AFRICA SOS NEWS & EVENTS

Uganda dictator schemes to arrest Olara Otunnu

2010-04-13T12:59:00.001+01:00

The UPC President, Olara A. Otunnu addressed a rally, held consultation meeting and was hosted on Voice of Lango yesterday 12 April 2010.

The central government authorities in Lira, led by the RDC, tried to stop the consultative meetins from taking place at Lira Technical. Lira Technical is a public facility. The UPC and other Ugandans have rights to access and use them when available. That is what we did in the end; hold the meeting at Lira Technical.

When the UPC President went on air on Voice of Lango in the evening, attempts were made to interfere with the programme. Again, the programme was aired without interruptions.

Today, 13 April 2010, we understand State House has done the following:

1. Ordered Col. Ochora, RDC Gulu, to appear on the same programme tonight, to rebutt what the UPC president said in Lango yesterday;
2. Col. Ochora is under order and cued to allege the following:
-That the UPC President, Olara A. Otunnu, worked closely with Joseph Kony and the LRA in northern Uganda;
-That the UPC President was involved in the 1985 coup;

All these are complete lies and falsehood being peddled by a desperate and shameless regime that will do and say anything to make itself look good.

3. Yoweri Musevni / Statehouse ordered Voice of Lango to surrender the tape of the programme to them;
4. Yoweri Museveni has ordered the police to investigate UPC President Olara A. Otunnu's remarks in Lango.

This country does not belong to one, two or a clique of army men. It belongs to 36+ million Ugandans. What the UPC President has said and has been saying on corruption, terror and intimidation, human rights abuses, the invasion and looting of neighbour's wealth, genocide in northern Uganda, the need for truth telling on Luwero killings, are issues of public interest to all Ugandans. Ugandans are entitled to know, and are at liberty to discuss openly and honestly, issues of public affairs.

The UPC President, the UPC, the demoratic forces in Uganda, will not be intimidated and cowed by such outmoded 'strong man' tactics. The people of this country will prevail over terror and intimidation.

Otunnu Welcomes US Congressional Directive on 2011 Ugandan Elections

2010-01-14T03:47:00.002Z

Otunnu Welcomes US Congressional Directive on 2011 Ugandan Elections

Jan.13, 2010 Kampala, Washington,

Mr. Olara A. Otunnu, former United Nations Under Secretary General and an opposition leader in Uganda, today welcomed the directive by the United States Congress to the US Secretary of State to closely monitor preparations for the 2011 Elections in Uganda. Mr. Otunnu said,
“I am delighted and applaud the US Congress for taking this decisive action in favour of free and fair elections in Uganda. This is a most welcome development.”
Speaking in Washington, Mr. Otunnu said that the U.S. Congress has directed the US Secretary of State to work with other countries, including the European Union and Canada, to ensure free and fair elections in Uganda in 2011.
Mr. Otunnu stated, “The Congressional directive is of particular importance given the extensive and well documented rigging and fraud witnessed in recent elections in Uganda.”
The Congressional directive calls for close monitoring of the preparations for the Ugandan elections, and in particular the following: “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.”
“This is a milestone,” observed Mr. Otunnu, “because for the first time the Museveni regime is being held to the same electoral standards as other governments. Up till now, the regime has enjoyed scandalous exceptionalism, particularly from universally-accepted standards concerning democracy, human rights and corruption.”
The directive is included in the section dealing with Uganda in the U.S. Foreign Operations Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010. Congress has directed the Secretary of State to provide the first report in March, and then regularly “every 120 days thereafter until 30 days after the election detailing actions taken by the government of Uganda to address these concerns”.
Under the Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010, Uganda is allocated $70.6 million in assistance.

Mr. Otunnu has been very critical of the fact that Western governments have been providing extensive support and subsidies to Museveni’s government without holding it accountable.
In conclusion, Mr Otunnu said, “This concrete action by Congress reinforces President Obama’s seminal speech in Accra in July 2009, promising to support the “brave Africans” who are on the right side of history; fighting for genuine democracy, human rights, the building of strong institutions, and for change of “leaders (who) exploit the economy to enrich themselves.”

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Contact:
MR. WAGONDA MUGULI
Phone: +256 (0) 772502626
E-Mail: jwmuguli@yahoo.com
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US Congressional Directive on 2011 Ugandan Elections
Uganda.-The conference agreement provides $70,650,000 for assistance for Uganda. The
conferees direct the Secretary of State to closely monitor preparations for the 2011 elections in Uganda, and to actively promote, in coordination with the European Union, Canada and other nations, the independence of the election 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. The conferees direct the Secretary of State to submit a report to the Committees on Appropriations not later than 90 days after enactment of this Act and
every 120 days thereafter until 30 days after the elections, detailing actions taken by the Government of Uganda to address these concerns.
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Daylight, villagers, a good driver and god saved Otunnu at Minakulu

2009-12-26T13:26:00.002Z

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 Otunnu characterised it in a press conference later that afternoon, was “unusual.”

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 civilian 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 suddenly pulled out of the formation to block their way. Otunnu’s driver attempted a manoeuvre to avoid high impact collision, but was-as if on cue-promptly blocked by the second car which moved to cut them off.

Meanwhile, the first car they had passed, a heavy military truck, was bearing on them without any apparent intention to stop. Sensing danger and a terrestrial 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 an American journalist in his party. 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 dictator Yoweri Museveni's pampered, deathly private army. Perhaps their script scrambled and they lost for words, they started to awkwardly 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 drieng 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 one resident of Minakulu suggested, Otunnu was lucky that his driver was not overspeeding and his vehicle did not overtun in the process of avoiding colliding with the military vehicles. According to the elderly man, had Otunnu's car overturned, the heavy truck would have run over them like a roller, crushing them in the process. Once they were trapped in the wreckage of their car, unhurt, injured, dead or alive, they might have been shot to finish them off and everything blamed on a car crash. For those who witnessed the accident, the septugenarian's theory seem to make a lot of sense, because the manoevres seem to have been aimed at trapping Otunnu's vehicle between two heavy military trucks, with the two jeeps acting like stalking horses.

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.

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 sight, 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 stated that 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. Which of course is blatant lie. It was the villagers and passengers in the bus that helped the party out of the bushes.

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. These units of private and personal army cannot be anywhere and cannot do anything without the express presence and concerns for the security of dictator Yoweri Museveni.

Second, whenever the president goes upcountry, by air or by road, it is standard 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 that 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 uncharacteristically stay back in Gulu or sleep by the roadside since the presient had left Gulu in a helicopter?

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 boys 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. Why did these group of PGB soldiers try to conceal their identities, if this was an innocent road accident, without ill-intentions?

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 after the presideent left, captains?

As words on the streets have it, Otunnu was lucky this happened during the day, and villagers rushed to the scene immediately and his driver had the presence of mind to extricate himself from a dangerous trap and drive off the road instead of being sandwiched between military vehicles full of armed men who seemed to have been on a mortal mission. Anything else is just damage control and the awkward and unintelligble mumbles of someone caught with their pants down.

Uganda parliament tables bill to kill gays and lesbians

2009-11-03T01:52:00.000Z

The press in Uganda this week is awash with homophobic hysteria against Gays, Lesbians, Bi-Sexual and Transgender (GLBT) Ugandans. This overt and shameless discrimination against a minority population of our citizens flows from the fact homosexuality is criminalised in Uganda. As if this was not enough suppression of personal freedom and civil rights, Ndorwa West Member of Parliament (MP), David Bahatia, has tabled a private member’s bill proposing a series of measures to control and punish GLBT activities in the country, including the death penalty for gays and lesbians caught living and expressing their sexuality.

This is not only cavalier violations of human rights, but a dangerous hate campaign and incitement to harm or kill members of the GLBT in Uganda. The people of Uganda, and all people of good will, must not sit and watch while this happens. The sponsors of the bill, their supporters and political leaders- inside and outside parliament- must be identified, isolated and ostracised by the entire civilised world that respect difference and diversity. Most democratising societies have laws that criminalise purveyors of hate and incitement of hatred against a person, persons or communities; and have robust bill of rights that protect citizens and minorities. Uganda should not be an exception.

However, it is not surprising that the state should be seeking such kind of personal control, to the extent of wanting to police what people do in their bedrooms, and who else they do it with and whether their partners are of the skirt or trouser wearing sorts.

First, this comes about because of the nature and character of the Ugandan state: it is a military dictatorship that shot its way to and kept itself in power by military force. What there is in terms of a fledgling parliamentary democracy is sheer gloss of veneer for the consumption of the democratic tourist. For twenty years (20) it outlawed political parties and suppressed freedoms of association and assembly, and the press is routinely knuckled. It rules by decree, not through free and open, well informed debate in a deliberative, democratic process. Therefore, like all autocrats, the Ugandan ruling clique is not about to deviate from the age-old practice of control and micromanagement of all the affairs of state, and particularly the censorship and directing of the thoughts and behaviour of its citizens. Control freaks love uniformity but are threatened by freedom, diversity, and difference.

The second reason why the hate campaign against GLBT is not surprising is that most of those connected to state power, for instance Nsaba Buturo & Co. are born-again, rigid, fundamentalist, revivalist Christians who bring to the public policy process and the management of state affairs, their religious bigotry that they pass off as public morality and ethics. They completely ignore the fact that although Uganda is a majority Christian nation-state, there are people of other faiths, as well as non-believers, to whom the Muslim and Christian moralities they are so quick to refer to, cannot and should not apply. In any case, the Ugandan state is separate from the Church or Mosque, and it would be prudent for public servants to refrain from using and imposing the teachings and morals of one religion on the diverse people of Uganda, with pluralities of religion, faith, spiritual and moral inclinations.

Obviously, their positions on GLBT people are directly lifted from the dispositions and teachings of their churches. We all recall the continuing controversy over ordination of gay priests and the blessing of gay marriages in the worldwide Anglican Communion which has caused serious doctrinal and church practice schism between conservative and liberal wings of the church. It is this struggle into which the secular state is being enlisted. The democratic forces and the people of Uganda must oppose this interference, attempt to suppress our civil rights, and fuse the state with the church. The state and the public policy process must be inoculated from religious particularities.

But the NRM/A dictatorship have aligned its position on GLBT practices with church conservatives who reject a more liberal interpretation of Christian doctrinal positions on homosexuality. Not only do church conservatives oppose the admission and ordination of homosexuals, but even women bishops and ministers within the communion are unacceptable. Furthermore, they insist that, marriage is only possible between a man and a woman, and for the purpose of procreation. Anything outside of this is regarded as unnatural and irredeemable sin.

Some in this debate do not even seem to be aware that with advancement in reproductive technology, you do not need to marry anybody's son or daughter in order to have children of your own. So the thought that promoting homosexuality threatens the human race is all gibberish

There is already a bustling market and brisk business in human eggs and semen, which may account for more than 1% of some country's total births. All one has to have is the ability to purchase such services. Most of this has been to help heterosexual couples who cannot have children the natural and normal way. Moreover, those who do not want their wives to go through the barbaric “natural” processes of pregnancy and childbirth can rent a womb -euphemistically termed surrogate motherhood-for another woman to carry their child to term. Others may conceive naturally and carry their own babies to term, but opt for caesarean births.

All these are done sometimes for health reasons, but in most cases, it is for cosmetic and aesthetics fancifulness. Some go through the procedure so their wives are not aged and disfigured by the vagaries of childbirth. It is the same reason other women do not breastfeed so their breasts can remain firm longer. Such lifestyles and personal choices, and the technological response to problems within heterosexual relationships have also been serendipitous for gay couples who, like their heterosexual counterparts, want children and a fulfilling family life.

