Monday, December 28, 2009

Opposition Leader Survives Strange accident in Uganda



Last Monday, 21 December 2009, former UN Undersecretary General for Children and Armed Conflict, Olara Otunnu, survived a spectacularly “unusual” road “accident” that only a Hollywood action flick could conjure. Everything about the accident, as Dr. Otunnu characterised it in a press conference later that afternoon, was “unusual.”


Strangely, New Vision, the state owned daily, was the first to break the story. Capt. Edison Kwesiga, the PGB spokesperson was quoted to have said that Otunnu’s vehicle was over speeding, hit one of the military jeeps, then an anthill, and veered off the road into the bushes. Contrarily, I have seen video footages of the accident scene, shot by an American journalist who was traveling in Otunnu’s car, which shows a straight road without any anthills in site, but tall grass, mango bushes and shrubs.
Another military spokesman, Capt. Ronald Kakurunguhe, of the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF)-a force that has lost out to the PGB on the favorites game and is treated like the cat that ate the family canary-was quoted by Daily Monitor to have said the PGB could not have contrived to harm Otunnu, because it was the soldiers who helped pull Otunnu’s car out of the bushes and back onto the road.


At the press conference, Otunnu and the team traveling with him narrated that about 0930 hours or thereabout, they came upon a convoy of military vehicles at Minakulu. A couple or so of other vehicles ahead of them signaled and were given the go ahead to overtake the stationary or slow moving Phalanx of military wares. As they approached, Otunnu’s party too signaled to be let by, and they were accordingly given the sign to drive past. No sooner had they gone by two of the seven vehicles, when the third military truck pulled out of the formation to block their way. Otunnu’s driver attempted a manoeuvre to avoid high impact collision, but was also promptly blocked by the second car which moved to cut them off.


Meanwhile, the first car they had passed, a heavy military truck, was veering at them without any apparent intention to stop. Sensing danger and a cat and mouse like drama akin to The Search For Red October, Otunnu’s driver exploited a small gap between the barricading cars, climbed over the embankment, avoiding a crowd of children and people burning charcoal, and came to a stop under a mango bush. Once stopped, they were surrounded by more than thirty PGB soldiers, brandishing weapons and shouting Otunnu’s name, the name of one of the men in his security team, and that of the American journalist. At this point, villagers, witnessing the drama, abandoned their charcoal pits, tending their fields and whatever else they were doing in the vicinity, to inquire what had so terribly disturbed the quiet and tranquility of their still sleepy village.


Not cowed by the sight of menacing military men with their guns trained on hapless civilians, villagers exasperatedly demanded to know what had befallen Otunnu. Once he emerged from the banged-up vehicle, they questioned what the men in uniform had done or wanted to do to him.


Confronted by Otunnu and his party why guns were being pointed at them, who were they and who their commander was, the cats apparently took the tongues of the Doberman pinschers.  At which point, they started to strip off their Velcro name tags, while lamely accusing Otunnu’s party of ramming their vehicles. Significantly, the soldiers never said Otunnu’s driver was speeding or being driven recklessly. Instead, one of the PGB corporals was awed by the skills and maneuvers of Otunnu’s driver, asking in wonderment, where on earth the man learnt his driving skills! Perhaps they thought there would be no escape? As Otunnu has implored, I will stick to the facts and sequences of events, and avoid speculations.


Another thing of interest is that, the soldiers blocked Otunnu’s cameraman from filming the scene of the accident. At one point, they grabbed the cameraman and wanted to bundle him into their car and confiscate his equipment, but travelers in a Kampala-bound bus who recognized Otunnu and his entourage, jumped out of their bus like rats scurrying from a fire, to tussle and rescue the cameraman, the camera and all from the grasp of armed PGB boys!
Realizing that the police and the press had been called and were on their way to the scene of the accident, the two cars that had blocked Otunnu’s land cruiser were moved from the middle to the side of the road. As well, four of the military vehicles that  were part of the convoy and incident, dashed off towards Gulu, instead of proceeding as they had been headed.


Shortly afterwards, a PGB van that had earlier fled the scene of the “accident”, returned. When Otunnu and his party transferred into a bus and left for Kampala, with his damaged car hobbling along, the PGB boys were left still camped in the bushes of Minakulu, like a flock of scavenger birds disappointed they had arrived too late after a swarm of locusts had flown off.
Indeed, as Olara Otunnu has emphasized in his press conference and interviews, the “accident” was “unusual” by all accounts.
First, the “accident” was “unusual” partly because it involved members of the elite Presidential Guard Brigade (PGB), Dictator Yoweri Museveni’s Doberman Pinschers-ferocious , aggressive, intimidating, fearless curs; loyal and protective of the master, at the sound of whose voice, they obsequiously spring to action.


Second, whenever the president goes upcountry, by air or by road, it is normal practice to see the PGB personnel scurry away at breakneck speed to get back to base, once the head of state concludes his visit and departs. Sometimes, the hurried pace at which they leave a venue, airfield, or heliport, leave you wondering whether they are under stern instructions to get back to Entebbe or Kampala, before the helicopter bearing their boss does.
Third, on this particular Sunday of 20th December 2009, eye witnesses at Gulu Caltex petrol station had observed a part of the PGB troops leave town that evening unhurried. Early travelers on the Gulu-Kampala highway early morning of Monday 21st December 2009 thought they passed what they remembered as a stationary convoy of military vehicles similar to the ones described to have been involved in the “accident” at or close to the place of the mishap. The question is, why did the troops uncharacteristicall y stay back in Gulu or slept by the roadside?
Fourth, eye witnesses at the coronation of the bishop of Northern Uganda diocese, which the president attended, observed that all the PGB vehicles in the president’s convoy on Sunday had number plates prefixed by “UG.”


