About a month ago old boys of Namilyango College requested me to speak at the get-together monthly party organized by Campling House.
So, their chief mobilizer Peter Odoki asked if I would speak during the party. We agreed on a topic; which he singlehandedly picked. It was Unmasking the Great Lakes region.
That day was difficult. First, I have a Friday show on KFM from 7 pm to 8 pm. So, after the show, I rushed from Namuwongo, the home of KFM and within 15 minutes I was ready to speak. The whole place was abuzz with many old boys mixing and chatting.
It was this atmosphere that made me realize that what I had prepared might sound very much academic. I, therefore, decided to do the unusual; speak from experience on what I have known or not about the Great Lakes region.
You see the Great Lakes region is both a political, social, economic and geographical entity but mainly defined by a range of lakes mainly Lake Victoria, Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganyika and the small lakes that drain into them. Countries that are covered under this geographical definition are Burundi, Rwanda, DR Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda.
But there is also the political and social Great Lakes region as defined by the United Nations and African Union. This was born to deal with the conflicts that are galore within this space in the belly of Africa. How was the world going to be prepared so that what happened in 1994 in Rwanda does not occur again?
The UN and African Union wanted to get a grasp on how to deal with the complex part of the world that was very prone to conflict including being the highest producers and host of refugees.
The reconfiguration of the International Conference of the Great Lakes was thus borne out of a political desire to understand and deal with the ever-increasing conflicts in the region. Thus the International Conference of the Great Lakes (ICGLR) was crafted.
In part, it bore almost the same structure as the rest of the economic communities such as East Africa Community EAC), Southern African Development Community or indeed Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) but ICGLR has membership that includes more than 12 countries.
The Great Lakes region is a complex network of political, economic and social interactions that has a bearing on peace, security and governance in the region. But what then are the common causes of conflicts in this region?
The first is identity and belonging. There are multiple layers of belonging within the region. One can identify with one’s family, one’s ethnic group, a religion, a cultural grouping and a particular nationality. But depending on which of the layers one choses to subscribe to, it means that by implication someone else is excluded from that belonging.
When that happens and identity becomes a choice, then we create the “other” which in most if not all cases is a recipe for conflict.
The second is structural violence; this is violence that has do with embedded weaknesses that deny people the enjoyment of their rights. It includes known prejudices such as segregation, ethnicity and sexism, that are ingrained in the social interactions and define how people relate.
The third is unequal access to political power. In most, if not all the conflicts, all begin with one group denying another access to political power and the attendant resentment that boils over to deadly conflicts including genocide.
So, then why does genocide happen?
I explained that genocide can look like an event but it’s actually a process. Before genocide starts, there are actions and behaviours that point to what would eventually happen.
Genocide begins when there is “them and us”. When this dichotomy happens, then there is “killing” of the person while he or she is still alive. The essence is to dehumanize and make the victim so inanimate that by the time of actual killing, the killer “feels nothing” and thinks of victory. So, there are words you will hear such as cockroach, insect, a rat, “dirty people” that need to be cleaned.
And then other phrases such as “We wash you clean”, we need “insecticides to fumigate”, it’s time we go to work” and this is the “final solution.”
These are just examples but each conflict that descends into genocide has its own vocabulary but they are all aimed at one thing; dehumanize the victim so that when the actual killing happens, the killer feels justified, and not just a perpetrator but rather a victim too.
In Poland when the Jews were transported from Germany for extermination, they were told they were being taken to a better place to live.
That is why in a museum at Auschwitz in Poland, there are interesting items recovered from the victims. People fled with flat irons, kettles, shoe polish, combs, sewing kits and toothbrush. Surely if you know you are going to die, what would you pick to go with?
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