Preserving Uganda's history in a statue, African style
KAMPALA, Uganda -- It is exactly one week since the historic unveiling of the [President's] Shs40 million shilling statue at Kabamba military barracks.
It depicts a youthful Popular Resistance Army (PRA) guerrilla leader, Yoweri Museveni [now president of Uganda], directing the attack on the armoury at the beginning of the five year 'bush war' between 1981 and 1986 against the Uganda People's Congress (UPC) government of the late Dr Apollo Milton Obote.
The world over statues, monuments, medallions, portraits on legal tender and naming of institutions, roads and buildings are ways in which communities preserve history, reward and motivate contributions to the development of society.
In Africa's case, these have always been sources of controversy to the extent that wherever there is regime change, predictably, the first action that characterises the new government is destruction of anything that brings memories of the deposed leaders.
In Uganda's case for instance the huge medallion that commemorated Obote as Uganda's first post independence premier and graced the entrance at the gates of The Parliamentary Buildings was brought down by Field Marshall Idi Amin Dada following the coup of 1971.
The life size statue of Amin erected by himself at Jaja Villas in Munyonyo was obliterated after he was deposed in 1979. The currency on which he had his portrait was replaced just as it happened in 1987 to the money that was adorned by the face of Dr Obote.
Opposition Forum for Democratic Change top official Maj. Rubaramira Ruranga, a veteran of the bush war predicted on a radio that at an appropriate time, Gen. Yoweri Museveni's statue "will also certainly be brought down like that of Saddam Hussein."
Read entire article at Kampala (Uganda) Monitor
It depicts a youthful Popular Resistance Army (PRA) guerrilla leader, Yoweri Museveni [now president of Uganda], directing the attack on the armoury at the beginning of the five year 'bush war' between 1981 and 1986 against the Uganda People's Congress (UPC) government of the late Dr Apollo Milton Obote.
The world over statues, monuments, medallions, portraits on legal tender and naming of institutions, roads and buildings are ways in which communities preserve history, reward and motivate contributions to the development of society.
In Africa's case, these have always been sources of controversy to the extent that wherever there is regime change, predictably, the first action that characterises the new government is destruction of anything that brings memories of the deposed leaders.
In Uganda's case for instance the huge medallion that commemorated Obote as Uganda's first post independence premier and graced the entrance at the gates of The Parliamentary Buildings was brought down by Field Marshall Idi Amin Dada following the coup of 1971.
The life size statue of Amin erected by himself at Jaja Villas in Munyonyo was obliterated after he was deposed in 1979. The currency on which he had his portrait was replaced just as it happened in 1987 to the money that was adorned by the face of Dr Obote.
Opposition Forum for Democratic Change top official Maj. Rubaramira Ruranga, a veteran of the bush war predicted on a radio that at an appropriate time, Gen. Yoweri Museveni's statue "will also certainly be brought down like that of Saddam Hussein."