Major General Kahinda Otafiire, Uganda’s Minister of Water and Environment, has cautioned military leaders and other generals against resorting to violence as their preferred method of solving problems.
Speaking during his maiden address to the 12th Parliament, Otafiire argued that true military greatness is not measured by how many bullets a General fires, but by their ability to resolve conflicts without resorting to armed confrontation.
“The whole map of civilization is how people solve contradictions without violence. When you see a General who prefers violence as the best way of solving problems, then there’s a problem. The greatest Generals I know of are those who solve problems without shooting a bullet,” Otafiire said.
He explained that effective management of society begins with gathering intelligence and understanding the intentions of potential adversaries before conflicts escalate.
“Because when it comes to managing a society, we depend on gathering information. Government calls it intelligence. When you see what your adversary intends to do, you quickly prevent that initiative or change your ways of operation to remove the cancerous belly, so that you don’t go to confrontation,” he said.
According to Otafiire, diplomacy should follow intelligence-gathering and preventive measures, with war only considered after peaceful avenues have been exhausted.
“When that fails, you resort to diplomacy. It’s only when diplomacy has been exhausted and failed that you go to war. And you don’t go to war as an end in itself. You go to war in order to achieve the end state, which is a resolution of each other,” he noted.
Otafiire further called for tolerance and peaceful coexistence, emphasizing that differences should not automatically lead to confrontation.
“And we must learn to tolerate each other,” he added.
Remarks by Maj Gen (Rtd) Kahinda Otafiire as he delivered his maiden speech in the 12th Parliament today. pic.twitter.com/aiY771Bg5l
— Joel Ssenyonyi (@JoelSsenyonyi) September 30, 2026
