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Uganda’s problems are relatively easy to fix

Studies of improving well-being in urban and rural areas have underscored the importance of ethics, morality and spirituality. Some commentators have observed that sustainable moral rules which are nearly universal as rules of the game date from hunter-gatherers experience. These rules have been undermined by demands of modernity including the profit motive. The destruction of ecosystems has raised the moral issue and how we can reclaim those moral rules for the benefit of present and future generations.

Deforestation has been used as an example of the need to return to moral rules. When we cut a tree, the wood is used for many purposes including charcoal, housing construction etc. But the price we get from cutting down the tree is small compared to the value of the tree in respect of the environment. In the name of becoming rich we are felling large swathes of trees, leaving the ground bare and subject to soil erosion by rain water and wind. “We know that once nature shows its skeleton, the earth is gone, and it will take centuries to renew the forest…

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Uganda’s problems are relatively easy to solve

Studies of improving well-being in urban and rural areas have underscored the importance of ethics, morality and spirituality. Some commentators have observed that sustainable moral rules which are nearly universal as rules of the game date from hunter-gatherers experience. These rules have been undermined by demands of modernity including the profit motive. The destruction of ecosystems has raised the moral issue and how we can reclaim those moral rules for the benefit of present and future generations.

Deforestation has been used as an example of the need to return to moral rules. When we cut a tree, the wood is used for many purposes including charcoal, housing construction etc. But the price we get from cutting down the tree is small compared to the value of the tree in respect of the environment. In the name of becoming rich we are felling large swathes of trees, leaving the ground bare and subject to soil erosion by rain water and wind. “We know that once nature shows its skeleton, the earth is gone, and it will take centuries to renew the forest…

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Leadership qualities

Every organization, be it a family, village or nation must have a leader. A leaderless society cannot hope to survive for long. Even animals and poultry have leaders. You can have a good or a bad leader. I will talk about the qualities of a good leader.

1. A leader must be a servant and not master of the people. The leader must have a vision or ideas about how to lead the people to greater heights in economic development, health and happiness. In crafting ideas, the leader should carefully look at the past because it impacts the present. In doing so the leader must ensure that the past is still relevant to the present. If not the past or old ideas should be repackaged to incorporate new developments.

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The people of Uganda are demanding their rights

Enlightenment and dialectics have entered into Uganda’s political economy discourse. They have developed a questioning mind about who is governing them, why our institutions and systems (education, health, nutrition, agriculture, ecology, urban housing etc) are collapsing, why Uganda’s population growth is excluding migrants and focusing on natural growth alone (births minus deaths) which is half the story.

The people of Uganda are beginning to understand their inalienable rights – God-given rights – that no leader can take away. These are not privileges. When a leader denies the people their inalienable rights, they have a right to demand them back. And that is what the people of Uganda are demanding their rights right now. Through disenfranchisement, many Ugandans were denied their right to elect their representatives at the presidential, parliamentary and local levels.

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An animal that will die does not hear the hunter’s horn

We have a proverb in western Uganda which says (crudely translated) that a wild animal that is to die does not hear the hunting horn when it is blown. It therefore stays in harm’s way until it is speared to death. The same can be said about Museveni. He does not appear to have realized that there is a wind of change blowing across Uganda. The wind which blew in his favor for the last 25 years has changed direction. How has this happened?

First, Museveni was picked in 1980 by some western powers for geopolitical purposes in the great lakes region. They helped him with finance, media and diplomatic cover as he removed old governments and installed new ones at a great cost in human life including the alleged genocide of Hutu in DRC, pillaging Congo’s resources and supporting militias. His role in Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi and DRC is not in dispute. That assignment is over.

Second, Museveni was used to support SPLA in the civil war in Sudan. That assignment is now over.

Third, Museveni was used to experiment structural adjustment program as a development model after it ran into trouble in Chile and Ghana. The experiment failed miserably and was terminated in 2009.

