The Sunday Vision online dated August 7, 2010 published an article about remarks made by President Museveni at a rally in Kanungu district where there have been clashes within the National Resistance Movement (NRM) party along religious lines. Museveni is reported to have reminded the audience at the rally and all Ugandans and indeed the whole world through the media that sectarian tendencies (ethnic, tribal, religious) forced him to fight previous regimes. He added that he will go back to war to fight people sowing seeds of disunity. He then advised religious leaders “to preach to followers how to get to heaven and told politicians to educate people on how to fight poverty without necessarily involving religion”.
With due respect, I disagree with President Museveni on the need to go back to war and on the comparative advantage he spelt out between religious leaders and politicians.
When Museveni became president in 1986 after the bushwar he preached in broad daylight, loud and clear that he would end sectarianism in Uganda once and for all. Everybody – Ugandans and others – applauded because sectarianism had done great harm to Uganda since colonial days when chiefs were favored over commoners and Protestant followers over followers of other faiths. To overcome this problem, Museveni reasoned, and subsequently announced that merit would be the only criterion for nominations, appointments, assignments, promotions in public domain and awarding of scholarships. Who could disagree with this innovative and appropriate leadership approach?
However, what followed in practice is a totally different story and the record is there to prove it. Using structural adjustment that included balancing the budget and retrenching civil servants in government and public enterprises, UPC supporters who happened to be mostly Protestants were disproportionately dismissed, others marginalized. Schools, some of them started and still supported by religious groups, were either closed or downgraded causing untold suffering for children and forcing parents to see these changes in religious terms.
Catholics who had joined the National Resistance Movement and Army (NRM/NRA) or fought separately against the Protestant establishment and UPC (Uganda Peoples’ Congress) government of Obote were rewarded with good jobs in government and Movement politics. Apart from religious favoritism in favor of Catholics, ethnic preferences raised their ugly head again. Bahororo, Bahima and Batutsi and those who have married their women have reaped big during NRM rule since 1986. It is not a secret that Catholics are boasting that it is their “turn to eat”, causing Protestants to feel bitter and neglected and to naturally look for ways and means to improve their lot including calling on their religious leaders for help including in selection of candidates for parliament or filling of district NRM executive positions. Even districts have been created virtually along sectarian lines, undermining the national unity project included in the long forgotten NRMs ten-point program.
Under Museveni’s regime since 1986 and still counting Uganda has become more divided religiously, ethnically and economically and increasingly politically – hence religious fights within the Movement not only in Kanungu but in many other districts as well. In some cases like Rukungiri district the military intervened in July 2010 using live bullets to disperse demonstrators. Ellen Hauser, professor in the United States of America compressed her findings as follows:
“Uganda is a more divided country today [in 1999] than it was when the NRM came to power in 1986. Corruption is rampant, and regionalism and ethnicity continue to be the usual means of determining who gets what in the political and economic arenas… There is an increasing lack of tolerance and cooperation between the NRM and the political parties. Whereas in the early years of the NRM government, the leadership of both the NRM and most of the political parties displayed a spirit of reconciliation and cooperation, currently there is less tolerance and compromise. In fact, the groups’ responsive positions have become more extreme and intransigent. Much of the blame for this lack of tolerance lies with Ugandan political leaders who appear more interested in personal [ethnic or religious] gain than in unity and progress in Uganda [Rujumbura county in Rukungiri district is a good case of ethnic preferences]… Part of the blame also lies with donor priorities… and with donors’ lack of diplomatic pressure on the NRM to cooperate with other groups to solve Uganda’s fundamental political problems”(The Journal of African Studies Volume 37 Number 4 1999).
In its Development Assistance Framework for Uganda, 2001-2005, the United Nations system recommended that “…macroeconomic development must go hand in hand with social transformation, with particular attention to equitable distribution of the benefits of growth, by paying attention to the rights and needs of the under privileged groups, human rights-based approach to development and environmental sustainability” (United Nations 2001).
Museveni either repair the sectarian damage caused by his regime or resign or is forced to resign to avoid another blood bath, loss of life and destruction of property and institutions
On religious leaders Museveni’s suggestion that “religious leaders [should focus on preaching] followers how to get to heaven” and leave poverty reduction fight to politicians is unacceptable. His advice is reminiscent of medieval Europe when peasants were taught by religious leaders not to worry about the suffering and exploitation on earth and women to labor for their husbands because their rewards were in heaven. Eventually peasants and women rejected this teaching and fought for their freedom ending the feudal system through which lords and priests worked together to ruthlessly exploit peasants. This medieval approach to the work of religious leaders should not be allowed to set foot in 21ST century Uganda.
Secondly, politicians in Uganda have failed to tackle poverty which is still high and rising according to public complaints. According to Chowdhury and Erdenebileg of the United Nations, the percentage of extremely poor Ugandans living on less than $1 a day between 1990 and 2001 was 82.2 percent (United Nations 2006). This is the time when Uganda’s economic growth reached 10 percent per annum. The benefits of that growth went to a few Ugandans many of them politicians who are concerned about their own wealth accumulation and becoming billionaires in US dollars or making their relatives and friends filthy rich. Thus, politicians alone should not be entrusted with such an important responsibility as poverty reduction because they are not interested in reducing poverty as poor people are easy to plunder. Even if politicians wanted to reduce poverty many do not have the capacity to do so.
Therefore, given Uganda’s daunting economic, social and environmental challenges, Museveni should be calling on all Ugandans and their friends to combine efforts and address these challenges. Maternal mortality is still very high. It increased from 527 in 1995 to 920 per 1000 live births in 2005 (African Peer Review report 2009) when it should be declining under the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals] program; infant mortality rate has increased from 75 to 78 per 1000 live births; under-5 child under-nutrition has reached a staggering level of 40 percent; infants born underweight stand at a very disturbing level of 12 percent because mothers are under-nourished; mental disabilities are rising fast and now hovering around 40 percent; unemployment threatens social and cultural fabric leading to early marriage and rapid population growth; environmental degradation in rural and urban areas is getting out of control; migrations into Uganda are contributing to rapid population growth as well.
Finally, problems caused by war in northern and eastern Uganda are staggering and have yet to be tackled including under-nutrition in the camps especially of children, Uganda’s future leaders. According to Adam Branch, “The war has led to thousands of civilians’ deaths, the economic devastation of the North, and the forced movement of more than a million people – the entire rural population – into displaced people’s camps, which lack adequate food, water and medicines…an entire generation of malnourished children is being raised…“(Dissent Summer 2004).
Since the end of religious wars in the early 1890s, religious groups in Uganda have combined evangelical and development work with success. The education and health services for Ugandans during colonial days were provided by churches and many still are. They have been involved in economic projects and charitable work that have saved lives. Mothers’ Unions with roots in the church did a lot of good work in home economics especially general hygiene and food and nutrition security.
Why then should this commendable developmental work with potential for reducing poverty be dropped at a time when politicians are abandoning peasants through poor quality education and health care, rising unemployment, loss of land to rich developers and municipality expansions into peasants’ land? In fact this is the time when the role of churches in development work in general and poverty reduction in particular should be encouraged. We urge the president to reconsider his views.
To conclude, President Museveni’s views – to go back to war and fight sectarianism which he allowed to flourish on his watch and to confine religious leaders to preach Ugandans how to get to heaven – have raised fundamental questions as outlined above. We request that the president reconsider his views as they do not fit into Uganda’s 21st century political and development discourse.