Raphael Lemkin must be laughing at Owana’s ‘Genocide’ jokes in the Redpepper

I have always respected Tony Owana, the UBC chief, but his Redpepper article:''INTERNET POLITICIANS' GET SET FOR GENOCIDE' was more of an exaggeration than anything else i can think of. Branding Ugandans At heart (UAH) forum a genocide promoting forum was the lowest of the low for a professional journalist of his status. As a moderator of the UAH, genocide is something we don't take lightly but Owana's message was clearly written in bad spirit and i hope his readers don't take him seriously- because there is never gonna be a genocide in Uganda promoted or started by UAH.Nobody could really think that the UAH will ever descend to such level in our lifetime.An accusation of genocide is certainly not taken lightly and will almost always be controversial.

Contrary to what Owana and my friend, Lt.Otto Patrick, write about Eric Kashambuzi (the UN employee) as a genocidal megalomaniac, the later has been a subject of various interesting books and articles that are admired by a lot of people. I'm surprised that the duo are not instead writing about the genocidal maniacs that have wiped out millions in Rwanda, Northern Uganda, DRC and Ethiopia.

People are openly discussing President Museveni's sectarian policies(i.e. allocating juicy positions to certain groups of people) because they want him to correct these mistakes. Yes, sometimes the messages are presented in the way that is alarming but anyone with common sense understands what they are trying to tell us. So, instead of branding these 'free advisers' to the president: 'genociders', we should investigate their allegations and see if there is an element of truth in them. For instance, while reading Major John Kazora's memoirs in the Daily Monitor, i came across some advise Winnie Byanyima was giving to president Museveni about Muhoozi and his irregular recruitment of people in the army. Museveni's response was: ' “Iwe Karagwe-mwatandika kutiina omwereere” meaning “You Karagwa you have started fearing toddlers……..Muhoozi is not even LDU, (a member of the Local Defence Unit) – I just asked him to identify people of good character who can be absorbed in the army.”But now few years the down the line, Muhoozi is nolonger LDU and the guys he recruited are the 'elites' or 'abalangira' of the army.

Definitions of genocide
'Genocide' is defined as the deliberate killing of people based on their ethnicity, nationality, race, religion, or (sometimes) politics, as well as other deliberate actions leading to the physical elimination of any of the above categories. There is disagreement over whether the term genocide ought to be used for politically-motivated mass murders in general (compare “democide”). The term genocide was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew, in 1944, from the roots genos (Greek for family, tribe or race) and cide (Latin – occidere, to kill). In the wake of the Nazi Holocaust, Lemkin successfully campaigned for the acceptance of international laws, defining and forbidding genocide. This was achieved in 1951, with the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1948 and came into effect in January 1951. It contains an internationally recognized definition of genocide which was incorporated into the national criminal legislation of many countries, and was also adopted by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Convention (in article 2) defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:” (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Much debate about genocide revolves around the proper definition of the word genocide. Opponents of government massacres often insist that the word's usage should include such massacres, even if international law has a narrower scope. The Baganda on UAH have got all the reasons to believe that Obote and UPC did a 'genocide' in Buganda in late 1960s and 1980s just as the northerners also argue that Museveni did a genocide in the north, but Owana is quick to accuse the same Baganda of being ”different from their ancestors in 'Mission Objectives' and 'Target Identification', as if the Baganda have ever targeted any group for murder in the past. I know Baganda talk too much but they are not murderers. For instance, they made a lot of noise when their Kabaka was stopped from visiting Kayunga in September 2009 but at the end of the day, the more than 40 people that died during the time were killed by Owana's 'friends' who are still waking freely in the country.

In nearly every case where accusations of genocide have circulated, partisans of various sides have fiercely disputed the interpretation and details of the event, often to the point of promoting wildly different versions of the facts. Owana and other NRM advocates are not complaining at the narrower definition that is exculpating the totalitarian governments that are killing the same people they are supposed to protect. Yes, there was a genocide in Rwanda and we hope it never happens in Uganda but so many factors led to the genocide in Rwanda. I don't know why some people attribute this entirely the propaganda spread by the radio RTLM alone. During and before the genocide in Rwanda,Rwandans could listen to the more state-owned station, Radio Rwanda. The government of Rwanda was mainly responsible for the genocide as they promoted the killing of the Tutsis. If the govt had no stake in it, then this genocide would not have taken place. So how can a genocide take place in Uganda if the state does not want it to take place.

Genocide is an ongoing process, which should be constantly opposed and eradicated by elimination of the tools of injustice, oppression and genocide. If a government is oppressing its own people then it is directly promoting a future genocide.Therefore, it's very unwise to suggest that an online forum advising the government should be banned yet it keeps pointing out the issues that are unfair toward all the other disadvantaged individuals, or groups of individuals who continue to suffer from injustice.

The first draft of the Convention included political killings but that language was removed at the insistence of the Soviet Union. I'm sure Owana, Museveni and other NRMs would have done the same if there were seated in that UN panel.The exclusion of social and political groups as targets of genocide in this legal definition has been criticized. In common usage of the word, these target groups are often included.

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Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba