Message from UDU Chairman

Dear Members of UDU:

    Attached please find an essay explaining the nature, history and causes of our political problems in Uganda. The essay is long and therefore those of you who do not have time to go through the entire essay may choose to read the diagnosis and the prognosis. The prognosis will show you that democratization is far more complex and difficult than many of us have assumed; it involves more than removing a bad regime from power. Democratization involves changing the entire society. This is an issue I find many people have yet to understand. Our problems are more than Museveni.

    One of the problems Uganda is facing today is corruption. In my opinion there is no prospect of solving the problem of corruption in Uganda without regime change. I request that this problem be taken seriously and I would appreciate any comments from you on this subject. Because corruption is deeply institutionalized within the NRM regime democratization cannot take while NRM is in power.

Ugandans are hurting and demonstrating against the government

The sketchy sad news reaching us through the New Vision report of a police officer killed in the nation’s capital Kampala, use of tear gas to disperse demonstrators and arrest of opposition leaders including the president of FDC and the Mayor of Kampala. Since 2009 demonstrations are increasingly becoming common especially since the fraudulent presidential and parliamentary elections of 2011. It is important to realize that demonstrations take place to register that something is wrong and needs to be corrected by the authorities elected to represent the interests of the people who are sovereign.

In Uganda many things have gone wrong led by corruption and the situation is getting worse. The public’s outcry and advice from other sources have been ignored by the government. The economic crisis and the attendant unemployment of youth, hunger, disease and poverty have reached intolerable levels. The emergence of rare diseases affecting children including the nodding disease and the one deforming children limbs is a cause of deep concern. Market forces and the private sector are not equipped to address all these mushrooming problems. The state has to step in and ease the suffering of the people of Uganda.

Why are Ugandans fighting over Bachwezi and earth works in central Uganda?

Winds of trouble are gathering speed and are about to blow like a tornado across central Uganda over who Bachwezi are and who constructed the earthen works including those at Ntusi and Bigo in central Uganda. This quarrel would not have arisen if Europeans had not created the confusion. Through European race theories, blacks (Negroes) were described as people without civilizations. And as uncivilized, blacks had no history and darkness in which they lived was not a subject of history. So when Europeans visited what later became Uganda and found magnificent civilizations, they manufactured an explanation. They decided that these civilizations including earthen works in central Uganda must have been the work of Europeans. They looked at the physical features of Africans and found that Bahima had similar facial resemblance like them especially long and thin noses. They quickly concluded that Bahima were white people who created civilizations including earthen works. Europeans went further and explained that Bahima turned black because of strong tropical sum but were still lighter skinned than Negroes. From that time on Bahima and later their Batutsi cousins in Rwanda and Burundi and Batutsi/Bahororo in short lived Mpororo kingdom assumed that they were more intelligent and born leaders. Negroes were judged mentally inferior, physically unattractive and born to scratch the soil to earn a living and work for born leaders in return for protection. As uncivilized people blacks were reduced to crop cultivation. And Bahima were strictly cattle keepers, a symbol of civilization. Through indirect rule, colonialism enhanced the power of control of Bahima and Bahororo over Bantu people in southwest Uganda, a position they lost at the time of independence. They fought a guerrilla war to restore their dominance which has been extended to the entire country. Then came research findings that turned everything upside down or inside out whichever expression you prefer.

In Uganda land is a vital asset, source of wealth and symbol of prestige

We are writing these stories not because we are driven by radicalism or assertiveness as some people have suggested but because we want to save a bad situation from getting worse. For those who care to know two worrying developments are taking place in Uganda – land grabbing by foreigners and inferior education for indigenous population. These developments are reminiscent of the recently ended apartheid system in South Africa where the indigenous black population lost most of the land to the minority white population and got inferior education. It took almost one hundred years of struggle, abandoning education, loss of lives and long term prison sentences from 1912 to end this unjust system but the effects are still being felt. Let us examine the land issue as it relates to Uganda.

When we were growing up in poor families in southwest Uganda we were told again and again that our future was in education and not in tilling the land, a profession left for those who failed at school. To drive the point home we were punished at home and at school for whatever wrongdoing by doing agriculture work in school or family gardens. So Ugandans developed a dislike for agriculture and by extension land ownership. Educated people distanced themselves from rural areas and most would not even think of investing a small portion of their income in agriculture or rural development. Village life was something to be avoided.

Banyankole are not responsible for the suffering in Uganda

Accusations have increased in frequency and intensity that Banyankole have primary responsibility for the suffering being experienced in Uganda, implying punitive measures when the time comes. There were reports that after the brutal manner in which the demonstrators were handled in Kampala in 2009 by security forces, some people vowed that Banyankole would pay a commensurate price including innocent ones that had nothing to do with the disproportionate use of force. Anybody coming from southwest Uganda has been defined as a Munyankole and some of them have been assaulted. Banyankole are therefore wondering on which side to stand: with a tiny group of rulers from Ankole who are causing the chaos and suffering in Uganda or those who are opposed but have vowed to punish any Munyankole when the time comes.

