisonous and to have been sent by Prime minsister Milton Obote to kill Baganda in the late 1960s. It is not poisonous and was no more common in the 1960s than it had been in previous decades, as Makerere University science professors announced on the radio and stated in print_ I wrote the question, What is the difference between basimamoto and embalasassa? Anyone who knows anything about the Bantu language__yself included__ould know the answer was contained in the question: humans and reptiles are different living things and belong to different noun classes_ A few of my informants corrected my ignorance_ but many, many more ignored the translation in my question and moved beyond it to address the history of the constructs of firemen and poisonous lizards without the slightest hesitation. They disregarded language to engage in a discussion of events_ My point is not about the truth of the embalasassa story_ but rather that the labeling of one thing as __rue_ and the other as __ictive_ or __etaphorical___ll the usual polite academic terms for false__ay eclipse all the intricate ways in which people use social truths to talk about the past. Moreover, chronological contradictions may foreground the fuzziness of certain ideas and policies, and that fuzziness may be more accurate than any exact historical reconstruction_ Whether the story of the poisionous embalasassa was real was hardly the issue; there was a real, harmless lizard and there was a real time when people in and around Kampala feared the embalasassa. They feared it in part because of beliefs about lizards, but mainly what frightened people was their fear of their government and the lengths to which it would go to harm them. The confusions and the misunderstandings show what is important; knowledge about the actual lizard would not.

African despots are all the same, they think they can wake up one morning and create themselves a Kingdom and rule over it and pass it over to their children and grandchildren. They don't get one thing you can't be a descendant of a title less class, with no trace of royal DNA and just subject yourself to people.

People who don't exercise their freedom of voting (choosing their leaders) are irresponsible. Such people have no right to complain or want more than what they are receiving from the government. Intentional failure to vote is cowardly, irresponsible and a sign of ignorance.

Dirty politicians, corrupt leaders and thieves are sent to the Ugandan parliament and state house by lazy Ugandans who don__ go to vote.

Our guns were still strapped onto our backs, because a gun meant life. Without it there was no life in the LRA. After crossing the water and walking for a long time, there was a whisper in my heart, telling me that if we kept the guns we would get killed.I was learning to listen to this gentle voice that spoke to my heart. This time what was said was hard to accept. I didn't know how I would convince my friends to throw away what seemed to be their last hope. The voice would not leave me alone. It continued to whisper in my ears to drop the guns.

Character is a choice whatever the circumstance; In the NRM you can choose to be a Hon. Ruhakana Rugunda, an Ofwono Opondo or a Tamale Mirundi. And in the Opposition you can choose to be a Gen. Mugisha Muntu, a Munyagwa or a Kato Lubwama.