Without realizing it, Uganda has entered two somewhat related phases: the enlightenment phase and the dialectics phase. The enlightenment phase involves reasoning: asking questions and demanding convincing answers. The dialectics phase means that Ugandans are scrutinizing Museveni statements like never before to demonstrate that the truth of his intentions is in that he does not say. In other words, Ugandans are trying to make the absent the present because the greater part of the truth is in that which is absent.
Based on his actions during and since the guerrilla war a rapidly increasing number of Ugandans have concluded that Museveni is a foreigner whose intentions are to marginalize indigenous Ugandans economically, demographically and politically working in close cooperation with foreigners especially Britain, Uganda’s neocolonial master.
The following harsh actions (some of them repeated for easy reference) taken by Museveni are used as illustrations that only a foreigner can impose on a people he does not belong to.
1. During the guerrilla war Museveni ignored true Ugandans (whom he deployed as administrative assistants and resource mobilization etc) and relied on Tutsi refugees as commanders and intelligence officers. Fred Rwigyema was deputy commander of Uganda’s National Resistance Army (NRA) and later deputy minister of defense with Museveni as minister of defense; Paul Kagame was head of intelligence and counter intelligence; Dr Peter Baingana was head of NRA medical services; Chris Bunyenyezi was a commanding officer of NRA’s 306 brigade; and Sam Kaka was commanding officer of NRA’s military police etc (New African November 2002). Other commanders were mostly Bahororo (Batutsi from Rwanda). When Ugandans complained about high profile foreign involvement in military matters, Museveni acted swiftly and imposed harsh measures against complaints (EIR Special Report 1997) to silence dissent to his dictatorship. When he captured power, Museveni passed a law through a rubber stamp parliament that forbids Ugandans from discussing or complaining about sectarian practices. But Museveni has utilized sectarianism to hire, promote and reassign Bahororo (people of Museveni tribe), his friends and in-laws to fill important and strategic positions in the country. A true national would not do a thing like this.
2. Upon becoming president, Museveni introduced new currency and imposed a massive 30 percent service charge to convert old into new currency. Thirty percent charge at such a time of crashing economic hardship was judged brutal even by IMF officials. (This was followed by massive devaluation of Uganda currency that increased the price of imports beyond the reach of many peasants and urban poor). Museveni showed no compassion even to retired people whose livelihood depended on their scarce savings. What is even worse is that it is not clear to what use the money was put. Some have alleged that much of it ended up in foreign banks.
3. During the guerrilla war Museveni attacked Obote viciously for introducing debilitating shock therapy (severe) version of structural adjustment (SAP) that made Obote unpopular and contributed to his overthrow in July 1985. By the time he captured power in 1986, Museveni was also fully aware that shock therapy had been abandoned in Chile and Ghana. Despite all this information and advice of experienced Ugandans, Museveni went ahead and adopted the same severe shock therapy that he bitterly criticized. Museveni even dismissed the minister of finance and governor of the central bank who wanted a gradual and sequenced approach so that Ugandans are not excessively hurt. Museveni, with tacit agreement by some donors, built a repressive tool that he used to suppress dissent related to implementation of structural adjustment. Some donors interpreted this brutality as bold and commendable leadership.
4. Dialectically, Ugandans have reasoned that Museveni adopted harsh SAP version to use it to cripple those indigenous Ugandans he did not like. Through massive retrenchment, Museveni targeted Protestants particularly from the west that supported Obote and UPC. He threw them out of civil service and public enterprises en masse. He targeted agriculturalists (Museveni comes from the pastoralist group) by removing subsidies and in particular scrapping cooperatives that had served them reasonably well. He closed schools disproportionately in areas he targeted to crash. He introduced high school fees and health charges knowing full well that the poor who are agriculturalists would suffer. Museveni deliberately introduced private schools and medical services. He starved those public schools and hospitals used by poor peasant people. He encouraged medical staff and teachers in public institutions to work abroad where job opportunities were better than at home knowing that these public institutions would be crippled and poor people hurt. Museveni made sure his cattle people got good jobs and incomes in government, international organizations and private sector and therefore could afford school fees for their children in private schools and pay private hospital bills.
