Tag Archives: the

“War of the flea” tactics will send NRM into extinction

Ugandans with support of friends and well wishers should craft a strategy for defeating NRM that suits local conditions. We should not emulate Egyptians, Tunisians, Philippinos, Ethiopians and Iranians etc if circumstances in Uganda are different. However, we should draw lessons from their struggles. One lesson is very clear: they all overcame fear and sectarianism. Egyptian Muslims joined hands with Christians, for example. Similarly, Ugandans must overcome fear, selfishness and parochialism. We should be guided by modesty and truth, not lies and deception. We should put Uganda and the future of our children first so that they can live happier and fuller lives than we have because that is what development or modernization is supposed to be. We should use our comparative advantages because every Ugandan has something to offer in this post-2011 elections liberation struggle that has just begun. Furthermore, we should be pragmatic and not idealistic.

Read the full post
Posted on by

Who are genocidaires and victims in the Gt. Lakes region?

Museveni and I have disagreed on many issues in Uganda’s political economy discourse. However, we agree fully that to solve a problem we must get to the root cause (Y. K. Museveni 1989). I also agree with the late Samson Kisekka that education and mass media play crucial roles in public debates to take informed decisions (Samson Kisekka undated).

To solve Great Lakes problems in which Uganda is located we must accept that inter-ethnic conflicts are still alive and well. We also have to recognize that Batutsi from time immemorial have conflicted with other groups in Eastern DRC, Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda. However, addressing the problem is difficult because any mention of Batutsi wrongdoing leads to automatic accusations of inciting genocide against them by those who want the status quo that has favored them since 1994 be not disturbed.

Since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda Batutsi are seen as victims and others as genocidaires (genocidaire is a French word which means those who commit genocide). Genocide means committing any of the following actions with intent to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group:

1. Killing members of the group;

Read the full post
Posted on by

The difference between Uganda development processes and outcomes

As we assess Uganda’s progress over the last fifty years of independence, we need to draw a distinction between processes and real outcomes. Often governments have recorded processes as outcomes thereby giving themselves underserved credit. Let me clarify with a few illustrations beginning with gender which is a cross-cutting issue.

We all know that Uganda girls and women face serious challenges. In order to address them, NRM government set up a ministry of gender and has until the recent cabinet reshuffle appointed a woman as minister in charge of gender affairs. The creation of the ministry of gender should not be recorded as an outcome but as part of a process towards addressing gender challenges. In order to get to real outcomes we need to ask to what extent has the ministry helped to reduce maternal mortality and domestic violence; empower women through education and gainful employment to take independent decisions that affect the quality of their lives. That way you can measure real outcomes.

Read the full post
Posted on by

Telling the truth is costly – but necessary

I developed an inquisitive, listening and retention mind at an early age. People discussed all sorts of sensitive things in my presence thinking I was too young to understand. When I travelled by bus passengers talked freely and I obtained useful information. And I grew up in an atmosphere characterized by church gatherings that enabled me to hear incredible stories about human relations. My home village is strategically located and enabled me to gather information from Ankole, Rwanda, Burundi and Belgian Congo (now DRC). These stories mostly about brutal exploitation of the weak by the strong disturbed me – to say the least. As I grew up I witnessed some of these brutalities that continued under indirect colonial rule. Then I went to school and what we were taught (hunger, African laziness and too many children that cannot be fed properly) did not match most of what was happening on the ground at least in my home area. At times it was difficult for me to answer some questions or engage in discussions full of distortions. In some discussions I simply kept quiet or spoke in disagreement based on what I had heard. I decided early in my life that I would gather this information and share it at the right time. Thus, the information I am sharing with the public represents many years of accumulation from primary and secondary sources, checking and revising it as new information becomes available.

Read the full post
Posted on by

Revolutions succeed when the people are galvanized

There is sufficient evidence in time and space to confirm that when people are sufficiently galvanized and fully understand the causes of their pain, and who is benefitting from their sweat, they will revolt spontaneously. They only need a spark such as the enforcement of poll tax in England that led to a countrywide spontaneous revolt in 1381. In Rwanda, the Social Revolution of 1959 was sparked by Tutsi youth assault on a Hutu sub-chief. The introduction of Afrikaans in Black schools sparked student unrest that enhanced the demise of apartheid system in South Africa. The eviction of a dissident priest from his residence sparked a revolution that ended communist rule in Romania.

Galvanization of people takes place inside and outside the country. Archbishop Desmond Tutu galvanized Black South Africans from home. Oliver Tambo did so in exile. Civic organizations such as Solidarity in Poland and Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia galvanized their citizens from home. Radio Free Europe made a significant contribution to the 1989 Revolutions in Eastern and Central Europe from outside. In turn, the 1989 Revolutions influenced the introduction of multi-party politics in Africa.

