Muhwezi is back, so what do conspiracy theorists say?
MAJ. Gen. (rtd) Jim Muhwezi is back in Uganda, charged and remanded for alleged abuse of office, embezzlement, forgery and theft in the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) donor project.
OFWONO OPONDO
SAYING IT WITHOUT FEAR OR FAVOUR
MAJ. Gen. (rtd) Jim Muhwezi is back in Uganda, charged and remanded for alleged abuse of office, embezzlement, forgery and theft in the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) donor project.
Muhwezi now joins former ministerial colleagues Capt. Mike Mukula and Dr Alex Kamugisha, and Alice Kaboyo formerly of State House. When Muhwezi and Kaboyo escaped the initial police swoop, there were popular but false conspiracy theories that they were “un-touchable†and had been tipped off by the main complainant, President Yoweri Museveni to avoid arrest and prosecution.
Now, it is a contradiction for an “untouchable†to be tipped off because why would someone so powerful hide? It is also interesting these days that whenever a politician returns from a stint in prison, no matter the reason, they claim to be much ‘stronger’ and so you ask why they don’t apply to go there in the first place. And since Muhwezi was granted permission by Parliament Speaker to travel to UK for medical check-up, then Edward Ssekandi could be part of the ‘conspiracy’. At least that was the logic of some elites, and who must now coin other conspiracy theories to harangue Museveni, Muhwezi and Kaboyo.
Anyway, conspiracy theories are not new since even St. Peter is said to have forged letters claiming that Emperor Constantine gave Rome to the Catholic Church, and that Pope Alexander VI issued edicts (Alexandrian bulls) donating the Americas to Queen Isabel of Spain. So much, so, that even the suspects in the GAVI fund claim they were asked to conspire to steal, and all vow to prove their ‘innocence’ in the courts of law.
Vice-President Prof. Gilbert Bukenya said there were conspiracies by ‘the mafia’ to photograph his paw paws and pigs, and linking him to some woman. The NRM is alleged to have politically conspired to ‘frame’ its own senior members, which is of course false.
Conspiracy theories explain all events, that everything is connected and the world as a runaway train without an engine. The more the conspirators, the more credible the events are. In his novel Libra, Don De Lillo portrays the John Fitzgerald Kennedy assassination as a plot by disgruntled CIA officers. He suggests that Harvey Oswald had a handful of associates. But that is not satisfying and dramatic enough to a true conspiracy theorist. “Richard Nixon did it†is much better. It links JFK to Watergate. Add Bill Clinton to it and then, perhaps you can say they both sneaked to England to get instructions from Queen Elizabeth, who was plotting the future death of the yet-unborn Princess Diana with the “Wise Elders of Zionâ€.
Psychologist Cary Cooper of the University of Manchester considers conspiracy theory as a defence mechanism for staving off anxiety about a randomly unpredictable world by “creating alternate realities because we reject the world where a single madman can bring down a president, a reckless driver can snuff a princess, and men with knives can terrorise a countryâ€.
Conspiracy theories echo into each other and show that all these conspiracy nuts know each other, belong to the same secret club whose agents have infiltrated everywhere controlling the media and government. Yet they actually hatch and circulate these outlandish theories to distract us from the reality that someone did not act straight.
Let us draw a distinction between the complex beliefs from medieval superstitions and the possibility that any particular event may be a conspiracy. In 1865, actor John Wilkes Booth shot US President Abraham Lincoln. Was he a lone assassin? As a matter of fact he had at least eight proven co-conspirators, all close associates sympathetic to the Confederate cause.
Also imagine the future Pope Benedict XVI as Joseph Ratzinger served in Adolf Hitler’s Nazi army, and so he could have just been a mole and his rise to the pontifficate is a reward!
In 1961, Patrice Lumumba vanished in a war-torn province of the Congo and years later it was proved that Belgian mercenaries killed him on orders from the Belgian government, a true conspiracy. It is believed the CIA was involved although never proven.
In 1971, a plane crash killed Lin Piao, a Chinese leader opposed to Mao Zedong. Did someone arrange for his plane to crash? The same is true of the 1988 plane crash that killed Pakistani president Zia ul-Haq and the likely culprit was said to be the Soviet KGB.
Spy agencies exist, and spying is what they do. From spying to plotting is a short step, from plotting to conspiring, even shorter. But such conspiracies produce specific events and so when Brig. Noble Mayombo died recently we had to look over shoulders.
Consider the 1979-1980 conspiracy by Nelson and William Hunt, two billionaire brothers from Texas. They wanted to corner the market on silver to get richer and colluded with the Saudi Arabia ruling family through intermediaries to disguise their role. But they couldn’t buy all the world’s silver with cash, so they obtained credit and the spree drove the price up as millions of ordinary people rushed to sell whatever little they had, flooded the market and the price plunged. Just then the Hunts’ creditors came knocking, caught them in bathing robes and they crashed overnight!
