Tag Archives: had

Why has Uganda become a nation of complaints?

On balance Uganda has been plagued by complaints more than anything else. And what is worrying is that the complaints are multiplying and getting louder with the passage of time. This article will record those complaints from 1962 to the present and attempt an explanation. This article is written particularly for the youth, Uganda’s future leaders, who must find solutions to these complaints.

Uganda as a nation had a rocky start caused by religious wars among Catholics, Muslims and Protestants as well as resistance to colonial rule which was very bloody in some places. With these conflicts over, law and order was restored and important decisions were made that laid a solid foundation for economic growth and social development. The construction of the Uganda railway, the wise decision that Uganda belongs to Ugandans, the realization that good nutrition is a vital component in human development, and the determination, in the 1950s, that industrialization is essential to create jobs, transform Uganda’s economic structure and build forward and backward linkages.

In spite of this promising start, rhetoric was not marched by action and most dreams were not met. On the eve of independence in 1962, the then Secretary General of the ruling Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) complained, inter alia, that:

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Is Uganda’s national unity idea dead?

When the National Resistance Movement (NRM) came to power in 1986, it had a clear domestic and external policy message which was compressed into the ten-point program. It was a program that had been based on compromise with national unity in mind which became a cornerstone in Uganda’s development discourse in the early years of the NRM administration.

Earlier, the late Grace Ibingira had written about the absence of national consciousness in Uganda brought about by the retention or intensification of ethnic differences during the colonial period. He observed that “Since the colonial system kept them alive through indirect rule and the policy of minimal inter-ethnic contact, the idea of Britain bequeathing a new state uniting all the divergent groups with a government of nationalist politicians from different groups, some historically enemies, generated intense fear in the country, most especially among the group that had more to lose, the Baganda” (G. S. Ibingira 1980).

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Corruption, poverty and the 1848 French Revolution

Lessons for Uganda

King Charles X was overthrown in large part because he wanted to reintroduce the ‘divine right of French kings’, indemnify French nobles at state expense for property lost in the 1789 Revolution and impose press censorship. On July 26, 1830 Charles attempted to remove the legislature and to abolish all freedoms to discuss royal authority. The king had become too much even for the poor, tired and revolutionary-weary Frenchmen. He had to go. For three days – July 27, 28, and 29, 1830 – the French people rose up and served notice that the royal services of Charles X were no longer required. He abdicated and departed for England on July 30.

Democracy became the buzz word in France. The middle class that had long complained about the abuses of political power by the aristocracy felt that its moment had come to take charge of France’s public affairs. In the discussions that ensued, some French wanted a republic, others a monarchy. In the end they opted for a restricted monarchy and Louis Philippe, a member of the Orlean’s family and cousin to the Bourbons became the “Citizen King” or “The July Monarch” (G. Roche 1993).

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Reconstructing the dynamic history of Uganda’s Bairu

According to John Hanning Speke (1863, 2006) Bairu (a term of abuse) which means slaves was coined by Bahima to apply to all Bantu-speaking people they found south of River Nile.

Presently the term has come to apply to the indigenous Bantu-speaking people of southwest Uganda (in former Ankole district and Rujumbura county of Rukungiri district) because in other areas extensive intermarriage between Bantu and Nilotic peoples formed mixed and entirely new communities. Bantu speaking people brought with them short-horn cattle, goats and sheep and above all iron technology and manufacturing skills (so they were not cultivators only. They were forced into cultivation by Bahima and Bahororo in order to marginalize, impoverish, dominate and exploit them). The term Bahutu is the equivalent of Bairu in Rwanda and Burundi. We shall apply the term Bairu in its broader sense as originally used to include indigenous Bantu speaking people who occupied areas south of Nile River before Nilotic Luo-speaking Bahima arrived and adopted Bantu language.

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The desire to recapture Tutsi power in Rwanda led to genocide and more

I know some Bahutu (Hutu) and Bairu (Iru) in diaspora who supported Tutsi return to Rwanda, by force if necessary, because they had been rejected in neighboring countries – witness their expulsion from Uganda in 1982 – and Rwanda government did not want them because there was no room for more people. Habyarimana government described Rwanda as a country unsustainably overpopulated and recommended that Tutsi should stay where they had been given asylum.

In recognition of Tutsi suffering in exile, the international community put pressure on Rwanda government to negotiate a settlement with the Tutsi-dominated Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) for a government of national unity and the return of Rwandan refugees. The RPF had a different idea – the restoration of their supremacy over Bahutu as they had done until 1959 when Bahutu ‘Social Revolution’ through Batutsi out of power and out of the country.

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The trouble with NRM double standards

Since 1980 when the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) won the general elections and the National Resistance Movement (NRM) began a guerrilla war in 1981 to unseat the UPC government by force since the Uganda People’s Movement (UPM) had failed to defeat UPC at the polls, I have followed NRM’s policy statements to the present day in 2010. NRM’s statements before 1986 are contained in two publications – Yoweri Museveni (1985), Selected Articles on the Uganda Resistance War; and Mission to Freedom (1990). I have had the opportunity to read the contents of the two publications.

NRM’s policy statements since 1986 are found in many publications or hard copies that have been distributed at conferences and summits. Since 1986, I have had the opportunity to attend major conferences and summits at the OAU/AU and United Nations in New York where these statements have been delivered by senior civil servants, Ambassadors, Ministers and the President.

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