Tag Archives: and

Uganda’s development is being sacrificed again

Uganda is sacrificing its development – for the third time – as government directs its attention to hosting the United Nations peace keeping force of 50,000 military and police contingents, and 11,000 civilian staff budgeted at $5 billion (about 11 trillion shillings) a year. Ugandans who don’t know the challenges and implications of a project of this magnitude may dance in jubilation, hoping jobs will be created for Ugandans making poverty history. First of all the peace keepers will be internationally recruited with few jobs if any going to Ugandans with connections. Secondly, besides being the best political donation for Museveni and his NRM party a few months before presidential and parliamentary elections which is bad news for opposition parties, Uganda will also experience unprecedented shortages and high prices.

Uganda’s development has been delayed twice already because of ideological wars – the cold war between the capitalist west and the communist east which began in 1945 and ended in 1990; and the economic war between market forces and state intervention or socialism which began in the 1980s and is still with us although it was officially abandoned in Uganda in 2009. Uganda did very well economically and socially, especially in the 1960s before the impact of the cold war became evident. Donor funds and Uganda taxes were put to good use with tangible results. Quality education and health care were realized, infrastructure such as roads were paved, agricultural production facilitated by cooperatives increased, food security improved and more money was put into the pockets of farmers and those who provided services to the agriculture sector.

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Time has come to rewrite Africa’s great lakes history

Since the leaked report alleging that Rwanda and Uganda troops committed genocide against Rwanda and DR Congo Hutu in DRC, Rwanda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation and government spokesperson Hon. Louise Mushikiwabo has been talking negatively and discouragingly about rewriting the history of Africa’s great lakes region. In contrast, many believe that the region is and has been unstable precisely because the history of the region was not properly written.

Influenced by European race theories that put a black person at the bottom of the race pyramid and the white person at the top, aristocratic explorers, missionaries and colonial officials in the great lakes region (Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi) credited all the magnificent civilizations they found in the region to Bahima and their Batutsi and Bahororo (Batutsi from Rwanda) cousins whom they described as ‘white’ people who got lost in the region and turned dark because of tropical sunshine. Further, they described them as intelligent, physically attractive and born leaders to indefinitely rule others in the region. On the other hand, Bantus or Negroes (especially Bahutu and Bairu) were described as a race of ugly and unintelligent human beings without leadership qualities and only fit for menial work. They were denied the civilizations they had developed in a region that had been described as part of the ‘Dark Continent’ without a history and civilization.

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People who come to Uganda do not leave, do not mix

This message is addressed primarily to Uganda youth and their present and future leaders. The raison d’etre (purpose) of governments is first and foremost to protect the independence, territorial integrity, lives, welfare and property of Uganda and her citizens. This message should be accorded serious attention because of rapid and uncontrolled influx of people and animals into Uganda in the wake of globalization and its borderless ramifications and consolidation of expanded East African community and possible political integration with a component of free human and animal mobility across East African borders.

The subject of population movements across international borders for economic and security reasons has become one of the most intractable challenges in international relations. Everywhere there are complaints about immigrants – they bring diseases, take jobs from nationals, become richer than their hosts, occupy key political, economic and public service positions in foreign countries and undermine cultural values. Above all new comers do not mix with nationals. Recent developments in France and Sweden are a vivid illustration of what lies in store.

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NRM economics has failed to create jobs and distribute income

Uganda’s NRM government adopted stabilization and structural adjustment program (SAP) in 1987 under the assumption that after a short period (three to five years) of austerity and debt repayment, the economy under the guidance of market forces would begin rapid and sustained growth, create jobs and distribute income to all Ugandans through a trickle down mechanism. The government estimated that by 2017 poverty would be history in the Republic.

To lay the ground work for eventual sustained growth and equity, the government focused on monetary and fiscal policy to balance the budget, control inflation, establish a realistic exchange rate; privatize public enterprises and promote exports to earn foreign currency, pay external debt and use surplus for investment in productive sectors. Government participation in the economy and funds for social sectors would be reduced significantly.

Mindful that inflation was indiscipline, NRM government worked hard to bring it down to a low and stable rate of five percent per annum. This required drastic reduction of money supply in the economy and increased interest rate to encourage savings. However, high interest rates of some thirty percent discouraged borrowing by small and medium enterprises that create most jobs and spread income.

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Are poor people easy to govern in perpetuity?

Years ago, a Uganda official reasoned that well educated and paid people are difficult to govern, implying that poorly educated and paid Ugandans are preferable because their daily problems keep them too busy to exercise their rights. What the official did not know or chose to ignore is that poverty is one of the root causes of political and many other forms of instability. Making or keeping people poor so they are governed in perpetuity without difficulty can be counterproductive as developments in Uganda are beginning to show. Under the NRM government many Ugandans have sunk into deep poverty which was hidden under economic growth and per capita income figures until it manifested itself through diseases of poverty.

The NRM came to power determined to govern indefinitely. One of its strategies right from the start was to impoverish citizens in the short, medium and long term. In the short term, the NRM government of Museveni took 30 percent of Ugandans’ meager savings as a service charge for changing old into new currency. Many lost their businesses right away. Some of those who survived have not fully recovered 25 years later.