However, at the scene of the accident on Monday morning, all the vehicles had their registration plates removed or missing. Similarly, all the PGB personnel at the venue on Sunday the day before wore name tags, but at the scene of the accident at Minakulu, none of them wore name tags. One might be tempted to think that may be these were a different group or a group of “unknown gunmen in uniform.”  Fortunately or unfortunately, one of the PGB boy who was overzealous about cameras at the church the previous day, had actually personally blocked Otunnu’s cameraman from taking his equipment onto the grounds of the church where the coronation took place. As Otunnu quizzed them for their names, they began to give fictitious names but the cameraman remembered one particular soldier who gave a different name from the one he recalled from his name tag the previous day at the church.


Finally, if Otunnu’s driver drove recklessly, hit a military vehicle, hit an anthill and came to a stop in the bushes, why would soldiers who are rushing to help-if we are foolish enough to believe Captains Kwesiga and Kakurunguhe- point guns at citizens who might be injured and staggering out shocked and dazed?  Where were their name tags, vehicle number plates, and why did they remain behind, captains?
By Okello Lucima

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Commercializing Acholi Children's Suffering



[Justice Or Commerce?]
By Juliane Okot Bitek


On Saturday, April 25th people from 100 cities all over North America  "abducted themselves" as part of an awareness campaign and fundraiser for the children of Northern Uganda.
Invisible Children, the award-winning organization behind this stunt asked that people download a rescue packet http://therescue.invisiblechildren.com/graphics/The-Rescue-Manual.pdf and follow the instructions.
Invisible Children have long recognized the fundraising fatigue that is slowly sapping the strength of a public that is increasingly being bombarded by more and more emotional appeals to their pockets.
Founded in 2005, Invisible Children has raised plenty of money through their unusual tactics. Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey and Laren Poole, the young men behind Invisible Children have inspired thousands of young people to sleep on the streets as they did on the 2006 "Global Night Commute" that reportedly attracted well over 80,000 people all over the United States according to the press releases on their website.
http://www.invisiblechildren.com/news&press/pressreleases/detail.php?pID=1369399200
In 2007, these activists "displaced themselves" along with 68,000 other people in San Diego. This year, Invisible Children has organized the 100 cities campaign.
There is little doubt that the Invisible Children have done much good for the children of Northern Uganda. Their efforts, like the Canadian founded GuluWalk has raised awareness of the appalling situation in the northern part of Uganda.
Yet, things are never as simple as they look.
For the most part, there is another invisible crowd of people, who are an integral part of the Acholi story that is largely unvoiced and disconnected from these well-meaning organizations.
I joined the facebook Invisible Children for the Vancouver chapter and asked if there has been any contact with the Acholi community here. I’m waiting for a response. During last year’s Guluwalk, I was the single Acholi participant in the small group of walkers who went through Stanly Park in an effort to keep the awareness level up.
The importance of having the input of the Acholi in the Diaspora is that they are as well-connected and closely related to the children that are abducted. In my particular case, some of the abducted children are related to me through bloodline and through kin.

It hurts immensely to watch commercialism take over in a bid to garner the interests and involvement of young people in the campaigns. The British Red Cross has joined in the fray by producing a game that allows players to become 16-year-old Joseph who "has one goal – to find out from the Red Cross if his mother is dead or alive."
"Click here to play," the website invites.
 To play.

Reducing the horrific experiences of hundreds of thousands of young Ugandans down to a game is unconscionable. To ask thousands of young people to pretend that they can "abduct themselves" into creating a new reality for the children in the northern Uganda is more than appalling – it is manipulative and undermines the horror of the last two decades of suffering over there.

One wonders if such theatrics are reserved for African settings; would anyone in the United States dare to create similar gimmicks to highlight the suffering of the victims of Katrina in New Orleans?

Ironically, the theatrics seem to work. Invisible Children have harnessed the technological savvy of the younger generation in order to empower them into finding meaning outside their lives.

Indeed, the founders of Invisible Children were three "normal" guys in California who loved surfing, playing sports and goofing around. They also loved making movies. So, in the quintessential Hollywood manner, they went off on an African adventure and decided that the situation in Acholi was intolerable. They went all the way to Garamba National Park where they claim they were allowed to film the on-going peace process late last year.

According to their website the natural progression of things begun from their initial interest in the northern part of Uganda and Joseph Kony, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) leader. The peace talks ultimately collapsed in December 2008.

According to the BBC, indications are that the governments of Sudan, Uganda and Congo were never interested in the talks



There have been several attempts to end the Uganda conflict, including one headed by Betty Bigombe in 2004; then there was the recently aborted Juba Peace Talks; I attended a session in Juba in March 2007 that was sponsored by the Danish government, the United Nations and the government of Southern Sudan.
All have failed.
The people in the northern part of Uganda have suffered at the hands of the LRA; and, the failure of the Ugandan government to protect them while their plight has largely been ignored by the international community.
As Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court wonders in one of the Invisible Children videos: "Who has interest in the Ugandans; in the Acholis? They have no oil, nothing to win, so how much effort do we have out there? Not a lot. So just as you are moving there, they will put efforts."
Moreno-Ocampo might not have been aware of the mineral riches in Acholi at the time of his interview. Within the last year, first grade oil reserves have been discovered in Acholi’s Amuru region. There are now fears that, because of this new found potential wealth, things could worsen, if the government continues to oppress and deprive the Acholi, fuelling the kind of insurrection we see in Nigeria’s Ogoni region.
Perhaps it is not so sad that the efforts are strengthened by the organizations like the Invisible Children. Perhaps it is not so heartbreaking that because of their work, and evidence of their passion in harnessing technology, the children in the northern part of Uganda will finally be recognized as people who deserve a better chance at life.