Personally, homosexuality is not for me. However, that is not sufficient reason for me to categorize it as a sin or a crime; even less so, to hate or incite hatred against those who practise it. I unconditionally accept and respect those who find themselves inclined that way, and I would even forgo my rights, if it would ensure that their civic and human rights are protected as much as mine and the next wo/man. This is because there is nothing-scientific or spiritual- and I do not think there will be any-to suggest that GLBT people are less human, less civic citizens than I am and undeserving of the moral, legal, and constitutional protection and social privileges heterosexuals claim for themselves.

To understand the silliness of those who hate others just because they do not look or behave like them, it may be useful to look at sexuality as being akin to the diversity of food culture. We would all be happier if we recognised the wisdom in the axiom that one wo/man's meat is another wo/man's poison. I came face to face with this truism in travelling and living among people from southern Africa-Zambia, Botswana, Malawi and Bophutoswana. Caterpillar is to these communities what white ants and grasshoppers are to Ugandans. And not to speak about the food and food culture of Europe and North America that even grossed me out the most. I won’t be caught dead eating frogs, snails, mussels, squids or jelly fish!

Close to home in Acholi itself, food culture varies from region to region. For instance, the Lamogi in Amuru are reputed for eating bats; the Padibe in Kitgum are famous for eating certain species of rats. To those from Agoro the northern most towns in Kitgum, from where my own mother came, crabs are delicacies- which my own people from Madi Opei detest vehemently and ridicule them for it. The point is that, throughout the world, food is food and what does not kill you, must certainly be good for you and welcome nourishment for your body, mind, and soul.

So sexuality itself, although not as voluntary as eating foods choices and culture is, its variety is certainly not unlike our national or global food culture. For instance, in Uganda, we have a diversity of sex culture within the heterosexual communities. In Makerere University lingo past, we used to say in Western Uganda, they do it with low-technology, shallow quarrying, with very little ecological footprints. On the other hand, eastern and northern parts of the country were categorised as being partial to deep-shaft mining and technology intensive. The point I am labouring to make here is that, it is unreasonable to think that what is not good for you, must not be good for someone else and vice versa. Or that we should imagine some dictator from Rwakitura banning Kwete, Ajon, Mwenge Migu, Kongo Ting, and decreeing god-knows-what as the “natural” drink for Ugandans!

Homosexuality is not a crime. Those who practise it do not harm anyone, when it is done between or among consenting adults. Violating minors or gaining carnal knowledge of minors is defilement and rape. Equally, having sex with adults against their will, regardless of their sex and gender, is rape and criminal. It does not matter whether the perpetrator and victim are heterosexuals or homosexuals; defilement or rape is defilement or rape; it is criminal and punishable. But no crime, even for rape, should be punishable by death among human communities living in the 21st Century.
Rationally, one would expect that Ugandans should be more tolerant and accepting of difference and diversity, since they have gone through two or more episodes of tragic violence and persecution based solely on identity, difference, and diversity. But the latest upsurge of hate campaigns by ministers, clergy, and their brainwashed religious cult communicants against homosexuality, makes it feel like we live in the times of Jesus and we were witnessing animated polemical debates between the Pharisees, the Sadducees and Christian adherents at Jewish temples and market places in AD 47.

Unfortunately in this debate, Africans have overplayed the mythologies of creationism and the bible is wielded as the answer to all our problems, struggles and interpretations of events and as sole source for moral rectitude. This has constricted and enfeebled our minds and given us up to irrational fears of difference and the unknown and surrender to fatalism. It is the reason no significant progress will come out of Africa, because we have erected a ring fire of religious and social taboos around our lives and thoughts, that venturing beyond is not only terrifying, but patrolled and policed by authoritarians like the NRM/A who hold us hostage to the myth that human progress beyond where we are in Uganda and Africa, is impossible. And that they must chaperone us on around, including how we express our sexuality which is an entirely private and personal matter in which the state has no business acting like a voyeur.

Our progress will begin with not being content with and challenging the ordinary and venturing into the realms of self-doubt and religious scepticism. Until Ugandan Christians can interpret their experiences and aspirations not only on the teachings and morals of the bible but also on factual and observed phenomena and material life- outside the mysticisms of Christianity, we will have to put another two thousand years behind us before we can break free of the shackles and limitations of mysticisms, nature, and social taboos.

It is not scientific, but a cursory observation would reveal that societies that have fewer sexual, social and personal taboos, have made tremendous progress and have shown greater imagination, ingenuity, innovations and inventiveness among their population. They cherish freedom of thought and respect civil liberties. Conversely, societies such as Uganda, where one man is in charge of awarding market tenders from Rukingiri to Lira and his word is the law; or where vice chancellors or chancellors of national universities are political appointees rather than meritorious professionals recognised in their fields and elevated by a professional body and academic peers, the degree of restrictions on personal freedoms and civil liberties have direct relationships with the state of scientific research, social development, ingenuity, curiosity and intellectual debate on matters of public policy and interest.

Given the state of our social, economic, and political development, homosexuality is the least of our worries and vices in Uganda, than irrational religious dogmas and the cooptation of the church, or one faith, to certify public moralities in a plural society. All human rights, democracy and civil liberties advocates worth their names; and every Ugandan citizen who loves personal freedom, ought to oppose the Anti Homosexuality Bill which is nothing but the expansion of the mechanisms of limiting all our civil liberties and personal freedoms.

However, the bill provides welcome opportunity for Ugandans to begin a robust national conversation on the protection of civil rights, which ensures that there is no discrimination based on race, colour, ethnicity, sex, gender, sexuality, religion, and party affiliation or political views, in the public domain. Such civil rights debate must endeavour to entrench the separation of the state from the church and uphold the integrity of Uganda as a secular state with plurality of faith and spiritual practices and without an official state religion.

In that regard, ministers, parliamentarians and other public servants should be prohibited from imposing Christian or Islamic ethics and moralities on the state and public; or to use their personal and private belief systems and morality as the basis for national, public policy, on matters outside the regulation of religious practices. Once we can ensure these, clowns like Nsaba Buturo, will think otherwise about flogging their personal beliefs and religious dogmas to restrict and control our bodies and personalities.

Ugandans and all people of good will should wake up and see Yoweri Museveni and the NRM/A government and its agents for who they are: Purveyors of hate, who have no qualms about killing those who disagree with them or are unlike themselves. No doubt, they are more dangerous to the people of Uganda, than gays and lesbians.

Olara Otunnu has a role to play for democratic change in Uganda

2009-08-28T07:05:00.004+01:00

In "Gambling on Otunnu", in The Uganda Independent, Ms. Melina Platas takes the political pulse of the country on the homecoming of Olara Otunnu. She sounded out a number of prominent Ugandans on what role if any, Olara Otunnu can play.

In their responses, Hon. Professor Ogenga Latigo, Hon. Abdu Katuntu, and Dr. Jean Barya, highlighted a number of issues concerning who Olara Otunnu is, what contribution he can make to the democratic struggle in Uganda, and how the struggle can be organised and led. Not only were some of their comments contentious, but also specious and contradictory.

First, that Olara Otunnu is out of touch with the country, the people, and issues. But Olara Otunnu has written and spoken extensively about the NRM dictatorship, corruption, poverty, national fragmentation on ethnic lines, land-grabbing, rights abuses and possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Uganda generally and northern Uganda specifically. It is doubtful that there are esoteric socio-political issues only accessible through local residency in Uganda. Moreover, there are people who have lived in Uganda for the life of this regime, but are unaware of the extent to which our nationhood has been damaged, or the levels of impoverishment and social inequalities that have been imposed on our citizenry along social classes, region, ethnicity, party allegiances, and patterns of voting.

Olara Otunnu, like many Ugandans in the country and abroad who care about their country, is aware of these problems, and the extent to which their resolutions must be approached as a national project, rather than as a one-man derring-do. That is why, he is more attuned to consensus building, coalition making, and unifying Ugandans to work together to resolve these problems as shared national goals and citizen responsibility. Otunnu by no means presents himself as the man who knows all and has all the solutions; nor as the one who can and will bring change all by himself.

At a certain level, Professor Latigo's and Hon. Katuntu's sentiments are understandable. They come across as consummate tutelages of Museveni’s personal merits and no-party politics, with its entitlement claims. We fought, therefore we must rule. Or we endured the dictatorship; therefore, our scars give us prior rights at the head of the leadership queue.

As a national project, the current phase of the democratic struggle cannot be looked at from the interest of one individual or one party, but what specific, necessary resources and qualities are available to be deployed where and when, to progress the democratic objectives. It is Olara Otunnu, more than Prof. Latigo or Hon. Katuntu, who reads more correctly, the needs and national mood of our oppressed and impoverished citizens. It is clear that, Latigo and Katuntu believe that the democratic struggle in Uganda is limited to competition for the presidency, hence their emphases on a presidential candidate, and the narrow political spectrum they use to understand the political, moral, intellectual, and diplomatic impact of Olara Otunnu on the democratic struggles in the country.

Second, that Olara Otunnu lacks a constituency and political base. This is an area where Prof. Latigo, Dr. Jean Barya, and Hon. Katuntu, all contradict themselves. Drawing on their contention that Otunnu has been out too long and he is virtually an outsider, they rule him out as possible presidential candidate, whether for IPC or UPC. However, when asked what role Otunnu could play, whether in UPC or in IPC, they paint a picture of someone different from the Otunnu they earlier dismissed as insignificant in the politics of the country because he is an outsider, without a constituency and lacking political base.

Unless they have a different conception of " political base", how can someone without a political constituency, be expected to among other things: bring back UPC members who had defected; strengthen the UPC; resolve internal UPC feuds or reconcile warring factions; bring into play, former UPC strongholds of Bugisu, Busoga, Bushenyi and Kigezi; and unify UPC in northern Uganda to shore up the IPC in 2011? Or play influential role to mobilize for IPC and greatly improve the national fortunes of IPC presidential and parliamentary candidates?

Obviously, these roles, tasks and expectations would be for someone who has solid political base and clout in these constituencies. Are Prof. Latigo and Hon. Katuntu, merely playing politics, and therefore waging turf wars, or are they seriously committed to the democratic struggle as a national project, that will require collaboration and collective efforts?

Third, is Otunnu’s alleged political Baggage. The worry that Otunnu will be attacked by the NRM, linked to the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), and 1985 military coup, is curious. False claims and negative campaigns are part of competitive politics. In any case, the NRM should have no moral concerns about coup plotters and political usurpers. Questions about the 1985 coup are only relevant to internal UPC debate, but of no political benefit for the NRM as a national issue. Alleged links with the LRA, is a smear that Hon. Latigo himself, together with other opposition politicians and critics of the regime, should be familiar with, having been tarred with the LRA brush many times.

If Hon. Latigo's worries about what the NRM may or may not say about Otunnu is curious, Hon. Katuntu's claims that dOtunnu is an old guard, part and parcel of the problems and no better than Museveni, is pitiful. Katuntu has no basis to make these kinds of statements, because he knows they are patently false. Furthermore, he considers Otunnu an outsider, not part of "us"; perhaps "us" as in opposition members of parliament, or leaders of opposition steeped in the NRM political culture of exclusion, corruption, self-aggrandisement and insensitivities that make them benefit three or more times from car schemes for members of parliament, when schools in their constituencies are run under trees!

