Repudiating Order – Normalising Chaos, Mayhem, and Impunity
– How It Happens –
(Written soon after 9 October 2021)
“The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away.” ― William Golding, Lord of the Flies
CHAOS, MAYHEM AND IMPUNITY – KAVUYO, BUTEMU N’OBUTAGAMBWA KO (Luganda)
A few years ago, my then 23 years old niece remarked to me: Uncle, when you tell me about life in Uganda during your youth, it sounds like heaven. Please, tell me in one sentence what makes life in Uganda today so different from those days. After a few minutes of reflection, I told her that I could not quite form a sentence to respond to her request. However, I told her that there were three pervasively present and active phenomena in today’s Uganda that make the country so different from the near paradise of my youth. They are CHAOS, MAYHEM and IMPUNITY. I think I used the Luganda equivalents of (A)KAVUYO, (O)BUTEMU ne (O)BUTAGAMBWAAKO. At the exact time the question was asked, my niece and I had been sitting in traffic for forty minutes. We were only about half-way into a 3.5 kilometres drive from a funeral at Namirembe Cathedral to an appointment at Makerere University. Google Maps had told us that it would take eleven minutes to get to Makerere. They were wrong: I needed another 35 minutes to arrive at the University. It had earlier taken me 70 minutes to drive the 3 kilometres from the City Centre at Buganda Road to Namirembe Cathedral.
A young friend and I were trying to navigate and were stalled in a CHAOTIC situation. As far as the eye could see in either direction, what is supposed to be the main thoroughfare between Mengo Hill and Makerere Hill was jammed with cars, taxi minivans (matatu), motorcycle taxis (boda boda), and bicycles. There were some apparently purposeful pedestrians who looked like they were intent on getting somewhere. Also, there were some people who just idly stood by, may be waiting for someone, or waiting for something to happen. What looked like hundreds of petty vendors darted through the vehicles and pedestrians carrying their wares in their hands, on their heads and over their hands and shoulders. The items on offer for instant sale to throughfare users included current newspapers and old copies of American magazines, tomatoes and onions, ice cream and candy (sweets), and batteries and microwave ovens.
I found myself wondering how peddling a tray of two-dozen tomatoes, or two dozen moth balls, or 6 copies of years-old TIME Magazine in a traffic jam could be the full-time occupation of a fully grown able-bodied young man. There were also some preachers, as well as others that looked like fortune tellers plying their trades. The vehicles and people were in both the main part of the supposed thoroughfare (where cars and cycles were supposed to be confined) as well as on the sidewalk or pavement that must have been intended to ease foot traffic and access to shops that line the thoroughfare. Under normal conditions, it would have been better for me to get out of the car and walk to the University. But there was nowhere to park and leave the car and walk to our destination in this chaotic situation. Neither was there assurance that the car would still be where we left when we came back for it.
A remarkable thing about present day Uganda is that almost every aspect and every dimension of life is bathed in chaos. The type of relatively benign city traffic chaos described above is manifested elsewhere on the roads and also in other places in ways that have become pervasively malignant and often lethal. Staying with the example of chaos on the roads, I think of the disruptions and mayhem that are inflicted, with impunity, on Ugandans whenever the President drives around in his motorcade. The Presidential motorcade is reported to form up to 40 vehicles; I have counted thirty-three.
Before and while the President is on any road it may be closed for any undetermined length of time. There are documented reports of times when President Museveni has stopped his motorcade on a supposed freeway, gotten out of his car and taken a seat by the roadside to make a phone call. While the President is making his phone call, no other vehicles may pass his motorcade in any direction. Another incident has been told when, just beyond the Kampala City limits, in the middle of Kampala to Entebbe Road, the Presidential motorcade stopped, and the President went ahead to take a 30-minutes nature-break in the toilet vehicle that is always part of his motorcade.
Three years ago, I had to stop for almost an hour at Kitala Village on Entebbe – Kampala Road, waiting for an expected drive-by of the Presidential motorcade. Traffic had come to a standstill in both directions. After twenty minutes, I thought I would step out of the car and stretch the legs. A kind driver shouted to me from the other side of the road, “Please, remain in your car. Otherwise, you may get shot. Just like that.” In Uganda, one can easily get shot for not knowing and/or not following the ungazetted, unpublicised and unwarranted protocols around the President’s motorcades.
It cannot be that the President is either ignorant of or oblivious to the chaos and mayhem that results from his own behaviour and that of his security and other details when he uses the country’s roads. To the contrary, causing chaos on the roads is a main way in which the President of Uganda, has chosen to show people, with impunity, that he can do anything that he wants. The President’s impunity-filled road use is duplicated in almost every other aspect of Uganda life. He copied by other members of politico-military junta.