Ironically, the northern part of Uganda is extremely fertile and should never even be a charity case. Acholi-land is a fertile stretch where food is harvested twice a year. Before thousands of mango trees were cut down by the government during the war against the LRA, several varieties of mangoes grew in Acholi.
Sorghum, rice, millet groundnuts, potatoes, banana, oranges, grapefruit, sheanut, palm, cotton, and even vanilla are abundant in Acholi. Everything grows over there.
Children in Uganda outside of Kony’s miserable army in the Congo still suffer terribly even with the backdrop of sorghum ready for the harvest and banana trees swaying in the distance.
I received this link in my facebook http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v7ZQUzr0yo

It shows a video of two undernourished and abandoned siblings lying outside in the dusty homestead. It is evident that both brother and sister, Sam and Esther, have been dragging themselves in circles, creating circular macabre sand angels with their little bodies because they do not have the energy to drag themselves forward, only around and around on the same spot. Both are too weak to get up when a camera crew from the San Damiano Foundation happened upon them in Serere, eastern Uganda.

So even with the good they accomplish, I do have concerns with Invisible Children going in, Rambo-style. I feel sad knowing that the best intentions of this organization as with others that are alike, there is a refusal to recognize that there is something gruesome behind these antics: sleeping in the streets; "displacing" one’s self; and, now "abducting" one’s self in solidarity with the children in the northern part of Uganda.
At whose expense does it come?
A whole generation of Acholi was born and grew up to adulthood in the government-created camps for internally displaced people. For years they were dying at the rate of 1,000 per week according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and in plain view of the rest of the world.
This generation has grown up without the strong Acholi culture that for generations held the people together with their traditional values. I have not even begun to think about the 30,000 children who have not been accounted for over the years. What kind of people can come through this unscathed?

Ours will take many generations to heal from the legacy of Joseph Kony, the LRA and the Uganda government that failed to protect its own people; as well as the rest of the world that watched in silence.
Let no "self abduction," or any other antics deceive anyone that this is all it takes.
To learn more about the Acholi calamity:


For Invisible Children information on the upcoming ‘abduction’:

Juliane Okot Bitek is an Acholi woman living in Vancouver, Canada. She writes as she lives, thinking about a place to call home much of the time.
Original story from Black Star News

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Africa should stop blaming the white man for her problems.

It is always easier to find some one to blame when things go wrong. At least it lets us off the hook so we do not have to take the responsibility for what may have gone wrong. In Africa we have always blamed the colonialists for the problems we have heard over the years.
True the colonialists sucked the continent and gave little or nothing back. The took our natural resources for free including labor, unfairly divided up the continent into blocks (countries) with out regard to the cultural local backgrounds. When they had had their fill they dropped the continent like a hot potato and run.


With all this in mind we have had almost half of a century to prove that we can manage our affairs. And look what a mess we have done.
At least during the colonial era the infrastructure that they built was well maintained and functional. Corruption was almost unheard of. The schools and hospitals were well supplied. The British built the Uganda railway and the Ugandans run it into the ground. Ugandans finally decided to sell the Railway line to foreigners. If foreign investment is interested in the venture it means it’s a profitable one. Couldn’t Ugandans figure this out?


Take a look at the genocide in Rwanda 1994. The Belgians were blamed for pulling out right before the atrocities started but they did not commit these crimes! Instead it was the Hutu who went against the Tutsis with machetes slaughtering men, women and children like dogs. The UN should have moved quickly to protect the people! But protect them from whom? Their fellow countrymen, sons, brothers and husbands!


We cannot forget the crisis in Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe who has earned himself a reputation of a world-renowned dictator just like Idi Amin. Mugabe started out as a promising statesman for his nation and the continent at large. Some where along the way things changed! He went from nationalizing private farms, rampant corruption to rigging elections. The list goes on and on. One thing I never seem to understand about African leaders they all turn out the same no matter where they came from or how promising they start out. They say that ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’ indeed take a look around the continent starting at home. Museveni has been in power for over 20 years, Kamuzu Banda of Malawi declared him self-life president, Daniel Arap Moi of Kenya, Sani Abacha of Nigeria, and Ahmed Bokassa of central Africa, Said Mohamed Barre of Somalia. The list goes on and on.


If only Africa had more Presidents like Nelson Mandela who had more sense to let go of power and relinquish it back to the people, may be we would see better days. But then, ‘if wishes were horses…’


That’s just the presidents. Every African is a responsible in someway for this pathetic situation on the continent. Take for instance those that give the bribes are as responsible as those that receive them. The indifference of many people on the continent is also a big fact that allows the perpetrators to go unchecked. There is no spirit of nationalism among Africans.


Some 1.5 million rapes occur in South Africa each year - one of the highest rates in the world, reports BBC News 10 June 2005.
Corruption in Africa is costing the continent nearly $150bn a year reports BBC News 09/18/ 2002.
The cost of conflict on African development was approximately $300bn between 1990 and 2005 Reported Oxfam International 10/11/2007.
Geneva - Sexual atrocities in Congo’s volatile province of South Kivu extend “far beyond rape” and include sexual slavery, forced incest and cannibalism, a U.N. human rights expert said Monday. Reported MSNBC.com 07/30/2007.
How dare we point a finger the white man when we are doing this to our children?


Why do we always look at the rest of the world to come and help us solve our internal problems?
Why is it the UN’s responsibility to send in peacekeepers to stop us from killing each other?


If it is indeed the White man,s fault, then how do we explain the steady decline of almost all countries in Africa from the time of independence up today?
By 1962 Ugandans enjoyed a per capita income of $160 (www.populstat.info/Africa/ugandag ) While their south Korean counterparts enjoyed a per capita income of $87. http://www.links.jstor.org/.
Rather shockingly by 2007 Ugandans now enjoy a per capita income of $1900 information provided by the CIA world fact book. The Korea times reported on November 4th, 07 ‘South Korea's per-capita gross national income (GNI) is projected to exceed $20,000’.


We always think that it is some one else’s duty to clean our house when we live in it.

WHAT MAKES U AN "AFRICAN"???