Warnings have gone out that those who accuse Banyankole either in their individual capacity or as representatives of groups should check their facts first to avoid harming innocent people. Southwest Uganda has a complex history of rulers and ruled and of immigrants especially since the late 1950s who pose as Banyankole or Bakiga. We therefore need to know who is who from southwest Uganda and who is doing what. Without this disaggregated information innocent Banyankole and Bakiga or their properties may end up in trouble for nothing.

What Uganda needs to do to achieve political stability

Uganda is at a crossroads saddled with many challenges that are tearing the country apart and could lead to civil war. Those in power are blaming the opposition for causing trouble. Those in the opposition argue that government excesses are the root cause. There are two ways of sorting out the problem: fight until one group defeats the other or compromise and every Ugandan has a share in the fruits of independence. The history of England may give us a hint on the way forward.

During the middle ages, European monarchy and nobility engaged in a bitter struggle for power that resulted in absolute monarchy in France and constitutional government in England. In France the monarchy ruined the nobility through war. In England the king and the nobility agreed to share political power. They settled their disputes through compromise rather than head for total victory. King John for a time maintained his authority by using cruel methods with support of mercenaries. However, this method would not survive a serious crisis that erupted in 1214 as a result of financial crisis due to war. Because of the king’s despotism, the barons refused to help him out. In January 1215, taking advantage of his vulnerability, the barons presented the king with a series of demands for reform and end of despotism. With no support from his subjects the king signed the document in June 1215. The petition was written in Latin under the name of Magna Carta. The petition was translated into English and issued as the Great Charter. What were the landmarks in the Charter that could be emulated?

When people demand change, they can’t be stopped

I have followed and participated in Uganda politics since before independence. Those at Butobere, Ntare, Rukungiri, Nairobi, Berkeley (USA), Arusha, Brussels (Belgium), Addis Ababa, Lusaka and Mbabane (Swaziland) where I was born, studied or worked and now New York where I reside will recall the political discussions we had and are now having about the desire for Ugandans and Africans to take charge of their own destiny. The lesson I have learned is that when people are determined for change, they will get it regardless of the hurdles on the way. We used to hear that Africans were not ready for independence. They needed more time and guidance. They were like children beginning to walk or to ride a bicycle. Some even argued that people in Southern Africa would never be liberated in our lifetime. Ready or not, the people of Uganda and Africa pushed on and got independent.

NRM policies are ruining Uganda

Let me start with this statement by way of clearing the air. Some have raised questions, even written to me, about my motive for writing so much in so short a time: who is behind it, who are my research assistants and who is funding it? Some have even suggested that I am driven by a desire to unseat NRM government and President Museveni in particular; that I am too radical, too assertive, too sectarian.

Let me make it very clear and hopefully for the last time. Because I was uncomfortable with the way geography, economics, population and history were taught in senior secondary school and at the undergraduate university level – because what they taught did not match the situation on the ground where I was born and raised in southwest Uganda – I decided very early that I was going to study in a multidisciplinary fashion and do multidisciplinary research in order to understand the interconnections and correct distortions in those subjects. It is therefore not by accident that I studied geography, demography (population), economics, international law, international relations, sustainable development and world history. And because I did not want to be influenced by anybody in one way or another, I never asked for or accepted sponsorship, or mentor or research assistance. So I have worked alone to this point.

In Uganda land is a vital asset, source of wealth and symbol of prestige

We are writing these stories not because we are driven by radicalism or assertiveness as some people have suggested but because we want to save a bad situation from getting worse. For those who care to know two worrying developments are taking place in Uganda – land grabbing by foreigners and inferior education for indigenous population. These developments are reminiscent of the recently ended apartheid system in South Africa where the indigenous black population lost most of the land to the minority white population and got inferior education. It took almost one hundred years of struggle, abandoning education, loss of lives and long term prison sentences from 1912 to end this unjust system but the effects are still being felt. Let us examine the land issue as it relates to Uganda.

When we were growing up in poor families in southwest Uganda we were told again and again that our future was in education and not in tilling the land, a profession left for those who failed at school. To drive the point home we were punished at home and at school for whatever wrongdoing by doing agriculture work in school or family gardens. So Ugandans developed a dislike for agriculture and by extension land ownership. Educated people distanced themselves from rural areas and most would not even think of investing a small portion of their income in agriculture or rural development. Village life was something to be avoided.

Women that changed history and why – lessons for Uganda women

Ugandans especially women are impoverished, unemployed/underemployed, sick, functionally illiterate, tired, frustrated, hungry, many in exile, voiceless and powerless and understandably angry at the NRM regime that has created these outcomes since 1986 contrary to its promises because of wrong policies and uncaring dictatorship. Ugandans had hoped to change all this by defeating NRM at the 2011 presidential and parliamentary elections. But as the majority know and international observers reported there was lack of a level playing field and NRM stole the elections and formed an illegitimate government with over 70 ministers. Having lost faith in the ballot box, Ugandans are searching for a formula to unseat an illegitimate regime (some claim it is a legitimate government), establish a transitional government to organize free and fair multi-party elections.