While government continued to justify the killing of the Rwenzururu kingdom royal guards who have since been branded militias, Parliament yesterday observed a minute’s silence in memory of the victims.
Speaker Rebecca Kadaga invited the House to observe the silence as she concluded her communication at the beginning of yesterday’s plenary session. She later invited the Internal Affairs minister Gen Jeje Odongo to make a statement, which was rejected by MPs from Kasese as giving a distorted picture of the happenings in Kasese.
“These are concoctions, I was there when the UPDF and the police stormed the palace, it pains to demonise an institution…the Omusinga has nothing to do with the militia,” Bukonzo West MP Atkins Katusabe said.
His Busongora South counterpart Jackson Mbadi, a former minister in the Rwenzururu kingdom, also disputed Odongo’s claim that the royal guards were recruited and trained by the Omusinga Charles Wesley Mumbere. He told Parliament that it was, instead, that police that trained the royal guards in 2012.
While Odongo maintained that 46 royal guards and 16 policemen had been killed, Kasese MPs told Parliament that more than 139 lives have so far been lost. At the beginning of the session, Kasese MPs were heckled by their NRM colleagues but as debate continued, they received some backing from some NRM MPs, notably Barnabas Tinkasiimire (Buyaga West) and Alex Ruhunda (Fort Portal municipality).
Armed with a copy of a study report that he conducted with an NGO working in the Rwenzori sub-region, Ruhunda asked government to take responsibility for the clashes in the Rwenzori sub-region.
“Madam Speaker, this report is titled Stuck in the Mist; I personally gave a copy of it to the president for the consumption of government but nothing has ever been done,” Ruhunda said.
“This business of creating cultural institutions without a clear national policy is causing problems – within a short time, somebody emerges and is a king without being nurtured,” Ruhunda added.
The creation of a second kingdom; Obudhingiya bwa Bwamba is one of the factors that the government is looking at as a possible cause of the clashes, according to Odongo’s statement.
Ruhunda told Parliament that by allowing new kingdoms to sprout out in different parts of the country, Museveni is creating a fundamental problem that he was going to leave behind.
Ruhunda spoke after Kasese municipality MP Robert Centenary and Mbadi had told Parliament of their endless efforts to talk peace with Museveni but the president was not forthcoming.
In one of the engagements at Mweya Safari lodge in March, Museveni reportedly told the MPs that he would personally talk to Mumbere since they are cousins.
Finance minister Matia Kasaija spoke in defence of the president, telling the Kasese MPs that Museveni is a busy president without enough time.
“We need to be patient with the president. He has limited time; even if he told you to wait for five months [to meet him, you should wait],” Kasaija said.
He went on to tell the house that with the ongoing conflict in Kasese, it is unlikely that the country would achieve the much-desired middle-income economy.
sadabkk@observer.ug