1. You unwrap all your gifts carefully, so that you can reuse the
wrapper.

 2. You call a person you've never met before uncle or aunt.
 
 

 3.   More than 90% of the music CD's and cassettes in your home are illegal copies

 4. Your garage is always full of stuff because you never throw anything away, just in case you need it someday.(a gum boot without a partner and the baby walker - baby's now 12 and you are 48)

 5. You have a collection of miniature shampoo bottle from your stays at hotels.

 6. You have almost always carry overweight baggage when traveling by plane.

 7. If a store has a limit on the quantity of a
 product, then each member of the family will join separate queues to purchase the maximum quantity possible. (sugar,soap,rice,cooking fat etc etc during old good days)

 8. All children have annoying nicknames.

 9. Nobody in your family informs you that they are coming over for a visit. ( uncle, wife, sis-in-law, two nephews and a neighbor) have camped at home.

 10. You stuff your pockets with, mints and toothpicks at restaurants. ( Murray mints, wrappers, and salt shakers!)

 11. Your mother has a minor disagreement with her sister and does not talk to her for 10 years.

 12. You only make telephone calls at a cheaper rate at night (especially beepers).

 13. You never have less than 20 people to meet you at the airport or see you off even if it is a local flight.

14. You keep changing your Internet Service Provide
 because the first month is free. (I know some people O!.....)

 15. Office supplies mysteriously find their way to your home.(Yes,staple machine, office pins, punch machine, tapes, post-it pads,etc.)

 16. When you are young, your parents buy you clothes and shoes at least two sizes too big so that they would last longer.

 Note: Pass it on to other Africans, so they can know what truly makes them African

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Can Kenya Feed Her Population?


It is the Chinese in an old but very enduring adage who defined insanity as that act of doing same thing the same way and expecting different results.
Picture from www.theodora.com
 

Yet when it comes to policy making and the management of public finance, Kenya appears to have thrown all caution to the wind in favor of collective insanity.
One only needs to look at how the government continues to handle the life and death issue that is food security to confirm this. It has been proven time and again that nothing determines the fate of Kenya's economic welfare more than having enough food to feed the population.


As the severe drought in recent months clearly demonstrated, Kenya can dream of the highest skyscrapers this side of the planet, run an efficient financial system, build the best roads network and run a world class technology platform but its economy won't fly unless it is able to feed its population. Having millions of people starving within its borders is -- to say the least -- not only an economic issue but a major social upheaval that exposes the entire country to ridicule. It makes anyone out there who wants to feel good and talk nice about his or her motherland look hollow and pretentious and really just shows how much energy we spend pursuing the wrong priorities.


Take the current situation as an example. Food experts warn that because of the less than expected short rains, the national agricultural output in the key cereals segment will be just 60 per cent of what is needed to feed the country.
That means come next year, the government will have to spend billions of shillings on food imports to avoid a calamity of the scale we have just come out of. But nothing in the government expenditure plans reflects this reality. No one is even going to pay attention to it any time soon until gruesome reports of starving citizens start hitting the front pages of newspapers and TV screens.


In the mean time, the government is going to keep the citizens busy with news of its heavy investments in the non-productive sectors that are mostly cash cows for the political elite. It will continue pursuing hollow dreams such as banking the millions of the unbanked segments of the population, set up digital villages that will turn the country into Africa's ICT hub by linking the rural folk to the world and other dreams of similar grandeur. Never mind that those it wants to bank and hook onto the web will be fighting to access basic needs such as food, shelter, and clothing.


Someone needs to tell folks at Treasury that the national budget needs to start reflecting the realities of our economy and our priorities.
Relevant Links
    * East Africa
    * Kenya
    * Business
    * Food and Agriculture
    * Sustainable Development
That we cannot afford to continue giving an impression in the budget that we need to invest more in state security apparatus than we need to do in food security. The political and bureaucratic elite needs to be told that not even enacting a new constitution will do the country as much good as attaining food sufficiency and producing a surplus to sell to the world - especially in the coming years when commodity prices are expected to rise sharply offering farmers the best chance ever to boost their earnings.


With the climate change pressure expected to continue building up in favor of green energy, there can be no better place to invest than in agriculture. Kenya must do so to serve the dual objectives of ensuring food security and earning the money we need to build good roads, equip our schools and hospitals and run world class technology.

Original Story From www.allafrica.com

United States to Help Uganda Fight Rebels

US to help fight Lord's Resistance Army
Monday, 14th December, 2009 E-mail article   Print article
By Wokorach-Oboi

THE United States will cooperate with Uganda to fight the lord’s resistance army (LRA) rebels. The US ambassador, Jerry Lanier, said his government made a commitment to support the peace process in Uganda and would continue to honor it until total peace is realized.

He added that the US would also support Uganda in its quest for peace in Somalia.

He was responding to a request by the Kitgum resident district commissioner, Alfred Omony Ogaba, to the US and the international community to help eliminate the rebels.

“We are grateful that your efforts on Joseph Kony have brought peace to northern Uganda,” Ogaba said.

He noted that although Kony is not in Uganda, he is still at large in the great lakes region and is destabilising peace and destroying lives and property there.
Ogaba appealed to the international community to help Sudan cope with its instability, arguing that if Sudan was not stable, its neighbors would not be peaceful either.

Lanier was on Friday presiding over the inauguration of Agoro Modern Market and Agricultural Store, built by Northern Uganda Transition Initiative.

The facilities are part of the US government’s contribution to the economic recovery of the war-ravaged region.

The US is supporting farmers by increasing their access to agricuktural-business knowledge, improving the trading environment and markets through collective marketing committees.

“The hard work of rebuilding this land lies with you. Your effort gives us every reason to be confident that you will continue to rehabilitate your lives and that you will succeed,” the ambassador said.

He added that he was glad most people had left IDP camps and were engaging in productive activities.

The Kitgum district chairman, John Komakech Ogwok, commended the US government for the support extended to them.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Dictator Museveni, Now for Gay Executions

[Publisher's Commentary: Africa]

Gay-bashing has reached unprecedented heights in the East African country of Uganda, eliciting a global outcry.

