The new film, “A Brilliant Genocide”, tells the story of the largely unacknowledged Acholi Genocide that President Yoweri Museveni committed against the Acholi people for 20 years from 1986 to 2006. Museveni’s troops drove nearly two million Acholis, 90% of the population, into concentration camps. In all that time, the Ugandan military machine continued to be financed by the US.

State brutality is integral to the electoral cycle in Yoweri Museveni’s Uganda. There are campaign beatings, ballot beatings and post-election beatings. Ugandans this week witnessed pre-swearing-in beatings. They can expect swearing-in beatings, after which there is every chance there will be post-swearing in beatings. Then, the election cycle over, the country shall revert to ordinary beatings.