5. Museveni’s export diversification drive focused on those foodstuffs particularly maize, beans and fish he knew low income families depend on. From his speeches and writings Museveni understands the importance of food in human development. So he knew the adverse long term physical and mental implications of encouraging peasants to produce for cash rather than for the stomach. Museveni also knew that undernourished mothers produce underweight children with severe and permanent disabilities. Museveni knew that by depriving peasants of balanced diets brain development of their children would be impaired. Museveni knew that eating non-nutritious foodstuffs like cassava would lead to severe health problems including neurological disorders and insanity. That is why Museveni is not disturbed by alarming insanity rates in Uganda and children wards turning into hospices. He treats the jiggers’ emergency as a problem of hygiene which he blames on Ugandans. He deliberately ignores poverty as the principal cause of the problem. He cannot admit that when he is telling the world that poverty in Uganda has declined significantly which is not true from the mushrooming diseases of poverty. Poverty in Uganda is over fifty percent and probably spreading and deepening. And 20 percent in low income bracket have got poorer.
6. Museveni knows that unemployment of indigenous people (Bahororo people – Museveni is a Muhororo – who came from Rwanda are being taken care of economically) will in the end reduce them to voicelessness and powerlessness economically and politically. (We have seen this already in action as Museveni has hired desperate unemployed youth to campaign for him in exchange for a yellow NRM tea shirt). He has therefore refused to start a stimulus package program and associated public works to create jobs for the unemployed youth now over 80 percent. Other governments in developed and developing countries are helping their unemployed citizens: not so in Museveni’s Uganda.
7. Museveni’s liberal immigration policy and handing over Uganda’s economy to foreigners have been interpreted as a demonstration that he is a foreigner. Museveni’s relentless push for East African economic integration and political federation when he knows that losses (especially land and jobs) to Uganda will far exceed gains (East African passport) sends a message that Museveni intends to create another Ivory Coast on the eastern part of Africa with immigrants in excess of indigenous population.
8. Museveni’s support (directly or indirectly) for birth control for indigenous poor people has the potential of reducing their overall numbers while those of immigrants (especially those related to Museveni in the Horn and Great Lakes regions) are increasing. Targeting indigenous poor and low quality people also carries a ‘genocide threat’. This is based on the fact that rural poor subsistence peasants are producing more than salaried urban high quality dwellers (David Yaukey et al 2007).
9. Museveni’s insensitivity towards the people of Uganda is reflected in the statements he makes. He is reported to have said that ‘sustained high growth of the economy has translated into significant decline in poverty across the country’. The truth is in what he left out. He did not utter a word about how sustained high economic growth has translated into improvements in living standards of the majority of the people. What has happened on Museveni’s watch for 25 years is that food insecurity has increased with over 10 million Ugandans going to bed hungry every night, the number of insane people has increased because of poor feeding and stress, the number of underweight children is close to 20 percent because of poor nutrition, unemployment has increased with over 80 percent of youth unemployed and 60 percent of them university graduates, primary school dropout is over 80 percent for lack of school lunches which Museveni has single handedly refused to support. What Museveni has not recognized is that Ugandans are in the enlightenment and dialectics mode that emboldens them to scrutinize everything that he says unlike in the past when his word was taken as gospel truth.
10. Museveni’s consistent reliance on foreign advisers and blocking indigenous Ugandans from participating in decisions (he has kept or forced them abroad) that affect their lives is reminiscent of colonialism.
11. What has pushed many Ugandans to conclude Museveni is a foreigner is when he declared last week that he has no money for school lunches but has enough to help with funeral expenses. The people of Uganda are still numbed by this statement. There is anger out there! A Ugandan cannot say a thing like this!
12. In my communications with the president, speaker of parliament and prime minister I have raised most of the issues in this article. Some of the letters to them are contained in chapter three of my book titled “For Present and Future Generations” published in 2010 and available at www.jonesharvest.com. I was totally ignored. I did not even receive acknowledgement. That Museveni or any of his advisers did not respond (when Museveni is criticized) confirms that silence means consent.
13. Because of these revelations implying that Museveni is a foreigner and he has not responded, it is fair to conclude that Museveni should not be re-elected. His re-election will surely make matters worse for indigenous Ugandans.