Oweyegha Afunaduula
“Anger is not the problem, violence is…we can use our anger to guide us in constructing a more just society. Or we can use it to destroy ourselves and those around us.” (Paul Kivel, cited by Keith Edwards, 2015).
For the last almost 40 years Ugandans have been conditioned to believe the elephant-sized lie that they and their country were liberated by a mixed bag of predominantly refugees from Rwanda, Mulenge (in present-day Democratic Republic of Congo, previously Zaire) and former refugees, the children of refugees resident in Uganda, and some indigenes convinced that they were participating in a liberation struggle from the past political regimes in the country, especially those of Apollo Milton Obote (1062-1971, 1980-1985) and Field Mashall Idi Amin Dada (1971-1979). Trillions of shillings, which should have been invested in the development of Ugandans and their country, were spent in celebrations of the so-called liberation every year since 1986.
One academic at Makerere University told me that the celebrations were far, far more to do with celebrating the capture of the instruments of power by refugees and former refugees in Uganda and the continuous docility and stupidity of Ugandans that have allowed the refugees and former refugees to consolidate their grabbed power and influence over the indigenes and their resources and extend their influence in the Great Lakes region under the facade of pan-Africanism.
According to the said academic, it is difficult to separate the violence raging in the Great Lakes region since 1986 from the capture of the instruments of power by refugees and former refugees in Uganda and their craze to extend their power and influence over the whole region using military power and the resources of Uganda at the expense of genuine development of Uganda and the indigenes. The academic told me that politically and militarily the refugees and former refugees have captured everything in the country, depoliticised the population, and prevented alternative political organizations from organizing themselves. They have, according to the academic, placed the whole population and the alternative political organizations under fused police and military surveillance to ensure that they do not disrupt the order imposed on the country.
In March 2024 I wrote an article titled “The Military Capture of Uganda’s Civic Space Yesterday and Today” (Oweyegha-Afunaduula, 2024). In the article, I averred that Uganda, like any other country in the world, has many spaces that are or should be occupied by different groups of people to make the economy dynamic in an interconnected manner. I named most of the civic spaces, that have, unfortunately, been penetrated by the military and people of exogenous origins, ending up distorting the economy of Uganda and disadvantaging the indigenes in diverse ways. I listed the spaces as the intellectual, the academic, the political, the economic, the social, the spiritual, the cultural, the ecological, the environmental, the agricultural, the executive, the legislative and the judicial. However, I also implied that even the military and the police had been captured. I stated that it was not difficult to discern the foreignization of the military because the majority of those who took up arms against the Obote regime and the Tito Okello regime were mostly refugees, some of whom ended up forming an NRA intra-political military group called Rwandese Patriotic Front/Army that invaded and destabilized Rwanda, ultimately overthrowing the Juvenal Habyarimana regime and capturing the instruments of power in Kigali. This implied that the military in Uganda and Rwanda were like mother and child and, therefore, interconnected by blood. It is not surprising that in the current violence in the DRC, the two militaries are frequently interconnected to M23. They are blood relations.
In this article, I want to celebrate the liberation, on 31 January 2025 of the Justice, the Judiciary and the human rights of Ugandans from the fangs of the Executive and its military. However, given the diversity of civic spaces that are under captivity by the Executive and his military, this is a drop in the ocean. The leadership, governance, ecology, environment, academia, intellectuality, sociality, agriculture, fisheries, economy, sociality, culturalism, spirituality, ethicality, morality, constitutionality, agriculture, health, natural resources, peace, security, democracy and futurity all need liberation. This, of course, requires overhauling the Uganda Constitution 1995, which by investing all power and authority in one person – President Tibuhaburwa Museveni, is the means by which virtually everything in the country and its future has been captured.
Therefore, when the bench of judges unanimously resolved to liberate the justice, human rights and futurity of Uganda from the machinations of the military martial court, it was an over-delayed necessary step towards a genuine, meaningful and effective liberation of Uganda and its people. Without the Judiciary acting the way it did, Ugandans had become virtually hopeless and hapless although many thought that with regular elections organised by the NRM regime, the country was proceeding in the right direction.
How exactly did the liberation by the Uganda Supreme Court of the judiciary, justice and the human rights of justice from the military take place? The Supreme Court did not only the military and, by extension the Executive, to immediately halt ongoing trials of civilians but also review past convictions. The Court held that military courts lack jurisdiction to try civilians. It ordered the transfer of ongoing trials to the country’s civilian court system but stopped short of declaring past convictions under the military courts void (Human Rights Watch, 2025). Human Rights Watch found in 2011 that the trials of hundreds of civilians convicted by these courts for alleged armed crime and cattle rustling in the northeastern Karamoja subregion did not meet international standards of competence, independence, and impartiality, and routinely violated the rights of the accused people to present a defence as well as their right against self-incrimination. There were also credible allegations of torture of accused people (Human Rights Watch, 2025). Apparently, Ordinary Ugandan courts have on several occasions ruled against the trial of civilians by court-martial, including in 2021, when the Constitutional Court ruling found the provisions of the UPDF Act that allow for military trials of civilians unconstitutional.
On January 7, 2025, a military court sentenced Dr Kizza Besigye’s lawyer, Eron Kiiza, to nine months in prison without a trial or legal representation for contempt of court following an altercation in the court. A witness told Human Rights Watch that the soldiers beat Kiiza after he protested being blocked from an area of the court. Kiiza has been openly, consistently, enduringly, persistently and perennially critical of military trials of civilians.
