Another Rebellion or Blackmail?

Byline: Chris Obore

In the last three weeks, the news from the northern part of the country is that a new rebel group is in the offing.

In fact, the army says they are investigating reports that a group of local politicians from northern Uganda, aided by sympathisers abroad, were trying to put into shape a rebel group to destabilise peace in the region.

Some arrests have already been made and trial is ongoing in Masindi District. I do not want to discuss the merits of the arrest because that matter is before courts of law. But I am concerned that hardly before Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army phenomenon is resolved, we are again talking about another rebellion.

And it's disturbing because the emergence of this new shadowy Peoples Patriotic Front is similar to how Kony emerged. They seem to emerge from provocation and mistrust.

I was a primary school going boy when the NRM captured power in 1986. In Teso, the children were excited to see, for the first time, young children called kadogos brandishing AK47 rifles. They were chasing away the Tito Okello soldiers.

We were told of how the kadogos had felled down many fleeing Okello soldiers. Wherever these kadogos arrived in Teso, they were welcomed with jubilation. Some of us used to run errands for them especially buying cigarettes from the trading centres …