The two things that the President of Uganda cares most about, and the order does not matter, are to rule Uganda with an iron grip and to accumulate wealth. He tolerates no dissenting voice or act. He can requisition almost anything in Uganda and turn it into his personal or family property. When he has had his fill, he dispenses leftover crumbs to his cronies and other enablers. This is regardless of the prevailing laws and regulations of the country, fairness, convenience to others, or even injury and death of others. One can easily be brutalised, maimed, and even killed for engaging in anything that does not meet the approval of the President or his cohorts and enablers. This is what happens to political opponents of the Government everyday, everywhere. Many business and private assets are acquired through intimidation and mayhem. Even romantic competitions, childhood and school rivalries and routine everyday annoyances get settled in the same ways. There is a fully connected cycle of chaos, mayhem, and impunity. Like in the case of a pandemic, there is in Uganda community spread of chaos, mayhem, and impunity.
There are no checks and balances and there is not accountability of any kind. Opportunities for recourse to a fair justice system are few and far between. Members of Parliament (MPs) can be bribed and those who do not comply can be locked up, tortured, and brutalised in other ways. MPs and others who are openly critical of or stand in opposition and present themselves as alternatives to current leadership are subject to some of the worst manifestations of the mayhem, including disappearances and confinement in torture houses. Even the judges are bribed and forced to be compliant with government, para-government, vigilante, and other perpetuators of mayhem and grand larceny.
HOW PEOPLE FEED ON AND PROSPER OFF CHAOS – KULIIRA MU KAVUYO (Luganda)
Despite the pervasiveness of chaos, mayhem, and impunity, it is possible to paint some rosy pictures of Uganda. Economic growth proponents will especially point to growth of national investment and national income, development aid, increased tourism arrivals, and other so-called economic “indicators” of Uganda’s development. They will even go on to argue that the situation will become less chaotic, and mayhem and impunity will be eliminated, as people reap the “dividends” of economic growth. I have never believed that economic growth can be a panacea to human development. For now, I will leave that line of discussion to another day. What is of more interest right now, and is also frightening, is the way in which some people in Uganda who are strategically placed will opportunistically embrace the evil axis of chaos, mayhem and impunity and passionately believe that it is the way to prosperity and redemption.
The author will try to illustrate the mind-set of such people from firsthand experience with some of them.
Around 1990, I met a businessman in Uganda who equally and vehemently detested both former twice-President Milton Obote and also the person who had “liberated” Uganda from Obote, namely President Yoweri Museveni. The businessman longed and pined for a return to the days of Idi Amin Dada. He was adamant that Idi Amin was the best President that Uganda had ever had. I pointed to some of the most vehement objections made against Idi Amin's rule, namely, the number of extrajudicial killings that occurred under Idi Amin's watch, the mass expulsion of our fellow citizens of Asian origin, and the collapse of the Uganda economy. He told me, "Idi Amin only killed those people who disturbed him! …. Those Indians would be here if they did not disturb Idi Amin. .... Amin got rid of confusing agents! …. For us, we went about our business. We did not disturb Idi Amin and he left us alone to make our money! ….. Who told you that the Uganda economy collapsed under Amin?" I persisted with questions about the chaotic atmosphere of the Idi Amin days, and how it had been possible to do any meaningful business under those circumstances. The person looked at me as if I were a new-born baby and said, "That was the beauty of Idi Amin. Ffe nga tuliira mu kavuyo! …… You should have been here to enjoy. Then you would not be talking like that!” (The plain English translation of the part in Luganda is “We fed on and prospered off the chaos.) The person went on to tell me that Obote’s second rule in the early 1980s (Obote II) had ended badly because Obote had been trying to remove "all the good things of Amin" and to replace Amin’s good people with Members of Parliament, civil servants, and judges! Museveni would fail for the same reason, the businessman prophesied.
Wind forward to early the 2010's. When I met the same businessman around 2014, he could have suffocated me with his effusive love and enthusiasm for Museveni and everything Museveni! In fact, he told me that he might stop talking to me if I said anything that was not in praise of Museveni. I took chances and asked him what had changed so much about Museveni that Museveni was now, his eyes, even a better President of Uganda than Idi Amin Dada. He told me, "Museveni lets us do what we want do, so long as we do not disturb his business. We make our money, and he makes his! Ffenna tuliira wamu mu kavuyo. (We all eat from the same trough of chaos.)" I interpreted the answer to mean that for this person, Museveni was even better than Idi Amin at fermenting the type of chaos that made him an even wealthier person than he ever was under any of the earlier regimes in Uganda.
How do some people and businesses prosper in spite of, and definitely because of, chaos and the associated reign of mayhem and impunity? I will delve into one example of my experience with a business transaction in Uganda.
