|
Uganda: Lt. Col. Kamya's Service to Nation Commendable
New Vision (Kampala)
OPINION
18 February 2008
Posted to the web 19 February 2008
Beti Kamya
Kampala
I have been accused before court of promoting war against the person of the President, promoting sectarianism, sedition and inciting violence - all because the 'State', with all its machinery, did not comprehend my article in Daily Monitor, January 28, titled: "Where is Museveni's Heart?"
These charges being subjudice, I will only address only the issue of my late father, Lt. Col. George Kamya, about whom President Yoweri Museveni made six disdainful references in an article published in Sunday Vision, February 10.
The President insinuated that for being my father's daughter, I should hide my face in shame, because my father was an officer in Uganda Army during Idi Amin's regime.
My father's photograph hangs in Bishop Balagadde's office, Namirembe Diocese, as one of the Cathedral's treasured memorials, while his name is inscribed among 20 worthy people on the foundation stone of the new Namirembe Cathedral Synod Hall. This not to mention in numerous churches and schools where they valued his voluntary service.
Just like his grandfather's name, Andereya Kamya, is lovingly inscribed on the memorial stone at Ruharo Cathedral, Mbarara, as the first African catechist in Ankore Kingdom. His great-grandfather, Kiddu, son of Balimuttajjo and grandson of Busungu, is sang as one of the great warriors of his time, during the Bunyoro-Buganda wars - with such inspiring pedigree, all buried in Kooki, where I often go to pay homage.
Do I have to hide my face in shame? My father did not only build churches and schools but he was a freedom fighter as well. As an accountant working in the East African Railways and Harbours in Nakuru, Kenya in the late 1950s, along with Tom Mboya and others, he founded the General African Workers' Union, now Kenya Workers' Union and was its first chairman, to the chagrin of his European bosses.
Having integrated so well in the Kenya community and marrying a Kikuyu lady, my mother, his stars in independent Kenya were soaring, as the colonialists left and the few professional Africans took over their lucrative farms, houses and jobs.
But for the love of home, ignoring my mother's pleas to remain in Kenya and take advantage of the new opportunities, my father resolutely left it all behind so that his young family could grow up in Uganda, where he joined the Uganda Army as an accountant cadet officer in 1964.
He rose through the ranks of Second and First Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Lt Col, and there was never a finer officer. His friends and colleagues in the army used to say of him in Kiswahili: Uyu Mzungu kabisa, tena Mzungu ile British (this man is not just an ordinary European, but a British European).
Every cloud has a silver lining and the President's reference to my father and the sins of Idi Amin in reply to my article, vindicates me for warning that the sins of a bad leader will be visited on people even remotely connected to them and that in the spirit of self preservation, they would be well advised to restrain them.
For the 'crime' of being 'the daughter of Amin's officer', President Museveni reminds me that were it not for his magnanimity, I would not be sleeping in my bed, in other words, Amin's sins would be visited on me because of my father's job as army officer. That is the story of Africa and the only way to prevent it is to create a just society and equitable distribution of national resources.
This is what Capt. Mike Mukula, the NRM vice-chairman, Andrew Mwenda in The Independent, Mzee Bidandi Ssali, the Equal Opportunities Act, the parliamentary select committee to on allegations of regional imbalance in police recruitment, the demand by the parliamentary committee on government assurances for Uganda Revenue Authority, staff list, and my article are about.
The writer isthe Rubaga North MP
|
Forum 