There may indeed be no void for political leadership for Otunnu to fill, as Hon. Latigo asserts, but there are certainly wide, gaping moral, intellectual and principled leadership gaps among the opposition forces that need to be filled. It is best for the opposition to approach the next elections by objectively assessing their strategic objectives, the forces that work for and against them, and the strengths and weaknesses of the possible people who must lead the organising for change. To look at the issues and what political advantages or disadvantages new comers like Olara Otunnu bring, from the narrow, self-interested vantage point of protecting respective individual or party political turfs, rather than advancing collective efforts and goals, would be counterproductive.

Going by media reports of speeches on the trails of his homecoming journey, highlighting the breadth of the policy crisis, national challenges, and the imperatives for opposition forces to come together and struggle for change as a national, rather than a one-man or one-party project, it is Olara Otunnu, rather than Prof. Latigo and Hon. Katuntu, who seems more in touch with the country and the yearnings of its citizens for urgent change; and it is Otunnu who seems to correctly capture and express the national urgency and imperatives for change.

Are Africans giving god the wrong street addresses and post codes?

2009-08-17T02:25:00.004+01:00

I have been wondering whether god / gods did not create different people with different languages and different spiritual practices, symbols and rites for a reason. It occurred to me that, perhaps different races with peculiar languages and spiritual beliefs systems and rites were purposefully to serve as different but distinct routes of accessing god/gods. And each ethnic group or race, like road networks with bridges and over and underpasses, had markers and identifiers not unlike highways and expressways that lead from our metropolises to the different subarbs and countryside from where people pour into the cities for work and other cultural activities everyday.

Come to think of it. Like roads and airline routes, you gotta take the one that takes you to your destination, if you hope to get there. Excepting Christopher Columbus, how many of us would rather head west, when we meant to go east? And see what happened to Columbus; poor Chris!

I believe that Africans and other colonised and dominated people who abandoned their traditional spiritual practices and beliefs, lost their ways. In embracing Christianity and Islam and praying in Latin, French, Portuguese, Spanish, English, Arabic and what have you, they are like the aircraft that did not file a flight plan and surprised the aircontrollers. No one would know what to do with it except to ensure that all the other aircrafts cleared for takeoffs or landings, are safely airborne or on the runways before anything can be done to the intruder.

Likewise, Angel Gabriel & Co are expecting the Luo, for instance, to come through Jok or Juok, and speak Luo. But when we go to church, mosques, and other foreign places of worship and use other people's languages and delve into rituals of other people's spiritual practices, using their peculiar symbols, not ours, we actually miss out because the gods do not hear our prayers since we are not using our dedicated routes and verbal signals. Like people who do not make appointments, we are kept waiting, because no one, no god or gods expected us. And until all the other people who adhered to the rules and made appointments are attended to, those who came unannounced, must wait until it is convenient to attend to them. And am sure Africans and the Luo, have been waiting for intercession since. What with the genocides in Gambella (Ethiopia), Acholi (northern Uganda), southern Sudan, and discrimination and assasination of the Luo of Kenya!

When we continue to sing in churches and other places of worship, using christian and other foreign practices rather than our own god given markers and signals, we ask for blessings for people whose practices we have adopted, and whose languages we use. I believe that is why colonised and dominated people, particularly Africans, who abandoned their own traditional spiritual practices and rites, have the lion's share of all worldly afflictions. Because all the blessings we ask for, we do in a foreign language, through a foreign belief system whose identifiers light up on god's control panel, showing that the beneficiaries are either English, Portuguese, French, Germans, Spaniards, Greeks or Jews, but not Africans, we miss out on god's attention. It is also possible our gods do not hear and understand us anymore, because we speak foreign languages alien to them. Of course they never went to school to have learnt English, French, German, Portuguese or Spanish.

It is like giving someone else's street address and postal, post or Zip code. Imagine it for a minute. If you mailed something to your friends or relatives, but instead of their street addresses and post codes, you put the wrong address and post codes, would the parcels go to them? Of course not!

So why do we, for instance, the Luo, think that abandoning Jok or Juok, which is our spiritual post, postal, or zip code, known to god /gods the postmasters as such, expect that our cries for blessings and healings and peace from worldly strifes are gonna be heeded, when we go through the church, the mosque, or christianity or Islam, which are post codes for a different group of people? Who do you think receive the blessings and healings and intercessions that we daily ask for?

You got it right; the people these spiritual beliefs and practices are native to. Like talents, god/the gods gave us different and distinct routes of getting to them. If you want the letter "Z" impression, you must hit the "Z" on your keyboard. You cannot get "Z" by hitting "7" or "K", however hard and repeatedly you hit. So before you rush to church or the mosque this Sunday or next Friday, ask whether you are really using or following your desginated spiritual routes so that your god / gods could answer your prayers.

It is as if we do not know this already. It is like calling the wrong number, when you want to call your Mum or Grand Ma. However much you try, unless you know Grandma's number or dial it correctly, you will not reach her. Moreover, you cannot call someone else's grandmother, even if you knew one. Why try to reach your god/ gods or Grandma using someone else's god's or grandmother's number?

You want to know why we suffer and we seem like we have been abandoned by god / gods? Because the shrines are gone. It is like a closed village post office. No more mail deliveries to the village. Sooner or later, mail directed to a boarded up address, or a demonlished street number, will be returned to sender (RTS). Isn't that what has happened with Africans and their gods?

Let us stop giving god the wrong street addresses and post, postal and zip codes, and our prayers shall be heard and our sufferings ended and we shall be blessed.

Empty the churches and mosques; build more shrines and pour libations. And NO ONE SAY AMEN!

How Museveni could yet survive Washington and Uganda Opposition in 2011

2009-08-03T05:36:00.005+01:00

President Yoweri Museveni’s once bright star- visible throughout Africa and the West-is dimmed. How could someone, once revered by the West, be suddenly down on his luck?

The answer to this question is long and complicated. For Museveni, it is a combination of indictable misadventures in Rwanda, Congo, and northern Uganda; corruption, electoral theft, and heavy-handedness in dealing with political opponents at home.

Simply put, 23 years in power is a long time. One is bound to make as many enemies as friends- at home and abroad -along the way. Consequently, incumbency reaches deleterious point of diminishing return; when it has nothing more to offer but personal insecurities and corresponding obsession with retaining power, defending ill-gotten wealth, and protecting cronies.

Despite his dwindling political, diplomatic fortunes, Museveni could yet rescue himself from being discarded-like all utility men before him-for becoming a liability, rather than continued asset to his Western benefactors.

Unfortunately for Museveni, nothing as earth-shaking as ( 1) the fall of the Berlin Wall; (2) the end of history and the last man; (3) September 11 and the Global War On Terror (GWOT), are likely to occur in the immediate future for him to exploit to re-invent himself.

When the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Empire crumbled, bringing down socialist, left progressive politics with it, Museveni discarded his olive combat fatigues for expensive, Saville- Row, tailored, pinstripe suits. Even the jackboots, gave way to fancy brogues, standard issue for the corridors, boardrooms of the IMF and the World Bank. From Deep inside the sanctums of these capitalist midwives, he exchanged dog-eared copies of the Ten Point Programme and the Communist Manifesto, for the Structural Adjustment Programmes(SAP).

Henceforth, the people were damned. Our “liberators” embarked on a war path of creating a middle class. A middle class was necessary for capitalist street credibility and bona fides. Life within city limits of the end of history and the last man, required cultural conformity forged through deep, irreparable structural damages to our national economy, oracled by the Washington Consensus. The operational credo of neo-liberal globalism, entailed thorough and complete economic liberalisation, privatisation, state divestiture from the economy, and the introduction of cost-sharing aimed at letting the market alone be the rational, equitable, fair allocator of values, and distributor of goods and services.

The impact of such radical about-face- from aspirations for an independent, integrated, self-sustaining and self-sufficient economy- on the ordinary citizen, in whose names Uganda had been gang-raped over and over, was immediate. Sights of premature babies skewering on Charcoal stoves, in place of incubators, in the hospitals of eastern Uganda, were tips of the iceberg signalling remarkable failures of the experiments in market-led development strategies to benefit ordinary people in peripheral capitalist economies.

Just when we thought their luck had run out and national disaffection was coalescing against neo-liberalism to force the” liberators” to account for the lack of social and economic dividends to the ordinary Ugandans, Osama bin Laden and Al Qaida struck the nerve centres of global capitalist imperialism in New York and Washington. Aware of the opportunity and lifeline 9/11 portended, Museveni hung onto every word US President George W. Bush uttered outlining US plans against global terror following the attacks. Immediately, Museveni re-baptised the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) from “backward”, “primitive”, and “common criminals”, to “terrorists”. Washington instantaneously included the LRA as a global terrorist organisation, gifting Museveni invaluable political, diplomatic lease of life.

Returning the favours, our “liberator” joined the Coalition of the Willing (COW), to attack an innocent country, effect regime- change, depose a dictator, and search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq.

The man from Kisozi Ranch, likely mistook the acronym COW, to mean an association of cattlemen, through which America was distributing free cattle from Bush’s ranch at Crawford, Texas! The herdsman that he is, Museveni was first in line, even as intermediate global powers- France, Germany, and Canada- rejected to be stampeded into regime-change folly. But opportunistically, Museveni wanted to, and milked, the GWOT cow as much as he could. The GWOT cow, which he now zero-grazes and milks in Somalia, has guaranteed milk and continued access to hay in Washington. However, Somalia and GWOT will not sufficiently provide regime sustenance and maintenance from depreciation for much longer. Why?

In major speeches in Cairo and Accra, US President Barack Obama let it be known that Washington will no longer turn a blind eye to brutal dictators simply because they are America’s own strategic instruments. Henceforth, free and fair elections will be critical measure of democracy and good governance. Elections will no longer be perfunctory events the kinds Ugandans witnessed in 1996, 2001, and 2006. There have to be universal standards met:

• Independent electoral commission;
• Prohibition of security forces from interfering with electoral processes;
• Complete freedom for people , political parties, groups, to organise and campaign freely throughout the country;
• Independent verification, update, and public display of voter’s register at polling centres long before election dates;
• Level playing field for all political parties and candidates;
• Restraining incumbents, ruling parties, from unfairly using state resources for own campaigns.

Therefore, GWOT and Somalia alone may no longer be enough to ingratiate Museveni to the West, or save his dictatorship. The changing mood in Washington and rising doubts in the West about the utility of the Nyampala in Kampala, coincides with Ugandan citizens’ resolve to cause change through opposition unity, robust national campaigns for democracy and justice.

Undoubtedly, Museveni’s star is merely a twinkle on the global horizon. But he could yet regain luminescence and save his regime by intervening to personally remove global logjams on some particularly Western pet peeves:

1. Somalia-Fights like never before; completely defeats , uproots the Islamic insurgents opposing the interim government;

2. Darfur-Fires junior minister Henry Oryem Okello to lure Omar el Bashir to Uganda; arrests and hands Bashir over to the ICC for trial for genocide in Darfur;

3. Zimbabwe-As in Operations Lightning Thunder, infiltrates UPDF Special Forces into Zimbabwe, topples, arrests and hands over Robert Mugabe to the West;

4. North Korea-UPDF special forces knock out Kim Jong Il and obliterate his nuclear facilities;

5. Iran-UPDF Special Forces assassinate Mahmmoud Ahmedinajjad, pulverise Iranian nuclear facilities;

6. Al Qaida-An experienced guerrilla foxhound, Museveni single-handedly hunts down Osama Bin Laden, hangs him at City Square, and mounts Laden’s corpse on a marble plinth and invites himself to the White House bearing this macabre gift-Operations Sane "Jaruos."

