Tag Archives: project

Further reflections on East African integration and federation project

Following publication of my article titled “It’s time to rethink the East African integration and federation project” some commentators have advised privately that there is need to look more closely at the ‘real’ motive(s) behind the federation or closer union project in East Africa. The instruction by the Burundi East African Summit for fresh guidelines has rekindled interest in the need to reexamine the entire project going as far back in history as available information allows. Questions of nationalism, immigration and citizenship, land ownership and jobs, nation-state and a supranational authority etc have been raised.

The idea was first made public by Harry Johnston when in 1899 he called for closer union between Kenya and Uganda. With Tanganyika falling under British influence after WWI, the idea gathered momentum. Many aspirations were expressed by individuals and officials for creation of a ‘New Dominion’ to include Kenya, Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia, Tanganyika, Uganda and Zanzibar. The geographic area would run from the Limpopo to the Nile. The hidden agenda was to create a (white) settler-dominated, self-governing federation. Lord Delamare and Cecil Rhodes among others expressed this interest. To present it openly would have created a problem in Africa and possibly in Britain and elsewhere. So the economic and administrative justification for a closer union was substituted.

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Uganda’s elections project has failed

Every project in human history has at least four phases: the design phase, implementation phase, monitoring phase and evaluation phase. The purpose of monitoring is to ensure that the implementation of the project is on course as designed. When new problems arise they are corrected. When circumstances change fundamentally, it may become necessary to close the project and draw up a new one. An evaluation takes place usually at the end of the project to see whether the objectives were achieved or not and to draw lessons as a guide for future work.

The purpose of an election is to offer voters the opportunity to select their representatives in free and fair conditions. During the campaign candidates propose what they would do if elected to improve the standard of living of their constituents. If they do not deliver, they are voted out at the next elections. Thus, representatives’ primary responsibility is to serve all the people in their constituencies whether they elected them or not. In Uganda, it has turned out that the primary and perhaps only purpose of representatives is to enrich themselves, their families, relatives and friends. Take Rujumbura constituency as an example (no disrespect intended). The wife of the Member of Parliament (MP) is Senior Presidential Adviser and his sister in-law is also Senior Presidential Adviser! There are many others down the line. This is a case of winner-take-all.

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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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Background to the “Tutsi Empire” and strategies to realize it

The “Tutsi Empire” project is real and on course albeit slower than expected. The idea which had been formed earlier received a boost when USA, UK and Israel chose Museveni to be a surrogate in their pursuit of geopolitical interests in the great lakes region. Museveni would help to overthrow governments in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and DR Congo. In the latter three countries Anglo-Saxons would oust France from the region. According to Keith Harmon Snow “War for the control of the Democratic Republic of Congo – what should be the richest country in the world – began in Uganda in the 1980s, when now Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni shot his way to power with the backing of Buckingham Palace, the White House and Tel Aviv behind him” (Peter Phillips 2006).

Museveni who began the politics of larger geographic entities in the 1960s to reverse the effects of colonial balkanization in Africa welcomed western support that would help him to realize his dream of a ‘Tutsi Empire’. Museveni and other Tutsis falsely believe they are endowed by God to rule others initially in the area stretching from Uganda to DRC through Burundi and Rwanda. To realize the dream of a Tutsi Empire Museveni adopted a three-pronged military, economic and political strategy.

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