Earlier on the morning of the traffic jam that I described at the beginning of this article, I had been to a Foreign Exchange (FX) Bureau on Kampala Road to carry out a simple transaction. I wanted to exchange a few hundred American Dollars into Uganda Shillings. US Dollars and the requisite Uganda passport were over to the Bureau owner, a Ugandan of South Asia ancestry. He inspected them with some kind of odd curiosity and told me to follow him to a side office. Once inside the smaller side office, he told me that I had to prove where I got the money from. He variously accused me of having “fake currency” and having “stolen currency” – all at the same time. He also wanted me to show him any other foreign currency that I had on me. By this time, we had been enjoined by an armed man in Uganda Police uniform. The policeman held his gun in his hands, menacingly letting me know that he had me covered! The owner was threatening to have me “arrested for foreign exchange violation”. I realised that I had, in technically legal language, been kidnapped. I was about to be robbed, and could even end up stripped and dumped, alive or dead, behind the building Or, I could end up in some non-descript “prison” or “detention centre” somewhere. I had the quickness of mind to tell my tormenter that I worked for an international organisation, that I was on mission in Uganda, and that my colleagues were waiting for me outside. I even had an International Laissez Passe, which I showed him. Also, my wife who had not initially gone in the FX Bureau with me came from the street to see why I was taking so long. The FX Bureau owner then reversed course and apologised and said that I should have told him that I am not “a local Ugandan”. He complained that I did not tell him that I had laissez passe, and even that I did not tell him that my wife was “not a local woman”. I took that insult on the chin on behalf of all Ugandans, I asked to have my passport and US Dollars back, and I left the place.
On learning about my experience, a friend told me, “You are not supposed to go to those places alone. ….. If you ever need to change money, give it to our young friends and they will change it for you in a kikuubo (back alley). ….. Less hustle and more shillings for your dollars! …… You can also use ATM, although it costs you more.” My friend forgot to add that changing my dollar money in kikuubo also creates some immediate losers. The latter include the FX Bureaus as potential customers shun them. The Government also loses as it can longer collect revenue from the FX Bureaus. And of course, kikuubo transactions are illegal and also contribute the chaos in the country.
I will forever wonder what would have happened to me that morning if I had been a “local Ugandan”, as the FX Bureau owner had tried to malign my fellow citizens. My FX Bureau experience is just one example of how a supposedly legal business engages in criminal activities and even recruits policemen to help in the criminality. Granted that someone may say that that particular policeman was engaged in rogue activities. However, it impossible to dissociate such rogue behaviour from the overall culture of chaos (kavuyo) that pervades the country.
In Uganda, even faith institutions, like churches, and their leaders prosper off the chaos. For example, on the one hand, SOME leaders of established church denominations are bribed by politicians with cash, vehicles and other assets. The expectation on the part of the bribers, is that the bribed church leaders will keep quiet and not speak truth power as their religious vow would have them do. On the other hand, MANY OF the “abundant life” or “kiwempe” churches that have mushroomed in Uganda over the past few decades are, for the most part, just money collection and money laundering agencies. Such churches pass on some of their holy loot to corrupt officials and hoodlums, including the President’s relatives and friends, for protection. Church leaders say nothing about the chaos and its atrocities in the country. They have failed to effectively condemnation and refuse to accept “tithes and offerings” that come from ill-gotten wealth.
THE TROUBLE WITH CHAOS
I believe that "chaos" is a fatally flawed model of socio-economic development. The reason is fundamentally that chaos is the antithesis of order; and without order it is impossible to sustain the rule of law and good governance. Socio-economic chaos can result in huge returns for a few people that hold the politico-military reins of power and their enablers. However, it fails most citizens, and it depreciates Uganda's efficacy as a nation.
In a country of some 40 million people like Uganda, the primary beneficiaries of this chaos model are a few hundred members of the politico-military ruling elite. What this means in reality is the President’s extended family and a few close associates, that include the President’s family members, some Cabinet Ministers, and some military commanders. This first string of beneficiaries would be followed by a second string of one-or-two thousand enablers. The enablers are people like my businessman friend, the FX Bureau owner who tried to kidnap me, middle rank and junior military officers, some Presidential Advisers, and some strategically placed civil servants like Permanent Secretaries and District Administrators.
The rest of the population, then, become either mere pawns or mere serfs of the ruling elite and their enablers. Members of the "pawns" class include policemen, soldiers and members of the so-called Local Defence Units and other enforcer-types. These are the type of pawns that are routinely deployed to inflict injury to people who show dissent or question the status quo. Another type of pawns are petty civil servants and business employees who ease the movement of and collect rent for the politico-military elite and their enablers. Rent includes unlegislated taxes and duties, bribes, extortion fees and other transfers and acquisitions that are not backed by the production goods and services of market value. The pawns work for the first family and its enablers, but they are also expendable. This is in the sense that it does not matter if some of pawns get injured or killed in the course of their duties. Also, they are often the ones who get prosecuted for atrocities that look like they are embarrassing the rulers and the latter’s enablers.
The serfs form the rest (in fact, the majority) of Ugandans that live from hand to mouth as daily labourers (abapakasi) and share-cropping subsistent producers, as well as other Ugandans who are completely landless and jobless.
This is not a sustainable situation. It is an on-going socio-economic catastrophe. It is a time-bomb. Left to tick and fester, the frustration, anger and wrath of the poor, the angry, the hungry, the dispossessed, and the constantly beaten-up and humiliated majority of the citizens is bound to, one day, explode with devastating consequences.