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Role of the military in restoration of democracy and human rights in Uganda

As Museveni reminded us, the principal role of the military is to defend the country’s borders against external invasion. He also indicated that when the government denies citizens the right to exercise their democratic and human rights the military steps in on the side of the people. Before considering why the Uganda military should be on the side of the people demanding the exercise of their rights, let us briefly review a few examples where the military has supported the people against oppressive governments.

1. During the French Revolution that began in 1789, sections of the army joined the people in their demands to reduce the excessive power of the king and privileges of the nobility and high clergy. The people also formed a national guard under the leadership of Lafayette to defend themselves. In desperation the king hired mercenaries, an arrangement that made him even more unpopular. This action together with an attempt to flee the country resulted in his arrest, trial for treason and execution.

2. The collectivization of agriculture in Russia under Josef Stalin generated intense resistance. Stalin ordered the army to intervene and force peasants to comply. Some sections of the Red Army refused because peasants had a right to resist and these soldiers came from peasant families.

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The right thing

As a last resort, the people of Uganda – like people elsewhere – have the right to rebel against the dictatorial regime of Museveni who believes in Social Darwinism. Museveni is falsely convinced that Bahororo people were created with exceptional natural qualities including monopoly on military aggressiveness to rule by divine right and exploit other Ugandans with impunity. That is why he can hire his family members and other Bahororo people in key, strategic and lucrative areas without shame. Museveni does not believe in elections. For him elections are a western requirement to get foreign aid. According to him, elections will never remove Bahororo people from power! The 2011 elections confirm Museveni’s determination to rule Uganda. He openly rigged the 2011 elections largely by disenfranchising indigenous Ugandans and bringing in foreigners to vote for him and his NRM candidates from presidential to the lowest electoral office in the land.

Although Museveni claims he has read history, he appears not to have drawn the right lessons. There is sufficient evidence that rulers who believe in the divine right and military supremacy and impoverish and marginalize their subjects end up defeated.

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Uganda security forces can help solve the current political impasse

While security forces exist to defend the state and protect citizens, they can and have helped in addressing political challenges either by joining the people when there is a conflict between them and the government or by staying neutral. Governments come and go. States and people are permanent and security forces are created to defend and protect them.

There are many illustrations of security forces joining the people to stop or remove governments when they oppress the people. In 1789 the soldiers in Paris joined the people when king Louis XVI tried to suppress demonstrations that supported the National Assembly. Other soldiers outside Paris also refused to rally behind the king. His efforts to use mercenaries did not succeed. In this way, security forces prevented the king from dispersing the National Assembly that had gathered to draw up a new constitution for France.

In Ethiopia when there was a conflict in 1974 between the imperial government and demonstrators who were demanding improvements in their welfare including adequate food, the security forces stepped in on the side of the people. The emperor and his government that were not prepared to make necessary changes were swept away.

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Museveni has not felt the wind of change

On February 3, 1960 former Britain’s Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan addressed both houses of parliament in South Africa. He warned the Nationalist Government of South Africa of ‘the wind of change’ blowing through the continent. He served notice that Britain could no longer support the policy of apartheid. He stressed that Britain rejected the idea of any inherent superiority of one race over another. He added that ‘individual merit alone is the criterion of man’s advancement, political or economic” (Fifty Correspondents of Reuters, Putman 1967).

Museveni came to power in 1986, at a time of economic and political crisis. The leaders of Africa had been discredited for economic mismanagement and one party political system. There was a search for political and economic stability. The new breed of African leaders shot to the scene through the barrel of the gun including Museveni.

Economic reforms through structural adjustment necessitated curbing freedom to make sure opposition groups did not emerge. In order to implement the austerity program of structural adjustment in Uganda Museveni with tacit support of proponents of structural adjustment allowed abuse of human rights. His abusive actions were conveniently described as boldness. Museveni unlike other leaders was given room to postpone multiparty politics, enabling him to crush DP and UPC.

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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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