The government of Uganda recently outlined plans to build a pre and post colonial museum that will showcase among other things, the country’s dark past – most prominently atrocities allegedly committed by former President Idi Amin Dada.
The move that according to the Executive Director of the Uganda Tourism Board (UTB), Stephen Asiimwe, is meant to attract more tourists into the country has been vehemently criticised and labelled a political scam by the slain president’s son Hussein Lumumba Amin.
In a statement released on June 4, Lumumba noted that the museum will be a mockery of his father who, he says, was the only president that really cared about promoting Uganda’s tourism sector.
“We have all seen President Amin make great efforts to promote Uganda wildlife abroad by even regularly taking foreign journalists on trips to the national parks. He was also dedicated to protecting the natural environment. Even the Ugandan Miss tourism contest to help promote tourism in Uganda was started under Amin,” the statement read in part.
Lumumba also wondered how a government that has failed to maintain the current national museum whose items are either missing, stolen or gathering dust suddenly feels the urge to capitalise on someone’s legacy for tourism development.
Lumumba also tasked the government to bring out evidence that Idi Amin Dada had indeed butchered the over 500,000 people in his eight-year regime and also include ‘their skulls’ in the museum for factual and historical purposes.
“I hope that their Amin museum is able to show the world the 500,000 people that they say were killed under Amin. I hereby renew my call to Amnesty international to provide not only their evidence, but also how they came up with the numbers (a tally sheet with incidents, location, date, and number of alleged victims per incident would be mathematically great),” he further wrote saying that the last he made a similar call, the duo remained ‘mysteriously silent.’
Lumumba notes that if government’s plan is indeed to attract tourists, he would rather they tour trailing Idi Amin’s journey before and after things fell apart.
“I would attract far more tourists and their dollars if I developed a tour starting with the Command Post in the Kololo where he resided as army commander when he became President. It was from there that he made his first press briefing as president. It is also where he was when Kampala fell to the Tanzanian army in 1979 and where he literally had to be forced by his bodyguards into a vehicle and driven out of danger,” he said.
Lumumba also suggests that government also includes the Entebbe International Airport, the presidential resort island in Lake Victoria he dubbed paradise beach, the infamous state research bureau and the spot where Archbishop Janani Luwum was murdered as part of the tour.
This Lumumba hopes would vindicate his father’s legacy and confirm Idi Amin Dada was in fact Uganda’s most patriotic president.