Failing all these by September 2010:

7. Uganda 2011-Museveni assembles the press and announces he has quit. That, Kaguta family sacrifices for ungrateful Ugandans, particularly Buganda, is over. In full battle fatigues, and on foot, he leads the UPDF, PGB, ESO, ISO, JATTF, CMI, NRM, his wife, brother, son, daughters and sons-in-law out of Kampala to unknown destination....in a last march past mounted for the citizens of Uganda.

Ugandans Launch Campaign for Free and Fair Elections

2009-07-14T16:25:00.000+01:00

PRESS RELEASE

Ugandans Launch Campaign for Free and Fair Elections
Kampala, Boston, London, Toronto

11thJuly, 2009

Today a broad spectrum of Ugandans launched a major national and international campaign for free and fair elections in Uganda. This collective patriotic mission is called Campaign for Democracy and Justice in Uganda (CDJ).The interim president of CDJ, Mr. John Mayanja, stated: “Previous elections conducted by the Museveniregime, which has been in power for 24 years, were massively rigged and manifestly lacked a levelplaying field. We must absolutely change this. This is the primary reason for the formation and launchingof CDJ.”CDJ will campaign for the following norms and standards:

 genuinely free and fair elections;
 transparent democratic practice and process;
 the rule of law and accountability;
 justice and equity for all Ugandans;
 national unity.These norms and standards constitute the foundation for democracy and good government in Uganda and worldwide.

CDJ is not a political party. It is a non-partisan advocacy project committed to advancing the norms,principles, and standards set out above. CDJ is not affiliated with any particular political parties inUganda; it is a broad-based network of Ugandan patriots, within the country and in the Diaspora, of diverse political affiliations and persuasion.

A particularly important date is approaching on the Ugandan political calendar. The country is preparingto hold national elections in 2011. CDJ will not support any parties or candidates in the forthcomingelectoral contests. Its preoccupation is to mount a vigorous campaign for genuinely free and fair elections, with a level playing field for all.The interim chairman of CDJ, Olara A. Otunnu noted: “Today, Uganda is a country in the throes of agrave national crisis and distress. The best way to combat this malaise is the institution of genuinedemocratic practice and process, beginning with free and fair elections. This would allow the Ugandanpeople to freely choose and shape their own destiny. It would ensure that leaders are held fullyaccountable for their actions before the law and the electorate. Democratic process also is the best way toprevent resort to violent conflict.” CDJ calls on Ugandan patriots of all hues, both within the country and in the Diaspora, to come togetherand mount a robust campaign for free and fair elections in 2011. The interim secretary, ProfessorAloysius Lugira stated: “The norms and standards for free and fair elections are now universally accepted.Uganda must not continue to be a perennial exception to universally accepted standards”.

This campaign is in support of the demands for electoral reforms which have been jointly tabled by the political parties in Uganda. The campaign is being launched today on the occasion of President BarackObama’s speech in Accra; we are inspired by his seminal message, in particular on free and fair elections, accountability, anti-corruption, anti-ethnic sectarianism, anti-nepotism, and equitable opportunity, asindispensable components of democratic governance.

Significantly this campaign also echoes and is inline with observations and recommendations made in 2006 by all election observers, including the European Union, the Commonwealth, and Ugandan civil society led by the Uganda Joint ChristianCouncil (UJCC) and the ruling of the Supreme Court of Uganda. 2011 must inaugurate a new era for Uganda--an era of free and fair elections, with a level playing field.

Ugandans demand, deserve and will accept nothing less. As President Barack Obama stated today,“History is on the side of these brave Africans.”

Signed by:Mr. Olara A. Otunnu (Interim Chairman)

Mr. James Ssemakula (Interim Deputy Chairman)

Mr. John Mayanja (Interim President)

Mr. Mubiru Musoke (Interim Treasurer)

Professor Aloysius Lugira (Interim Secretary)

For further information, contact:

Mr. Jude MbabaaliFoundation for African Development [FAD]P.O. Box 2326, Kampala
Tel: 041 4510 486/041 4269 562 Mobile: 0772 444 663 Email: mbabaalij@yahoo.com; fad@infocom.co.ug

Professor Aloysius LugiraTel: 617-522-3539 or 781-439-3875 Email:lugira.cdj@gmail.com; lugira@bc.edu

Imperial Britain's Bastards

2009-06-02T01:38:00.009+01:00

Imperial Britain’s Bastards

Imperial Britain’s Bastards

Imperial Britain’s Bastards
Following Treasure Trail
Of Robbers
Plundering Africa
Ransacking Asia
And the Caribbean
By Air, Sea, Road and Rail
They Come
Peering Through Hatches
Of Britain’s Racial Fortress
Impenetrable it stands

Imperial Britain’s Bastards
From Africa and Indo-China
Disinherited scions of Imperial Rape
Brazenly clawing their way in
From Cairo to Cape
From Timbuktu to Goa
Poor Illegitimate kin
Of Bounty-Laden Britannia

Imperial Britain’s Bastards
Powerless To Snatch Crumbs
From Sticky fingered Rulers
House-Boy Afro-Asian Despots
Waiting Globalisation Tables
Superintending Sweat Shops
Bell Boys Contorting for Tip
From USAID and DFID
Twenty-First Century House Niggers
Forbidding Trade Union Rage
Outlawing Minimum Wage
Humouring at capitalist Raves
Robbing Communal Land
Polluting Rivers, Streams and Lakes
Clearing Forests, Draining Wetlands
Erecting Play Grounds
For the Master Race

Imperial Britain’s Bastards
Dispossessed Regal Heirs
By Sea, Air, Road and Rail
They Come
Knocking at Imperial Gates
Black, Brown, Yellow Vermin
Groped with latex-gloved hands
Herded behind Razor-Wired Walls
At Brook and Tinsley Houses
West Sussex Detention Centres
By Xenophobic Dastards

Imperial Britain’s Bastards
African, Indo-Chinese Intrepid
Seething With Anger and Self-Hate
Flailing out At Each Other
At the Slightest Provocation
Inclined To Prison-Like Fate
They Eat, Shit and Stink
They come able to think
But gradually sink
Dehumanising Squalour
Of A Storm-Tossed Slave Ship
On The High Seas
Consume Them
While in London and New York
African Diamond Gold Stock Glow
In Nairobi, Lagos and Cairo
Black Immigration Agents Bow
Before Aryan Gods
Caucasians Leap-Frog Visa Queues
Like: “Why Bother Filling Forms”!?
Whiteness Is a Trump Card
A Universal Privilege Club Pass
Racial Master Keys
To Global Privilege

Imperial Britain’s Bastards
X-Rayed and Strip-Searched
At Heathrow and Gatwick Airports
Hot Branded: “ Poverty Refugees”
Escaping Africa’s Primeval Darkness
Paragons of Stupidity and Ignorance
Must Be Stopped At All Costs
By Claustrophobic UKB Agents
“ American Passport!?”
“Yes, Ma’am”.
“You Are Canadian!?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“You Travel A Lot! Don’t You!?
“What, Do You, Do!?”
Whatever You Damn Do
UKBA Use Imperial Racial Order
To Decipher Motives
Bringing Global Citizens
To Distant Shores
Americans or Canadians
Need No Visas to Britain
But Afro-Asian Denizens

Imperial Britain’s Bastards
Sequestered At Ports
And Frontiers
Deprived of Pleasures
From Looted Afro-Asian
Regal Treasures
Their Waitress Rulers
Fight for Scraps
Falling Off Imperial Tables
They Dutifully Tend
Political Independence
May Have Come
To the Motherlands
Boy’s Quarters
May Have Given Way
To State Houses and Palaces
But Them Tenants
In Perennial Roles
Have Remained the Same
House Niggers and Slave Drivers
Nannies and House Boys
Lynching kith and kin
For Tipples at the Court
Of Britannia
And Anglo-Saxondom

Imperial Britain’s Bastards
Hopelessly Praying To Aryan God
Deluded He’s Different
Than His UKBA Brethren
Illegitimate Offspring
Of Loveless Imperial Rampage
Begotten of Imperial Pillage
Denying Native inheritance
In Ashanti and Azania Goldfields
Tanzanite Diamond Mines
And Niger Delta Oil Wells

Imperial Britain’s Bastards
Arrive On British Shores
Chasing Cecil Rhodes’ Mirage
Cape- To- Cairo Dreams
Living the Whiteman’s Burdens
Lugard’s Imperial Dual Mandate
In Tropical Africa
Externalities on Balance Sheets
Of Imperial British East Africa
And The East India Companies

Imperial Britain’s Bastards
Afro-Asian Heirs Tracking Booties
Burgled By Adventurers
Century Empire Builders
And Fortune Hunters
Artefacts gracing imperial palaces
Filling Metropolitan Museums
Windfalls Lining Pockets
Of Blood Diamond Hawkers
Trusts Bankrolling Endowments
At Cambridge and Oxford
By Wills of Robber Baron
Philanthropists
While Timbuktu and Ile Ife
In Shambles Lie

Imperial Britain’s Bastards
Mansa Musa’s Princes
Condemned To Penury
Erstwhile Servitude
Abdicating their thrones
At Monomatapa and Timbuktu,
Evacuating Great Zimbabwe
Meroe and Songhai
Surrendering their Titles
To the Great Karoo And Veld
Voiding Ancient Claims
To Kenya’s “White” Highland
Ceding Lobengula’s Matapo Hills
To the Corpse of Cecil Rhodes
They Head Europe-wards
Like Rats Scurrying
From grass huts Burning
Rudely stopped in their tracks
By Aryan-White Immigration Walls

Imperial Britain’s Bastards
Lost in a Maze of Locks and Bolts
Awaiting Extraordinary Rendition
To Distant Shores
Huddled Together Like Cattle
At Salt Licks
Swapping Invariable Solicitor Stories
That Fail to Scale English Racial Everest
Cursing Ancient Powerlessness
Of African Forebear Heroes
Lamenting Omission by Osei Tutu
Groaning at deference of Olaibon Lenana
Pained by the Tragedy of Hendricks Witboi
Yearning for Kabalega, Samori Toure
Rwot Awich of Intemperate Acholi
And Valorous Shaka Zulu
With Assegai Warriors
In Cow-Horn Formation
Protecting Africa
From Peripatetic Aliens
Like UK Border Agents Do
Great Britain

Imperial Britain’s Bastards
Deride House Boy Autocrats
House Niggers lording it
Over Brethren
Hawking Precious Inheritance
To Imperial Finance
For Pittance
Porous Afro-Asian Borders
Whiteness Seeps Through
Like Water through Parched Sand
Sneering at Africa’s permissive
Immigration Laws
Scorning Her Waitress State Agents
Valet Ministers, Concierge Presidents
Tripping Over Themselves
Making Gory Offerings
At thirsty Aryan Temples
Committing Crimes
Mass Sacrificing African Lives
Nursery- School- Children- Profs
Singing London’s Burning Rhymes
Unheeding African Need
Unseeing African Reality
Turning the motherland
Into franchise Continental Hotel
Open Twenty-Four-Seven
To Weary White Travellers
Catering to esoteric Whims
Of Investor Trophy hunters
State Houses and Lodges
Are Modern Imperial Outposts
Slave Markets and Forts

Imperial Britain’s Bastards
Asphyxiated by Great Britannia’s
Octopus Tentacles
Hapless Dolphins in Death Throes
Caught in A Killer Whale’s vice grip
Livelihoods sucked out
By Britannia’s Suction Lip
The Motherland’s Waitress Buffoons
Shamba Boys and House Niggers
At State Houses and Lodges
At Ports and Frontiers
At Embassies and Missions
Wait Imperial Tables
Like Domesticated Baboons
Rewarded with bananas
While in London and New York
African Mining Portfolios soar
Apace with tides of woes
Ravaging the Continent.

