Tag Archives: during

Congratulations Stephen Kiprotich

Press statement

On behalf of UDU, I extend to you our warm congratulations on the historic performance in the Marathon race during the 30th Olympiad in London, UK. The Gold Medal you earned has made all Ugandans at home and abroad, our friends and well wishers very proud. Friends and colleagues of mine around the globe have asked me to send you their warm congratulations.

What you have done demonstrates that with determination, dedication, hard work and above all discipline the sky is the limit. I trust you will serve as a role model for our youth to emulate what you have just accomplished. UDU has drawn up a National Recovery Plan (NRP) and appointed on its executive committee a member responsible for all affairs including sports related to our young men and women.

We look forward to seeing you and many other Ugandans at the 31st Olympiad which will open on August 5, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

For God and My Country

Eric Kashambuzi

Secretary General & Chief Administrator, UDU

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Foreign reliance on minority Tutsi has reopened old wounds

On July 9, 2011, I said a prayer silently and then stood up in front of fellow Ugandans in a conference hall in Los Angeles, USA and officially declared that I was going to devote the balance of my life to finding a lasting solution to the endemic problems in the Great Lakes Region of Africa (GLRA). I added that in carrying out this task I would be honest and fair to all stakeholders, notwithstanding that some findings may be contested even when everyone knows they are accurate. I have read and written extensively on the Great Lakes Region of Africa (GLRA) and posted some articles on www.kashambuzi.com.

I was born and grew up in Rujumbura county of Rukungiri district in southwest Uganda which for centuries has been a battle ground between Bantu (Bahutu and Bairu) or agriculturalists and Nilotic (Batutsi, Bahima, Bahororo and Banyamulenge) or pastoralists. Because of shortages of pasture and water, nomadic pastoralists fight most of the time to destroy or chase away the competitor and dominate the territory. Because of constant wars and dispossession of opponents, pastoralists end up destroying more than they construct. Pastoralists in GLRA (and possibly elsewhere) don’t have a culture of negotiations and sharing with others on equal terms.

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NRM can easily be unseated on four conditions

The popularity of NRM among Ugandans at home and abroad including many in NRM itself has sunk to the lowest level. The uncaring attitude of NRM to the suffering of Ugandans particularly women and children especially during the current economic hard times so soon after NRM was re-elected for another five-year term has driven the point home that Museveni – who is the de facto government of Uganda – does not care about Ugandans. He only uses them in pursuit of his imperial ambitions including changing the demographic composition of Uganda by increasing immigrants, ultimately turning indigenous population into a minority in their own country.

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NRM can easily be unseated on four conditions

The popularity of NRM among Ugandans at home and abroad including many in NRM itself has sunk to the lowest level. The uncaring attitude of NRM to the suffering of Ugandans particularly women and children especially during the current economic hard times so soon after NRM was re-elected for another five-year term has driven the point home that Museveni – who is the de facto government of Uganda – does not care about Ugandans. He only uses them in pursuit of his imperial ambitions including changing the demographic composition of Uganda by increasing immigrants, ultimately turning indigenous population into a minority in their own country.

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Slavery was abolished so too must the epithet of Bairu

Slavery is a condition in which the life, liberty and fortune of an individual is held within the absolute power of another individual. Slavery is derived from slav because Slavs in Europe were frequently enslaved during the Dark Ages (500-1000 AD). Aristotle embarrassingly justified that some people are slaves by nature. In many situations slaves worked long hours from sunrise to sunset and suffered harsh punishment which included lashings, short rations and threats to sell members of the slave’s family. Slavery broke the spirit of many slaves but many others vowed to resist and end it. Slavery generated fear and hate. Because slavery and slave trade were evil, they were abolished during the 19th century and declared illegal.

How did Bantu become Bairu (slaves)?

John Hanning Speke wrote in his book titled The Discovery of the Source of the Nile (1863 and reprinted in 2006) that Bahima imposed the epithet (term of abuse) of Bairu or slaves on Bantu people they found in the areas bordering on Lake Victoria. Bahima imposed the epithet of Bairu because Bantu people had to supply food and clothing to Bahima masters. Subsequent extensive intermarriages between Bahima and Baganda, Bahima and Banyoro and Bahima and Batoro produced new communities of mixed farmers ending the master/slave relationship in Buganda, Bunyoro and Tooro.

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Why Uganda is implementing a different kind of revolution

The political wing of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) crafted its propaganda message targeting different communities during the bush war. NRM propagandists spoke and wrote about what Baganda and Catholics wanted to hear. They painted the ruling Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) Party led by Obote as a ‘thief’ that had robbed Buganda of its districts during the referendum on the ‘Lost Counties’ and handed them over to Bunyoro. UPC added an injury to Baganda wounds by overthrowing their kingdom. For Catholics who support the Democratic Party (DP) they focused on the ‘rigged’ 1980 elections that robbed DP of its victory.

To bring to NRM camp a large chunk of UPC supporters, the NRM strategists blamed the suffering of Ugandans, during the Obote II regime in the first half of the 1980s, on the government’s adoption of structural adjustment with its harmful economic and social conditionality and maintenance of a colonial economic structure that condemned Uganda to the production and export of cheap raw materials and import of expensive manufactured products which could be easily produced in Uganda, create jobs and increase incomes.

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Uganda won’t industrialize during our lifetime

Uganda won’t industrialize during our lifetime

Before Uganda became a British protectorate, the communities in the area had attained an economic structure of balanced agriculture, manufacturing and trade in local and regional markets. Industrious people had utilized their comparative advantage to improve their standard of living by eating balanced diets and accumulating capital through sale of surplus products. Travelers in east and central Africa marveled at the level of economic development. If the British had asked Ugandans whether to specialize in agriculture or manufacturing, they probably would have opted for industries because of the range of products and the level of industrial sophistication that had been attained.

Because Britain was looking for tropical raw materials like cotton for her domestic industries, food for her exploding population and markets for her surplus manufactured products, Ugandans were not asked about their preference. Thus, at the start of the 20th century, British authorities decided that Uganda would become a producer of raw materials and food by African and non-African farmers and a market for British manufactured products. However, in 1922 British policy was changed and Uganda’s small holder farmers would become sole producers of agricultural produce except tea and sugar. From 1923 the government actively encouraged and organized peasant production, suffocating indigenous manufacturing enterprises out of existence.

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