There, the country's dictator, General Yoweri K. Museveni, is promoting a Bill that would make "homosexual acts" punishable by death. After worldwide condemnation, there's now talk that the death sentence proposal may be toned down and replaced withlife imprisonment for "serial homosexual activity."

General Museveni's proposed pogrom against homosexuals --for that is what such a Bill amounts to-- is part of this U.S.-backed dictator's demonization strategy as he prepares for the 2011 presidential election campaign in Uganda.

General Museveni is one of the most divisive presidents in Africa. Yet his regime has been subsidized by the International community, including successive U.S. Administrations since Ronald Reagan's because he does the West's dirty job in Africa. Right now, he acts as policeman in Somalia, on behalf of the United States, stationing 5,000 Ugandan troops there. By arguing that he's a bulwark against the "dreaded Islamic terror," he's hoping that the Obama Administration --as have previous U.S. governments- - will extend his lease on tyranny in Uganda. His regime, based on one-man rule, is exactly the type of tyranny that President Obama decried in his Accra, Ghana, speech.

General Museveni has used campaigns of terror and demonization to survive for 23-years in power. Homosexuals just happen to be the latest "ogres" in Uganda. Museveni has elevated the art of divide-and-rule beyond Machiavellian heights.

Museveni seized power in 1986, after he scuttled a power-sharing peace deal he had negotiated with the provisional junta of the day. His immediate target was Uganda's ethnic Acholis, whose ancestral homeland is in the northern part of Uganda; those areas have been in the news lately, not for the continued suffering of its populace, but for the rich oil finds.

Acholis had traditionally provided the bulk of the military establishment, dating back to British colonial rule. Museveni's first bogeymen were people from the north. This was Museveni's position:

Infamous dictator Idi Amin had come from the north, as had former president Milton Obote; since Acholis were also from the north, all of Uganda's woes, including economic collapse and recurrent massacres, could be blamed on the "northern scourge."

Notwithstanding the fact that Acholis had borne the brunt of Amin's massacres, in numerous declarations, Museveni and his officials demonized Acholis and other ethnic peoples from the northern part of Uganda as enemies of the state.

Officials of Museveni's then Maoist National Resistance Movement (NRM) regime even played on skin complexion, using racist ideology to depict Acholis, who tend to be darker hued, as inferior and vicious brutes. A Museveni official infamously declared that in Uganda there were human beings as well as "biological substances"; Acholis belonged in the latter category.

So effective was the demonization that even today, the suffering of millions of Acholis is marginalized by the International community as the "northern Uganda problem," thereby prolonging the calamity.

Later, the brutality of Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) provided Museveni with another bogeyman. The LRA had become notorious for kidnappings of children to boost its ranks; ironically, the United Nations reported that Museveni also boosted his army by recruiting child soldiers. Deserters from Museveni's army said they too mutilated civilians and blamed it on the discredited LRA. Yet the most macabre abuse against Acholis by Museveni's soldiers started in the late 1980s when reports started emerging that soldiers in his army, including those known to be HIV-positive started raping civilians, including men --which was then unheard of. (After Uganda's invasion and occupation of Congo, the abominable use of targeted rapes, including of men, as instrument of terror has spread there).

General Museveni has mastered the skill of using the LRA's crimes to shift attention away from his own genocide against Acholis and militarism elsewhere in Africa. He has used paid lobbyists such as the Whitaker Group in Washington, D.C., operated by Rosa Whitaker --the lobbyist now also has the services of Jendayi Frazer, former Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for Africa under George W. Bush-- as well as sinister "non governmental organizations" such as Resolve! as well as The Enough Project. Through these apologists, General Museveni has won sympathetic ears in the U.S. Congress.

Isn't it ironic that even as lawmakers from Museveni's NRM party seek to make homosexuality punishable by death in Uganda, two U.S. Senators --Russ Feingold and Sam Brownback-- persuaded by Whitaker, Resolve! and Enough Project, have sponsored a Bill (H.R. 2478) that would authorize the U.S. military to partner with Museveni's army to go after the LRA? Even if such a Bill were to pass it would run into problems: the Leahy Amendment bars such cooperation with countries whose army engages in torture. Human Rights Watch earlier this year released a scathing report against Uganda's military establishment.

www.hrw.org/ en/news/2009/ 04/08/uganda- end-torture- anti-terror- unit

Kony in reality is the embodiment and manifestation of two decades of tyranny under General Museveni. Museveni preceded Kony; not the other way around. They are two sides of the same coin and Uganda would be better off with both Museveni and Kony before the International Criminal Court at the Hague.

Beginning in 1986, and reaching a zenith in 1996, General Museveni began herding two million Acholi civilians into concentration camps euphemistically referred to as "Internally Displaced People's Camps" (IDPs). The "displacement" was orchestrated by government order, with leaflets dropped from military helicopters, warning villagers who did not abandon their homes that they would be killed. Homes and granaries were destroyed, millions of live stocks looted by soldiers, and civilians who resisted the displacement to the camps were killed.

Acholis, who once provided food to much of the country and most of Southern Sudan, were reduced to dependency on handouts from the World Food Program; alcoholism, prostitution, and suicides, became widespread.

According to a 2005 study by the World Health Organization (WHO) in conjunction with Uganda's own Ministry of Health, up to 1,000 civilians per week were dying of hunger, dehydration and treatable diseases in these camps; so, as many as 52,000 Acholis per year were dying in these government created and "protected" camps, from hunger and diseases. This translates into more than half a million civilians over a decade; and perhaps more than a million in the 23 years of that "conflict." The LRA's kill rates pale miserably when compared to the Museveni regime's.


http://www.who. int/hac/crises/ uga/sitreps/ Ugandamortsurvey .pdf

Nary a word of condemnation from the International community, the so-called "human rights" organizations, and major media, including The New York Times, a major Museveni apologist.

Yet Ugandans aren't buying Museveni's depiction of Acholis as "ogres" anymore. Serious threat to his tyranny now comes from "Southerners." In September this year, when General Museveni sought to curb the influence of Kabaka Ronald Mutebi, the powerful monarch whom the Baganda ethnic group revere, there were demonstrations in Kampala, the capital. Museveni's U.S.-trained and equipped forces violently suppressed the protests, killing dozens of civilians.

There was only tepid reaction by Washington.

The victims of General Museveni's untrammeled militarism aren't confined to Uganda. In 2005 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found Uganda liable for war crimes and pillage in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where five million people died during Uganda's occupation of parts of that country. The ICJ recommended $10 billion in compensation to Congo.

http://www.icj- cij.org/docket/ files/116/ 10455.pdf


What's more, The Wall Street Journal reported in a front page story on June 8, 2006, that the International Criminal Court (ICC) had also opened its own investigation. Were it not for the fact that the ICC's prosecutor Moreno Ocampo, is professionally corrupt --his colleagues protested when he appeared at a joint news conference with Museveni to denounce Kony even though Museveni himself was a potential suspect according to The Wall Street Journal article-- the Ugandan president might have been indicted for crimes against humanity by now. He was indeed fearful--The Wall Street Journal reported that he pleaded with then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to block the ICC investigation.

As it is, the U.S. government, and major media outlets such as The New York Times and BBC, ignore Museveni's crimes in both Uganda and Congo, while condemning Sudan's Omar al Bashir and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe. How was he rewarded after the Congo genocide? In December the United State's supported Uganda's bid in the United Nations and the Museveni regime now occupies a seat on the UN Security Council--the very body that determines how to pursue the ICC investigation of the alleged crimes in Congo by Museveni's army. Just last week U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Johnnie Carson, sang Museveni's praises in an appearance on the Voice of America's "Straight Talk Africa," show. Meanwhile the U.N. had just released a report showing how Uganda's smuggling of gold from Congo fuels continued massacres there. The duplicity is revolting.

http://online. wsj.com/article/ SB12596356245277 0749.html
Now just over one year away from the 2011 presidential elections in Uganda, General Museveni has found new bogeymen; homosexuals.

He knows that homophobia can be widely exploited in a relatively conservative country such as Uganda. Moreover, the timing of his vilification of homosexuals is no coincidence. During the 2001 elections, General Museveni vilified his opponent, Dr. Kizza Besigye, leader of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC). Notwithstanding that they were once allies in the NRM and that Dr. Besigye had been his personal physician, General Museveni denounced him as unfit to rule. Why? He claimed Dr. Besigye was HIV-positive and had Aids. The morally reprehensible accusations by a national president, who fraudulently markets himself to the International community as a champion of Aids victims, was ignored by major news outlets. Ultimately, General Museveni stole elections from Dr. Besigye in 2001 and again in 2006.

Gay demonization is the latest weapon in Museveni's election arsenal.  In August this year, a top Ugandan statesman and diplomat who may also seek the presidency, Olara Otunnu, returned there after 23 years. When Otunnu, who in the past has been a Ugandan foreign affairs minister and more recently United Nations Under Secretary General for children in conflict areas, was greeted by thousands of Ugandans, the Museveni government backed off from threats that he would be arrested for sedition. Otunnu's alleged crime? During his 2005 Sydney Peace Prize acceptance lecture, he had decried the genocide against Acholis in the concentration camps.

http://www.sydneype acefoundation. org.au/previousW inners.shtml

Soon after Otunnu's return, local Uganda media reported on a planned smear campaign by government agents. Otunnu, who at 57 is unmarried, would be cast as a homosexual by government agents, according to the media reports.

So there you have it.

General Museveni has been a favorite of successive U.S. Administrations, since Ronald Reagan's, doing America's dirty work in Africa. He believes that if history is a reliable guide, with impunity, he can extend his tyranny beyond 2011.

Editor's Note:
Readers please distribute this column widely, including to your elected U.S. legislators, in particular Senator Feingold and Brownback



Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Uganda Government Dismisses Human Rights Report

UGANDA has dismissed as ‘academic’ a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report that impunity and abuses may mar the 2011 general elections and increase chances of political instability in the country.
When contacted by phone on Friday, ethics minister Dr. Nsaba Buturo referred to HRW as a body “whose job is to exaggerate and create stories.”
Buturo said that there was ongoing dialogue between the political opposition parties and the ruling NRM government and said that the HRW report was uncalled for.


“They are missing the mark. Why should they assume that Ugandans do not mean business? They are academics riding on people’s fears. They are missing the point and don’t understand the dynamics on the ground. We are working for peace,” Buturo said.


The report also cited that the September clashes between Baganda loyalists and government forces over land and power raise fears of more violence as the political parties gear up for campaigns before the vote.
But Buturo said this was a one-off incident, adding, “And we do not think it will happen again.”
He said that momentum for peace was building up in Uganda, “And they (HRW) should be encouraging this instead of hyping up matters in a negative way,” he added.
On the involvement of security forces, army spokesperson, Lt. Col. Felix Kulayigye said the 2006 multiparty elections were a litmus test and the army had behaved professionally and would remain professional any elections.


“As far as we are concerned, 2011 will be an election like any other,” Lt. Col. Kulayigye added.


HRW in the 28-page report titled, “Preparing for the Polls: Improving Accountability for Electoral Violence in Uganda,” said that Uganda, a coffee-producing nation, is emerging onto the world oil scene and attracting more investors.
The New York-based watchdog said that since taking power in 1986, President Yoweri Museveni has been widely praised for macroeconomic reforms, the stable economy and poverty reduction.
But critics say that Museveni, one of Africa’s longest serving rulers, has increasingly turned to repression to stay in power.