Okello Lucima

Israeli attacks in Gaza indefensible war crimes and crimes against humanity

2008-12-30T00:12:00.007Z

Israel, Hamas, War Crimes, Condoleeza Rice, Gordon Brown, Crimes against humanity, Genocide, Gaza, Israeli Occupation, Palestine, Iraeli attacks on Gaza, Gaza attacks

The overwhelming, gratuitous, disproportionate, and callous destruction of lives-innocent children, women, and other Palestinian civilians and citizens; including the bombing of the Islamic University, is indefensible, immoral and criminal acts of state terrorism by Israel.

The United states and Britain, including the UN Security Council, cannot simply blame Hamas, while the perpetrator of violence, and the party using weapons of mass destruction to kill people in Gaza is the criminal and apartheid state of Israel. Why Gordon Brown simply saying he is appalled? Come on, Prime Minister Brown! How could you merely be appalled, when over Ziimbabwe, you could invoke the International Criminal Court (ICC) and even urge the UN Security Council to impose sanctions against Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe?

What about Secretary of State condoleeza Rice? Why, only recently, she urged for a coalition of the willing, to overthrow Robert Mugabe, because he is allegedly violating the rights of Zimbabweans. But in the face of real and criminal acts of barbarity against the people of Palestine in Gaza, Condoleeza Rice looks the other way; condemning Hamas instead, and imposing the burdens of a ceasefire on the colonised, dominated and dispossessed people of Palestine.

Britain, the USA, and the European Union have no moral authority to lecture the world on the issues of human rights. Until they condemn and impose sanctions on Israel the same way they do to third world countries and other peoples who are regarded as "other"- the "other world" -from Asia to Latin America to Africa, must begin to cooperate the same way they cooperated during decolonisation, to defend their peoples and their interests defeat the forces of imperialism and double standards.

The source of the violence is not Hamas rockets fired into Israel, stupid! It is the occupation of Palestinian lands by Israel, and the exile and incaceration of Palestinians in concentration camps, supervised by the United Nations.

What is going on in Gaza, and what has been going on in occupied Palestinian lands since 1967, is nothing but genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. American leaders must stop pulling the wool over our eyes. Only after they have served their term in office, then they begin to say they care about the other majority of humanity by launching charitble foundations and other nonsense, when all the while they were in power, they supervised the same policies that impoverished and decimated people all over the world.

What comes out of Washington, London and Brussels, is all hogwash; they are deep up to their elbows in blood of innocent people in Palestine, by blindly supporting apartheid and Zionist Israeli policies of ethnic cleanisng that they would not tolerate elswhere.

The other world should not be interested in feigned compassions out of Washington, London and Brussels, but must insist on their reining in Israel and ushering it out of occupied Palestinian and other Arab lands, as the only realistic solution and means to a durable and just peace. Anything short of that, the Palestinians and all oppressed peoples of the world have a right to self-determination and to use all means possible to assert their claims and advance and defend their interests.

Where are Archbishops Desmond Tutu and John Sentamu, when they should be leading this moral outrage? Might it not be fitting indeed, for Bishop John Sentamu to cut up his cassocks, to demonstrate a proportionate moral outrage, since he thought a dog collar appropriately expressed his moral indignation at Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe?

Imperialist siege of Zimbabwe: A Mirror image of South Africa and Namibia future over the next decade

2008-12-27T04:46:00.022Z

Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, Jacob Zuma, Musouia Lekota, South Africa, ANC, PAC, SACP, Namibia, Robert Mugabe; Morgan Tsivangirai; Zimbabwe; Robert Mugabe

Africa, the African Union, Pan Africa, national liberation and anti-colonialist, anti-racists, anti-domination, and democratic forces in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific (ACP) countries cannot afford to allow Zimbabwe to fail. Should Zimbabwe be brought to its knees and possible forced-collapse from encirclement by racist and imperialist global domination forces, through illegal Western-imposed sanctions, embargo, and co-optation of some quisling African regimes and their intellectually impoverished leaders as imperialist continental policemen, they will have betrayed and rolled back, not only the causes for Zimbabwean liberation and its indepencence, but also cleared a path for the liberated peoples of Namibia and South Africa (Azania) to fail in their endeavours for social justice through national liberation, economic and social democracy.

It is incumbent upon Pan Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, to step in and make up for what Zimbabwe has been forced to forego as a result of imperialist and racist blackmail from Britain and the USA. Post racialist and post settler Zimbabwean, Azanian, and Namibian economic and social democracy and national liberation and indpendence, are too costly a price to pay to endear, and once again enslave, ourselves as British or American shamba boys.

The intellectual dishonesty and resultant failure for Pan Africa on Zimbabwe; the inability and timidity to re-frame the critical problem and project the legitimate justice claims and the correctness and necessity for ZANU-PF led land reforms for black victims of British racism, domination, and exploitation, is a test-case and trial balloon that reveal the future trajectory for South Africa and Namibia, as post-liberation African states grappling with social and economic reforms after centuries of white racist dominationa and inequalities.

The sudden, bewildering, and humiliating departure of comrade Thabo Mbeki, signalled that the imperialist forces and their internal collaborators, are tireless in their efforts to stunt African progress and self-reliance, and undermine progressive African leadership that puts the interests of African people in the centre of governance. Part of their displeasure with Comrade Thabo Mbeki, was his patience and refusal to be stampeded into dancing to Western tunes and not thinking for himself over Zimbabwe. Internal factional struggles for leadership and control within the party, narrowly focused on power alone and limited horizon of South Africa, in their desire to undermine and defeat Mbeki within the African National Congress (ANC), and eventually recall him as president of the republic, played into the hands of the imperialist forces.

As we must now bitterly regret, the overzealousness on the part of the Jacob Zuma factions to defeat and humiliate Mbeki, so they could grab complete control of the party and the state, split the ANC right down the midlle. If this is not a godsend opportunity for the forces encircling Zimbabwe, what is; given that South Africa is host to ten times the amount of British and American capital investments there and greater and entrenched settler interests, than Zimbabwe? The weakening of the ANC, through a bitter leadership contest, and eventual fragmentation into two parties-with the emergence of the Congress of the People (COPE) led by former South African Defence minister Mosiuoa Lekota-places South Africa within striking range of who put Zimbabwe under siege through Morgan Tsvangirai and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

At this juncture, it is still too early to tell, which of the two ANC factions will play the counter-revolutionary role of collaboration with imperialist forces to roll back South African national and democratic liberation. If Jacob Zuma's populism wins the day, and COPE's emphasis on growth and the economy, without any clear statements on the need for economic and social democracy are any indications, then it is COPE, unfortunately, that will turn out to be home to the traitors of the Azanian cause.

Unfortunate because, COPE was founded as a protest against the treatment of Mbeki by the winning Zuma factions. But their politics and policies sound potentially so unmbekian. For instance, COPE have already broke ranks both with Mbeki's own positions and that of most of the members of the regional South African Development Cooperation (SADC) on Zimbabwe. For this reason, progressive forces in South Africa, need to look very closely at the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania(PAC) party and the South Africa Communist Party (SACP)components in the ANC coalition. In our view, it is the PAC-CP and the original ANC coalition that can best lay claims to the national, social and economic liberation and democratic historical mission of the South African and African liberation struggles. It is not the Lekota dissidents and counterrevolutionaries.

In our view, the departure of Mbeki, the ascension of Zuma, the break-up of the ANC and the rise of COPE, and the advancing age and failing health of Nelson (Madiba) Mandela, pose critical challeges for South Africa. We can be sure that the political capital that was earned by Nelson Mandela's dignified suffering and magnanimity towards his oppressors, including the West, some of whom still designated him as a terrorist as late as 2008, is gradually but surely dwindling. Just over a decade after the end of apartheid, and despite a brilliant and unprecedented start as a multiracial and democratic polity, the contrived honeymoon with merchant princes and Western imperialist forces, are coming to an end.

When old age and fragile health inevitably take their toll on our moral icon, an era will have been effectively closed, and South Africa, and by extrapolation, Namibaia, just like Zimbabwe, will have been left naked and exposed to imperialist forces to frustrate and undermine any unfinished economic and social democratic and affirmative action reforms. South Africa and Namibia can expect to come under intense pressure to abandon or water down reforms and policies with affirmative action components aimed at rectifying historical racial, economic, and social injustices and inequalities.

Therefore, imperialist siege of Zimbabwe today mirrors the post Mandela future for South Africa and Namibia, two post liberation African countries with settler history and African dispossession with the imperatives for social affirmative action reforms in economic and social policies. Should the Western imperialist forces and Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC, their shamba boy in Zimbabwe win the day, and the liberation hero, comrade Robert Mugabe and ZANU PF go down to defeat and humiliation, a prededence will have been set for Namibians and South Africans, to sneer at and desecrate the memories and sacrifices of Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko, and Hendriks Witboi. It is a concerted effort between imperialists and their collaborators to blunt Umkhonto We Sizwe; a possibility that South Africans and Pan Africa must not countenance.

How third party intervention and mediation failed in northern Uganda

2008-12-27T00:25:00.005Z

Joseph Kony, Yoweri Museveni, Joachim Chissano, Riek Machar Teny, northern Uganda, Southern Sudan, Sudan People's Liberation Movement / Army (SPLM/A), Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), Juba Peace Talks, Third Party Intervention, Third Party Mediation.

Even before the final stocks are taken, there is no doubting the damning verdict that Third Party Intervention & Mediation-the outsiders looking in-failed in northern Uganda. The last nail on the coffin of third party mediation, aka the Juba Peace Process, was dealt by Uganda's decision -at the behest of the USA- to cobble together a coalition of DRC Congo and Southern Sudan, for high noon showdown in Garamba with Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). However, the failures as processes, can be accounted for by five inter-related components of actors and their framing of the northern Uganda conflict.

1. First on the list is superpower-small-states politics, and the structure of global inter-states and multilateral international / regional politics.

2. The second one is perceptions and actions of international human rights organisations.

3. Third, is the code of silence among international humanitarian agencies, particularly in favour of a state and the status quo, and the willingness to work with and support unjust conditions.

4. The fourth factor is loss of autonomy and voice in the process by victim civil society groups in northern Uganda and their diaspora.

5. Fifth, the credibility and neutrality of mediators foretold of doubts in viability and impartiality of the Juba Process

1. superpower-small-states politics

Lately, public international law, particularly human rights law and multilateral governance, are being gate-crashed by non-state entitities, people, groups, particularly social movements, as legitimate and primary stakeholders who are in the first line of fire when normal politics and states fail. However, high politics, that is international relations and diplomacy, as well as multilateral governance, is stil the preserve and relations of states. Moreover, states conduct their affairs to maximise the welfare of their citizens, by pursuing advantage in their self-interests. As such, any claims to a normative criteria or conduct in the international behaviour of states, is defined by a realist morality-a mix of pragmatic, case-by case, self-interested, and flexible apporach to security and strategic issues, rather than following an inflexible, standard template of moral matrix that would apply uniformly to similar cases under similar conditions anywhere and everywhere.

