ENVIRONMENTAL SABOTAGE ON THE RISE IN UGANDA AS ACCOUNTABILITY OF POWER DECLINES.

Environmental sabotage (also known as ecotage or ecological sabotage) may be due to deliberate acts of property damage or destruction by environmentalists aimed at preventing environmental harm or disrupting projects considered harmful to the environment. These actions often involve disrupting or damaging infrastructure related to fossil fuel extraction, deforestation, or industrial pollution, with the goal of stopping or slowing down such activities. Environmental sabotage may also be due to the choices or decisions of power to erect projects or programmes harmful to the environment.

One writer wrote that deep frustration and a sense of desperation among a people or community may lead to communal or people’s actions that can harm the environment. When people feel that time is running out and that their voices are not being heard, they may turn to more radical means to defend the planet’s nature and environments. They may destroy destructive projects. Thus, as the writer wrote, emotions play a critical role here, acting as a catalyst for these disruptive actions, fuelled by a sense of urgency and moral justification. For example, says the writer, the urgency of the climate crisis, coupled with a moral imperative to protect the Earth, drives individuals to jointly or separately take bold, sometimes drastic, measures that may bring conflict between them and power.

The clashes between them and power may result in further destruction of the environment, or civically initiated environmental sabotage, in all its dimensions – ecological-biological, socioeconomic, sociocultural, and temporal. Frequently, when Earth Planet defenders act radical, they are called radical environmentalists, and their type of environmentalism is called radical environmentalism. Brown (2010) has explored the role of ecotage in radical environmentalism. Farrer and Klein (2019) discuss how radical environmental sabotage impacts elections, and by extension, leadership and governance changes.

In Africa, radical environmentalism is contrasted by radical presidentialism, whereby power confronts radical environmentalism with exacerbated state terrorism. This is exemplified by Uganda, where the President, Tibuhaburwa Museveni, categorised environmentalists as terrorists, and expounded his development philosophy as “Infrastructure development first, nature and environment next, and people last”. Eventually, he was able to expose environmentalists as anti-development and unpatriotic.

The environmental movement, which had done so well to combat forced development through resisting the erection of big, unsustainable dams such as Bujagali Dam on the River Nile, became weakened. Oweyegha-Afunaduula (2022), in his article “The Perils of Presidentialism in Uganda,” mentioned environmental destruction through presidential choices and actions as one of the perils. In this particular article, environmental sabotage is one of the perils. Today, the radical environmentalism of the past is no longer an aspect of the struggle for a clean, safe, and healthy environment, or even of the current struggle against the climate crisis sweeping the country.

The weakening of radical environmentalism in Uganda freed power not only from the environmentalists but also from Ugandans. This meant that power could do anything it wanted without expecting reprisals from environmentalists in particular and Ugandans in general. Power weakened environmentalists and Ugandans further by adopting privatisation and liberalisation of the Ugandan economy, raising the interests of private individuals and firms over and above the public interest -in this case, a safe, clean and healthy environment. As if this was not enough, Bantustanised the country severely, breaking it down into small, ecologically and environmentally unsustainable political units, which he could politically manipulate to serve his personalist political interests of power retention and power consolidation.

Many constituencies and districts have continually been dissected into smaller units with no thought of the impact of this political action on the sustainability of the ecologies and environments of Uganda and their dependent time-tested agroecological systems on which the food security of indigenous Ugandans has been based for centuries. If there is any factor that has incessantly waged environmental sabotage (or ecotage) in 21st Century Uganda, it is almost unaccountable power. All environmental problems of Uganda this Century begin with power and can only end with power if solutions are sought.

There is evidence, in many spheres of leadership and governance of Uganda, that power has increasingly become unrestrained and unconstrained by constitutionalism. Many decisions and actions of power no longer strictly conform to the Constitution of Uganda 1995, whose making was strictly in the hands of power.

In pursuit of its environmentally unconscious decisions and actions in the total environment of Uganda, power has frequently ignored the constitutional boundaries between the Executive, the Legislature, and the Judiciary, with dire environmental consequences in all the dimensions of the environment: ecological-biological, socioeconomic, sociocultural, and temporal. Accountability in all the dimensions and spheres of the environment only takes place if there are no restrictions on power to ensure effective accountability. In fact, the institutions that power erected to manage and conserve the environment and enhance institutional

accountability have become almost dysfunctional. This has helped power to entrench and proliferate its environmental sabotage in Uganda, unrestrained and unconstrained by law. Farrer and Klein (2016) have explored the political roots of domestic environmental sabotage. In Uganda, the political roots enhancing domestic environmental sabotage are traceable in the institution of the President, which has rendered most, if not all, institutions of government dysfunctional.

