Mak don wants Muslims compensated
Sunday, 15 May 2011 20:03
Written by Juma Kasadha
Dr Abasi Kiyimba of Makerere University is asking government to compensate Muslim families that lost relatives in Ankole after Idi Amin's fall in 1979.
The associate professor says government took the trouble to compensate Asians and several citizens affected by different wars, but has paid a deaf ear to the Muslims' plight. Talking about his book, The Muslim Bloodbath, Kiyimba expresses displeasure with the way government has dealt with Muslim affairs.
"Our friends died in cold blood. Their families have never received justice and their lives have been ruined. It is time government compensated them," Kiyimba says.
He says the deceased Muslims' families are seeking the President's intervention to pardon their sons and daughters who are in jail.
"Their request should involve the Muslim community because it suffered the worst treatment. We are after reconciliation and not fighting back since we all belong to one country," he says.
Kiyimba, the patron of the Makerere University Muslim Students Association in 1987, says he compiled the deeds in his book to highlight the injustice meted on the Muslim fraternity. He says documenting the Muslim plight reassures the Muslims in Ankole that they were not alone in their pain. The book also aimed at collecting first-hand information from the survivors of the massacre.
Refuting allegations that talking about the Muslim massacre would destabilize peace, Kiyimba says, "We believe the danger lies more in forgetting than remembering if the peace we seek is to be permanent.''
The soft spoken Kiyimba says that he made two trips with Imam Kasozi and Idris Semakula to Bushenyi in Ankole, to pay homage to the Muslim killed at River Rwizi. On February 1989, a team comprising of Kiyimba, Hassan Mwesige, Musa Tonda, Ali Konge Kyeyune and Ali Mwesigwa visited Ankole region to document facts on the massacre.
Kyeyune, who also insists the Muslims should be compensated, says, "There was no single justification for Muslims to be killed and even chased away from their land."
--
"War is nothing but a continuation of political intercourse, with a mixture of other means. Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."
UAH forum is devoted to matters of interest to Ugandans. Individuals are responsible for whatever they post on this forum.To unsubscribe from this group, send email to: ugandans-at-heart+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com or Abbey Semuwemba at: abbeysemuwemba@gmail.com.