Altough we are often deafened by a crescendo of moral claims, particulary regarding human rights, democracy, and fundamental rights and freedoms from the White House or State Department and Number 10 Downing Street or White Hall, such rhetorics are often so subjectively and narrowly defined as to reflect American or British economic and strategic interest. It is never informed by a self-less, bleeding-heart morality of an Archbishop Desmond Tutu, or Mother Theresa, or the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury; that sees inustice as injustice and seeks justice, anywhere and everywhere, with the same convictions against human suffering and exploitation without unterior motives than that the victims deserve justice and wellbeing that we all claim to fight for, for others and ourselves.

A classic example where doublespeak and double standards have been so blatantly manifest in the face of unparalleled injustice, is in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and American, British, and generally Western attitudes to the plight of Palestinian Arabs in Palestine. The Western position, led by the USA, taken the invariable line that Israel is always right, even when innocent Palestinian children and women are massacred in cold blood, in callous display of superior military power and state terrorism financed by the West. And Israel always gets away with it because it is a strategic American and Western ally in the Middle East, with a strong, well-organised international Zionist lobby groups, with strategic global stranglehold on mass media and international finance and industry. No one can do as little as question the conduct of the racist and apartheid Israeli government without being set on by its defenders through the myriad global media outlets they control. Politicians like Michael Ignatieff Deputy Leader of Canada's Liberal Party, who let down their guards and speak candidly and with conscience, wake up to regret as the possibility of their political career falling apart stare them in the pages of those broadsheets and they are forced to take back their words.

Consequently, the asymmetrical Palestinian struggles for justice and self-determination, is misrepresented simply as "terrorism", the moral outrage to which must offset and erase that of the justice claims of Palestinians dispossessed of their lands and homes and rights and locked in concentration camps in their own homelands. Palestinian recourse to self-help and resistance in the face of international collusion with Israel against them, is characterised simply as mindless terrorism.

The framing of Palestinian resistance as "terrorism" against a "democratic" and "civilised" Israel, which is the occupier and oppressor, but absolved of all moral responsibilities by so-called Palestinian "terror" tactics, is inversely not different from the framing of the Zimbabwean struggles against Anglo-American imperialism, British neo-colonialism, and historical dispossesion of blacks of their lands and rights, whose claims for justice, must be superseded by narrowly, subjectively, and self-interestedly defined human rights and democratic rights claims to entrench British and American interests through patronised opposition groups such as the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)and its shallow leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

More often than not, the beneficiaries of superpower doublespeak in post cold war unipolar or multipolar world are states; recent exceptions being a non-state party such as the Albanian terrorists in Kosovo, who were fighting against a former socialist state of Yugoslavia or Serbia, which the USA and Western Europe were bent on dismantling, to continue accelerating the disintegration and absorbtion into NATO, of former Warsaw Pact bloc states, and the strategic isolation and containment of Russia, as well as encirclement of a rising China. In cases such as Zimbabwe opposition groups inside of normal politics are supported by the West against states and leaders like Robert Mugabe, who are less favourably disposed to Western interests and unamenable to obsequious acquiescence with Western moral doublestandards and ideology of power and domination.

Half-hearted encouragement but non-adoption of opposition in Uganda, where the regime and its leader is considered a Western hatchet man, and yet Uganda's human security situation in the north of the country have been graver and huamn rights and democratic credentials as a matter of policy have been worse than Zimbabwe's, prove our arguments on Western self-interests and moral trade offs.

As a state, Uganda benefited from US unilateralism after 9/11 attacks. But Uganda's speical relationship with the West, particualarly Britain and the USA, goes back to when Yoweri Museveni was a guerrilla leader and after he came to power in 1986. As insurgents, the National Resistance Movement/ Army (NRM/A) were supported by the West against the popularly elected government of Milton Obote. And when Musevni came to power in 1986, after a coup détat had deposed Milton Obote and the Uganda People's Congress (UPC) earlier in July of 1985, Museveni made a radical break with his marxist rhetoric and past, to embrace IMF / World Bank imposed economic liberalisation measures and social adjustments policies that was to firmly put him into the Western circle as a trusted hatchet man in Africa. This meant, as a state and government formed by former non-state elements the West helped bring to power, Museveni and the Ugandan state were assured of international diplomatic, political, and moral protection from the West, and the only superpower left standing, the US.

Until 9/11 2001 attacks in the US, the international community or the West had turned a blind eye to the genocide in northern Uganda, and tacitly gave Museveni a free hand in brutally suppressing insurgency there, in the process of consolidating power over the country and legitimising his violent seizure of power despite the 1985Nairobi Peace Accord. As far as the West and Museveni were concerned, Uganda was peaceful and prospering. Any suggestions to the contrary- as their acolytes such as John Prendergast of the Centre for American Progress and Enough! today do not tire of reminding the world- were the work of diaspora groups "rabidly" opposed to the Museveni government, abettors of Lord's Resistance Movement / Army (LRM/A) child abduction and terrorism, and who are out of touch with what progress and strides Uganda had made on human rights and social development front and ought to be treated by the West on the same plane as terrorists.

After 9/11, America, through the Coalition of the Willing, on which Yoweri Museveni opportunistically jumped, could now openly support its man in Kampala, against insurgents in the north. Without wasting time, the LRA and its leaders, were designated as international terrorist group. Labels of "terrorism", as used against legitimate claims of Palestinians against international and Israeli injustices, was meant to intimidate critics and shortcircuit legitimate national and regional debates about the political nature of the Ugandan conflict, and the failures and ravages of the military option, and the imperatives for a peaceful, negotiated settlement. As a result, the LRA insurgency, as well as official proscription of political parties and their activities, as symptoms of broken politics under Museveni, were discussed separately despite the apparent conjunctions of claims and charges against the government by civic opposition groups and proponents of the LRA.

Since Museveni serves American and British economic and strategic interests in the Great Lakes Region of East and Central Africa, Britain and USA are willing to prop up his government and ally with the Ugandan state against its critics and opponents in the country, the region and internationally. Dividends from such support was the quick indictments of the LRA by the nascent International Criminal Court (ICC), after Museveni- standing shoulder to shoulder in London with Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC Prosecutor- conveniently referred the matter to the ICC. This was a culmination of a whirlwind diplomatic offensive by Museveni through Western capitals, taking him to Washington, and ending in London.

The failures by human rights groups, social movements, Ugandan and particularly Acholi Civil society and its diaspora to effectively oppose the expedient designation of the LRA by Washington as a terrorist group, and subsequent referal by Museveni to and indictments by the ICC; or reframe the debate on legitimate northern Ugandan socio-political grievances on the origins, the convenient use of the conflict northern population and Musevni's political opponents, marked the first instance of the failure of third party intervention in northern Uganda. After the ICC indictments, it was obvious that any further search for a political solution was futile, since the dominant international powers had already defined the problems and the framework under which solutions ought to be pursued. It was clear that Museveni's own responsibility and role in rights violations in Uganda, particularly northern Uganda, was once again going to be shaded from the searching glare of international justice.

Once again, like in Palestine or Zimbabwe, when people's aspirations for justice conflict with Western interests, "terrorism" or "dictatorship" and other permutations are used to subvert legitimate criticism, debate and opposition to the status quo, and to reframe the issues and debate to render the original rights and justice claims illegitimate.

2. Failure by human rights organisations to lead on a more appropriate and just framework for peace in northern Uganda.

Although human rights groups such as Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW), kept a catalogue of claims, counter-claims, and denials of rights violations, including arbitrary arrests, torture, rapes, and extrajudicial killings, by armed groups, they weakened their positions by coming across as if they were more interested in assessing which party has killed or violated rights more than the other party. Language and phraseologies such as, Museveni and the NRM/A have committed atrocities but their record is an improvement compared to previous regimes, is simply irresponsible, to say the least. Killings and other crimes against humanity and war crimes, should not have a numerical threshold or degree of barbarism in order for it to be a legitimate candidate for our sympathy and moral outrage. Even only one violation, must be treated for what it is and attract proportionate punishment.

Although both AI and HRW criticised the partial indictments of only the LRA by the ICC, they both supported Washington's characterisation of the LRA as a "terrorist" group, while knowing it was politically convenient, and aimed to shield Museveni from political accountability. Moreover, their call for both sides in the northern Uganda conflict to be brought to account, were feeble, and largely celebrated the LRA indictments, to the detriments of offering critical assessments of the complexities of the northern Uganda conflict and the limitations in the ICC Rome Statutes. Knowing fully well that any investigations were limited to July 2002 when the ICC came into being, these organisations and their leaders knew accountability and justice would not be fully rendered, given the most horrendous violations in the northern Ugandan conflict took place before 2002, and that all parties to the conflict had some political and command responsibilities to take and accounting to do for the behaviour of their forces.

Aware of these shortcomings, and their own familiarity with recent and emergent international special war crimes and crimes against humanity tribunals practices, these principal international human rights organisations were well-placed to lead the debate in the search for a more efficacious and appropriate framework for war termination and search for justice in northern Uganda. They forgot their own reports and others' writings on both parties, including the voices of the victims. That they failed to speak up and speak out more loudly than they did, can be attributed to their own immersion into the socio-political and ideological realism of the international politics and policies of their own home countries in the West.

While both HRW and AI have regional units throughout the world, they are American and British in origins, and do share the dominant social and political values of these societies. Like other social movements, there is a cross-pollination between and among personnel in the not-for-profit sector and those in government in their respective countries. Some start their careers in government departments, and move on to social movements, while others cut their teeth within the social movements and move to government departments or serve in advisory roles as policy experts on respective regions of the world.

But the omission of bodies such as HRW and AI, pale in comparison to the overt adoption or positioning with official Washington policies; or working with the regime and government of Uganda, to distort and misinform on the key issues and history of the conflict. Such organisations include Enough, and Invisible Children. It is doubtful, what level of genuine commitment to ending the conflict in northern Uganda and lessening human sufferings these groups and their principals have, than to promote their own careers, create jobs for themselves, and raise a lot of money in the process with negligible portions actually going to support the niche causes in northern Uganda they identify with. While they do raise their funds from the American public, other funding sources are also undoubtedly accessed through USAID and other federal government sources. It is therefore reasonable to assume that they may not bite too much, the hand that feeds them. Hence, their closeness to and similarity with official Washington policies and positions on the northern Uganda conflict, is not accidental.

In our view, giving uncritical support to Washington's convenient characterisation of the LRM/A as a terrorist organisation after 9/11; and letting the ICC referal and partial indictments of the LRM/A slide without a spirited debate for its limitations and inappropriateness for a just peace, compared to a special tribunal for instance, open up these human rights organisations to accusations of shirking responsibility, after they led the war baying for the blood of all rights violators in the conflict through their detailed thematic reporting. This marked the second wheel falling off the beat-up justice vehicle, in its tortured and bumpy ride over the murky northern Uganda rights terrain.

3. Code of silence among international humanitarian agencies and their willingness to work within and support unjust conditions.

Part of the failures of third party intervention in northern Uganda can be attributed to the lack of objective and impartial confidential or open reporting by humanitarian agencies of the political and social conditions they work in, rather than simply tweak donor emotions and consciences with symptoms of conflicts arising from either state policies or non-state militia groups actions. Although some humanitarian agencies in Uganda catalogued LRM/A atrocities against civilians, there were scantly any documenting similar abuses by government forces.