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From ten-point program to evangelism

President Museveni’s address to the NRM special organs conference at Namboole on Tuesday September 7, 2010 portrayed him more like a religious preacher to a flock in disarray and adviser to a government that has done a poor job than a president who has been in power continuously for 25 years. It is not surprising given the unprecedented chaotic performance in the recent (September 2010) NRM primaries for 2011 elections and the overall economic, social and ecological decline. The promised industrial and social revolutions and poverty eradication are nowhere in sight.

In Uganda, politics under the NRM is about power: how to get it, monopolize it and use it to become filthy rich relying on family members, relatives and friends. Knowing full well that democracy would not secure him the presidency, Museveni chose the military option and became president in 1986 and has no plans to retire soon. The army and other security forces are used more to silence dissent against his regime than to keep peace and stability as Museveni and his foreign backers would want us to believe. The demonstration by unemployed and unarmed citizens in Kampala was met with disproportional military force resulting in many deaths and injuries.

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Crickets and locusts do not fly together

In my culture we have a proverb “ekiharara noruzigye tibiguruka kumwe” which means that a cricket and locust do not fly together. Why? Because crickets fly a short distance and take a break. They also fly at a low altitude. On the other hand, locusts fly a long distance without a break and fly at a high altitude. When the two try to fly together in a long distance race at a high altitude, crickets drop out of the race. Locusts continue to the finishing line and win prizes.

In Uganda, relations between Bahororo and the rest of Ugandans are similar to relations between locusts and crickets. Bahororo (locusts) under the leadership of Museveni started the guerrilla war with a long term plan: to dominate Uganda politics indefinitely. On the other hand, the rest of Ugandans (crickets) especially Baganda and Catholics joined Museveni with a short term plan: to defeat Obote and his Protestant ruling UPC party. They joined Museveni’s guerrilla war and brought Obote down through Acholis in the army in July 1985. The Acholis who had a short term vision: to throw Obote and his Langi tribesmen out of power had no long term plan of holding onto power. Consequently, they were overthrown six months later and Museveni came to power in January 1986.

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Dividing Uganda into Nilotic North and Bantu South is not correct

When I wrote that dividing Uganda into watertight Nilotic North and Bantu South was not entirely correct, some people sought clarification and elaboration. Earlier on some people had also raised the question whether the people of southern Uganda who are linguistically the same (Bantu-speakers) are also racially (or ethnically) the same.

For Uganda’s northern region one can safely use the Nilotic classification. For Buganda, Bunyoro and Toro one can also safely use the Bantu classification since intermarriage between Nilotic and Bantu peoples was so thorough that new communities emerged, adopted a common Bantu language and practiced mixed farming thereby ending the pastoralist and agricultural specialization between Nilotic and Bantu peoples respectively. However, in south west Uganda (Ntungamo and Rujumbura in particular) the situation is different.

Bantu people who speak Bantu language or Bantu Bantu-speakers (BBS) from Cameroon/Nigeria border arrived in southwest Uganda first through the Congo region. They practiced mixed farming of crops, short horn cattle, goats and sheep and poultry. They also manufactured a wide range of products particularly those based on iron ore. Centuries later, Nilotic Luo-speaking people with long horn cattle arrived in the area. Their ancestors came from southern Sudan. Although the Nilotic people (Bahima and Bahororo) adopted Bantu language, hence Nilotic Bantu-speakers (NBS), culturally and economically they remained distinct from Bantu Bantu-speakers (BBS). Separate identities were retained through a combination of strict restrictions on inter-marriage and specialized economic functions.

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Shortcut actions and long term consequences

In my culture we have a proverb “bugubugu tehisa”, meaning that if you apply too much cooking fire for quick results you will serve a poor meal. Consequently, we were taught to apply gentle fire so that the food cooks slowly for good results. This principle apparently applies to other human activities with long term adverse outcomes.

One of the reasons put forward for political instability in Uganda is that independence was achieved too early before national consciousness had developed to remove or minimize ethnic, religious and economic divides. The British policy of ‘divide and rule’ in addition to ‘indirect rule system’ that favored Protestant chiefs and their families and relatives over others in education, employment and political capital created a wide divide. To this divide was added the economic inequalities between the south and the north. The south became the economic and social development center while the north became the labor reserve providing men and increasingly women in police, prisons and the army and labor for economic activities in the south.

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Globalization and re-colonization of Uganda

During the 2004 hearings by the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization, many African participants equated globalization with the re-colonization of Africa. Many Ugandans believe that Uganda which was never fully de-colonized has already been re-colonized since entering into structural adjustment with the IMF in 1981.

In order to appreciate that re-colonization has actually occurred, one needs to understand what the objectives of colonialism were. They were to secure a strategic advantage, evangelize the natives and obtain tropical raw materials and food for British industries and population respectively and land for surplus British population; and finally markets for manufactured products.

Britain, France, Germany and Belgium conflicted over the control of areas that eventually became Uganda. The agreement between Germany and Britain involving Heligoland is well known as is the Fashoda incident between Britain and France. The interests of White settlers in Kenya and Egypt’s reliance on the waters of the Nile affected the final shape and size of Uganda. Ultimately Uganda lost big chunks of land in the east and the north to Kenya and Sudan respectively. In the south and west of Uganda land was also exchanged among Germany, Belgium and Uganda. Uganda remains a battleground for old and new colonizers as a gateway to the Great Lakes region and the Horn of Africa. During the cold war era, Uganda sat at the intersection between the ‘red’ and ‘blue’ belt states that contributed to the 1971 coup.

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