Tag Archives: national

Uganda’s post-independence political challenges

Radio Munansi English program February 17, 2013

This is Eric Kashambuzi communicating from New York.

Greetings fellow Ugandans at home and abroad, friends and well wishers and welcome to the program. We look forward to your active participation in this interactive session.

We have been requested to spend some time discussing Uganda’s political challenges since independence. There is hunger for knowledge as Ugandans get more engaged than ever before in affairs affecting their lives.

We study history to understand what happened in the past and what lessons we have learned and how we have applied them to make life better by discarding bad practices and building on good ones. There are those who think we should move on and not look backward because we may discover things that should not be disclosed to the public. However, many Ugandans are demanding to know the history of their country as far back as possible. For this program we shall examine the circumstances surrounding the birth of Uganda as an independent state and how those circumstances have shaped the last 50 years of independent Uganda.

Uganda’s birth as an independent nation took place in a very difficult environment and many important issues were rushed through or delayed as negotiators had to meet a deadline of October 9, 1962. In this session we shall consider the period immediately before independence and up to 1970. In the next session we shall discuss political developments from 1971 to the present.

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Why civilians replaced military regimes in Latin America

In the 1960s and 1970s, many Latin American countries were governed by military dictators. Although they had come to stay indefinitely as managers of rapid economic growth and poverty reduction, by the 1980s and 1990s they had handed over power to civilian governments. What caused this fundamental change?

Under a combination of external and domestic pressure caused by economic failures and human rights violations, military governments couldn’t cope with the management of national economies and civilian populations they were not equipped to handle. The information below has been extracted in part from the fifth edition of a 1995 publication by Europa Publications Limited titled “South America, Central America and the Caribbean”. Economic, social, political and human rights failures led to internal and external pressures that forced military governments to retire from politics. The church played a significant role in the transition from military to civilian rule.

The main purpose of armed forces is to defend the nation against external aggression and not run affairs of state. But in Latin America there were few foreign wars to explain the rise of military dictatorship that began in 1930. However, in the 1960s, Castro and Che Guevara revolutions necessitated military intervention with external assistance in training and funding. Some countries developed the so-called “National Security Doctrine” that enabled military officers to implement drastic measures to prevent or defeat subversion in their territories.

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The role of civil resistance in Brazilian transition from military rule to democracy

The publication of the National Recovery Plan (NRP) in 2011 accessible at www.udugandans.org which presents a sharp contrast to what NRM is doing necessitated civic education on a wide range of issues. We have therefore dealt with some ‘hot’ topics that others have avoided so that Ugandans fully understand why with all the natural and human resources Uganda is retrogressing which is no longer a debatable issue. Even economic growth rates and per capita income which were used to present ‘rosy’ economic performance have declined precipitously. Economic growth has plummeted from 10 per cent in mid-1990s to around three percent currently while population is growing at 3.5 percent ahead of economic growth of 3 percent. This is not development. It is retrogression. Under these conditions Uganda cannot become a middle income country in a few years from now.

In our assessment of Uganda’s performance, we have separated processes from outcomes of development such as a higher standard of living. NRM government reports processes. For example, writing an excellent modernization of agriculture document per se won’t transform subsistence to commercial farming. Writing an impressive Poverty Eradication Action Plan with little or no implementation won’t reduce poverty. Programs have to be implemented which NRM has failed to do. Constructing schools and graduating students every year is necessary but not sufficient. Education makes sense only when graduates get jobs and earn good income to meet at least the basic needs of life.

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Sharp contrasts between NRM and UDU policies

As we approach 2016, Uganda people must be provided with election choices well in advance of the elections so that they are well informed about what is at stake and make the right choices.

United Democratic Ugandans (UDU) which has become a formidable force was formed in July 2011 and has been consulting with the people at home and abroad including in a local language and conducting civic education to determine what Ugandans need. We have got some ideas which contrast sharply with what the National Resistance Movement (NRM) government has been implementing since 1987. Here are the contrasts on selected areas.

Civilian versus military-backed government

NRM is led by a military president with full backing of the military. UDU proposes a civilian president with full backing of the people.

Specific roles of security forces and the judiciary

NRM has militarized the police, mixed up the roles of the military and the police and weakened the judicial system in the administration of justice.

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What will Museveni report to Uganda on October 9, 2012?

On October 9, 2012, Uganda will observe 50 years of independence. The president is expected to report what has happened to Uganda and her citizens since October 9, 1962. To do that he needs to recap what independent Uganda inherited from British colonial administration. He should outline why Ugandans demanded independence and how it has been used to realize our dreams. In doing so, he is expected to look at the processes but most significantly at real outcomes in terms of quality of human life and status of our environment. In short, are we better off democratically, economically, socially and ecologically than we were fifty years ago?

On October 9, 1962, John Kakonge (RIP) then Secretary General of UPC that formed the first government issued a statement under the title “Uganda Regains Freedom”. He observed, inter alia, that Uganda inherited an impoverished nation, based on traditional agriculture and very low living conditions characterized by inadequate education and health care facilities, very high mortality rate, low school attendance and many other challenges. He left out the good things that the colonial administration did.