The real stumbling block to freedom of the judiciary, justice and the human rights of Ugandans has been all along President Tibuhaburwa Museveni, who in a way has emerged as arrester, accuser, prosecutor and the real judge in all cases, with a constitutional right to forgive those he chooses to anytime he wants, however serious the cases against civilians. The President has severally publicly expressed support for military trials of civilians, arguing that the civilian courts are failing to rule quickly on those accused of violent crimes and convict them. He even repeatedly ordered for removal of bail and police bonds for certain categories of people. This is despite the fact that both Uganda’s constitution and international law guarantee the right to a fair trial. Thus, the President has cast himself as “anti-law -national and international – for his own interests of generating and maintaining fear among the population for his fear-packed regime, and most likely interests that take on regional connotations. A fearful population will not have the will to free itself from an oppressor.
As one delighted Ugandan cited by Hina Rights Watch (2025) says, The Ugandan authorities [ read President Tibuhaburwa Museveni] have for years misused military courts to crack down on opponents and critics. This ruling is an important step toward accountability and justice.” However, there can be no meaningful and effective liberation of Uganda from the personal power of President Tibuhaburwa Museveni unless the Judicially and the Legislature lead the way by liberating themselves fully and resolutely from the Executive, and thereby restoring constitutionality in the country.
What does the liberation of Justice in Uganda mean? Well, it is a victory for social justice in the country. Justice itself is the virtue we practice by giving people what is due to them (Rodes, 1996). Cornell West Cited by Keth Edwards, (2015) said that justice is what love looks like in public. Therefore, if we abuse the justice of our people, it means we are pretenders; we don’t love them. Real liberation implies that we must teach about oppression and liberation social justice. What we need is liberation from the inside out (Lindsay Majer, 2019); not the outside, which predominates and is the reason why enormous resources are wasted in militarization, often for self-destruction and/or destruction of those around us. When I say the inside out, I mean change in the mind towards genuine justice and liberation.
What the Supreme Court in Uganda did on 31st January 2025 was to give Ugandans freedom from oppression by the military, and by extension, by the Executive. If everyone cares about liberation and does not just celebrate what has been sold as liberation by the NRM regime, then what the Supreme Court ruling of 31st January is telling us is that we must rethink our education system and learn about Oppression and liberation social justice integral to the curium, not only at university but also in all schools -private and public. Learning about oppression is a means to liberation (Edwards, 2015).
Finally, I must state that Justice and liberation fit into diversity, equity and inclusion (e.g., Gassam Asare, 2022), Ecologically and environmentally speaking, there is survival value in diversity, equity and inclusion than in monoversity, inequity and exclusion, at least in the long-term. Therefore, any anti-meaningful justice and liberation measures such as military courts trying civilians are affronts against diversity, equity and inclusion and, therefore, selfish and end up favouring one group of people against the others who might be the majority. It is apartheid-like governance (Oweyegha-Afunaduula and Mayanja Lawrence, 2022).
For God and My Country
Further Reading
Edwards, Keith (2015). From Anti-Oppression to Liberation Social Justice Education. Keith Edwards, December 8, 2015. https://keithedwards.com/2015/12/08/from-anti-oppression-to-cultivating-transformation-for-social-justice/ Visited on 1 February 2025 at 11:08 am EAT
Human Rights Watch (2025). Uganda: Supreme Court bans Military Trials of Civilians. Human Rights Watch, January 31, 2025, https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/01/31/uganda-supreme-court-bans-military-trials-civilians Visited on 1 January 2025 at 10:36 am EAT.
Janice Gassam Asare (2022). Where do Justice and Liberation Fit into Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Forbes, Aug 7, 2022. https://www.forbes.com/sites/janicegassam/2022/08/07/where-do-justice-and-liberation-fit-into-diversity-equity-and-inclusion/ Visited on 1 February 2025 at 11:49 am EAT.
Lindsay Majer (2019). Liberation from the inside out. Tzedek, JUNE 5, 2019. https://tzedeksocialjusticefund.org/liberation-from-the-inside-out/ Visited on 1 February 2025 at 11:35 am EAT.
Miki Kashtan (2020). The Future of Social Justice Liberation Education: A Liberation Perspective. The Fearless Heart, https://thefearlessheart.org/the-future-of-social-justice-education-a-liberation-perspective/ Visited on 1 February 2025 at 11:43 am EAT.
Oweyegha-Afunaduula (2024). The Military Capture of Uganda’s Civic Space. Uganda Radio Network, 24 March 2024, https://www.google.com/search?q=the+military+capture+of+civic+space+in+uganda&oq=THE+MILITARY+CAPTURE+OF+CI&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqCAgAEEUYJxg7MggIABBFGCcYOzIGCAEQRRg5MgcIAhAAGO8FMgcIAxAAGO8FMgoIBBAAGIAEGKIEMgoIBRAAGKIEGIkFMgcIBhAAGO8FMgYIBxBFGDzSAQoyMDUwMWowajE1qAIIsAIB&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 Visited on 1 February 2025 at 12:12 pm EAT
Oweyegha-Afunaduula and Mayanja Lawrence (2022). Apartheid Like Governance in Uganda. Trusted News, July 4 2022, https://trustednewsug.com/index.php/2022/07/04/apartheid-style-governance-in-uganda-the-evidence/ Visited on 1 February 2022 at 12:03 pm EAT.
Rodes, Robert E. (1996). Social Justice and Liberation. 1 Notre Dame L. Rev. 619 (1996). https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_faculty_scholarship/242/ Visited on 1 February 2025 at 10: 58 am EAT.
Img Src: www.thesoldiersproject.org
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