Every event is a product of many individuals and groups chasing their own interests, crisscrossing one another’s efforts; cancelling, deflecting, or reinforcing each other’s plans. Everyone has an impact, great or small, but no one is in control although conspiracy theorists claim otherwise.
SAYING IT WITHOUT FEAR OR FAVOUR
MAJ. Gen. (rtd) Jim Muhwezi is back in Uganda, charged and remanded for alleged abuse of office, embezzlement, forgery and theft in the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) donor project.
Muhwezi now joins former ministerial colleagues Capt. Mike Mukula and Dr Alex Kamugisha, and Alice Kaboyo formerly of State House. When Muhwezi and Kaboyo escaped the initial police swoop, there were popular but false conspiracy theories that they were “un-touchable†and had been tipped off by the main complainant, President Yoweri Museveni to avoid arrest and prosecution.
Now, it is a contradiction for an “untouchable†to be tipped off because why would someone so powerful hide? It is also interesting these days that whenever a politician returns from a stint in prison, no matter the reason, they claim to be much ‘stronger’ and so you ask why they don’t apply to go there in the first place. And since Muhwezi was granted permission by Parliament Speaker to travel to UK for medical check-up, then Edward Ssekandi could be part of the ‘conspiracy’. At least that was the logic of some elites, and who must now coin other conspiracy theories to harangue Museveni, Muhwezi and Kaboyo.
Anyway, conspiracy theories are not new since even St. Peter is said to have forged letters claiming that Emperor Constantine gave Rome to the Catholic Church, and that Pope Alexander VI issued edicts (Alexandrian bulls) donating the Americas to Queen Isabel of Spain. So much, so, that even the suspects in the GAVI fund claim they were asked to conspire to steal, and all vow to prove their ‘innocence’ in the courts of law.
Vice-President Prof. Gilbert Bukenya said there were conspiracies by ‘the mafia’ to photograph his paw paws and pigs, and linking him to some woman. The NRM is alleged to have politically conspired to ‘frame’ its own senior members, which is of course false.
Conspiracy theories explain all events, that everything is connected and the world as a runaway train without an engine. The more the conspirators, the more credible the events are. In his novel Libra, Don De Lillo portrays the John Fitzgerald Kennedy assassination as a plot by disgruntled CIA officers. He suggests that Harvey Oswald had a handful of associates. But that is not satisfying and dramatic enough to a true conspiracy theorist. “Richard Nixon did it†is much better. It links JFK to Watergate. Add Bill Clinton to it and then, perhaps you can say they both sneaked to England to get instructions from Queen Elizabeth, who was plotting the future death of the yet-unborn Princess Diana with the “Wise Elders of Zionâ€.
Psychologist Cary Cooper of the University of Manchester considers conspiracy theory as a defence mechanism for staving off anxiety about a randomly unpredictable world by “creating alternate realities because we reject the world where a single madman can bring down a president, a reckless driver can snuff a princess, and men with knives can terrorise a countryâ€.
Conspiracy theories echo into each other and show that all these conspiracy nuts know each other, belong to the same secret club whose agents have infiltrated everywhere controlling the media and government. Yet they actually hatch and circulate these outlandish theories to distract us from the reality that someone did not act straight.
Let us draw a distinction between the complex beliefs from medieval superstitions and the possibility that any particular event may be a conspiracy. In 1865, actor John Wilkes Booth shot US President Abraham Lincoln. Was he a lone assassin? As a matter of fact he had at least eight proven co-conspirators, all close associates sympathetic to the Confederate cause.
Also imagine the future Pope Benedict XVI as Joseph Ratzinger served in Adolf Hitler’s Nazi army, and so he could have just been a mole and his rise to the pontifficate is a reward!
In 1961, Patrice Lumumba vanished in a war-torn province of the Congo and years later it was proved that Belgian mercenaries killed him on orders from the Belgian government, a true conspiracy. It is believed the CIA was involved although never proven.
In 1971, a plane crash killed Lin Piao, a Chinese leader opposed to Mao Zedong. Did someone arrange for his plane to crash? The same is true of the 1988 plane crash that killed Pakistani president Zia ul-Haq and the likely culprit was said to be the Soviet KGB.
Spy agencies exist, and spying is what they do. From spying to plotting is a short step, from plotting to conspiring, even shorter. But such conspiracies produce specific events and so when Brig. Noble Mayombo died recently we had to look over shoulders.
Consider the 1979-1980 conspiracy by Nelson and William Hunt, two billionaire brothers from Texas. They wanted to corner the market on silver to get richer and colluded with the Saudi Arabia ruling family through intermediaries to disguise their role. But they couldn’t buy all the world’s silver with cash, so they obtained credit and the spree drove the price up as millions of ordinary people rushed to sell whatever little they had, flooded the market and the price plunged. Just then the Hunts’ creditors came knocking, caught them in bathing robes and they crashed overnight!
Every event is a product of many individuals and groups chasing their own interests, crisscrossing one another’s efforts; cancelling, deflecting, or reinforcing each other’s plans. Everyone has an impact, great or small, but no one is in control although conspiracy theorists claim otherwise.