Why Museveni Does Not Deserve Agriculture PhD

Christine Bako Abia


Ms Bako is Woman MP for Arua and Maracha-Terego districts and the Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries.

So it's now official. Makerere University Council has approved an award of an Honorary Degree to President Museveni. Reason: His exceptional contribution to promoting agriculture. Nothing could be closer to irony! Here is why.

Documented evidence shows that from 1981 to date, the agricultural sector has registered miserly improvements in real terms. The Uganda Bureau of Statistics reported in 2008 that performance in every agricultural sub-sector declined over almost the entire past decade. The fisheries sub-sector may be ticking at 2.66 but its share to the Gross Domestic Product awfully stands at minus 12.4, according to the National Development Plan, 2009.

The per capital contribution to GDP of food crops, cash crops and livestock have retrogressed to -0.08, -2.5 and 1.98, respectively. This means the overall monetary and non-monetary contribution of agriculture is slipping under watch of the NRM government of which Mr Museveni is the political high priest.

For starters, Uganda government is signatory to the June 2004 Maputo Declaration, whose Point 25 compels approving countries, Uganda inclusive, to allocate 10 per cent of their national budget to agriculture. Earlier in 2003, Uganda acceded to the Banjul (the Gambia) Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) through the APRM/NEPAD vision, embracing a similar commitment.

The government in Kampala has only made good on failing the farmers. Official statistics show that the allocation to agriculture last touched a 10 per cent ceiling of Uganda's national budget 30 years ago - in 1980. The allocation has today plummeted to 3.91 per cent.

It would be poisonous, intellectually tragic, if celebrated academics at Makerere University trade their worth just to appease a President. University professors surely should have a better bargain.

By international standards, some nine million Ugandans live below the poverty line! Life has become increasingly unbearable. Jiggers are still the millstone for a section of our population. One has to be intoxicated to believe the learned professors at Makerere University are no bootlickers by offering to reward the President for practically running down agriculture.

Ironically, NRM ideologues are trumpeting the failed "Prosperity-for-all" scheme, a central plank of President Museveni's 2006 campaign manifesto, as sort of a panacea to deprivations of poor rural households. The scheme assumes that by selecting a particular agricultural enterprise(s), each household would make at least some Shs20 million each year.

"In Uganda Prosperity has not yet been attained...," President Museveni writes in the foreword of the February 2008 Prosperity-for-all policy document. In other words, two years after the last elections, it dawned on the Head of State that his prescribed medication for poor Ugandans wasn't working. Not because it is a bad dose but its architects know not what to do.

It's worrying that this critical sector is being managed - or mismanaged - in a policy vacuum. As the shadow Minister for Agriculture, I recommended in an alternative policy position that a comprehensive national agricultural policy be developed and an agriculture development bank established to provide friendly credit to farmers. The state is also obliged to examine input trade dynamics; provide timely market information and infrastructure to strengthen the backward and forward linkages between the industrial and agricultural sector.

Scrap the NAADS programme and revive real extension service to all farmers through in-the-field and government-employed extension workers, among others.

Ms Bako is Woman MP for Arua and Maracha-Terego districts and the Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries

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Uganda Police Arrests Women Demonstrators

Police arrest members of IPC women's League

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NO ESCAPE: Police arrest one of the demonstrators at the Electoral Commission offices yesterday. PHOTO BY STEPHEN WANDERA

By Gerald Bareebe & Flavia Nalubega

IN SUMMARY

The women, who belong to opposition parties under the Inter-Party Cooperation, marched to the EC office to demand for the resignation of Commission Chairman Eng. Badru Kiggundu and his fellow commissioners.

Kampala

At least 33 opposition supporters – all of them women – were by last evening still under police custody after they tried to force their way into the Electoral Commission headquarters in Kampala.

The women, who belong to opposition parties under the Inter-Party Cooperation, marched to the EC office to demand for the resignation of Commission Chairman Eng. Badru Kiggundu and his fellow commissioners.
It was the first time a women’s group was mobilising against the embattled electoral commissioners who were reappointed last year despite widespread irregularities in the 2006 election which they oversaw.

Constitutional right?Opposition pleas 
The opposition has rejected the reappointment and the EC office in Kampala is heavily-guarded by the police after previous attempts by opposition youth wingers to demonstrate at the facility.
The police officers were, however, caught off-guard yesterday as the women emerged, one by one, from Centenary Park, opposite the EC office.
Clad in black T-shirts and carrying posters accusing Eng. Kiggundu and his team of seven commissioners of partisan tendencies, the women jumped a short wire fence, and sat under a tree near the EC gate.

