By Oweyegha-Afunaduula
A genocidal environment is an aspect of the socio-cultural dimension of the environment, particularly in the socio-political perspective, where those who initiate and perpetuate genocide are preoccupy ed with power acquisition and retention to perpetually access resources and dominate others for their selfish ends. They allocate a large portion of the national budget on the acquisition of weapons and tear gas, which they do not hesitate to use against those they claim to lead. They are usually evil men who do not care who they harm to get what they want. Sometimes they create a genocidal environment within which they claim to be liberating people from repressive regimes when in fact their aim is power.
Once a genocidal environment has been created, a country’s total environment will be negatively affected in all its dimensions – the ecological-biological, the socio-economic, the socio-cultural and the temporal -wth mass or isolated atrocities proliferating as those behind them become increasingly arrogant and unremorseful.
In the ecological-biological they will clandestinely exploit the country’s resources for their selfish gain and exclude the indigenes from them. They will grab land, destroy time-tested agroecological systems, displace people and communities and cause people them to manifest as internal refugees subject to many environmental factors such as disease and hunger that interact in their gradual genocide, which may not be detected by the majority of unconscious people.
All that people see and experience is the supersonic rise in the death rate spread over a large expense of land. This is exacerbated by paying workers peanuts and denying them quality health or treatment in the hospitals. On an incremental basis more and more money is committed to militarisation (called peace and security) at the expense of social development. Violence is integral to peace and security pursuits and tends to overshoot peace and security with the passage of time as the people begin to question the behaviour and choices of the people of power.
The history of the world has always been punctuated by cycles of violence, regardless of time, region or race. Hardly a day goes by without the international media confronting us with news about mass atrocities, war, civil war, and genocidal events (Ton Zwaan).
Anderson and Carter (2015) have presented a rational model depicting a regime’s incentive to allocate resources to fighting rebels and killing civilians when it perceives internal threat to its political and territorial control. Their model guided them in investigating the risk of genocide.
A close link between mass atrocities and climate change exists. In Syria as protests (particularly in areas affected by drought and decreased food supply) against the government became more intense, the Syrian government started to massacre civilians. Eventually, the protests and crackdown from the government boiled over into a civil war with escalating mass atrocities on all sides.Genocide became manifest.
Genocideis one of the worst forms of violence. It has always led to horrific socio-economic, sociocultural and environmental impacts. The last decade of the 20th century was the most turbulent Rwanda had ever experienced in its history. The country was ravaged by civil war, genocide, mass migrations, economic crisis, diseases, return of refugees and environmental destruction. Rwandan families were affected by and are still dealing with impacts such as death, disease, disability, poverty, loss of dignity and imprisonment (Vadi Moodley, Alphonse Gahima and Suveshnee Munien, 2010).
The path of genocide into Rwanda (Howard Adelman and Astri Suhrke, 1999) started in Uganda, where close to 500 people (Dr Kiiza Besigye, pers comm) were massacred in the Luwero Triangle between 1981 and 1986 by rebels commanded by Rwandese refugees. The path of genocide ended in Zaire (Democratic Republic of Congo) where it has more or less settled with the Banyamulenge Rwandese refugees, seeking to gain a territory out of Easter DRC and declare sovereignty over it, reportedly supported by Rwanda and Uganda
Apparently, another path of genocide in Northern Uganda (Ogenga Otunnu, 2017). Emerged and reportedly close to 400 people died in the mass atrocities committed by both the National Resistance Movement (NRA) of President Tibuhaburwa Museveni and the Lords Resistance Army (LRA)of Joseph Kony. Rwandese refugees who later overthrew the government of Juvenal Habyarimana in Kigali, Rwanda, participated in the genocide of Northern Uganda.
One writer, whose name I have forgotten, wrote that the biological and cultural integrity of social groups such as indigenous peoples and the territorially dependent placed-based groups are frequently prone to genocide. In the age of the Anthropocene, such social groups, are often the victims of an array of ecological and culturally genocidal coercive practices.
In 1997 President Tibuhaburwa Museveni, in a response to a question from a reporter of The Monitor, which gave way to present-day Daily Monitor, as to what kind of Uganda he envisioned beyond him, said that Uganda would be a very difficult country to govern. He may have had the thought of ruling Uganda as a life President, but it is unlikely he knew he would be in the hot seat for 40 years.
There is now evidence that a genocidal environment has been gradually emerging in Uganda. When there is a wide and deep divide between the rich and the poor; when there is a great divide between one ethnicity and other ethnicities, with one ethnicity accessing all the resources and opportunities at the expense of the other ethnicities; when the governance of a country is apartheid-like; when a country is politically ethnicised or ethnically ethnicised; when government workers are paid peanuts even when they are professionally qualified with necessary experience while nincompoops are paid hugely simply because the they are kinsmen and kinswomen of the dominant group in power; when those who dominate power willingly violate the Constitution and human rights and take the violations as normal; when refugees from areas dominated by nomadic pastoralists are treated by power as superior to the indigenes and access jobs and other opportunities far more readily than the indigenes; when public money is used to satisfy the greed and selfishness of a few ethnically -related people, denying the majority of the citizens quality life, quality education, quality health, quality environment, quality nutrition and quality future. Besides, there is increasing arrogance of our political, military and police leaders, with spiralling joint determination to push indigenous civilians out of the leadership and governance of Uganda or to render them to the position of playing second fiddle to the dominant ethnic group. They are grabbing land in order to erase the indigenous belonging and ownership of the country in favour of their people. This way, they are displacing and dispossessing the indigenes and destroying their cultural, biological, ecological, spiritual, agroecological, emotional, ethical and moral attachment to their land, thereby converting them into internal refugees.
