Friday, February 23, 2007

New Orleans On An International Scale...

"The country of Uganda plans to send about 1,500 troops to Somalia as part of an African Union peace-keeping force. The goal is to stabilize the weak government of Somalia, with the hope that the warlords will voluntarily disarm. Hopefully, Ugandan troops will be more successful in Somalia than they have in their own country.

For months now, Ugandan army troops have been garrisoned in the northeast part of the country under orders to disarm the local populace—pastoral, cattle-herding tribes known as the Karamojong. The army is attempting, and failing, to quash an uprising which was caused by prior attempt to disarm the same tribes.

But in its effort to "disarm," the Ugandan army, supported by tanks and helicopter gunships, is burning down villages, sexually torturing men, raping women, and plundering what few possessions the tribespeople own. Tens of thousands of victims have been turned into refugees. Human rights scholar Ben Knighton has used the term “ethnocide” to describe the army's campaign.

This is not the first time the central government in Kampala, Uganda, has persecuted the Karamojong. During the Idi Amin regime, the Karamojong were selected as special targets for genocide. Against Amin's armies, their traditional bows and arrows were futile. So its' understandable why they'd be reluctant to voluntarily lay down their weapons.

This time, the pretext for the "disarmament" of the Karamojong is United Nations gun control. The Ugandan military is trying to round up every last firearm in Karamoja, supposedly for Karamojong's own good.

The procedure is euphemistically called “forcible disarmament.” It works something like this: The misnamed Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) will torture and rape Karamajoong, after which some Karamojong might then disclose the location of some hidden guns. Or the army will burn down a village, after which it might find some guns in the ash left behind."

Dictators, scaremongers, thieves, rapists, and leftists, simply despise the idea of their intended victims being capable of defending themselves. Matters little where in the world it happens, the modus operandi remains the same. Bear this in mind after Hillary convinces a few million soccer mom's to register then vote for her, and find the strength to aid us in balancing these numbers with patriots.

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