Yoweri Museveni Kaguta is the longest serving president of Uganda. He became the president of Uganda in January 1986 and he is still the current president of Uganda. Over years, he has made many interesting statements and you can’t be surprised that some statements have been contradictory! Here are some of the most interesting statements from YK Museveni!
1. In an address to the mourners at the burial of NRA/UPDF commander Brig Chefe Ali, at Burungi, Kazo, in Mbarara district, President Museveni’s younger brother and one time Presidential Advisor on Defense and commander of the Reserve Force (RF), Maj. Gen. Caleb Akandanaho aka Salim Saleh, eloquently told them that “If it was not for Brigadier Chefe Ali, (Eriya Mwine) no UPC or Acholi would be alive” (see “Chefe saved UPCs, Acholi – Saleh” Mornitor 14 July 1999).
2. “The rebels attacked us (NRA soldiers) at a place called Corner Kilak 20 miles South of Kitgum (Town). They came in while singing and shouting; our people (NRA) massacred those chaps. They approached our troops frontally. This gave us a very good chance because they exposed themselves; so on Sunday (January 24, 1987) we surrounded them and massacred them. We massacred them very badly. (Standard – Nairobi – January 21, 1987)
3. “Our role is to wipe out insecurity … if we have to eliminate those chaps by force, we will do it”. (Daily Nation – Nairobi – January 26, 1987)
4. “I don’t know about torture. I have educated myself on many things but on torture I have not known the boundary between what is torture and what isn’t torture. I know the NRA tie these people (rebels, etc.) when they catch them. They tie their hands backwards. I am now being told that is torture. It is the traditional method. (Daily Nation – Nairobi – January 26, 1987)
5. “I don’t think we are destroying people’s crops. We are destroying rebel crops and stores.” (Daily Nation – Nairobi – January 26, 1987)
6. “The soldiers feel that the Police are not serious with the criminal elements and that they are corrupt. The army had to come in and insist that criminals must be punished. It happens in all countries, there is a time when the army assumes the duty of internal security”. (Daily Nation – Nairobi – January 26, 1987)
7. “What is the Geneva Convention on wars! I have never read it”. (TV Panorama Programme of the BBC, March 1986)
8. “In the areas which have been disturbed people are living cordially with the Security Forces. In areas like Gulu people are living peacefully. There is scrupulous respect of human rights”. (Daily Nation – Nairobi – January 26, 1987)
9. “You see when you give them (civil population in the North and East) a good beating then those who are using them will no longer use them. Since the month of January (1987), we have given them much beating especially in Lira and Kitgum Districts. And in fact the week I left (for Yugoslavia) we had given them a good blow in Gulu District. So it is going to settle down”. (New Vision, January 19, 1987).
10. the Ugandan weekly newspaper, Shariat (Vol. II No.15, April 15-21, 1998), quoted President Yoweri Museveni as having said that: “As Hitler did to bring Germany together, we should also do it here. Hitler was a smart guy, but I think he went a bit too far by wanting to conquer the world.” He repeated the same statement on April 4, 1997, when addressing the East African Law Society (see “Watch Out, M-7, Uganda is Unkind to Dictators” The East African, Monday, June 9, 2003).
11. “Our work is to kill these people,” Monitor March 28, 2004
12. “We have not yet punished ‘them’ enough.”
13. “We shall make ‘them’ become like the ensenene insects; you know what happens when you trap them in a bottle and close the lid.”
14. “We have massacred them; we mowed them down.”
15. “Let them go and eat grass, mangoes, and lizards.”
16. ‘‘They’ are backward and primitive.”
17. “You wait and see, we shall teach ‘them’ a lesson from which ‘they’ will never recover.”
18. “‘Those people’ are swine.”
19. “Yes, we are killing off the ‘anyanya,’ they are not Ugandans”.
20. “The chauvinism of the Acoli has to be destroyed.”
21. “Do you want to pamper these killers?”
22. “If we don’t catch them, we shall kill them, … These bandits are not able to permanently engage us because they will be wiped out. Now that they have invited us, I think they are going to find out that it was not a wise decision.”
23. “I don’t think we are destroying people’s crops. We are destroying rebel crops and stores.”
24. “I don’t know about torture. I have educated myself on many things but on torture I have not known the boundary between what is torture and what isn’t torture. I know the NRA tie these people (rebels, etc.) when they catch them. They tie their hands backwards. I am now being told that is torture. It is the traditional method.”
24. “Our role is to wipe out insecurity … if we have to eliminate those chaps by force, we will do it.”
