Tag Archives: ern

How Museveni has used the West to pursue the Tutsi Empire dream

Museveni’s life and energies at least since the early 1960s have been devoted to resurrecting Mpororo kingdom and expanding it into a Tutsi Empire initially in the Great Lakes region of Africa, explaining in large part why Ankole kingdom was not restored as it would interfere with Bahororo/Tutsi Empire project. Although they lost territory when Mpororo kingdom disintegrated around 1750, Bahororo (Batutsi people of Mpororo kingdom) wherever they went including back to Rwanda (it is believed Kagame like Museveni is a Muhororo subject to confirmation, perhaps explaining why Rwanda kingdom was not restored) tenaciously clung together (Karugire 1980) by resisting intermarriage with other ethnic groups hoping that someday their Mpororo kingdom would be resurrected.

In preparation for Uganda’s independence, Bahororo in Ankole demanded a separate district but Bahima rejected the idea. Museveni was old enough to witness the mistreatment of Bahororo by Bahima. At the same time Batutsi of Rwanda including Bahororo suffered a double defeat through the social revolution of 1959 and pre-independence elections leading to independence in 1962.

Read the full post
Posted on by

Background to the idea of East African political federation

It has been reported that at the recently concluded summit in Burundi (November 2011), the East African community leaders have instructed the secretariat to issue new guidelines on the form of East African economic integration and political federation that is suitable for the region.

We need to understand two things very clearly:

1. The definition of a federation and how it works in theory and particularly in practice drawing on relevant lessons of federal states that include United States of America, Canada, India, Germany and Switzerland;

2. The background to the idea of economic integration and political federation in East Africa and steps taken to implement it among the three countries of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and the difficulties that have been experienced among the three countries plus Burundi and Rwanda.

Federation or federalism is a political system in which the national (central) government shares power with local (state) governments. It derives its power from the people who must understand the merits and demerits and take informed decisions.

Read the full post
Posted on by

Whose idea is East African integration and federation?

East African economic integration and political federation is again very much in the air. This time it is neither the British nor Tanzanians pushing but Ugandans with Museveni as champion. Museveni has made it his top priority. He is not only pushing very hard but he has reversed the order putting political federation ahead of economic integration. It is like building a house starting with the roof! Some commentators are beginning to wonder what has triggered this rush in Uganda’s state house. Before examining Museveni’s rush, let us briefly examine the background to East African economic integration and political federation.

The idea originated in London. Since the Second World War, one of long-term ambitions of London had been the achievement of closer integration of its East African territories in a federal arrangement or political union probably under the leadership of Kenya (Butler 2002). To this end the three colonial territories developed common economic structures, a common market and a common currency. Britain hoped that by creating East African High Commission and the East African Common Services Organization the three territories would unify or federate into one larger nation (Grenville 1994). In the early 1950s, the colonial office intimated that it might consider an East African federation (Diamond and Burke 1966).

Read the full post
Posted on by