By John Mugisha, Political Analysts
There is a proverb that a dead fish rots from its head that seems appropriate looking at NRM cadres. It is painful to see how skewed slogans from the NRM top about a borderless Africa affects petty job hunting political peddlers to write nonsense in search of attention at the bottom. The Ugandan ruling elite cannot digest hard cold facts on the Rwanda-Uganda crisis; they caused it. So they quickly pivot and fall back to denial, insults, and misinformation via CMI controlled media and attention seekers like one Sam Evidence Orikunda.
In a speech to the Diplomatic Corp in Kigali, the President of Rwanda said it; stop persecuting Rwandans and plotting with her enemies and the border will automatically open. It is an inconvenient truth, the Ugandan regime is holding hundreds of Rwandans without trial, in secret detentions, under torture and some innocent Rwandans have died from the gross injustice. What reasonable government, in the world, would let its citizens travel to a dangerous zone where they risk persecution? Sadly, the truth has the Uganda NRM regime spinning.
They closed the border by abducting, torturing and killing Rwandans in a frantic search for scapegoats. They should have thought about the dire consequences of persecuting their neighbors. Now, the Ugandan economy suffers as a result, they lost over $450 Millions US Dollars. Bordering towns and businesses in Uganda are crying to their leader to normalize trade with Uganda and Museveni agreed, he actually made the promise to do everything thing possible to solve the crisis.
The border closure is a symptom; the cause of the illness is the hostile policy (the persecution and support for groups hell-bent to destabilize Rwanda). In a coordinated propaganda operation, CMI and NRM want to address the symptom while they continue to cause the illness. To do so, they attempt a token for token logic claiming they released 9 innocent Rwandans hence the border should be opened. They forget that hundreds more are still illegally detained.
It is spurious and circular reasoning in Matooke Republic. Their leader’s simplification of the hostile persecution based crisis to a mere border closure infected and spread like cancer. It has become the norm in NRM, to get attention and possibly an appointment, one shows how anti-Rwanda they are hoping to be noticed by CMI and NRM. Selfishly, they aggravate the situation by ranting that no Rwandans are arbitrarily arrested, tortured or killed in their persecution. With a ton of evidence, such denial is offensive.
Their claim that there is no persecution of Rwandans is wrong. If that was the case, where do they find Rwandans to dump at the border with scars of torture? How do they justify that in September 2019, CMI stamped documents accompanied 32 Rwandans released from illegal detention?
The Keys for closed Rwanda-Uganda border are with Museveni. He could open the border overnight by simply releasing all those who were kidnapped by his intelligence services on fabricated charges. He can, with a simple decision, distance himself from hostile groups. If he needs to travel all the way to Angola for the revelation, for a second time, that he holds the key then so be it.
Failure to deliver security, development, democracy and all other promises made 34 years ago, NRM has not stopped scapegoating tactics. Uganda is infested with crime, killings, abductions, and torture of political opponents. Sam Evidence Orikunda can ask Boby Wine, he will know who shot his driver and beat him to a pulp. There is so much failure in NRM governance for them to focus on instead of unleashing their trolls, aspiring candidates and hostile blogs against Rwanda.
If NRM and its heads focused on corruption or security in Uganda, they will find no time to do anything else. Its chaotic volongoto system would be turned into something productive and would prevent scapegoat hunting. Aspiring candidates in NRM would begin to write about policies and focus on delivery as opposed to amplifying falsehood and rot from above.
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