On the 50th Anniversary of the Attack on the Lubiri in 2016, I said that this sad event in our history teaches us about the need for Uganda to develop a central nervous system and to avoid the use of violence to settle legal and political disputes.
The memory of all those who died on that dark day, and in all the wars and violence that followed, compels us to do our best to build solid and respectful relationships across ethnic and religious lines. We should strive to find ways of resolving our disputes amicably.
The militarism which was injected into Uganda's body politic on the 24th May 1966, sadly lives on and has adversely affected all of the peoples of Uganda and set us back decades in terms of development. We all yearn for peace, prosperity and happiness.
We all want to bequeath our descendants a better life than we had ourselves. We may express ourselves differently and our visions of "better" may vary. But let us learn to subject our own expectations to those of others and to find an amicable happy medium.
From the Lubiri Attack, and what happened to Uganda subsequently, we learn that violence and threats of violence only beget more violence. The leaders who exiled their opponents also died in exile. We lost good brains and time fighting each other instead of building our country.
May the souls of all who died on this dreaded day and in the subsequent wars and fighting all over Uganda and in neighbouring countries find peace and help us to do the same.
I hope the Government of Uganda will do what is right and help the relatives of the people who were killed in the Lubiri Attack on this day in 1966 search the Luzira Maximum Security Prison Complex for the mass grave in which these victims were anonymously interred.
