Museveni thought Ugandans would never discover his motive of tutsifying Uganda which he would use to create a Tutsi Empire. He blocked avenues of opposition by becoming Chairman of NRM, President of Uganda; Head of Uganda government; Chairman of the National Economic Council; Chairman of the Military Council and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. He appointed Tutsi to key and strategic positions in the government (foreign affairs and finance ministries in particular) and security forces especially the military. In his first government, he appointed the late Fred Rwigyema a Tutsi refugee as deputy commander of the army and minister of state for defense. Paul Kagame another Tutsi refugee was made deputy director of intelligence and counterintelligence with vast powers. Other key appointments were based on loyalty than competence allowing Museveni to dominate the national, regional and international stage as Uganda spokesperson and only Ugandan with a vision for Uganda development. He has treated the opposition as nothing but a gang of saboteurs and liars.
Launching SAP as instrument of tutsifying Uganda: When Museveni launched the shock therapy version of structural adjustment program (SAP) in 1987 we advised him it was going to fail because it would hurt the people severely as it had already done in countries like Chile, Ghana and Senegal. He didn’t listen because he intended to use it to crush Ugandans without complaints from IMF, World Bank and some western governments as well as non-state actors that supported SAP.
When Ugandans realized SAP was hurting them through poor education and healthcare, food insecurity and unemployment etc they rebelled against it. The IMF, World Bank and bilateral donors also realized it was sinking Uganda deeper into misery. It is believed Museveni was forced to admit failure when he addressed the United Nations General Assembly in September 2009 and reported that there are things his government ought to have done but didn’t. When he returned to Uganda he officially ended structural adjustment program with no credible alternative. The five year development plan that was launched subsequently hasn’t been implemented for lack of will and capacity because it represents a different paradigm of public and private partnership that is different from SAP that was driven by market forces, private sector and trickledown mechanism. Museveni, Mutebile and Muhakanizi – the three big Ms – that run Uganda economy didn’t accept it and have continued to implement key elements of failed SAP such as very high interest rates that make it difficult to borrow and invest and excessively devalued Uganda currency that raises the price of imports including inputs into the manufacturing sector beyond the capacity of small and medium enterprises.
Museveni refuses advice against tutsifying Uganda. Similarly we have advised Museveni that his plans to tutsify Uganda by making Tutsi dominate the rest of Ugandans through a process of elimination of non-Tutsi Ugandans from positions of influence and destroying the potential of non-Tutsi women and youth will fail once Ugandans understand what is happening and who is responsible for mass poverty and overall suffering. Information is being provided to facilitate informed decisions. Through a combination of short, medium and long-term strategies, Museveni is attempting to create a Tutsi dynasty that ultimately controls all aspects of Uganda especially security, economic and political sectors. Let us review some of them.
Security forces: Those of us who have followed the guerrilla war and formation of the Uganda People’s Defense Force (UPDF) recall that at one stage there were non-Batutsi senior military officers. But they have virtually disappeared. People who complain that it is only south westerners or Banyankole that are promoted in the military, police and intelligence fail to draw a distinction between Tutsi and non-Tutsi from south west Uganda. Many people who pose as Bakiga and Bafumbira are actually Tutsi. Bufumbira is a Hutu area but how many Hutu are in power? When Tutsi were chased out of Rwanda in 1959 Social Revolution many of them fled to Uganda. British authorities that didn’t want to be constrained by refugee problems as they prepared to leave Uganda in 1962 decided that those refugees who had relatives (kith and kin) in Uganda should move in with them. Many did so in Ankole and Kigezi. They adopted Bakiga and Banyankole names and languages but remained Tutsi in identity by refusing intermarriage with Bantu people.
Tutsi refugees who were not accommodated by relatives were advised to move quietly with their cattle in small groups to different parts of Uganda. Being nomadic it is easy for them to migrate and they have settled in all parts of Uganda in rural and urban areas where they have adopted local names and local languages. Some remained in refugee camps from where they were recruited into FRONASA and NRA and later from other areas where they settled including in the Luwero Triangle. You will also recall that Museveni recruited fighters from Eastern region and has had many influential people from that region, many of them Tutsi that settled there since the 1920s. Some Ugandans in the army that hail from northern and West Nile are Tutsi who have settled there for many decades but have remained Tutsi by virtue of avoiding intermarriage with indigenous people. Therefore Ugandans beware that many in the security forces (military, police and intelligence) especially in senior positions are either Tutsi or tutsified Ugandans. All that we are doing as researchers is to present findings of our research. Ugandans are beginning to understand that Tutsi are dominating security forces supported by Ugandans who are tutsified to promote Tutsi interests. Ugandans are demanding a balance in recruitment and promotions or will rebel if it doesn’t happen.
Appointments in the civil service: Museveni understood who was who in the diaspora and in the Uganda civil service. When he became president the appointments he made were sectarian favoring Tutsi although strategically he appointed non-Tutsi as ministers without power which resided in ministers of state who were Tutsi. I was reassigned to New York in January 1985 and quickly came to know who was doing what in the NRM. But when selection was made of Ugandans to join NRM government at home or in Uganda missions abroad, I was surprised to notice that those who worked around the clock were not taken largely because they were not Tutsi.
When pressure mounted that Museveni must hire competent Ugandans in the diaspora, he responded in 1993 that he was training a new team and didn’t need those in the diaspora except to send remittances as part of their contribution to Uganda reconstruction.
Using the excuse of downsizing Uganda civil service, Museveni weeded out senior Ugandans to create room for NRM cadres some of whom were appointed to the newly created and powerful position of director in all ministries that had more powers than retained permanent secretaries from previous regimes.
Makerere started a crash program of NRM cadres who had dropped out of school to fight. This program has produced half educated graduates many of them holding key positions including political and administration offices. There are stories (subject to confirmation) that many of them can’t read well and speak good English. Without this skill, they just can’t do a good job in the 21st century globalized world. I have witnessed some of them at international conference and their performance leaves much room for improvement. Recently Uganda ambassador in Geneva revealed the extent of challenge that Uganda faces. It is not the ambassador’s fault but of the appointing authority that appointed him ambassador and posted him to a wrong station. Geneva is a seat of many United Nations organizations and non-governmental organizations that require a well educated and experienced ambassador in the work of United Nations including trade, science and technology, labor, health, refugees and human rights.
Starving Ugandans to dominate them: Museveni knows the harm that under-nutrition does to a nation by starving women and children. With help of structural adjustment that promoted diversification of Uganda exports and Apollo Nsibambi who advocated export of food in regional and external markets, Museveni adopted a policy of production for cash and not for the stomach. To force people to comply, Museveni introduced user fees for education and healthcare and increased prices of fuel and kerosene.
To raise funds to meet these charges, Uganda peasants and fishers produced for cash. Fishers who previously exchanged fish for food demanded cash to pay school fees and health bills etc and cut back on food exchange. Reports from all parts of Uganda have demonstrated how selling food has harmed household food and nutrition security. For example, it was reported that in Rukungiri district some households have sold virtually all the food that there isn’t enough for children to eat.
Food shortages have forced women to eat little and become undernourished. Women who are under-nourished produce underweight children. When they survive they develop permanent physical and mental disabilities and suffer from diabetes, stroke and heart diseases making them a liability to society. It is not possible to know the extent of underweight babies since most are born at home. But statistics available indicate that some 20 percent of babies are born underweight a figure that is unacceptably too high.
It is also known that brain develops during the first three years of human life and this happens to be the period in Uganda when babies get insufficient and non-nutritious food. Consequently they have developed smaller brain size than normal. Under-five child under-nutrition in Uganda is also unacceptably high to the tune of some forty percent.
Museveni knows that hungry children can’t study and so drop out of school. Yet he has refused requests to provide school lunch; even to allow teachers and parents make their own arrangements. During the 2011 presidential campaign, Besigye supported a school lunch program. And when asked about his views, Museveni responded that he had asked the World Bank to undertake a study and report its findings to help him take a definitive decision. It is now 2013 and a decision hasn’t been taken to deny or accept school feeding program meanwhile children continue to drop out of school in large numbers.
