Guess who’s for dinner!
Nov 08, 2002
OF the current worst people of the world you would find it impossible to beat our homebred Kony, leader of his blasphemously named Lord’s Resistance Army (although if what he means to imply is that he resists anything to do with the Lord, he has hit it
One Man's Week with John Nagenda
OF the current worst people of the world you would find it impossible to beat our homebred Kony, leader of his blasphemously named Lord’s Resistance Army (although if what he means to imply is that he resists anything to do with the Lord, he has hit it right on the nail).
Of course there are still some “soft-heads†within Uganda and beyond who still harbour dangerous delusions regarding Kony, considering him a person with credible political programmes. But what are these and how are they to be followed?
The answer to all serious thinking people is that the programmes do not exist and that in their total absence Kony carries out one of the most murderous campaigns known to man, mostly against his own defenceless peasants. It is clear who he is and what he represents.
Cannibalism is the latest on his menu. Moreover you don’t have to look far to experience his work; he seems most proud to leave his “fingerprint†on each horror performed.
Last week, The Vision published horrific pictures of Kony having forced survivors of his attack to cook the victims so that they could eat them. Its sister paper, the Luo language Rupiny, went even further, with more detailed pictures of the cooking corpses.
I am no weakling but the only way I could view these disgusting spectacles was by removing my reading glasses, thus blurring the effect. I hear I was infinitely more fortunate than a leader of the Acholi diaspora in the UK.
A Mr Akena P’Ojok had gone to Southern Sudan to “politicise†Kony, thus the better to strengthen allied Acholi fighting against the Movement government of Uganda.
It is rumoured that he found Kony and his vile terrorists lunching on steaks of Khartoum Arabs whom they had killed earlier in battle. Was it the taste of this that forced him back to London in such a hurry?
Suffice to say he called on the Acholi diaspora to put Kony out of their future considerations. Out of the jaw of the lion came honey.
But still, out of the mouths of the Ugandan bishops presumably continuing to court Kony for a visit to him, has come nothing; much less condemnation.
Here is one scenario if he grants their desire. Supper comes. I suppose all things considered a well-washed bishop, hair trimmed, nails brushed, Sunday offerings consumed, would taste better than a horny-handed son of the soil.
Imagine the frisson when these purple-cassocked worthies sat to sup with their demonic host. The earthenware is uncovered to reveal one of their number, bishopric collar still at the neck, literally in the soup. They had last seen him enjoying lunch. (I have in mind a well-fed foreign cleric!) “Good appetite!†orders their odious host.
But for President Museveni who has vowed to work out of Gulu until Kony is done for, for his gallant forces who will help to see this done, for the huge majority of Ugandans who can’t wait to see this done, the end cannot come too soon. Come it will; praise be to God.
* * *
The Baganda say, “Aabo n’obasibira mu kutiya, osanga bwooya.†“If you tie those two in a sack, you’ll find only tiny hairs.†Meaning, each will have eaten everything of the other up, except these.
Eek! But when your columnist heard that those rogue elephants (“when the elephants grapple, it is the grass that suffersâ€), arch competitors Sharon and Netanyahu had agreed to work in the same government, Netanyahu under Sharon, he feared for the worst.
The poet Andrew Marvell said long ago, “The Grave’s a fine and private place/ But none I think do there embrace,†Yet these Israeli warriors this week chose to do just that. It portended disaster on a monumental scale.
Forthwith, every time they met, even at darkest midnight itself, each one’s back would be very glued to the wall, for fear of the probing knife there-into. Their sojourn together would likely prove short and brutus; making it highly unlikely they would still be holding hands by the fifteenth of March.
* * *
Why tell a lie when you can tell the truth? I was staggered, gobsmacked, ran over by a track, pole-axed, knocked out, left for dead (all these and many more), at the news, and more than this, the extent, of the Bushian triumph in the US midway elections.
I was filled with the dread that the world as we knew it had come to a stop, even if, obviously, not forever. The intentions of the president of the USA, the most powerful nation on earth, even more the way he states and enunciates them, are enough to strike terror in the minds of many people around the globe, America included.
When, favour of his brother Jeb, Bush became president, the margin was so razor thin that it put him in a straightjacket. In addition he controlled one House (Representative) but not the other (Senate). Now he has them both, and large margins all over the political arena.
His closest advisers are extremists almost without exception. Do the American voters realise what they have done and the forces they have unleashed?