The report also says the discovery of oil reserves in western Uganda is expected to lift Uganda into the world’s top 50 oil producers; but could also exacerbate tensions in the country.
Original story from The New Vision

Church leaders back govt on anti-gay Bill

Kampala

At least 200 senior religious leaders in Uganda have thrown their weight behind the government backing it not to “yield to pressure” from donor countries that are demanding the withdrawal of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill before Parliament.
  
Under their umbrella organization of the Inter-religious Council of Uganda (IRC), the clerics have recommended that the government should think of cutting diplomatic ties with countries that are bent on forcing homosexuality on Ugandans.
 
The Bill proposes that a person convicted of homosexual in Uganda is liable to life imprisonment,
  
At their three-day meeting in Entebbe this week, the spiritual leaders came up with several recommendations that are opposed to homosexuals.
 
“Government should cut ties with donor communities and other groups which support ungodly values such as homosexuality and abortion,” one of the resolutions reads.
  
Some donor countries including, Canada, UK and Sweden have been pressuring Uganda to discard the proposed law intended to  severely punish homosexuals.

Not understood
The Secretary General of the Inter-religious Council of Uganda, Mr Joshua Kitakule, told Daily Monitor yesterday  that development partners should not  interfere in the process of legislation in Uganda.
 
“Those countries should respect our spiritual values. They shouldn’t interfere,” he said. “All senior religious leaders have been given copies of the Bill to read and educate people in the churches and mosques,” he added.   Mr Kitakule said the Bill, which was tabled last month by Ndorwa West MP David Bahati, has not been understood by human rights activists and homosexuals. 
  
“The Bill is ok. But it has been misunderstood. We need to educate people on this proposed law,” he said.
 
Bishops from the Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox, Seventh Day Adventist churches as well as Muslim kadhis agreed to defend the Bill in their centers of worship.

Foreign influence
Speaking at the conference, Mr Bahati dismissed arguments that homosexuality is natural.   
“It is a learned behavior and can be unlearned. You can’t tell me that people are born gays.   It is foreign influence that is on work,” he said.
   
The divine leaders also decried the increasing power tariffs and environmental degradation in the country.   
“Government should reduce electricity tariffs in order to encourage use of clean energy and mobilise people to plant trees,” they resolved.

Original story from The Monitor

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Experts use Ugandans for new tuberuloses vaccine


In Uganda, health experts are getting laboratories ready and preparing villagers in two districts for a large clinical trial to test the world's first experimental tuberculosis vaccine in nearly a century. 

For Anne Wajja, a doctor who heads TB vaccine studies in Uganda, this could be the start of a turning point. 

"New TB drugs and vaccines will be important, they will change the lives of ordinary people, it is definitely important to have a new vaccine," said Wajja, who spoke at a conference on lung health in Cancun, Mexico, on Sunday. 

Over a thousand scientists and researchers were gathered in Cancun over the weekend to discuss experimental drugs and vaccines to fight TB, which killed 1.8 million people in 2008, or one person every 20 seconds. 

One of the oldest diseases known to mankind, TB afflicts mostly the poor in developing places such as sub-Saharan Africa, India and China. 

For decades, it was forgotten by richer and scientifically more advanced nations until people infected with HIV started falling ill and dying from TB because of the damage done to their immune systems by AIDS. 

"It was only in the 80s and 90s when TB resurged in the west and north that everyone woke up and the U.S. Congress asked 'this (TB) exists?' New York City had to spend US$1 billion in 1990 just to get the TB epidemic in New York City under control," said Ann Ginsberg, chief medical officer of the TB Alliance. 

TB Alliance is a U.S.-based non-profit scientific group that pulls together partners to develop new drugs to fight TB. 

"So there is renewed attention to the problem, and awakening and rebuilding again after many years of lying fallow," Ginsberg said in an interview. 

Hopes in the pipeline 

Although TB has plagued humankind for thousands of years, there is only one vaccine -- the Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) developed around 1920 -- which isn't very good. 

It gives only some measure of protection to young children and none at all to adults. 

With the exception of rifabutin, there has been no new drug for TB for more than 40 years. 

Currently, patients need to take a combination of four drugs daily for six to nine months and compliance is poor, leading often to drug resistance. These patients then become harder to treat because there are only very few second-line drugs. 

One in every two patients with the worst form of drug resistant TB dies. 

There are now nine experimental vaccines in clinical trials and experts in the field are confident that the world will see a new and better vaccine by 2016. 

The U.S.-based non-profit Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation, which is working on four of the nine vaccines, hopes to launch a product that will not only prevent TB infection in all age groups, but also stop the TB bacteria from becoming active in people infected with HIV. 

"We think that eventually we could prevent enough people from having the disease and acquiring (the bacteria) that the transmission rate will be so low that the disease will go away," said Aeras president Jerald Sadoff, a medical doctor. 

TB Alliance is involved in developing three of the eight experimental drugs in clinical trials, one of which is moxifloxacin, which it hopes will be ready in five years. 

"We are very hopeful that moxifloxacin will be able to shorten treatment from six months to four months," Ginsberg said. 

Researchers are considering using some of these experimental drugs in combination to prevent drug resistance. 

"We think some of these novel combinations can bring treatment down to about three months because they are completely new," Ginsberg said, adding that these new regimens can be used for all TB patients, including those with drug resistant TB. 

Original story from World Bulletin

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Kabaka Mutesa II of Buganda

He was born at the home of Sir Albert Cook in Makindye, Kampala on November 19, 1924. He was the fifth son of Kabaka Captain Sir Daudi Chwa II, KCMG, KBE, Kabaka of Buganda, who reigned between 1897 and 1939. His mother was Lady Irene Drusilla Namaganda, of the Nte (Cow) clan. He was proclaimed Kabaka upon the death of his father on November 22, 1939 at age fifteen (15) years. He was installed outside the Lubiri, at Mengo on 26th November 1939. He reigned under a Council of Regents until he came of age and assumed full ruling powers. He was crowned at Budo on November 19, 1942 at age eighteen (18) years.