It is understandable that host states regulate the work and actions of such agencies. However, it is inexcusable that such organisations, even if forbidden to comment on political and human rights matters by their charters, would not have the conscience and courage to abandon working in conditions where their work would complement the illegal policies and actions of insurgents or state parties in the violations of fundamental human rights. For instance, in northern Ugnada, a UN mandated organisation such as the World Food Programme (WFP) tolerated local state officials in northern Uganda requiring aid recipients to produce NRM party cards in order to be served their food aid and other rations in the concentration camps. Essentially, displaced camp populations were being forced to join and register as members of the NRM party, at a time the country was preparing for multiparty elections in 2006 for the first time in twenty years under Museveni.

Furthermore, the Ugandan government never accepted to declare northern Uganda a disaster area, despite entreaties from humanitarian aid organisations, who needed such official policy to allow them to scale up their work and pour more resources against the degraded human security situation in the region. Moreover, while it was reluctant to declare northern Uganda a disaster area, for fear it would invite legitimate international presence and scrutiny, the Ugandan government completely neglected to house, feed, treat and care for the camp population, but left them to fend for themselves. Even then, the humanitarian aid community said nothing, but silently moved in and worked to sustain a government policy which was clearly a violation of international humanitarian law on internal displacement. Additionally, they worked in silence, with the unwritten codes to see nothing, hear nothing and say nothing, even as atrocious violations, including rapes and extrajudicial killings are perpetrated by government troops in the camps they helped manage and serve.

For the last twenty-three years, aid and development agencies, including UN mandated agencies-from UNICEF, WPF,UNDP-and voluntry agencies such as OXFAM, World Vision, Danish Refugees Council, International Rescue Committee (IRC), and many others; as well as those affiliated with governments, such as DANIDA of Denmark, CIDA of Canada, DFID of the UK, USAID, of the USA, to mention but a few, drove through Acholi and past civil populations being stopped and forced by the government army and state agents, to perform forced, unpaid labour on roads throughout northern Uganda. School Children, children, pregnant women, the elderly, the sick and infirm, were subjected to these humiliations, while a cross section of the entire so-called international community went by with as little as questioning the proprieties of such state actions, or taking up the matter with government through quiet diplomacy and protests, or report it to thier respective governments. That the practice did not stop, even today, persuade us to conclude that it was ignored by the world, in its zeal to protect and shield Yoweri Museveni and his forces from international justice.

By the time these blind, deaf and dumb field managers, programmes coordinators, and country representatives of these organisations remnisce about their experiences in northern Uganda in their memoirs as Jan Egeland did, it will certainly be too late to help achieve justice for the people of northern Uganda. In our assessment, while some aid and development organisations did commendable work in northern Uganda, they also wittingly or unwittingly, became complicit in the abortion of justice for the victims of the conflict, by accepting and continuing to work under conditions and within policies and actions parameters that propped up unjust conditions that contributed to rights violations by the Ugandan state against citizens it had primary responsibility to protect and provide for once they were deliberately uprooted from their normal settlements by government policy. We consider this another example of the failure of third party intervention in northern Uganda.

4. The fourth factor for failure is loss of autonomy and voice by victim civil society groups in northern Uganda and their diaspora.

Civil society groups and leaders, both in-country and their diaspora, uncritically accepted to be co-opted by and onto agenda of external aid groups, human rights fraternities, and so-called third-party peacebuilding and conflict transformation capacity building groups. As a result, civil society lost the opportunity to self-determinedly define the problems and outline their goals, objectives, and expectations for war-termination agreements and subseauent peace. Kacoke Madit (KM), Acholi Religious Leader's Peace Initiatives (ARLPI) and Acholi Traditional leaders, as partners and stakeholders, chose to be both neutral and to be led by outsiders in setting and defining agenda for peace.

In particular, ARLPI and Acholi Traditional Leaders, were especially mistaken in their thinking and believing that the peace they sought was the same as the peace America, Britain and their Western allies pursued in Uganda and the region. While the Acholi civil society groups took their search for peace seriously and perceived peace almost literally and as pacifists informed by Christian private and social morality; and their own individual and collective suffering as victims; Western donors and assumed partners were informed by realist morality of states-to pursue the best objectives and advantage for American or British interests without any overt commitments to fixed moral latitudes and straight jackets. Suave diplomats often took care to speak in diplomatese, always leaving room for ambiguity and flexibility in interpreting their partnership and support and for everyone on both sides to find in it, at least something that seems to cater to their own particular interests. Unsophisticated and without any reasons to doubt good intentions, Acholi religious and traditional leaders took the notion of the whiteman's burdens, too seriously for their own good and any possibility of a just peace in northern Uganda.

The more sophisticated KM, the Acholi diaspora headquartered in London, UK, boxed itself into neutrality and aspirations of a mediator, to try to coax the LRA and the Uganda government into negotiations and peaceful settlement. In our view, KM should have been the more articulate and autonomous voice of the Acholi civil society as it had originally set itself to. However, a partnership with Conciliation Resources (CR)-a peace and conflict organisation that helps communities build capacities for conflict transformation-seemed to have imposed limitations in KM thinking that it should only be a neutral and honest broker, rather than a victim with justice claims against both the LRA and the government of Uganda.

Having done superb advocacy and lobbying that exposed the tragedies of northern Uganda to the world, KM's work was embarrassing Museveni and his Western allies internationally with Western citizens in their own countries. It became necessary thereore, for Museveni's allies to do damage control, by pouring humanitarian aid into northern Uganda through their development arms, while doing nothing to prod Museveni towards a political solution to the conflict and democratic reforms in the country. As part of their and Museveni's strategy, the Acholi diaspora needed to be isolated from organised Acholi civil society at home. Soon, American and British, as well as European Union development agencies and their representatives, started to deal directly with ARLPI or Acholi Traditional leaders, independently of KM and leading Acholi diaspora personalities. While these civil society groups were not openly told to stay away from KM, they were never encouraged either, to seek guidance and act in consultation and collaboration with KM as a more informed section of the Acholi civil society.

The strategy of isolating the KM from Acholi civil society required that Acholi at home and their political leaders viewed Acholi diaspora with suspicion, as the financiers and political wing of the LRM/A. By the logic of such allegations, the diaspora was responsible for aiding the crimes the LRA were accused of perpetrating on the hapless civilians. And just for good measure, elements of the Acholi Parliamentary Group (APG) was encouraged by government disinformation to regard Acholi diaspora as rivals, rather than allies. To achieve maximum effect, the same disinformation was planted among Acholi diaspora, claiming that some KM elements were in the pay of Museveni as external agents. This completed the circle of suspicion and distrust among friends and colleagues, leading to paralysis and disintegration of Acholi civil society.

The disintegration of Acholi civil society forelosed any thoughts of Acholi civil society occupying an autonomous middleground in a mediated process, between the LRA and the government of Uganda, demanding accountability and responsibility for their behaviour and actions in the northern Uganda conflict, and to ensuring that the need for such accountability are not conveniently negotiated and bargained away by the two belligerents to escape responsibility. It is possible that the outcome out of the Juba Peace Process would have been different, had an autonomous and active Acholi civil society voice existed to counterbalance either party's attempt to subvert the process to minimise their role and need for accountablity in the conflict, or detract from the objectives of the peace the people expected.

The absence of an active and effective Acholi civil society organisation or collective leadership, with a clear idea of the objectives for peace for the Acholi people, made for a flawed process design for the Juba Peace Process, and significantly contributed to the failings of third party intervention and mutually acceptable and just mediated settlement of the northern Uganda conflict.

5. Fifth, the credibility and neutrality of mediators.

Perhaps the last straw that broke the camel's back, and ensured that third party intervention and mediation to the northern Uganda conflict achieved nothing resembling a just and mutually concluded negotiations and agreements, were the choice and perceived partiality and bias of mediators.It would seem that the UN Secretary General and those donor countries that sponsored the process, did not do their homework, but if they did, they certainly had no regard for the mediation principles of impartial regard.

As matters of informed consent, Joaquim Chissano, a former Mozambican president, is a close ally and personal friend of Yoweri Museveni, before and after both men were in power. While there is nothing to suggest that he could not rise above personal friendship to shepherd the parties through the Juba Peace process to deliver a just and credible peace for northern Uganda, knowing that he was a personal friend to one of the parties, should have disqualified him as a honest and neutral mediator. The fact the UN Secretary General did not find this important, raises concerns that the odds were stacked against the non-state party.

Furthermore, the UN Secretary General appointed Chissano Special Envoy to LRA Affected Areas, but not to Uganda or Northern Uganda, in contrast to Sudan, Congo, and other conflict areas around the world. This was nothing but deference to Museveni's and his powerful allies' objections to any official international recognition of the political legitimacy of the LRA insurgency. As far as Museveni is concerned, the LRA is not fighting the Ugandan government but the Acholi civilians, through acts of common brigandage, rather than insurgent contestation of the Ugandan state.

All these point to carefully planned actions by a network of powerful states and internation figures to protect Museveni from exposure and possible indictments for his role in northern Uganda genocide. Such suspicion were recently justified, when Chissano addressed the UN Security Council, calling it to fully back the decision by Uganda, DRC Congo, and Southern Sudan to attack the LRA in their hideout in Garamba forest. Can he still remain a honest broker and mediator?

Third, the decision to maintain Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon, the Southern Sudanese Vice President of Sudan People's Liberation Movement / Army (SPLM/A) administered Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS, as chief mediator, and to retain Juba as the venue for negotiations, despite LRA protests early in agenda-setting stage of the process, beggared belief. It is well known that the SPLM/A were and are close allies of Museveni, and jointly took part in Operation Iron Fist, to drive out the LRA from bases in SPLM/A controlled Southern Sudan in 2001. Since then, thousands of Ugandan troops have been deployed in Southern Sudan.

From the foregoing, unless someone did not do their research, the decisions to appoint Joacquim Chissano envoy, and to LRA Affected Areas rather than Uganda or Northern Uganda; the retention of Riek Machar as Chief Mediator and Juba as host city for the talks over LRA protests, compromised the needs for active and perceived neutrality and impartiality, and raise plausible grounds to believe someone somewhere acted in bad faith. Which suggests that, the Juba Process was not meant to achieve more than it did, but to cheaply accomplish what the current three-nation military action is hoped to achieve in the jungles of DRC Congo-to apprehend or kill Joseph Kony and his senior lieutenants.

In conclusion, self-destructively-trusting Acholi civil society leaders; humanitarian aid and development organisations working in Uganda; human rights groups; powerful international interests and states; the ICC; poor process design and faulty mediation process in Juba; all worked individually and interactively; consciously and unconsciously, to ensure that third party intervention and mediation of the northern Uganda conflict failed and Yoweri Museveni shielded from international scrutiny and accounting for his role in the northern Uganda genocide. As we said when the talks started, Museveni has never been interested in a negotiated settlement, but outright military victory at whatever costs.

Northern Uganda: Children of lesser moral worth?

2008-12-17T23:20:00.000Z

Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), Joseph Kony, Yoweri Museveni, National Resistance Movement (NRA), DRC Congo, Southern Sudan, Uganda, Juba Peace Agreement.

News that Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the autonomous regional Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) have attacked the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in their Garamba Forest hideout, must be condemned in the strongest terms possible.

For the last two years, an uneasy peace held over northern Uganda and much of the region previously ravaged by the LRA insurgency and NRA / UPDF counter-insurgency. Although faulty in process design and severely limited in its objectives, the Juba Peace negotiations and agreements, had moved the parties and the region closest to a peaceful resolution, more than at any one time in the many previous attempts and twenty-three year history of the conflict in northern Uganda.

