Tag Archives: very

Is there anything in Uganda that NRM has done right?

With a professional eye, it is difficult to see what NRM government has done right. However, it is very easy to see what it has done wrong. The costs have by far exceeded the benefits, raising serious questions about how long Ugandans should sustain NRM in power. So far, surrogates for the government have failed to convince the public. That they have failed comes through when asked to provide success stories. They don’t even know how to successfully attack their opponents, ending up embarrassing themselves when asked to substantiate their allegations. Let us illustrate what has gone wrong.

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Sleepy and quarrelsome NRM can’t lead and develop Uganda

It is now crystal clear that Uganda has leaders suffering from a sleeping ailment. As if that was not debilitating enough, they have begun to quarrel among themselves. When the president addressed parliament last year on State of the Nation, his senior cabinet staff fell into deep sleep – people can doze off once in a while and that is excusable but when you sleep so deeply and repeatedly that is a different matter. One would have thought that the sleeping habit was due to age but young ones slept as well on both occasions. Therefore age has nothing to do with it. Last year’s sleeping incident was not taken seriously. We thought there must have been some specific and temporary reason why so many cabinet ministers could sleep so much. On June 7, 2012 it happened again this time with more ministers – again young and old – in deeper sleep than last year. Leaders who can sleep this deeply and for so long in the presence of their president, how much do they sleep when they are alone in their offices? A non-Ugandan friend of mine who had seen pictures of last year called me after he saw those of this year. He wanted to know whether Ugandans were suffering from a sleeping disease and, if so, what steps were being taken to cure it because no country can develop with that kind of leadership. I had no answer for him.

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UDU Message to Uganda Mothers

On this Mothers’ Day, United Democratic Ugandans (UDU) congratulates and wishes you all the best. We appreciate the work you do often under difficult conditions at home and abroad. You are wonderful mothers and we thank you. Besides motherhood, you have played and – in many cases – championed work in Uganda’s economic, social, cultural, ecological, spiritual and increasingly political areas. The role of mothers in education, healthcare, nutrition and general hygiene through organizations like Mothers Union is particularly noteworthy. Your current struggle to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms has been noticed worldwide and highly appreciated.

From time immemorial mothers have made history and championed major changes of historic significance. Mothers including in France, Russia, United Kingdom and South Africa played vital roles at critical moments in history. One of the reasons for their struggle was to get empowered so that they can participate fully in decisions that affect their lives. The mothers of Uganda need to be empowered with support of the government, development partners and other organizations.

UDU’s National Recovery Plan (NPR) accessible at www.udugandans.org has accorded gender issues a very high priority. A Department of Gender was created in the UDU Secretariat to ensure that gender issues get all the attention they rightly deserve. The head of the Department is Ms. Dorothy Lubowa.

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The primacy of nonviolence in Uganda’s regime change should remain our focus

I want to thank commentators on my two articles that appeared in Ugandans at Heart website last week and are still being discussed including on the radio. Exchange of views in a substantive way is a very important first step towards finding a right path to unseat NRM regime. The discussions so far have been civil in tone and hope they will continue that way.

In the two articles an attempt has been made to demonstrate that we should – in the first instance – use nonviolent means to unseat NRM regime (other options are not ruled out) because they minimize costs, unify diverse people and make it relatively easy to bring about national reconciliation. The destructive and divisive experience of wars in Uganda is still fresh in our minds. Wars should therefore be avoided – not ruled out.

Studies have shown that since 1900 three out of four nonviolent campaigns have succeeded (Chenoweth and Staphan 2011). We know that to succeed Ugandan nonviolent campaigners will need support of neighbors and the rest of the international community through for example reducing financial, technical and diplomatic support to NRM regime and imposing targeted sanctions. We should, however, not expect the international community to send troops to Uganda to unseat NRM government unless a situation similar to Libya’s develops whereby Museveni tries to destroy Uganda citizens by military means as Gadaffi tried to do to Libyans.