If Ugandans of this generation want to restore environmental responsibility of the Government of Uganda in the 21st Century, they must regain the institution of President and civic power over it and seek to restore the environmental accountability of this institution so that it is responsible for the impact of its actions and decisions on the environment, and prepared to reorient government to effectively address those impacts rather than generate new ones.

For God and My Country.

Further Reading

Brown, Kris R., “When Resistance is Not Enough: The Role of Ecotage in Radical Environmentalism” (2010). CMC Senior Theses. Paper 712. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/712

Farrer, B., & Klein, G. R. (2016). The political roots of domestic environmental sabotage. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, 27(2), 133–155. https://doi.org/10.1080/17457289.2016.1247846

Farrer, B., & Klein, G. R. (2019). How Radical Environmental Sabotage Impacts US Elections. Terrorism and Political Violence, 34(2), 218–239. https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2019.1678468.

Hargrove, Eugene (2010). 41 Ecological Sabotage: Prank or Terrorism? Environmental Ethics: The Big Questions, 4:333 (2010). https://philpapers.org/rec/HARES-2 Visited on 06 May 2025 at 17:15 pm EAT.

Lossin, R. H. (2018). Sabotage as Environmental Activism. Public Seminar, July 3 2018. https://publicseminar.org/essays/sabotage-as-environmental-activism/ Visited on 06 May 2025 at 16:26 pm EAT.

Malm, Andreas (2022). The philosophical Justification of Eco-sabotage. University of Oxford, 9 November 2022 https://www.ox.ac.uk/event/philosophical-justification-eco-sabotage Visited on 06 May 2025 at 17:36 pm EAT.

Manson, D. Eco-sabotage as Defensive Activism. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 27, 505–522 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-024-10449-w https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10677-024-10449-w#citeas Visited on 06 May 2025 at 16:38 pm EAT.

McGarity, Thomas O. and David Bollier (2004). Sophisticated Sabotage: The Intellectual Games Used to Subvert Responsible Regulation. Environmental Law Institute, June 1 2004. https://www.amazon.com/Sophisticated-Sabotage-Intellectual-Responsible- Environmental/dp/158576082X Visited on 06 May 2025 at 17:05 pm EAT.

Michael Martin (1996). Ecosabotage and Civil Disobedience. Environmental Ethics, 12(4): 290-310. http://www.brontaylor.com/courses/pdf/Martin–Ecosabotage.pdf Visited on 06 May 2025 at 16:57 pm EAT.

Mikkel Kristensen (2023). The Ethics of Ecological Sabotage. FARSIGHT, June 1 23, https://farsight.cifs.dk/the-ethics-of-ecological-sabotage/ Visited on 06 May 2025 at 16:34 pm EAT.

Nuesch, Emiliano Rodriguez and María Morena Vicente (2024). Climate Sabotage: A Necessary Evil or a Dangerous Tactic? The Arithmetic o Comparison, September 3 2024 https://www.arithmeticofcompassion.org/blog/climate-sabotage-lena-lazare Visited on 06 May 2025 at 16:45 pm EAT.

Olly Haynes (2024). Why Sabotage tactics by militant groups are on the rise across Europe. The Paper, July 28 2024. https://inews.co.uk/news/world/why-sabotage-tactics-militant-groups-rise-across-europe-3193582?srsltid=AfmBOooMAWDalWh9jNALnlqsbSKzG1QBHArAq81aSro-FKp8RV2981Ir Visited on 06 May 2025 at 17:30 pm EAT.

Oweyegha-Afunaduula (2022). Perils of Presidentialism in Uganda. Daily Monitor, March 05 2022. https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/oped/commentary/perils-of-presidentialism-in-uganda-3737584 Visited on 07 May 2025 at 11:47 am EAT.

The Jakarta Post (2023). Greenhushing: The Silent Sabotage of Environmental Progress. The Jakarta Post, October 31 2023 https://www.thejakartapost.com/opinion/2023/10/31/greenhushing-the-silent-sabotage-of-environmental-progress.html Visited on o6 May 2025 at 17:23 pm EAT.

Wilde, Rachel (2018). Environmental Sabotage. Campbell County Health, September 25 2018, https://www.cchwyo.org/news/2018/september/environmental-sabotage/ Visited on 06 May 2025 at 16:23 pm EAT.

Young Thomas (2001). The morality of Ecosabotage. Environmental Values Vol. 10, No. 3 (August 2001), pp. 385-393 (9 pages) Published By: Sage Publications, Ltd.