MAKING SENSE OF THE MASAKA ATTACKS

Over the last few weeks news out of Masaka is of gangs running around unimpeded, attacking villagers with iron bars and pangas.

The brazenness of the attackers is such that at times they warn their victims ahead of time that they were coming and make good on their promise.

The events have moved from isolated incidents to a regular occurrence in the last month or so bringing into question what is going on.

In the last week the political and security leadership have come out publicly to address the issue. So far more than 20 have died and many others injured, while at the same time ten suspects have been charged in court.

"The chilling thing about the attackers is that they are not stealing anything during their attacks, although in one incident they sat down to help themselves to the food in the kitchen. This means they are not ordinary criminals....

Their intent is seemingly to sow fear in the area, to what end? It has been suggested that they are doing this to raise doubts about government’s capacity to keep people safe. These are the hallmarks of terrorism.

It reminds me of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) which run rampage in northern Uganda for two decades. Led by Joseph Kony, they claimed that they wanted to overthrow the government and rule the country by the ten commandments, but by their actions -- lopping off lips, hacking off limbs, abducting children and killing villagers altogether, did not suggest they were interested in winning the hearts and minds of the population in the area.

They effectively terrorized the region until Sudan, under pressure from the US’ “war on terror” allowed Uganda to enter South Sudan and dismantle their rare bases.

With LRA there was evidence of a unified command, which is different from Masaka gangs, who seem to be small groups hitting different places simultaneously and stretching the security infrastructure to the point of ineffectiveness.

It may be early days but unlike the LRA, the Stockholm Syndrome – where the captives begin to sympathise with their captors, doesn’t seem to have set in yet. But for how long?

You have to feel for the everyday person in the affected areas. They are caught between their attackers, who seem to attack at will and leisure on one side and the government on the other which seems to be slow to move on this new threat.

If government does not clamp down quickly on the attacks, the hapless villagers will begin to negotiate with their assaulters to the detriment of any security operations.  Tier reality is much different from us reading our news off our smart phones, this a real existential threat and will develop coping mechanisms that may seem unpalatable to onlookers.

Looking at either side of this “conflict” you have to wonder on one hand who these assailants are who are preying on vulnerable people and not for monetary gain or political capital? They coordination of their action suggests there is some central command, what kind of people would lead such a group to terrorise local populations? Is it possible that the leaders are not from the region, therefore their lack of empathy for the villagers?

On the other side of the pendulum clearly there has been a laxity of security. No surprises there if only because we know how the police are so under resourced. One can imagine the large areas that are under one police stations jurisdiction in the Masaka area and the station may not even have one patrol vehicle. And these inadequacies cascade down to the investigation and the intelligence capabilities.

The truth is that on the whole Ugandans are law abiding citizens and therefore a semblance of peace/security can be achieved with little resourcing of the police. But this will not always be the case. With growing populations, environmental degradation and increased urbanization crime will follow as night follows day and the government will be caught flat footed as it has been in these latest incidents.

The Masaka incidents point to the fact that we need to beef up our civilian policing capacity if only in preparation for an uptick in insecurity deriving from the above change in our circumstances.