Religious leaders welcome President Museveni at the conference in Munyonyo, Kampala yesterday.

Religious leaders welcome President Museveni at the conference in Munyonyo, Kampala yesterday. PHOTO BY Stephen Wandera.

By RISDEL KASASIRA

 MUNYONYO

Mr Museveni has described former president, Idi Amin as an idiot for ‘bad rule’ and justified his [Museveni] participation in the war to overthrow him. “Amin was an idiot. If he had kept his idiocy to his family, we would have kept quiet. But he wanted to impose it on all of us,” Mr Museveni told a two-day inter-religious conference in Kampala yesterday. President Museveni participated in the 1979 war that led to the fall of Idi Amin who died in exile in Saudi Arabia in 2003.

‘Swines’
The President, who had previously called his predecessors ‘swines’, told religious leaders to avoid intolerance, saying there were justified wars, especially those ‘liberating humanity’. He blamed religious extremism as a factor that fuels wars and sectarian violence in Africa and the Middle East.

“When you hate someone because of religion, you are interfering with the handwork of God. And who are you to impose your belief on others? We are all here in our own right. These narrow minded people should go to hell,” he said.

President Museveni’s 30-minute speech punctuated with anecdotes of toughness and jokes, also veiled attacks on donors who cut aid to Uganda because of the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

“This is good. They have woken you up by telling us who they are. Africa does not need aid. That is why I was not bothered. In fact, it’s unreligious to get aid. It’s kisirani (bad luck). You are already committing a sin, according to the book of Deuteronomy,” he said.

The President was responding to the chairman of Inter-Religious Council of Uganda, Bishop Johan Lwanga, who earlier had told the conference that they were facing financial difficulties after donors had cut funding.

Laziness 
President Museveni blamed underdevelopment in Africa on lack of technology and laziness. “The only thing Africans do well is to multiply and fill the earth. The bible says we should have dominion over other earthly things. But floods are killing people, locusts are eating crops, even jiggers are disturbing people. When we don’t have dominion, we are not doing what God ordered us to do,” he said.

rkasasira@ug.nationmedia.com