What is happening is happening contributing to the emergence of a genocidal environment. It is prescribing an uncertain future for Uganda (Ashleigh Landau, 2024) in which the citizens that will be there might experience more deadly mass atrocities than those that manifested in the genocidal environments of the Luwero Triangle and Northern Uganda created by the current governors of Uganda in the spirit of “militarily conquer, occupy and perpetually rule the natives” and exclude the indigenous civilians from the leadership and governance of their country. Matogo (2025) has discussed the wrong with deepening military presence in the workings of government in Uganda. We have just seen how the Chief of Defence Forces (CDF0, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba’s close linkage with NRM and its government compelled him to abuse the rights of Eddie Mutwe, the security man of former Presidential candidate, Kyagulanyi Sssentamu Bobi Wine, forcedly shaving his head, removing his beard, subjecting him at the basement of his residence and forcing him to learn Runyankore accompanied by saluting President Tibuhaburwa Museveni’s picture. The CDF in one of his famous tweets promised to do the same to Bobi Wine.
We are aware that justice is becoming more and more captured the military and militarised as the judiciary is becoming more and more subject to the dictates of the Executive (e.g., Oweyegha-Afunaduula, 2025). We are also increasingly aware of the disappearance of police in Uganda police with soldiers in command and in the rank and file of the Police force (e.g., Oweyegha-Afunaduula, 2022) and more and more subject to the dictates of the CDF. The Citizens cannot easily distinguish between the soldiers and policemen/women when human rights Violations are carried out by men and women in uniform. If the Interahamwe of Rwanda carried out genocide against the Tutsis, in Uganda genocide would be carried indistinguishable people in uniform and sustained by the public. Writing in Human Rights Watch of December 8 2022, Oryem Nyeko, recorded that there is no justice in Uganda who forced to disappear. The cases of Eddie Mutwe is the latest example that people are forced to disappear and are maltreated, not in police cells but even in residences of people in or connected to power, mainly to sow seeds of fear and inaction often for political reasons.
There is need to rethink this kind of leadership and governance of Uganda. Clearly it is laying the ground for future genocides in the country. Already, a combination of emerging genocidal, ecocidal, ethnocidal environments and intellectual death (Oweyegha-Afunaduula, 2024) is charting a new deadly genocidal path that will be characterised by mass atrocities never before witnessed in Uganda in modern times.
For God and My Country.
Further Reading
Anderson, Charles H. and John R. Carter (2015). A New Look at Weak State Conditions and Genocide Risk. Peace Econ Peace Sci Publ. Pol. 2015: 21(1): 1-36.
Ashleigh Landau (2024). EARLY WARNING COUNTRY REPORT (2024). An Uncertain Future: Preventing Mass Atrocities in Uganda. OCTOBER 2024 https://earlywarningproject.ushmm.org/storage/resources/2918/An%20Uncertain%20Future_Ugandan%20Report_2024.pdf Visited on 02 May 2025 12:45 pm EAT..
Camila Misko Moribe Flávio de Leão Bastos Pereira and Nathalia Penha Cardoso de França( 2023). ECOCIDE: A NEW CHALLENGE FOR THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW AND FOR HUMANITY Journal of International Criminal Law Vol 4https://www.jicl.ir/article_172299_04444493f6c56a14f6eff39f15388721.pdf Visited on 02 May 2025 at 14:47 pm EAT.
Crook, Martin (2024). Ecologically induced genocide: A new synthesis. University of the West of West England, Bristol. Oct 24, 2024https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/13897021 Visited on 02 May 2025 at 13:40 pm EAT.
Crook, M., Short, D., & South, N. (2018). Ecocide, genocide, capitalism and colonialism: Consequences for indigenous peoples and global ecosystems environments. Theoretical Criminology, 22(3), 298-317. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480618787176 (Original work published 2018)
Crook, M., & Short, D. (2021). Developmentalism and the Genocide–Ecocide Nexus. Journal of Genocide Research, 23(2), 162-188. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2020.1853914https://pure.roehampton.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/developmentalism-and-the-genocideecocide-nexus Visited on 02 May 2025 at 12:53 pm EAT.
Howard Adelman and Astri Suhrke (1999). The Parth of a Genocide: The Rwanda Crisi from Uganda to Zaire. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey https://nai.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:276851/FULLTEXT01.pdf Visited on 02 May 2025 at 12:44 pm EAT.