“We have come here to express our dissatisfaction with Eng. Kiggundu and his team,” Ms Ingrid Turinawe, the chairperson of the FDC Women’s League and one of the demonstrators, said. “So, you cannot chase us from here because it is our constitutional right. We are not inciting violence but just want to articulate our grievances with EC as concerned women of Uganda.”

The women claimed that they had intended to deliver a petition to Eng. Kiggundu but Police armed with sniffer dogs, teargas and automatic rifles forcefully broke up the sit-down protest and arrested the demonstrators. The women were bundled onto police pick-up vehicles and whisked off to Jinja Road and Central Police stations.

Mr Wandera Ogalo, FDC’s secretary for legal affairs, accused Police of denying the women access to their lawyers. He said about 40 women had been arrested but IPC officials, who visited the women in police cells, saw only 35 women and that police could not reveal where the others were being held.

The Director of Police Operations, Mr Grace Turyagumanawe said yesterday that the women did not have permission to demonstrate at the EC office.
“These ladies wanted to enter EC offices yet no one was expecting visitors of this nature,” he said. “They came one-by-one, trespassed and sat in the grass. We tried to ask them kindly to leave but they refused so we deployed police women to get them away.” However, the police women deployed could not handle the demonstrating women and male officers were called in to assist in the arrest.

Besigye visits
FDC President Dr Kizza Besigye and other opposition officials visited the police stations where the detained demonstrators recounted their ordeal. “They forcefully loaded us on police vehicles like sacks of beans even when we had voluntarily accepted arrest,” a tearful Ms Turinawe said. “Some officers were undressing us and touching our thighs as they loaded us on their vehicles.”

Police said yesterday the women are likely to be charged with criminal trespass, unlawful assembly and inciting violence, even as Mr Ogalo petitioned the Law Council to investigate circumstances under which the suspects were allegedly denied access to their lawyers. A re-composition of the EC is one of several reforms that the opposition is demanding for ahead of elections next year.

Uganda Government censoring the Media

This is a clear indication of media censorship in what is supposed to be a democratic county!

The government is telling the media including News Papers, Radio and Television Stations what to say and not to say otherwise they face heavy fines or even closure such as is reported below to the extent of who is allowed to have stake in these enterprises.

See for your self....

U.S. Senator Calls For Investigation Of Alleged "Attempted Assassination" Of Otunnu , Uganda Opposition Figure

By Milton Allimadi

U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont has called for an investigation of a suspicious December automobile incident involving a leading opposition figure abroad after the Ugandan said he was the victim of an "attempted assassination."

Separately, the U.S. Department of State says it's also keeping an eye on the incident involving Olara Otunnu, a former United Nations Undersecretary General and now a prospective presidential candidate on the opposition ticket in the 2011 Ugandan elections.

A Ugandan foreign affairs minister denied there was an attempt to kill Otunnu.

On December 21, 2009, Otunnu reportedly narrowly avoided death when his car was forced off the road when, he says, vehicles belonging to President Yoweri K. Museveni's Presidential Guard Brigade (PGB) suddenly veered in front of his car, after first giving his driver the okay to overtake the slow-moving military convoy. Museveni wasn't part of the convoy.

Otunnu was headed to Kampala , Uganda 's capital. Both he and Museveni had been at a religious ceremony in the city of Gulu the previous day. Otunnu returned to Uganda last year after 23 years in exile.

In a wide-ranging interview on The Voice of America 's "Straight Talk Africa," program on January 13, Otunnu said "There is no doubt in my mind that it was an attempted assassination," referring to the December 21, 2009, incident.

http://www.voanews. com/mp3/voa/ africa/engl/ straight. mp3

"The Congress is aware of that incident and it has been brought to the attention of the Obama Administration," said Tim Rieser, a foreign policy staffmember for Senator Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee which funds U.S. foreign aid programs.

"Senator Leahy is concerned about it and believes it should be investigated."

A State Department spokesperson in a statement echoed Leahy's position: "We are aware of the reports that in December Olaro Otunno was involved in a car accident that may have occurred under suspicious circumstances. We take allegations of any attempt at political intimidation very seriously and have been monitoring the situation closely."

