From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Mon Aug 10 2009 - 23:12:38 EDT
2009-08-03 11:00:00
Fury over Museveni tribal talk
President Museveni
By Mercy Nalugo, Citizen Correspondent, Kampala
has come under intense criticism for suggesting that elective leadership
positions in the oilrich
Bunyoro region be exclusively occupied by ethnic Banyoro.
A collection of law makers, an academic, politicians and analysts accuse
President Museveni of promoting sectarianism
and setting the country on a dangerous path of ethnicised politicking in
breach of the Constitution.
Prof. Ogenga Latigo, the Leader of Opposition, told Sunday Monitor by
telephone yesterday that the President is trying to apply the
divide-andrule tactics that the colonialists employed to overrun resistant
African communities.
"The monster of tribalism will come back to eat him and he will have
nowhere to run," said Prof. Latigo, "It is very sad
because you cannot divide your country the same way the President is doing.
You will only have conflict." The Agago County MP said President Museveni
has used the creation of new districts to polarise previously harmonious
communities and setting
one against the other so that all of them become weak and vulnerable to his
political manipulations.
Renown Makerere University political historian, Mr Ndeebesa Mwambutsya,
said the President�s highly divisive missive, appears packaged to appease
the Banyoro who were clamoring
for a share of the newly- found oil wealth, but it will "open a Pandora's
box" for the country.
"In Uganda, a President's statement is taken as a policy and what Mr
Museveni said will incite the Banyoro against immigrants and this will
infect the whole country; contradicting national integration and the
President's patriotism
project," he said.