Eric Kashambuzi

Ugandans and non-Ugandans who have followed my writings and speeches about the NRM government and President Museveni know that I have been constructive with a view to helping steer the government in the right direction. I have avoided personal attacks of individuals and their family members. I have written personal messages to the president; prime minister; speaker of parliament; minister and minister of state for finance, planning and economic development; permanent secretary of the ministry of foreign affairs and Uganda ambassador to the United Nations in New York giving them my honest views about Uganda’s political economy since 1986.

I fully supported the ten-point program because it was relevant and home-grown. But Museveni dropped it in exchange for the Washington Consensus or structural adjustment that I did not agree with. While in Kampala or when Ugandan officials came to New York where I reside I discussed with them what I thought was wrong. But they did not listen so I went public. Those who want to know what I have written about NRM government visit www.kashambuzi.com. It’s all there and comment on them constructively if you wish.

The First World War which many believe should not have happened began in 1914, a hundred years ago. It is being commemorated this week.

Despite the suffering Uganda has gone through with wars since 1966, and the devastating evidence from wars elsewhere, there are still some Ugandans including Sejusa, Kafero, Amii Otunnu and Kuloba who are still insisting that the only way to unseat NRM regime is through another war. These people have no mandate and cannot individually or with a handful of supporters declare war on Uganda. They have formed dubious organizations to hoodwink Ugandans that they have a sizeable number of followers and therefore can declare war. We need to know what these organizations are and who runs and supports them.

The devastation of World War I outlined below will hopefully change the mind of those Ugandans still preparing for an unjust war.

WWI expected to last a short time in victory lasted nearly five years and ended up ripping Europe asunder and slaughtering nearly the entire generation and the brightest. Nearly everyone lost a family member or a friend. The political, economic and social fabric was destroyed. The catastrophe was of unbelievable proportions.

It simply means that war might, in certain circumstances, be both politically necessary and morally justifiable. A just war is based on two concepts: jus ad bellum resort to war and jus in bello conduct of war.

Before a just war begins some conditions must be fulfilled:

1. There must be a just cause or right intention. The purpose of a war must be to right a wrong which has been committed (self-defense against unlawful aggression would be considered just), and the ultimate objective must be peace;

2. The use of armed force must always be considered a last resort;

3. The resort to war is the preserve of legitimate authority – an arbitrary act of an individual cannot be considered just;

4. There must be good prospects, no matter what the grievance , if war is likely to be a wasted effort, it should not be undertaken;

5. There should always be a sense of proportion between ends and means. That is the good to be achieved through war must outweigh the damage and harm to be endured (Richard Holmes 2001).

There is almost a consensus that the First World War should not have occurred. And we should learn a lesson from this war. It was very costly and led into the Second World War. Here are the costs.

“More than ten million men were killed in the war [when you add civilians killed or died of causes related to the war the number is higher], a whole generation wiped out. In a single day, the British lost 60,000 in the battle of the Somme. … In the siege of Verdun, the two sides had 1.2 million killed. Worldwide, the Spanish influenza epidemic took more lives than even the war, an estimated 20 million. Genocide such as the slaughter of the Armenians, while not directly connected to the war, took millions more.

Besides the dead, 21 million were wounded in the war; 7.5 million were taken prisoner or missing in action. Shipping losses totaled 15 million tons, of which 9 million were British.

All the belligerents mobilized 63 million. The total gross cost of the war was estimated by E.R.A. Seligman at more than $232 trillion during the fiscal years of combat. The daily expenditure by all belligerents was $164 million”(Chronicle of the 20^th Century 1987).

When Ugandans in the diaspora sensed that the Amin administration was about to collapse with no clear successor government, everyone rushed to fill the gap. At that time I was living in Lusaka, Zambia, the second hub of Uganda refugees after Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. People who were not talking to one another in the same town, people who could not agree to attend the same reception, people who had not contacted one another for years began forming groups overnight overwhelmingly along sectarian lines to form the next government.

As Kampala was about to fall, the Tanzanian government hurriedly organized a meeting of Ugandans in the diaspora at Moshi to form a transitional government. Debates ensued about who should or should not be invited. In the process Obote, Binaisa, Tiberondwa, among others, were left out.

Mozambique after independence which was very costly in human lives, infrastructures and institutions suffered a 16-year post-independence guerrilla war. Here is what Mozambique lost during the guerrilla war without counting those who lost their lives directly from the war.

1. 490,000 children died from war-related causes;

2. 200,000 children were orphaned or abandoned by adults;

3. At least 100,000 children served as soldiers during the conflict;

4. Over 40 percent of schools were destroyed or forced to close;

5. Over 40 percent of health centers were destroyed;

6. Economic losses totaled $15 billion, equal to four times the country’s 1988 GDP;

7. Industries were so damaged that post-war production equaled only 20 to 40 of prewar capacity (Carnegie Commission on Preventing Conflict, 1997).

We appeal to those who have information about human and material losses in Uganda starting in 1966 to make it available. Uganda has experienced many wars in 1966, 1979, 1981 to 1986 in the Luwero Triangle and in the Northern, Western and Eastern regions since 1986 to the present (the most recent in western Uganda).

This information is provided by the person who participated in designing and implementing structural adjustment program in Russia. It failed:

1. The crisis in the Russian economy at the end of the twentieth century was the result of the unsuccessful reforms implemented by the democrats who had come to power;

2. The reason for those failures was the choice (“with the prompting of the IMF and other such agencies”) of “shock therapy” financial stabilization, and privatization;

3. The consequence of those failures and mistakes was the catastrophic decline in production, which led to the impoverishment of the nation;

Apply these lessons to Uganda and you will see parallels. Uganda was influenced in its structural adjustment program design and implementation by the same institutions that advised Russia.

The economic growth in Russia of recent years is the result of the regime’s new course – that is, of the correction of the mistakes made by the democrats (Yegor Gaidar 2012).

To get out of the economic mess, Uganda like Russia needs a new regime to correct NRM policy mistakes and failures. This will require professional and experienced leadership, not the one to learn on the job as NRM did.

Fellow Ugandans, we see there are people who are now beginning to claim that they are “game changers” when they joined the opposition not long ago, some of them having served the NRM regime in senior positions until recently and possibly responsible by commission, omission or delegation for crimes against humanity. On the other hand, there are those who have been in serious struggle immediately after the 2011 stolen elections.

UDU which was created in July 2011 has been working tirelessly to mobilize Ugandans at home and abroad for a peaceful change of regime in the first instance. We have written to all sectors of the population including the military and the police, gender, youth, civil society organization and religious leaders etc. urging them to join the opposition. Therefore those late comers who are now claiming that their success is within sight need to think again.

While we welcome everybody to join those struggling for regime change, we must avoid a situation where late comers may be tempted to claim victory the winner-take –all style. We should avoid what happened in Ethiopia immediately before the imperial regime collapsed in 1974.

In an effort to beat The Hague process (the work being undertaken by Ugandans since we met in The Hague in November 2013 to stop 2016 elections, change the NRM regime by non-violent means and establish a transitional government to conduct a population census, organize a national conference so Ugandans decide how they want to be governed and ultimately organize multi-party elections), Sejusa has rushed into forming a coalition of so-called military groups that he will lead hoping to oust the NRM regime ahead of The Hague process.

History is full of examples of what goes wrong when coalitions are formed in a hurry to block or oust a competing group. Let us begin with Uganda.

1. Uganda Peoples’ Congress (UPC) entered into a rushed coalition of convenience with Kabaka Yekka (KY) when their ideologies were totally different for the sake of ousting the Democratic Party (DP) from power before independence (DP had formed the self-governing government). Within two years the marriage was in trouble and ended up catastrophic in 1966/1967 political and constitutional crisis.

2. The marriage of convenience between Obote and Ibingira to stop Kakonge from becoming a popular national figure ended up in a catastrophe with Ibingira and his colleagues in the cabinet arrested for plotting to overthrow the government.

As you are aware, I have written and talked a lot about my support for a federal government over the unitary arrangement we have in Uganda. Those interested please visit www.kashambuzi.com or www.udugandans.org. I have used the examples of Switzerland and Nigeria among others in support of federalism for Uganda.

Nigeria is currently reviewing its federal arrangement as it celebrates its founding 100 years ago. I urge you to follow the developments for clues as to how we should do it in the aftermath of NRM that has rejected a federal system even when the majority of Ugandans want it as contained in the Odoki report.

President Jonathan has led the process along the following lines and with the following message.

1. As defined by the 1979 Constitution ‘federal character’ is “the distinctive desire of the people of Nigeria to promote unity, and foster national loyalty and give citizens of Nigeria a sense of belonging to the nation notwithstanding the diversities of ethnic origin, culture, language or religion which may exist and which in their desire to nourish and harness to the enrichment of the federal republic of Nigeria”.