"While there are concerns about the progress of Uganda 's democratic development, we are working to support peaceful, free and fair elections in 2011," added the State Department spokesperson. "Our Embassy in Kampala has been working diligently for many months in preparation for these elections and will continue to do so in the coming months."

In an interview Otunnu welcomed the call by U.S. officials as well as from people within Uganda for an investigation of the December incident. "The Ugandan government must respond," he said, when asked how such an investigation could start.

Otunnu said the investigating entity, whether it is Ugandan, or an East African regional body, or an international organization, must be totally independent of the Ugandan government.

Uganda's foreign affairs minister for international relations, Oryem Henry Okello, denied that there was an assassination bid.

"I do not believe it was an attempted assassination," he said. "The government of Uganda has no intention of assassinating Olara Otunnu or anybody else for that matter." 

He said the incident was already being investigated by the police.

"All those who hope to participate in the political process, be it Olara Otunnu or others, are attempting to make statements trying to create some advantage or gain publicity," heading into the 2011 election, he said.

"We welcome the interest of the United States government and we welcome the interest of our friends around the world," he added. "We have to be very careful about such statements."

Since President Obama's Accra Speech last year, in which he called for a shift from one-man rule to democrat institutions in African countries, there's been some shift in U.S.-Africa policy, and in the case of Uganda , a notable one.

As reported by The Black Star News on Wednesday, the U.S. Congress has issued a directive as part of the 2010 appropriations bill calling on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to closely monitor the Uganda election, including the preparation, the independence of the Election Commission, the credibility and verifiability of the voter registry, posting of results at polling stations, freedom of movement and assembly, freedom of the media as well as the security of all candidates. What's more, she's to issue a report every four months and another 30 days after the election.

There are indications that U.S. patience with the Museveni government has worn thin.

"The Congress does not take sides in the election. It is up to the people of Uganda to decide who their president or representatives will be. But the United States does care that the electoral process is free and fair," Rieser, the aide to Senator Leahy, continued.

He said the incident involving Otunnu is illustrative of why the Congress included the directive calling for security and protection of candidates. (A State Department spokesperson wouldn't say if the Otunnu incident will be covered in Secretary Clinton's first report, in March, on the status of compliance with the directive).

He said the Ugandan government is aware of the Congress's concerns. Rieser said the Congressional directive was included because there is disappointment that the Ugandan government has not moved toward a multi-party democracy as many had hoped and expected.

"There was recognition that coming out of the disastrous Idi Amin and Milton Obote eras it would take some time for the country to recover and for democratic institutions to develop. But a long time has elapsed and people have become impatient," he added.

"Senator Leahy has visited Uganda and he has seen the progress that has been made. As chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee that funds U.S. foreign aid programs, he has supported many hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for Uganda . But like others he wants real democracy to develop there. There is concern with reports that the government is limiting opportunities for political parties to organize."

Rieser continued: "Congress wants to see the media able to broadcast and publish freely, political parties able to operate without harassment or threats, and the balloting to be free and fair. By signaling its interest and requiring the Secretary of State to regularly report on these matters, the Congress is saying that it intends to follow this process closely."

When asked what would happen if the Secretary of State submitted a report showing shortcomings by the Uganda government in meeting the standards outlined in the directive, he said if there were credible evidence that the government was impeding the role of the media and political parties, then "we would convey those concerns" to the Ugandan government and the manner in which the election is conducted would have an impact on aid from the U.S.

Henry Okello, the Ugandan minister, rejected Leahy's position, saying Uganda has a vigorous multi-party system. He said Leahy was "misinformed and behind the times" because Uganda had several opposition parties, such as the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), the Uganda People's Congress(UPC), and independent legislators, with opposition Members of Parliament.

"This is Africa . They should be patient," Henry Okello continued. "This is not America or Europe . We are on our way to where the United States and Europe are today."

The Black Star News has confirmed that Otunnu was a driving force behind the Congressional directive, which explains why the language is specifically tailored to address obstacles that opposition parties in Uganda have complained about in the past.

The Ugandan is said to have met several times with key U.S. lawmakers and after several presentations was able to help shift direction of a rigid foreign policy establishment. Any doubts amongst U.S. lawmakers were erased after the December 21 road incident in Uganda , people familiar with the matter say. Months before, Otunnu had stressed the need for the directive to cover the security and protection of all candidates.

US Directs Clinton to Monitor Uganda's 2011 Election

U.S. Congress directs Secretary of State Clinton to monitor Uganda's 2011 elections

[Global: Africa]

In what a key Ugandan opposition figure has hailed as a "milestone" the United States Congress has issued a directive to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to monitor next year's Ugandan presidential election to ensure that it's free and fair.

"This is big news and very welcome," said Olara A. Otunnu, former United Nations UndeSecretary General and now a Ugandan opposition leader. "This is hugely important. I am delighted and applaud the US Congress for taking this decisive action in favor of free and fair elections in Uganda."

The directive is included in the section dealing with Uganda in the U.S. Foreign Operations Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010. It calls on Secretary Clinton to work with other countries, including the European Union and Canada, in monitoring preparations for the Ugandan elections, including: “the independence of the electoral commission; the need for an accurate and verifiable voter registry; the announcement and posting of results at the polling stations; the freedom of movement and assembly and a process free of intimidation; freedom of the media; and the security and protection of candidates.”General Yoweri K. Museveni has been in office since 1986.

“This is a milestone because for the first time the Museveni regime is being held to the same electoral standards as other governments, " Otunnu continued, in an interview. "Up till now, the regime has enjoyed scandalous exceptionalism, particularly from universally- accepted standards concerning democracy, human rights and corruption.”

"This is the beginning of the end of that impunity," he added. “The Congressional directive is of particular importance given the extensive and well documented rigging and fraud witnessed in recent elections in Uganda.”

Supporters of Dr. Kizza Besigye, opponent to Museveni, believe their candidate was robbed in the 2001 and 2006 presidential elections.

Additionally, the U.S. Congress directed Secretary Clinton to provide the first status report on the directive to monitor the elections in March 2010, and “every 120 days thereafter until 30 days after the election detailing actions taken by the government of Uganda to address these concerns.”

The State Department did not respond to inquiries for comment from Secretary Clinton by publication time. Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also couldn't be reached by publication deadline. Uganda's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Ruhakana Rugunda wasn't available for comment this evening.

In an interview on The Voice of America's "Straight Talk Africa" program today Otunnu for the first time spoke in the clearest terms about a December 21, 2009 incident when a vehicle he was travelling in was forced off the road in Uganda by military vehicles belonging to President  Museveni's Presidential Guard Brigade (PGB). The 12,000-strong tax-payer financed force is commanded by Museveni's son.

http://www.blacksta rnews.com/ news/135/ ARTICLE/6181/ 2009-12-28. html

"There is no doubt in my mind that it was an attempted assasination, " Otunnu said, in the VOA interview. In an Op-Ed column Otunnu wrote for The Daily Monitor, a Ugandan independent newspaper, Otunnu had called for an independent investigation of the incident. During the VOA interview today, he called on Secretary Clinton to similarly investigate the matter and include it in the status report called for in the Congressional directive.

http://www.voanews. com/mp3/voa/ africa/engl/ straight. mp3 

During the VOA interview Otunnu also welcomed the critical reaction by Western countries to the proposed bill in Uganda's parliament that would make homosexuality punishable by death but noted that the same International community had turned a blind eye to "genocide" in the northern part of the country. There, for more than two decades, the Uganda government had confined more than two million civilians in what Otunnu has called "concentration" camps. The Uganda government maintained that the camps were created to protect civilians from the Lord's Resistance Army, but in 2005 the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that more than 1,000 civilians died per week in the camps, or an estimated more than 52,000 annually.

http://www.usyd. edu.au/news/ 84.html?newsstor yid=764

The Black Star News has learned that Otunnu played a major role in pushing for the Congressional directive, through meetings with U.S. lawmakers as well as human rights and democracy activists in Washington, D.C.

Additionally, under the Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010, Uganda is allocated $70.6 million in assistance. Otunnu in an earlier interview on WBAI Pacifica Radio said Western governments didn't hold Museveni's government accountable on issues of corruption, human rights and good governance, despite hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies.

http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=xjnf6n5h8lY

http://www.blacksta rnews.com/ news/135/ ARTICLE/6207/ 2010-01-13. html

By Milton Allimadi

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

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.

http://www.tracesofhope.com/

 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

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7783417.stm

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:

http://thetyee.ca/Views/2005/11/11/UgandanPowerlessness/

http://www.friendsforpeaceinafrica.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=132&Itemid=77

For Invisible Children information on the upcoming ‘abduction’:

http://ncm.newcitymovement.com/2009/04/abduct-yourself-april-25th-rescue-child-soldiers.html

http://www.invisiblechildren.com/theMovement/

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