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Success will not come to Uganda on a silver platter

For an individual, group or nation lasting success does not come easily. It has to be earned. Throughout my adult life I have observed that those who succeed work very hard, have determination and resilience and usually want to change the status quo: overcome poverty or end autocratic regime etc. They innovate, sacrifice and take risks. Those who take it easy usually don’t get very far. For example, students who miss classes, don’t do home work, complain about teachers all the time have no chance of success. During my school days children from poor families were urged to work very hard and break the chains of poverty and vulnerability. I have also noticed that those who are favored at work fall by the wayside soon after those who favored them leave the scene.

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Unity underscored at the London conference

Preliminary reports coming out of London indicate that the Uganda conference on November 12, 2011 was well attended and interactive. That NRM attended the conference is commendable. It appears though that the agenda was tilted towards political aspects related to the NRM regime perhaps as a result of participants’ profiles. A contribution to the conference on the National Recovery Plan (NRP) is available at www.udugandans.org.

Understanding where we are in Uganda is a historical and multi-sector process that needs to take into account political, economic, social and regional aspects that have contributed to the present impasse. Political conflict is by and large a reflection of economic and social inequities that undermine liberty, justice and dignity.

We hope that this is the first meeting in a series of others to follow. A report of the meeting with a clear message on outcomes and follow-up actions made available to the public will be helpful.

Those who deny that Uganda is not at a crossroads need to reexamine the basis for drawing that conclusion. Uganda is in real trouble politically, economically, socially, morally and environmentally. The long-term intentions of current leaders need to be understood clearly as a pre-requisite for finding solutions.

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The primacy of nonviolence in Uganda’s regime change should remain our focus

I want to thank commentators on my two articles that appeared in Ugandans at Heart website last week and are still being discussed including on the radio. Exchange of views in a substantive way is a very important first step towards finding a right path to unseat NRM regime. The discussions so far have been civil in tone and hope they will continue that way.

In the two articles an attempt has been made to demonstrate that we should – in the first instance – use nonviolent means to unseat NRM regime (other options are not ruled out) because they minimize costs, unify diverse people and make it relatively easy to bring about national reconciliation. The destructive and divisive experience of wars in Uganda is still fresh in our minds. Wars should therefore be avoided – not ruled out.

Studies have shown that since 1900 three out of four nonviolent campaigns have succeeded (Chenoweth and Staphan 2011). We know that to succeed Ugandan nonviolent campaigners will need support of neighbors and the rest of the international community through for example reducing financial, technical and diplomatic support to NRM regime and imposing targeted sanctions. We should, however, not expect the international community to send troops to Uganda to unseat NRM government unless a situation similar to Libya’s develops whereby Museveni tries to destroy Uganda citizens by military means as Gadaffi tried to do to Libyans.

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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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Why Bahororo were unknown until recently

Since I began writing about Bahororo in Uganda’s history, politics and economics, some people who have visited my blog have asked me to shed some light about why Bahororo were not known until very recently.

Bahororo are Batutsi people from Rwanda who founded Mpororo kingdom in northern Rwanda and parts of southwest Uganda. The kingdom was established around mid-1600 and disintegrated in less than one hundred years from internal causes. The people in Mpororo kingdom were called Bahororo (Bantu people who were already there and Batutsi new comers who founded the kingdom).

After Mpororo disintegrated the parts in what later became Uganda were taken over by Bahima under Bahinda ruling clan. As Chretien observes “After the fall of Mpororo, the take over of the Nkore dynasty on the western highlands was accompanied both by installing armies and by reinforcing the power of Hima [Bahima] lineages over the rest of the population, labeled Bairu” (Jean-Pierre Chretien 2006). According to Speke (1863) Bairu means slaves. Therefore by labeling all the people in former Mpororo kingdom Bairu, former rulers of Mpororo (Batutsi from Rwanda) became Bairu and therefore slaves. To avoid being labeled Bairu, inter alia, Batutsi who remained behind adopted the name of Bahima but deep in their hearts remained Bahororo. According to Samwiri Karugire although Mpororo kingdom disintegrated and went out of use and did not figure on any map of Uganda … “her people, dispersed as they were, have tenaciously remained Bahororo in everything but geographical terminology whose absence does not seem to have made any impression upon them” (Karugire 1980). Bahororo maintained their Nilotic identity because their men do not marry outside of their ethnic group.

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