“In our times, more than ever before, the chief strength of the wicked lies in the cowardice and weakness of good men. All the strength of Satan’s reign is due to the easy-going weakness of Catholics.” Pope St. Pius X.

We are witnessing a stinking, flagrant abuse of human rights under the supervision of a purported freedom fighter who ‘liberated’ us from the atrocities of “dictator” Dr Apollo Milton Obote. Mr Tibuhaburwa Museveni was interviewed by the British Broadcasting Corporation [BBC] in 1985: “You are dressed in military fatigues. Are you a soldier or a politician?" Mr Museveni answered, "I would feel insulted if you called me a politician. Politicians do not have a good reputation in Africa. I am a freedom fighter.”

According to me, a freedom fighter is an enemy of freedom. He harasses it; he fights it, tortures it, strangles it, and even kills it. A fighter for freedom is a friend of freedom. He defends it, upholds it, enhances it, and promotes it, and if his life stands in the way of freedom, he surrenders or lays down his life for freedom to blossom.

Mr Museveni has stripped us of fundamental freedoms, and his apologists compel us to cheer them as they oppress us lest they haul us to torture chambers sanitised as safe houses with zero safety. The survivors of torture chambers narrate gruesome ordeals at the risk of complete disappearance.

In the aforementioned BBC interview, Mr Museveni was asked whether he wanted to be president, to which he answered that all he was interested in was enabling and empowering Ugandans to elect their leaders without fear, intimidation, or manipulation. He alleged he had greater plans beyond the presidency.  In the last 40 years, he has concentrated on consolidating and monopolising power [read personalising power or rather establishing a presidential monarchy]

Considering the criminalisation of politics [read political dissent within the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM, or is it National Robbers’ Movement?) or opposition], demonisation and disenfranchisement of the electorate through political thuggery in the name of commodification of voters [read commercialisation of politics] depending on poverty injected into them, brutalisation of [and by] the police force, and the personal capture of state institutions, was Mr Museveni misquoted by the BBC in his own voice and image, or is he a true freedom fighter [read a butcher of freedom]?

The continued incarceration of (Rtd.) Col Dr Kiiza Besigye and his aide Hajj Oubed Lutale, coupled with the institutions' impotence to grant him bail, has attracted widespread publicity and condemnation courtesy of his profile. There are many more thousands or tens of thousands of Ugandans rotting incommunicado or dying in “safe houses” incognito. We only learn of the harrowing torture of the lucky survivors upon their sharing their experiences at their risk of disappearing forever, as threatened by regime operatives.

The viciousness of the regime [read Mr Museveni] is a symbol of panic and fear. It is paradoxical to find a purported freedom fighter [or is it a fighter for freedom?] who is afraid of people assembling, praying for anybody, discussing politics, or people getting close to him. It means the fundamental change he promised on 29th January 1986 at the gates of Parliament was a fundamental deception. How else can one explain his pathological fear of the people? Travelling in a military convoy of innumerable vehicles, eternal closing of roads before he moves, eavesdropping on private conversations, tapping telephone calls, omnipresence of swarms of operatives irritable at no provocation, … What do these signify?

Ngugi Wa Thiong’o says, "There is no force on earth, not even nuclear weapons, that can put down the power of an organised people. Hence, the imperative to bring up people in the culture of fear and silence to make them feel weak.” Violence is the weapon of the feeble-minded; strong-willed people believe in and embrace dialogue and articulate deliberation and contestation of ideas, including the seemingly unpalatable and bitter ones, from the former to the latter.

There is no power greater than that of the praying believers. Prayer has ever defeated the guns. Recall the Battle of Lepanto and the Rosary Crusade, which ousted the Philippines’ dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. Christians armed only with their rosaries at the call of Jaime Cardinal Sin faced off against armed soldiers who did not fire a single bullet but chose to join the demonstrators. The helicopter gunships did not fire a single missile. This left the dictator no option but to flee in a US helicopter to Clark Field, ending his 21-year dictatorship riddled with brutality and corruption.

I have observed bottled-up anger among the oppressed populace and unjustified resentment against the masses who express genuine concern for their country among regime apologists and sycophants.

