Bonita NAKALULE
Former presidential candidate and leader of the National Economic Empowerment dialogue (NEED) Joseph Kabuleta has come out to say that what is happening in the Karamoja sub region is a deliberate move by the UPDF and government to depopulate the area.
GENESIS OF THE ISSUE
According to Kabuleta, the problems started when two geologists, one intern from state house accompanied by two soldiers and Karamajong translators where looking for gold in the Karamoja area.
The group came across a group of Turkana pastoralists who had crossed over from Kenya to water their cattle in Uganda. Apparently, the Karamajong of Uganda and Turkana of Kenya have a mutual understanding in which either group crosses over to the other when faced with scarcity of water for their cattle.
On seeing the Turkana pastoralists one of the soldiers panicked and shot on of them dead, in return the Turkana pastoralists retaliated and killed 6 of the 7 people.
Its from this incident that the first son and commander of the land forces Lt General Muhoozi Kainerugaba tweeted and said they will bring hell to Karamoja, what happened there after has been a silent genocide in the Karamoja sub region says Kabuleta.
THE HIDDEN AGENDA
According to Kabuleta, the heavy deployment and full blast assault on the region in the guise of fighting cattle rustlers is aimed at displacing the Karamojongs from their mineral rich land.
“What happens is that this is a very resource rich area, there has been incidences of trucks leaving with minerals and returning with sachets of waragi, it’s all part of a deliberate intoxication.”
I come from Hoima, when oil was discovered there, people started to be hit by butayimbwa and the aim was to scare everyone to stop moving at night and be indoors by 7 as they go on with their oil activities. In excess of 100 people where killed by iron bars in Hoima municipality at the time.
Right now they are rounding up Karamajong homesteads taking the men away from their wives to military detaches and transporting the kids to Kampala streets, in the long run you will have big chunks of land that have no occupants and this land is rich with minerals.
“There was an aerial bombardment of some homesteads by the UPDF and they said they were bombing cattle rustlers but how do you identify rustlers in a homestead?” asked Kabuleta in an interview on the Fat Boy show aired on RX Radio on the 26th of May.
We as NEED have documented all these inocent people that have been killed in the name of fighting cattle rustlers because at some point someone will have to be answerable to these atrocities.