Museveni will never accept school feeding program because it is reducing the capacity of Ugandans to challenge his leadership. Museveni has even rejected implementation of NEPAD decision that all African governments should launch school feeding programs. Children that have dropped out of school in their teens have no capacity to oppose Museveni and his Tutsi successors.
Why high unemployment is tolerated in Uganda: Museveni knows the harmful effect of unemployment and he knows how to create jobs through lower interest rates, cheaper imports of intermediate goods in manufacturing enterprises and protecting infant industries as well as creating public works. Museveni also knows that labor flexibility has harmed Uganda workers through low wages, hire and fire at will and absence of worker benefits and safety at work. Youth unemployment is above 80 percent including university graduates that have been unemployed for ten years and above. However market forces and private sector have remained the engine of Uganda’s economic growth and trickledown economics the mechanism for distributing the benefits of economic growth. None of these three mechanisms that underpinned structural adjustment has worked and yet have been continued even after the abandonment of structural adjustment in 2009. The Five Year Development Plan successor to structural adjustment program hasn’t been implemented because the trio of Museveni, Mutebile and Muhakanizi didn’t like it and have continued to implement elements of structural adjustment of keeping interest rates high, Uganda currency excessively devalued and Uganda markets open to cheap imports that have crippled domestic manufacturing enterprises. Politically, Museveni has benefited by keeping Ugandans unemployed because he can easily buy their support at election time.
In his 2013 New Year message Museveni stressed that manufacturing is essential for creating jobs but watch he won’t go beyond that statement. He will repeat it in his State of the Nation address and budget speech but will not implement it. He knows manufacturing creates jobs but creating jobs is the thing he doesn’t want to implement because it will derail his dream of tutsifying Uganda by empowering Ugandans to demand justice and liberty.
Why agriculture is neglected: By his own admission Museveni confessed that agriculture (and subsistence farming home to 68 percent of Ugandans) has been neglected yet it has been officially declared as Uganda’s comparative advantage. This is done to minimize industrialization, yet agriculture is not developed to deny Ugandans getting higher incomes. Museveni will never create a middle class economy and society because middle class people demand political freedom and human rights including the right to food, employment, decent living standard and free and fair elections as well as good governance. These demands would undermine the plan to tutsify Uganda which is based on powerless and voiceless Ugandans.
Tutsification of Uganda won’t succeed: Let Museveni be advised that Ugandans have understood his motive of tutsifying Uganda and are being mobilized to prevent it as well as creation of Tutsi Empire. Under-nourishing Ugandans who are then denied good education, employment and healthcare and are losing land to Tutsi with plenty of money and access to credit will not sit idly by. Beyond a certain point they will rebel. It is unemployed, under-fed, under-housed and landless public that has triggered revolutions including in France, Russia and Ethiopia. Museveni should keep this in mind.
UDU is mobilizing to make Uganda a home for all Ugandans on equal terms: United Democratic Ugandans (UDU) was created in July 2011 as an umbrella organization of all political parties and organizations at home and abroad to speak with one voice against the NRM government policies. UDU has prepared a National Recovery Plan (NRP) which was adopted at the Boston conference in October 2011 as an alternative to the failed NRM policies. The Plan has formed the basis for civic education, diplomatic networks and analysis of challenges at home. Progress is being made. Opposition is winning by-elections and human rights violations at opposition rallies have declined although much more remains to be done.
UDU includes members from opposition political parties and organizations. UDU has a website www.udugandand.org where all its work is published. UDU was represented at the London October 27, 2012 conference on federalism. UDU is now in the process of compiling a list of Ugandans in different professions and at different levels to avoid what happened when a transitional government was formed in 1979 without adequate preparation.
When established the transitional government will accommodate all stakeholders including NRM to prepare a political level playing field for subsequent free and fair multiparty elections. UDU wants a Uganda for all Ugandans without anyone claiming hegemony over others as Museveni is trying to do for Tutsi. That is why UDU supports federalism as one form of governance that will ensure equality among all regions. UDU hopes to participate in the National Working Committee and National Convention to discuss and agree on the way forward so that every region chooses an arrangement or details suitable to it.
UDU communicates regularly with political parties and organizations.