Michael Ddungu

LET TOORO CHOOSE PEACE. Tooro has lost a King. A mother has lost her son, a sister her brother, and a Royal Family one of its own. Yet, even before the tears have dried, disagreement over succession threatens to divide one of Uganda’s oldest and most beautiful cultural institutions. I do not write to determine who is right or wrong, nor do I presume to tell the Batooro who their King should be. I write as an elder, a lawyer, a friend of the Royal Family and, perhaps importantly in this particular debate, as the person who moved the motion for the constitutional recognition of traditional and cultural leaders during the making of the 1995 Constitution. I believed then, as I believe today, that Uganda must modernise without becoming culturally rootless. Our kingdoms preserve our languages, customs, histories and identities, and these things matter because a people must know where they came from if they are to know confidently where they are going. Nor is this merely a Batooro affair. My daughter is married to a Mutooro and I have a grandchild who is Mutooro, as families across Uganda are joined across regions, cultures and kingdoms by marriage and friendship. When one Ugandan cultural family hurts, the pain does not stop at the boundaries of a kingdom. We have always admired the Batooro for their beautiful culture, their gentle language, their courtesy, humility and softness of manner. At this difficult hour, I appeal to them not to lose those qualities, but to make the very gentleness for which they are known the instrument through which this disagreement is resolved. History should make all of us humble about disputes of succession because there is nothing uniquely Batooro about them. Rwanda knew Rucunshu, Britain endured disputed crowns and civil wars, and our own history in Ankole tells us just how far a disagreement over a throne can travel once pride, faction and power take command. The quarrel after Omugabe Ntare V’s death in 1895 should teach us something. There was no agreed successor, and while many chiefs and powerful figures looked to Prince Igumira, a famous warrior with a large following, others rallied around the young Kahaya, whose cause was championed by Nuwa Mbaguta and eventually secured with British support. The struggle did not end there: it would contribute to the subduing of Igara and, in time, to the death of my own grandfather, a reminder that succession quarrels can travel far beyond the palace and leave wounds in families and communities for generations. I learnt another lesson about kingdoms much more recently and much more personally. In 1993, I was among the Banyankore who supported the restoration of the Kingdom of Ankole and, relying on our understanding of the law at the time, we crowned Prince John Barigye as Omugabe. Government declared our actions null and void, and I personally engaged President Museveni on the matter, but to no avail. I did not agree with Government then, but experience teaches us that wishing Government away does not make Government disappear. Cultural institutions exist within a Republic, within a Constitution and within a wider political and legal order, and any durable settlement in Tooro must therefore involve respectful engagement with the central Government rather than treating it as an outsider to the problem. Government should not choose the King, but neither can a realistic search for peace pretend that Government has no role to play. There are moments in human affairs when disagreement is real, deep and even bitter. I remember my years in Parliament, the fierce battles we fought and some of the terrible things we said about one another across the political divide. Yet time did something that anger could not: many of us who once confronted each other bitterly came to know one another better, and friendships were formed across those old battle lines which endure to this day.