H.R.H. Mutesa II, Kabaka of Buganda from 
the Uganda Independence Souvenir Programme,
printed by the Government Printers, Entebbe

Mutesa was educated at King's College Budo, a prestigious school in Uganda. He became the King of Buganda in 1939 upon the death of his father, King Daudi Chwa II. He attended Magdalene College, Cambridge in England where he joined an officer training corps and was commissioned as a captain in the Grenadier Guards. At that time, Buganda was part of the British protectorate of Uganda.


The years between 1945 and 1950 saw widespread protests against both the British Governor's and King Mutesa's governments. In the early 1950s the British Government floated the idea of uniting British East Africa (Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika) into a federation. Africans feared that this would lead to their coming under the control of Kenya's white settler community, as had happened in Rhodesia. The Baganda, fearing they would lose the limited autonomy they had under British rule, were particularly opposed.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Image by Betmann/COBRIS
Mutesa opposed the proposal, and thus came into conflict with the British Governor, Sir Andrew Cohen. Cohen deposed and exiled the Kabaka in 1953, creating massive protest among the Baganda. After two years in exile Mutesa was allowed to return to the throne under a negotiated settlement which made him a constitutional monarch and gave the Baganda the right to elect representatives to the kingdom's parliament, the Lukiiko. Mutesa's standing up to the Governor greatly boosted his popularity in the kingdom.
Mutesa returned to Uganda and his throne in 1955. In 1962 Uganda became independent from Britain under the leadership of Milton Obote. Under the country's new constitution, the Kingdom of Buganda was a semi-autonomous part of a federation. The federal Prime Minister was Obote, leader of the Uganda People's Congress, which was in a governing coalition with the dominant Buganda regional party, Kabaka Yekka. The post of Governor General was abolished in 1963 and replaced by a non-executive president, a post that Mutesa held.

The coalition between Mutesa and Obote's parties collapsed in 1964 over the matter of a referendum which transferred two counties from Buganda to Bunyoro.

In 1966 Mutesa's estrangement from Obote merged with another crisis. Obote faced a possible removal from office by factional infighting within his own party. He had the other four leading members of his party arrested and detained, and then suspended the constitution and declared himself President in February 1966, deposing Mutesa. The Buganda regional Parliament passed a resolution in May 1966 declaring that Buganda's incorporation into Uganda had de jure ended with the suspension of the constitution and asking the federal government to vacate the capital, which is in Buganda. Obote responded with an armed attack upon the King's palace, sending Mutesa into exile in United Kingdom via Burundi, and a new constitution in 1967 which abolished all of Uganda's kingdoms, including Buganda.

While in exile Mutesa wrote a published autobiography, "The Desecration of My Kingdom"

Kabaka Mutesa II had 18 children with 11 sons and 7 daugters. their names are mentioned below in no particular order.

Prince (Kiweewa) Robert Masamba Kimera, Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II, Prince (Omulangira) Suuna Frederick Wampamba, Prince (Omulangira) Henry Kalemeera, Prince (Omulangira) George Michael Ndawula, Prince (Omulangira) Richard Walugembe Bamweyana, Prince (Omulangira) Katabaazi Mukarukidi, Prince (Omulangira) Patrick Nakibinge, Prince (Omulangira) Daudi Golooba, Prince (Omulangira) Herbert Kateregga,Prince (Omulangira) Daudi Kintu Wasajja, Princess (Omumbejja) Dorothy Kabonesa Namukaabya, Princess (Omumbejja) Dina Kigga Mukarukidi, Princess (Omumbejja) Anne Sarah Kagere Nandawula, Princess (Omumbejja) Catherine Agnes Nabaloga, Princess (Omumbejja) Alice Mpologoma Zaalwango, Princess (Omumbejja) Diana Balizza Muggale Teyeggala, Princess (Omumbejja) Stella Ndagire.

30 000 Children Sexually Abused in Harare, Zimbabwe

Harare — OVER 30 000 children have been treated after being sexually-abused in the past four years at Harare Hospital alone -- and those figures are only a tip of the iceberg, experts say.

Statistics recently released by the Family Support Trust Clinic at Harare Central Hospital indicate that the figure for the past decade is 70 000.

"It's a tip of the iceberg -- the problem is enormous. We need drugs and any assistance we can get," pediatrician and founder of the clinic Dr Robert Choto said.

He said more cases went unreported because of the fear of stigmatization, while many parents and guardians were unaware that they could get help for their children.

"It's horrifying. It rattles me so much so I don't know what to do. All kinds of thoughts ran across my mind, I want to be violent against the perpetrator, but the profession restrains you; you are helping the victim, the survivor," he said.

According to UNICEF, accurate data on child abuse is hard to come by since most cases go unreported and perpetrators go unnoticed and unpunished.

"However, if data from one clinic is that high the problem is obviously pervasive and can be a big national problem.

"As UNICEF, we recognize the scale of the problem and that is why we continue to provide support to clinics such as the FST," said UNICEF communications officer Ms Tsitsi Singizi.

She said lack of comprehensive research made it difficult to ascertain if current interventions were stemming the tide.

"Nearly half of the reported cases at the FST were in the last four out of 10 years. These statistics are collated from police showing a 42 percent increase over three years in reported rape cases involving children," she said.

Ms Singizi said Zimbabwe had good policies and laws to protect and uphold children's rights but lacked implementation.

"Silence and inaction allow abuse against children to continue. Perpetrators often enjoyed impunity.

"Teachers who have sexually assaulted or injured their pupils continue to teach," she said.

Unicef noted that children have few mechanisms with which to report abuse.

A number of parents have left the country in search of greener pastures leaving behind their children in care of relatives and friends, exposing them to abuse.

"A family unit is the starting point of socialization, but when children are left vulnerable, they are exposed, hence these cases of rape and abuse," said Dr Gillian Gotora, a sociologist at the University of Zimbabwe.
Original story from
The Herald
Published by the government of Zimbabwe