Mao a rebel? Surprises never cease!!

In life, there are surprises. Some are the heartache type: “How could she fool me for all these years when she had another man?” Or the betrayal type: “Kale, she was such a snake, pretending to be my friend when she was stabbing me in the back”. Then of course the upbeat type; after ages, meeting this guy you went to school with and “Oh God! As you’ve changed. That tummy and flabby cheeks, you must be working with URA!”
These, colleagues, are the surprises we are used to. But how do you explain it, when a politician, one of the few you had respect for, knew was unblemished, could actually be a brain behind plans to destabilise the country? This was the conflict of thought I was caught up in two days ago when I heard that Gulu District chairman Norbert Mao could actually be planning an armed rebellion.
As a young man in my mid-teens, one programme that I never missed was the Capital Gang on Capital Radio. Every Saturday 10am would find me in front of my small set (and later as Information prefect Jinja College, in front of the official school Sanyo radio), waiting for the crispy Patrick Quarcoo voice, about to introduce the panelists; Norbert Mao, Winnie Byanyima, Charles Onyango Obbo and Frank Katusiime. Listening to that team was like drinking deep from the Pierian Spring of knowledge. The analysis, anecdotes, insight was overwhelming. They never left you the same.
It is at this time that I grew fond of Norbert Mao, then Gulu Municipality MP. One line I can never forget from this master of anecdotes was when, while debating a piece written by Rosa Whittaker (Museveni’s American image manager) in The New Vision, he labelled her FILTH (Failed in London Trying Here). Whittaker had in her piece derided the Ugandan opposition, labeling them as shallow and interested in non-issues. Mao hit back saying Whittaker belonged to the class of ‘white’ expatriates, who after failing to make it in their own countries, dashed to Africa and masqueraded as authorities, hence the acronym.
Yes, that was the impressionable Mao. His English perfect, analysis deep, humour overflowing. And in an age when we had grown to know politicians as unprincipled, Mao did the unthinkable---vowed that he would be MP for only two terms and quit. And he lived up to his promise—despite general public consensus that he was an influential, moderate legislator who was needed in a House, where few of the members could be taken seriously.
In 2007, I was engaged in a heated debate with my friend Eve on which direction this country should take. Eve was convinced that we needed a total overhaul of the system, and made the suggestion that only Norbert Mao could lead this revolution. At the mention of Mao, I nodded. He is a diplomat, never sounded “angry” like other opposition politicians and was an orator.
That is how Mao had left an imprint on thousands of young people like me and Eve. In fact, when the Obamamania wave swept the world last year—many of my colleagues saw Mao in his light.
But how then are we expected to react when it now dawns on us that Mao could be an accomplice in planning an armed rebellion in this country? How then should we react when we learn that a leader of a district that was crudely hit by 20 years of war has documents calling for another rebellion just as the wounds of the old war are trying to heal?
Many of us may have bones to pick with this government. We suffer under its thievery and lootocracy. Bleed its corruption and nepotism. Get robbed through taxes whose benefits we never see. But most of us are in agreement that war can never be the solution to these woes. Many of us believe that this country’s future lies in building strong institutions that in the long run will be the cornerstone of democracy. We may believe in civil resistance but never armed war. We know that an empowered people (like in Kenya, Iran and Honduras) are the best asset in resisting dictatorship but not necessary an armed population. We know that blood begets blood.
So, how should we react when a beacon of hope now turns a demon of war? Mao can argue that he never believed the 53-page document on the Uganda Patriotic Front was a serious document. He can downplay it and say it was just passed to him by a graduate student from the UK. But one wonders, why for a whole year did he never let security know of these plans? The law is clear on these issues. What was he doing with that flash disc a year later? What about claims from the army spokesperson that Mao was actually editing the document and making recommendations, some in pen and his own handwriting?
I was among the legion of people disregarding the army’s recent claims that a rebel group was in the making—for I believed that any Ugandan would know the foolhardiness of such a venture coming right on the heels of the LRA fiasco.
But with Mao coming out publicly to admit that he had a document spelling out resistance and armed rebellion, I am lost for words. And what was he doing parading such information in a public café? You surely don’t need to be a rocket scientist (or better still a lawyer like Mao) to know that that memory stick would land you in jail for eternity. Maybe as my friend Fredrick Womakuyu told me yesterday: “At times, the guys we think are bright are not after all.”