Martin Crook and Damien Short (2023). Chapter 8 Greenwashed relations of genocide. Elgaronline, 08 Jun 2023https://www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap/book/9781800881136/book-part-9781800881136-17.xml Visited on 02 May 025 at 13:32 pm EAT
Matogo, Phillip (2025). What’s Wrong with deepening military presence in the workings of government. Daily Monitor, March 1 2025.https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/lifestyle/reviews-profiles/what-s-wrong-with-deepening-military-presence-in-the-workings-of-government–4946858 Visited on 3 May 2025 at 13:39 pm EAT.
Njoroge Linda (2023). Oweyegha-Afunaduula: How Ethnic Nepotism has derailed Uganda from the Democratic Path. Ultimate News, June 9 2023 https://ultimatenews.co.ug/2023/06/oweyegha-afunaduula-how-ethnic-nepotism-has-derailed-uganda-from-the-democratization-path/ Visited on 03 May 2025 at 13: 52 EAT.
Njoroge, Linda (2024). The Threat of Political Ethnisation of Uganda. Ultimate News, January 11 2024 at 13:54 at 13:55 pm EAT.
Njoroge, Linda (2025). What it means to liberate justice from the military in Uganda. Ultimate News, https://ultimatenews.co.ug/2025/02/oweyegha-afunaduula-what-it-means-to-liberate-justice-from-the-military-in-uganda/ Visited on 03 May 2025 at 14:04 pm EAT.
Ogenga Otunnu (2017). The path to genocide in Northern Uganda. Refuge Vol 17 no.3 August 1998.
Oryem Nyeko (2022). No justice for Victims of Forced Disappearances in Uganda. Human Rights Watch, 08 December 2022.https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/12/08/no-justice-victims-forced-disappearances-uganda Visited on 03 May 2025 at 14:25 pm EAT,.
Oweyegha-Afunaduula Fred Charles (2022). The Disappearance of Police in Uganda Police: The Dangers. Daily Monitor, February 11, 2022https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/insight/disappearance-of-police-in-uganda-police-the-dangers-3713354 Visited on 03 May 2025 at 14:10 pm EAT.
Oweyegha-Afunaduula (2023). Uganda: Plagued by Ethnicity, Tribalism of Both? Watchdog, https://www.watchdoguganda.com/op-ed/20221129/146058/oweyegha-afunaduula-uganda-plagued-by-ethnicity-tribalism-or-both.html Visited on 03 May 2025 at 13:48 pm EAT.
Oweyegha-Afunaduula (2025). From Genocide to Ecocide to Ethnocide to Intellectual Death in Uganda. Uganda Radio Network 20 January 2025 https://ugandaradionetwork.com/s/uganda-from-genocide-to-ecocide-to-ethnocide-to-intellectual-death/ Visited on 0 May 2025 at 12:36 pm EAT.
Oweyegha-Afunaduula (2025). How Militarised Personalist Parties Undermine democratisation: Uganda’s National Resistance Movement in Perspective. Charmar News, March 18, 2025https://charmarnews.com/how-militarised-personalist-parties-undermine-democratisation-ugandas-national-resistance-movement-in-perspective/ Visited on 03 May 2025 at 14:01 pm EAT.
Oweyegha-Afunaduula and Mayanja Lawrence (2022). Apartheid-Style Governance of Uganda: The Evidence.https://trustednewsug.com/index.php/2022/07/04/apartheid-style-governance-in-uganda-the-evidence/ Visited on 03 May 2025 at 13:44 pm EAT.
Sample, Emily and Henry Theriault (2022). Guest Editorial: Environmental Degradation and Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal, Vol 16 Issue 1: 4-10https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1911&context=gsp Visited on 02 May 2025 at 13:41 pm EAT
Simon Adams (2016). From Global Warming to Genocide Warning: Climate Change and Mass Atrocities. ReliefWeb, 4 December 2016, https://reliefweb.int/report/world/global-warming-genocide-warning-climate-change-and-mass-atrocities Visited on 02 May 2025 at 14:47 pm EAT
STIMSON (2019). The Looming Accelerant: The Growing Links between Climate Change, Mass Atrocities, and Genocide. International & Regional Organizations, July 11 2019,https://www.stimson.org/2019/looming-accelerant-growing-links-between-climate-change-mass-atrocities-and-genocide/ Visited on 03 May 2025 at 14:12 pm EAT.
Vadi Moodley, Alphonse Gahima and Suveshnee Munien (2010). Environmental causes and impacts of the genocide in Rwanda: Case studies of the towns of Butare and Cyagugu. Accord, October 26 2010 https://www.accord.org.za/ajcr-issues/environmental-causes-and-impacts-of-the-genocide-in-rwanda/ Visited on 02 May 2025 at 13:09 pm EAT.
Uğur Ümit Üngör (Editor). Genocide: New Perspectives on its Causes, Courses, and Consequences. Amsterdam University Press. https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/24478/1005637.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y Visited on 02 May 2025 at 13:57 pm EAT
Verdeja, Ernesto(2012).The Political Science of Genocide: Outlines of an Emerging Research Agenda. Perspectives on Politics Vol. 10, No. 2 (June 2012), pp. 307-321 (15 pages) Published By: American Political Science Association.