Read the full post
Posted on by

Relevance of Obama’s speech to Uganda’s development challenges

As I listened and heard President Obama’s speech my mind raced to Uganda because much of what he said has relevance to Uganda’s development challenges. The relevant sections are presented below for Uganda and other readers.

My fellow citizens:

Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost, jobs shed, business shuttered. Our health care is too costly. Our schools fail too many. And each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of the scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.

The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit, to choose our better history, to carry forward that precious gift, the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions, that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

Read the full post
Posted on by

If we don’t rise above sub-nationalism, Uganda development will remain stunted

Since I joined Uganda political debates, I have been concerned about the degree of sub-nationalism, albeit subsiding. I had hoped that the suffering we have experienced as a nation, not as individual regions or families, would bring us closer together to forge a common front, liberate ourselves and lay a strong foundation for sustainable peace, stability, security, prosperity, equity and happiness for all Ugandans. I was invited to co-host an English program on Radio Munansi. As the debates proceeded we began to lose focus on the country as a whole and drifted into sub-nationalism accusing one region for all the troubles in Uganda and vowing not to allow another national leader from there. Thankfully, others stepped in and we resumed the national debate. Based on the information we gathered among Ugandans at home and abroad and friends and well wishers, a consensus emerged that opposition groups needed to come together under one umbrella and speak with one voice for efficiency and effectiveness. Another consensus emerged that we should use our respective talents, expertise and experiences in a mutually reinforcing manner, regardless of region, religion, ethnicity, gender, age and size, etc.

Read the full post
Posted on by

Guns don’t make peace, secure people do

When military leaders overthrew governments in the Horn of Africa and Great Lakes region beginning with Yoweri Museveni in Uganda in 1986, those who didn’t understand their real motives quickly christened them a new breed of African leaders in search of peace, democracy and development led by private sector and market forces. The new leaders hired lobbyists in western capitals and received support from sympathetic reporters especially after the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. In Rwanda, Bahutu were depicted as “bad guys” behaving like wild beasts that should be punished en masse. And Bahutu were hunted down with millions of lives lost in jungles and in camps of displaced persons. Reports of atrocities perpetrated by Rwanda and Uganda were ignored by the international community or issued statements of condemnation that were meaningless without the force of law.

Read the full post
Posted on by

NRM government finally admits development failure

We should all congratulate the government for admitting, like the IMF and the World Bank before it, that mistakes had been made in Uganda’s development efforts. This is a wise move and there should be no regrets about it. When President Museveni addressed the United Nations General Assembly on September 23, 2009 and said in part “We have started doing what we had left undone for a long time…” I got a sense that the government had finally admitted the failure of its development model. This was confirmed a few days later when ministers and permanent secretaries acknowledged at a retreat that the development model pursued since 1987 had failed to produce the desired results.

When former President Pinochet whose government was the first to introduce structural adjustment in 1973 with ‘Chicago Boys’ (Chilean economists who had been trained at the University of Chicago in USA) and advice of the late Milton Friedman, father of monetarism, realized that the policy was not working he made a bold move. He dismissed the entire team of Chicago boys, appointed a new minister of finance and recast the development model by combining state and private sector in a new development agenda. The recessions ended and the economy has been doing very well since then. So what should Uganda stakeholders do?

Read the full post
Posted on by

Globalization and re-colonization of Uganda

During the 2004 hearings by the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization, many African participants equated globalization with the re-colonization of Africa. Many Ugandans believe that Uganda which was never fully de-colonized has already been re-colonized since entering into structural adjustment with the IMF in 1981.

In order to appreciate that re-colonization has actually occurred, one needs to understand what the objectives of colonialism were. They were to secure a strategic advantage, evangelize the natives and obtain tropical raw materials and food for British industries and population respectively and land for surplus British population; and finally markets for manufactured products.

Britain, France, Germany and Belgium conflicted over the control of areas that eventually became Uganda. The agreement between Germany and Britain involving Heligoland is well known as is the Fashoda incident between Britain and France. The interests of White settlers in Kenya and Egypt’s reliance on the waters of the Nile affected the final shape and size of Uganda. Ultimately Uganda lost big chunks of land in the east and the north to Kenya and Sudan respectively. In the south and west of Uganda land was also exchanged among Germany, Belgium and Uganda. Uganda remains a battleground for old and new colonizers as a gateway to the Great Lakes region and the Horn of Africa. During the cold war era, Uganda sat at the intersection between the ‘red’ and ‘blue’ belt states that contributed to the 1971 coup.

Read the full post
Posted on by