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Launch of National Alliance for Change

UDU statement

I thank the organizers of this important and timely conference for inviting United Democratic Ugandans (UDU) to the launch of the National Alliance for Change. The conference is taking place so soon after another important conference organized by FDC took place here in the City of London. This is a welcome recognition that when people unite they perform more effectively and efficiently than when they are divided.

Uganda is in a political, economic, social, moral and environmental crisis. It has been described as a failed state under dictatorial leadership. For the last twenty six years Uganda has been driven by wrong drivers, in a wrong bus, on a wrong road. The collapse in 2009 of the economic model pursued by NRM since 1987, the massively rigged elections in 2011 and the current severe economic crisis characterized inter alia by crippling high interest rates, unaffordable and rising prices especially of food and fuel, unprecedented level of youth unemployment, spreading and deepening poverty and the associated moral decay confirm that something is endemically wrong in Uganda’s political economy, calling for change of leadership and launch of a different political and economic development agenda. This is a task that Ugandans themselves have to shoulder with a helping hand from friends and well wishers.

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National Recovery Plan (NRP)

Executive Summary

The NRP is based on a vision of free, united and prosperous Uganda and a mission of rule of law, equality and justice for all Ugandans.

Despite its natural resource abundance, resilient people and strategic geographical location at the heart of Africa, Uganda has remained a poor country with over 50 percent of its population of some 33 million living in absolute poverty because of inappropriate policies, political instability, wars and, above all, rampant corruption, sectarianism and mismanagement of public funds. Uganda has been declared a failed state under military dictatorship disguised as democracy. The country is in deep political, economic, social, spiritual and environmental crisis. Corruption has spread and deepened becoming endemic and a principal constraint in Uganda’s development process. NRM has lost the will and capacity to address these challenges. It has resorted to electoral malpractices to stay in power and use of force to frustrate Ugandans demanding change. Consequently, Ugandans and increasingly development partners are losing confidence in the NRM government.

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Uganda: Let us mean what we say about national unity

We have heard calls for national unity for a very long time. Yet national unity has not been realized. If anything national division has become the norm witness the division of Uganda from 18 districts at one time to over 100 districts today operating virtually as independent entities. One day you hear some commentators on radio or in private conversation claiming they belong to their tribe or region first and the next day they preach Uganda first.

National unity should be preached out of conviction, not out of convenience. There is enough evidence that “unity of convenience” to solve immediate problems has caused medium and long term troubles, some of them very serious. We should constantly remind ourselves of these experiences in order to do better. Elections for whatever office, assignments and promotions should be based on merit, on what individuals have accomplished and what they can offer to Uganda not on empty promises or who they are or where they come from or what faith they follow or their age or their gender.

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National stability has trampled individual freedom in Uganda

Museveni became president in 1986 with a message of democracy, free and fair elections, freedom and prosperity for all contained in the ten-point program which he dropped in 1987 in favor of structural adjustment program (SAP) with stiff conditions. The unpopularity of SAP which was being experimented in Uganda after some countries like Ghana and Chile had found it costly and adjusted it, and the threat of terrorism in the East Africa region created a pretext for Museveni to introduce measures that have trampled individual freedom. In 2002, an anti-terrorist law came into force with a broad definition of terrorism as the “use of violence or threat of violence with intent to promote or achieve political, religious, economic and cultural or social ends in an unlawful manner”.

Painful structural adjustment at home and Uganda’s intervention in countries of the greater lakes region including alleged genocide of Hutu in DRC and plunder of Congo’s resources made Museveni unpopular, causing him to become authoritarian in order to cling to power because in a free and fair election he would lose.

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How French soldiers saved the National Assembly

In 1789, the king of France convened the Estates General (parliament) to find a solution to the nation’s fiscal problems. The meeting took place in the midst of food shortages, rising poverty and unemployment. The commoners (the Third Estate) demanded changes in the voting pattern and sitting arrangement which had advantaged the First (clergy) and Second (nobility) Estates. The King refused, insisting that each estate must meet separately and vote as before. This arrangement had always benefited the First and Second Estates that voted together defeating the Third Estate 2 to1. The commoners who constituted 98 percent of the total population of France decided they were the nation of France. They established a National Assembly to draw up a new constitution for France that would level the playing field. The king ordered it to disperse. It refused.

Because the king did not trust his royal troops, he mobilized mercenaries. When the people of Paris who had been protesting food shortages and rising prices heard that mercenaries were coming to Paris, they decided to arm themselves in defense of their city. They stole arms from a military hospital and proceeded to the Bastille prison (used as jail for political prisoners) to get more weapons and gun powder. The prison guards began to shoot and some of the rioters were killed. The commoners loaded their weapons and fought back. The prison guards had heavier weapons and pounded the commoners who had light weapons.

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