Tag Archives: toro

Museveni is turning Uganda into a country of lords and serfs

We shall continue to write and to speak until the skeptics and surrogates are converted. A former colleague of mine advised that when you tell the truth, you will always win – sometimes at a price. He didn’t elaborate on the latter part. I have read widely, travelled widely and seen a lot. I don’t like what is happening in Uganda and won’t let it continue in order to be a popular guy on the block. Some have advised me that I am throwing away political capital by going negative against Museveni, his ethnic group and his regime. What I am doing is not for me: it is for the people of Uganda in present and future generations. If I got a public office it would be used to advance the cause of the people of Uganda – all Ugandans.

Before proceeding, let me say a word about Batutsi people and me. Normally I don’t use people’s names without permission but since I am going to say positive things I think it is safe to do so. I have already mentioned the names of Batutsi people who helped me as I was growing up. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Batutsi have treated Bairu well since the two groups interacted from around 1800. Bairu were deprived of their wealth including pasture land and converted into food cultivators to feed their Batutsi/Bahororo masters and to provide free labor before and during colonial rule.

Read the full post
Posted on by

Privatization of Uganda’s public enterprises was Thatcher’s idea

In her article dated December 7, 2010 on Uganda parastatals, Kesaasi wrote that privatization of Uganda public enterprises was not Museveni’s idea. It was Margaret Thatcher’s! This reminded me of work I did a few years ago about similarities between UK’s and Uganda’s development programs.

While researching and writing about structural adjustment programs (SAPs) or Washington Consensus around the world (Chile, Bolivia, Poland, Russia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Uganda, Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia etc), I found that the similarities between Thatcher’s and Museveni’s structural adjustment programs were very striking. It was as though Uganda was a part of Britain run by British officials and institutions under Margaret Thatcher as prime minister. I decided to study it in a historical perspective and to identify which areas were similar and with what impact on the people in the two countries. I compressed the findings into chapter three on ‘Structural Adjustment in the UK and Uganda: Are there Similarities?’ in my book titled “Uganda’s Development Agenda in the 21st Century and Related Regional Issues (2008)” available at www.jonesharvest.com.

Read the full post
Posted on by

Dividing Uganda into Nilotic North and Bantu South is not correct

When I wrote that dividing Uganda into watertight Nilotic North and Bantu South was not entirely correct, some people sought clarification and elaboration. Earlier on some people had also raised the question whether the people of southern Uganda who are linguistically the same (Bantu-speakers) are also racially (or ethnically) the same.

For Uganda’s northern region one can safely use the Nilotic classification. For Buganda, Bunyoro and Toro one can also safely use the Bantu classification since intermarriage between Nilotic and Bantu peoples was so thorough that new communities emerged, adopted a common Bantu language and practiced mixed farming thereby ending the pastoralist and agricultural specialization between Nilotic and Bantu peoples respectively. However, in south west Uganda (Ntungamo and Rujumbura in particular) the situation is different.

Bantu people who speak Bantu language or Bantu Bantu-speakers (BBS) from Cameroon/Nigeria border arrived in southwest Uganda first through the Congo region. They practiced mixed farming of crops, short horn cattle, goats and sheep and poultry. They also manufactured a wide range of products particularly those based on iron ore. Centuries later, Nilotic Luo-speaking people with long horn cattle arrived in the area. Their ancestors came from southern Sudan. Although the Nilotic people (Bahima and Bahororo) adopted Bantu language, hence Nilotic Bantu-speakers (NBS), culturally and economically they remained distinct from Bantu Bantu-speakers (BBS). Separate identities were retained through a combination of strict restrictions on inter-marriage and specialized economic functions.

Read the full post
Posted on by