Prime
Govt to present report on Kasese killing today
The relative of a victim of the Mpondwe Lhubiriha Secondary School mourns as he sits next to a casket outside the Bwera General Hospital Mortuary, Kasese, on June 18, 2023. PHOTO / AFP
What you need to know:
- It is until the government report is presented that the parliamentarians will have the opportunity to substantively discuss the matter, although MP Ssemujju chose a tongue-in-cheek comment to preface the expected showdown over killings for which neither the army nor the police have an explanation.
Parliament has ordered the Defence minister to present a comprehensive report to the House today, explaining how the gruesome attack on Mpondwe-Lhubiriha Secondary School in Kasese District happened --- and undetected and unchallenged.
Forty-two people, 37 of them students, were killed in the raid on Friday night, according to the government and residents, while half-a-dozen are recuperating from hospitals after suffering varied life-threatening injuries.
State actors have offered conflicting accounts on the likely identity and motive of the assailants.
During a visit to the scene on Saturday morning, Maj Gen Dick Olum, the commander of Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) Mountain Division responsible for securing Uganda’s western border, proclaimed that the killers were “Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) terrorists”.
Earlier on the same day, Military/Defence spokesperson, Brig Felix Kuyaligye, told our sister KFM radio station that whereas the brutality meted appeared the ADF “signature”, investigators were leaving the “room open” to suggestions of school ownership rivalry.
In the evening of the same Saturday, Education minister Janet Kataha echoed the narrative that the institution was likely targeted due to ownership row, citing as suspicious the fact of the school going up in flames a day after auditors hired by the Canadian founders/sponsors completed checking the financial records.
In addition, the minister, also First Lady, said another nearby school with about 700 students remained untouched.
She suggested that one of the rivals may have contracted the assailants, but added that ongoing investigations will establish the truth.
President Museveni then weighed in, summing up the two accounts as possible explanations, leaving more questions than answers, including why security forces nearer to the school were unable to respond timely.
During the first House session after a one-month recess, Speaker Anita Among, upon persuasion by Kira Municipality MP Ibrahim Ssemujju, tasked Defence minister Vincent Ssempijja to update lawmakers. Ms Among had initially intended that the statement to the House be presented by the Minister of State for Higher Education, Mr Chrysostom Muyingo, but Mr Ssemujju counter-argued that the matters of national security were “serious” to be addressed by a junior Education minister.
“Can we have a report from [the Ministry of] Defence [today]?” Ms Among said, shortly after raising the issue of murders in Kasese in her communication as chairperson of the plenary yesterday.
The Speaker, who called for speedy investigations into the attack, added: “... You wake up thinking your kid is at school and just [to] receive the news that your kid has been killed! It is a very bad incident.”
It is until the government report is presented that the parliamentarians will have the opportunity to substantively discuss the matter, although MP Ssemujju chose a tongue-in-cheek comment to preface the expected showdown over killings for which neither the army nor the police have an explanation.
“The law does not stop the President from delegating, but issues of security and defence are a very serious matter. We have passed here a budget and we have also passed here policies that are not overseen by the wife of the President. You can’t run this country [in a] way that … your wife says, ‘darling, can I be the one to speak about the attack in Kasese?’ ‘Okay, baby, go ahead’,” he said to chuckles by fellow MPs.
Minister Muyingo is an “obedient and loyal person”, Mr Ssemuju noted, but the mystery surrounding the gruesome attacks was not for him to answer.
Opposition lawmakers led by the Shadow minister for Internal Affairs, Mr Abdallah Kiwanuka (Mukono North), earlier yesterday demanded withdrawal of UPDF troops from foreign missions to “concentrate on internal insecurity”.
Uganda has on rotational basis deployed thousands of soldiers to Somalia initially under the African Union Peace-keeping Mission (Amison), which has been re-hatted as ATMIS, and placed boots for a joint counter-offensive, code-named Operation Shujaa, with Congolese counterparts inside the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The purpose of the mission, which began on November 30, 2021, is to annihilate the ADF, a rebel force designated by the United States as a terrorist group.
“We call upon every citizen to raise their voices in demanding for our forces to come back [home]. It is also high time that the government [got] to realise that once these forces go to these missions, they have a time-limit. They should not be there forever,” MP Kiwanuka said at yesterday’s press conference.
In a press conference at Parliament, the lawmakers tasked the government to conduct detailed audit and review both the remunerations and arsenal made available to security personnel to better their performance on tasking assignments.
“We must come up with an elaborate programme of offering protection to the citizens that are protecting [and] guarding our borders,” said MP Muwada Nkunyingi (Kyadondo East).
Other legislators, including Mr Timothy Batuwa (Jinja West), Mr Geofrey Kayemba (Bukomansimbi South) and Mr Gilbert Olanya (Kilak South) vowed to pressure the Internal Affairs ministry to account for apparent intelligence and operational flaws leading to the weekend raid.