One extremely narrow chink of light might be that his new un-tethered power is such that it might lead to sobriety rather than the expected reverse. For the more Bush flaunts his new power (and how he’ll enjoy that!) the more the world’s desperate legions will sharpen their tools in the outer dark; and it is darker already. If you don’t believe it take a look.
www.onemansweek.com
OF the current worst people of the world you would find it impossible to beat our homebred Kony, leader of his blasphemously named Lord’s Resistance Army (although if what he means to imply is that he resists anything to do with the Lord, he has hit it right on the nail).
Of course there are still some “soft-heads†within Uganda and beyond who still harbour dangerous delusions regarding Kony, considering him a person with credible political programmes. But what are these and how are they to be followed?
The answer to all serious thinking people is that the programmes do not exist and that in their total absence Kony carries out one of the most murderous campaigns known to man, mostly against his own defenceless peasants. It is clear who he is and what he represents.
Cannibalism is the latest on his menu. Moreover you don’t have to look far to experience his work; he seems most proud to leave his “fingerprint†on each horror performed.
Last week, The Vision published horrific pictures of Kony having forced survivors of his attack to cook the victims so that they could eat them. Its sister paper, the Luo language Rupiny, went even further, with more detailed pictures of the cooking corpses.
I am no weakling but the only way I could view these disgusting spectacles was by removing my reading glasses, thus blurring the effect. I hear I was infinitely more fortunate than a leader of the Acholi diaspora in the UK.
A Mr Akena P’Ojok had gone to Southern Sudan to “politicise†Kony, thus the better to strengthen allied Acholi fighting against the Movement government of Uganda.
It is rumoured that he found Kony and his vile terrorists lunching on steaks of Khartoum Arabs whom they had killed earlier in battle. Was it the taste of this that forced him back to London in such a hurry?
Suffice to say he called on the Acholi diaspora to put Kony out of their future considerations. Out of the jaw of the lion came honey.
But still, out of the mouths of the Ugandan bishops presumably continuing to court Kony for a visit to him, has come nothing; much less condemnation.
Here is one scenario if he grants their desire. Supper comes. I suppose all things considered a well-washed bishop, hair trimmed, nails brushed, Sunday offerings consumed, would taste better than a horny-handed son of the soil.
Imagine the frisson when these purple-cassocked worthies sat to sup with their demonic host. The earthenware is uncovered to reveal one of their number, bishopric collar still at the neck, literally in the soup. They had last seen him enjoying lunch. (I have in mind a well-fed foreign cleric!) “Good appetite!†orders their odious host.
But for President Museveni who has vowed to work out of Gulu until Kony is done for, for his gallant forces who will help to see this done, for the huge majority of Ugandans who can’t wait to see this done, the end cannot come too soon. Come it will; praise be to God.
* * *
The Baganda say, “Aabo n’obasibira mu kutiya, osanga bwooya.†“If you tie those two in a sack, you’ll find only tiny hairs.†Meaning, each will have eaten everything of the other up, except these.
Eek! But when your columnist heard that those rogue elephants (“when the elephants grapple, it is the grass that suffersâ€), arch competitors Sharon and Netanyahu had agreed to work in the same government, Netanyahu under Sharon, he feared for the worst.
The poet Andrew Marvell said long ago, “The Grave’s a fine and private place/ But none I think do there embrace,†Yet these Israeli warriors this week chose to do just that. It portended disaster on a monumental scale.
Forthwith, every time they met, even at darkest midnight itself, each one’s back would be very glued to the wall, for fear of the probing knife there-into. Their sojourn together would likely prove short and brutus; making it highly unlikely they would still be holding hands by the fifteenth of March.
* * *
Why tell a lie when you can tell the truth? I was staggered, gobsmacked, ran over by a track, pole-axed, knocked out, left for dead (all these and many more), at the news, and more than this, the extent, of the Bushian triumph in the US midway elections.
I was filled with the dread that the world as we knew it had come to a stop, even if, obviously, not forever. The intentions of the president of the USA, the most powerful nation on earth, even more the way he states and enunciates them, are enough to strike terror in the minds of many people around the globe, America included.
When, favour of his brother Jeb, Bush became president, the margin was so razor thin that it put him in a straightjacket. In addition he controlled one House (Representative) but not the other (Senate). Now he has them both, and large margins all over the political arena.
His closest advisers are extremists almost without exception. Do the American voters realise what they have done and the forces they have unleashed?
One extremely narrow chink of light might be that his new un-tethered power is such that it might lead to sobriety rather than the expected reverse. For the more Bush flaunts his new power (and how he’ll enjoy that!) the more the world’s desperate legions will sharpen their tools in the outer dark; and it is darker already. If you don’t believe it take a look.
www.onemansweek.com