St Augustine writes, "Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” The operatives and sycophants scrambling to grab crumbs falling off Mr Museveni’s table think they are Ugandans, and the rest are “others” without a stake in the country. My appeal to regime apologists, operatives, and sycophants is, "May you ask for the grace of humility to accept that the ‘others’ are equal partners in the geopolitical enterprise called Uganda over whom you have no power of exclusion or oppression but a responsibility to report and account to.”

St Thomas Aquinas teaches, "He who is not angry when there is a just cause is immoral. Why? Because anger points to the good of justice. If you can live in injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust." This is holy anger with justice as its object, as opposed to wrath and resentment that seek to destroy victims but end up also consuming perpetrators.

Mr Museveni captured, intimidated, and disabled institutions—the judiciary, the parliament, and the electoral commission, having been turned into his walking sticks. The judiciary is in the dock in the court of public opinion, as the citizen waits for divine justice. The latest is his assault on the Catholic Church, where he usurped the power of Archbishop Paul Ssemogerere to celebrate the Sacrifice of the Mass for Dr Kiiza Besigye and other political prisoners. Do we have to beseech the god of Rwakitura to pray to the Almighty?

Nelson Mandela explains, "The law is a sword of justice; it is not a coercive instrument used by those in power to shape society in a way favourable to themselves.”

The stupefaction of intellectuals serving the junta who behave like their heads are merged with Mr Museveni’s as they goof to please him, committing crimes with impunity, and who are oftentimes sacrificed when the going gets tough, defeats common sense and understanding. Professor Kakonge, who served as Mr Museveni’s first local government minister, said in 2014, "Any intellectual serving Museveni is either benefiting from him or has a disorder.”

Talking of disorders, one wonders, "What kind of monetisation and commodification of minds motivates the defence of the indefensible dehumanisation of Ugandans with total disregard of the former falling victims of the predatory system they defend and perpetuate? St Augustine of Hippo teaches, "Wrong is wrong even when everyone is doing it; right is right even when no one is doing it.”

We are trapped in a predator’s den called Uganda. Our survival depends on our healthy co-existence and collective concentration of our energies on exposing and ousting the oppressor who abuses the law to turn prosecution of political opponents into their persecution. An attack on one of us is an attack on everyone. Injustice to one is injustice to everyone.

The adage "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to look at every problem as a nail“ can be read as "If the only tool the junta has is a gun, it tends to look at every problem as a shooting target.”

In the end, we will not remember the oppression of the junta but the silence of our friends. Today, it is Dr Besigye and other political prisoners; tomorrow, it is you. As we keep silent, we shall be picked in instalments until you are left alone, and no one will be left to speak for you. It is high time we stood up and synergised our efforts in self-preservation for true freedom.

Do you think the slaves in security organs [regime apologists and cadres that have turned their guns against their civilian masters] who plan, monitor, and execute evil missions do so with smiles on their faces and joy in their hearts? No. They do not. They are tormented and traumatised. No sane mind can commit this cowardly evil in the singular interest of the preservation and perpetuation of one man with a monopoly of “vision” in power. The perpetrator of evil is permanently haunted by conscience, robbing him of liberty to freely share his fears, thoughts, or frustrations with anyone lest he be branded a traitor destined for express elimination in the name of purging the system. Thus, trapped in his mental prison, the agent of oppression seeks solace in anything he thinks can absorb his pain: booze, sex, gambling, gluttony, primitive accumulation of wealth, land grabbing, … None of these gives him true freedom. Illusive freedom, oftentimes, lasts shorter than the period of self-defilement and self-deception, sending him on a rampage for more victims to torture, maim, and murder ad nauseam in a futile effort to escape being consumed by the predatory system.

We must help our brethren who defend and kill for the predatory system to recognise they are not safe as long as they hunt those who speak truth to power, and their sanity will only return when they choose to serve God through Ugandans and not one man whom we have allowed to hijack our power as we slumbered for decades “enjoying peace gained” at the sacrifice of the death of countless Ugandans, immeasurable haemorrhage of their blood, and permanent maiming of their comrades in the struggle of democracy that turned into a democratic dictatorship. We, as citizens, more especially Catholics with innumerable spiritual weapons at our disposal, must wake up from slumber and use the power of prayer to recover our freedom without fear to speak truth to "power," for we know we get our help from God. We must not fear any evil, for “All the forces of nature fight to defend those who are righteous.” [Wisdom16:17b]

Photo Credit: Amnesty International