For the first time, there was international involvement and somewhat credible third party mediation, through Southern Sudanese Vice President Riek Machar, and at the later stages, the appointment of a UN Scetretary General's Representative to the LRA Affected Areas, the former Mozambican President, Joachim Chissano. This lent the needed international moral support and diplomatic goodwill lacking in the previous attempts in 1994, 1998, and 2004, which was more or less a do-it-yourself (DIY)peacemaking initiated by either of the parties or civil society groups.

Unfortunately, all these efforts and the gains out of Juba, even if it had remained inconclusive, pending the signitures of the principal protagonists, Ugandan dictator Yoweri Museveni, and LRA leader Joseph Kony, stand to be undone by the latest recourse to military means. It is partly why we believe, all peace-loving people of the world, child rights fraternities, and human rights collectives and the humanitarian communities, ought to condemn dictator Yoweri Museveni's itchy, trigger-happy fingers.

The other reason is that, dictator Yoweri Museveni and his NRM/A government failed or rather neglected to protect thousands and thousands of abducted northern Ugandan children, while he turned his gaze towards Rwanda and Congo, where he was fighting to install his comrades-in-arms, Paul Kagame and the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), who had been part of Museveni's NRA in Uganda. Moreover, Uganda could afford to send thousands and thousands of Ugandan troops into the Democratic Republic of Congo, where they ousted former dictator Mobutu Ssesesekou. However, for 23 years, the same Ugandan forces could not deal a death blow to the LRA, composed predominantly of abducted children of northern and eastern Uganda. Museveni only started to concern himself with abductions of children, when it served his political purposes at home and abroad.

We do not give a hoot about Joseph Kony and those indicted by the International Criminal Court with him, even though we have well-founded moral reservations about the other commanders because they were abducted as children and grew up and rose through the LRA ranks. Moreover, those who were more senior to them in the LRA command structure and hierarchy; men like Brig. Banya and Brig. Kolo, who were not abducted but joined the rebellion as adults and former soldiers, and in fact trained and deployed the children who now stand accused of the deeds of the rebellion together with Kony, are free men in Uganda, after they escaped and joined dictator Museveni as agents.

Similarly,Yoweri Museveni can go to hell, we will not shed a tear; because he is the chief architect and author of the genocide in northern Uganda, Rwanda and the DRC Congo and the Great Lakes Region of East and Central Africa. After losing an election he could not win in 1980, he fomented a tribal war that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in central Uganda, which he and his Western backers chiefly blamed on his opponents and the former government army. Additionally, he was the first to introduce and use children as child soldiers in combat in Uganda and the region.

Moreover, Museveni's scorched-earth counterinsurgency strategies in northern and eastern Uganda, ensured crops, foodstuffs and livestock were looted and burnt, and the population driven at bayonet points into makeshift camps without making provisions for them. Once in the camps controlled by security forces, they were raped and sodomised and killed by government security services and militias. Consequently, northern and eastern Uganda is today unrivalled as a poster for poverty, human misery arising from wilfull neglect and failures of government policies and a breakdown of normal politics. And as the most despicable and diabolical site of war crimes and crimes gainst humanity in the first decades of the 21st Century.

Therefore, both Joseph Kony and Yoweri Museveni are obverse sides of the same coin. There is simply nothing to choose between the two. Fortunately for Museveni, he wields the power of government and the state. International relations being relations of states, he has ready support and protection of those powerful global interests he serves in the region. Reports that this latest combined attacks on the LRA may have been aided by American intelligence and technology, say a lot about why dictator and war criminal Museveni has alluded the searing gaze of international justice.

Our problem with the latest attacks on the LRA is borne out of history. In 2001, the NRA/UPDF overran LRA bases in Southern Sudan. The aftermaths was that, it renewed brutal and devastating retaliatory incursions by the LRA into northern and eastern Uganda, after a long lull and relative peace similar to the one the people in the region have known for the last two years. That onslaught by the Ugandan government, dubbed Operation Iron Fist, came despite warnings from peace and humanitarian groups, that it would worsen the situation in the region. Moreover, it came at a time when there were overtures for peace, and a real possibility that, a negotiated settlement was within grasp.

Unfortunately, like in 1985 and 1994, the people were sorely disappointed, because dictator Museveni chose to flex his muscles rather than honour a peace agreement or negotiate a peaceful solution.

We and the people of northern Uganda, particularly those who hoped against hope,that their children, abducted by the LRA, after the state failed to protect them, might return home with the conclusion of a peace deal, comdemn the latest gratutitous and indiscriminate use of deadly force against women and children held captive by the LRA. However long it was going to take for Joseph Kony to finally relent and give himself up to the ICC prosecutors or whatever authorities, we and they were prepared to wait, as long as it held the hope that those children still in captivity will be able to finally return. Or that, with a peaceful deal or conclusion, once all those in the LRA have returned, parents, wives, and children and even grand children, can finally put a closure to their long wait for a home-coming for long-lost loved ones with joy or to come to terms with the heart-wrenching reality that they are dead- and among the nameless and faceless left to the beast of the wild on the battlefields-and mourn their losses.

Despite the fact many thousands of abducted children have been killed in the conflict, as parents, partners and relatives, they still clung to the elusive hope that, may be, just may be, they were alive and well in the ranks of the LRA, and with a peace deal, they would have eventually come home. They are the parents who have been unfortunate-living with the dreadful unknowns and the possibility that they are waiting for children who may never come home. And now, their dread may have just become a reality, as the expediency for political power have once again trumped the morality of rights and the need to exercise political power in the interest of the people.

What George Bush, Salvar Kir, Joseph Kabila, and Yoweri Museveni have done, is to tell the people of northern and eastern Uganda, including their abducted children in the ranks of the LRA, that their interests do not count, and that they inhabit a lesser moral world. Because the action is neither to protect the population and the children of northern and eastern Uganda,nor to rescue those in captivity with the LRA. Even if it were to apprehend Kony on the ICC warrant, how many more lives must be lost to bring one man to justice, in addition to the lives he is accused of brutally ending?

In our opinion, the LRA were too far away to pose any more credible threats to the people of northern and eastern Uganda, let alone the Ugandan state. This latest action has therefore more to do with Museveni's paranoia of an LRA force sitting somewhere, a ready and battle-hardened and tested force that his opponents in the country or region could potentially easily reactivate and use against him. With the ruling NRM/A political fotunes having been but all spent, Museveni faces uncertain political future after 2011. And with a new man in Washington come January 20th, it is unclear what political realignments will take place globally and regionally.

Therefore, the LRA and northern Ugandan dynomite could not be left unattended, particularly with loose wires of atrocities running back to 1980s that anyone could ignite and blow up to take down every significant figure involved in the northern war theatre and genocide. It is a risk dictator Museveni would rather not take. Someone would rather have to dig around to find an entry point than to latch onto open and unresolved issues, particularly with the controversies around the partiality of the ICC in the Ugandan indictments, and Museveni and his forces not garnering even a passing interested gazes from the ICC investigators and prosecutor.

Whatever the outcome of this latest military offensives against the LRA; and whenever Joseph Kony pays his debts and dues for his role in the debacles of northern Uganda, the last chapter will have not yet been written on the case. Until fellow traveller and prince of the macabre, dictator and war crimes and crimes against humanity suspect, dictator Yoweri Musevreni, also has his day in court or pays his debts and dues, the jury is out.

Sentamu, Tutu and Raila Odinga: Which African Lives Matter?

2008-12-12T01:01:00.002Z

Key Words: Desmond Tutu, John Sentamu, Raila Odinga, Gordon Brown, Internaional Community, Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe, African Union (AU), Yoweri Museveni; Paul Kagame, Laurent Nkunda, DRC Congo

If you believe the Western media, the Western coalition that calls itself and its will that of the international community, you would be forgiven if you thought Zimbabwe is the worst place to be right now on earth, and Robert Mugabe, the only African leader who has been in power more than 10 years. You might also easily think that Zimbabwe is the only place in Africa or the world, where elections have been controversial and contested. And you would also be forgiven if you thought Zimbabwe is the only place where people have or are dying of political violence as a result of a contested state legitimacy.

Listening to Raila Odinga, John Sentamu, or Condeeleeza Rice, you would think that all the dictators and those who suppress political freedom and use state violence to brutalise their opponents are all in the Hague and were deposed by the will and action of the international community led by a righteous British and American governments.

"If no troops are available, then the AU must allow the UN to send its forces into Zimbabwe with immediate effect, to take over control of the country and ensure urgent humanitarian assistance to the people dying of cholera."

Raila Odinga, Prime Minister of Kenya

"Robert Mugabe and his henchmen must now take their rightful place in The Hague and answer for their actions."

Dr John SentamuArchbishop of York.

"I am still really appalled at the inability of the international community to deal with tyrants. Robert Mugabe should have gone a long time ago." Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state.

We want to remind you dear reader, that dictators Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, all rule their countries with iron fists; opposition are suppressed, jailed, murdered or forced to flee at the perils of death. In the case of Uganda, elections have thrice been stolen by the incumbent, but we have not seen the West adopt the opposition in Uganda or finger Museveni for ths Hague. This even when he has for years confined two million people in northern Uganda in concentration camps, ostesibly to protect them from insurgents, when the truth is also that the region is opposition stronghold and Museveni wanted to control the population and deny the opposition any meaningful organising there since the army controls who goes in and out of the camps and to do what. Opposition rallies or mere gatherings are routinely broken up with brute force by the military police disguised in riot police gears.

But have we heard the USA or Britain raise any objections to their behviour, corruption and human rights violations? No; not at all. Instead, these dictators are rewarded with military and other economic largesse that give them the capacity to brutalise their citizens. The USA and Britain are their most ardent and faithful diplomatic, moral, political and material benefactors because these are their dictators and ruling in the strategic interests of British and American finance and world domination strategies.

In contras the problem in Zinmbabwe is instigated by agents of the West and their collaborators in MDC with Tsvangirai as their leader, while discontents in Uganda, Rwanda, and Ethiopia are conditioned by internal consitions of the people there who genuinely desire change that can benefit them but not only a clique connected to the rulers and their Western backers and frontmen.

We applaud the common sense and refusal of the African Union (AU) to cave in to the propaganda and join the Western bandwaggon on Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe- bashing.

News that the AU, and also particularly South Africa, and Tanzania, have rejected the Western contrived hysteria that Zimbabwe has gone to the dogs and the only means left to rescue it is the use of imperialist force to topple the government of Robert Mugabe, is welcome indeed to all Pan-Africanists and those committed to social justice not as a means of earning a living but as moral convictions and self-determination.

As Africans and survivors of genocide through slavery and brutal colonisation, by Britain and other Western powers, we reject the selective reporting of Western mass media, human rights organisations and agencies who take their cues from the departments of foreign affairs and that of state, of their home countries. These organisations are in some cases staffed by imperialist forces bent on sabotaging African liberation and progress. As they did with the colour-coded counter-revolutions in Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia and former Soviet Russia, they will deliberately work to ignite discontent and fan the flames of despondency and counter-revolution to scare the population into the laps of Western imperialism and rapacious capitalist eocnomic bondage.

Progressive governments and leaderships in Africa and in all former colonised lands, need to wake up to the cold reality that Western aid and human rights organisations are trojan horses, and are in the trade they are in, not by any tinge of moral persuasion and calling, but to deepen the policies and ideologies of dominaion and control of other people and societies; and also to to earn a living for themselves. In any case, it is their country first, wrong or right. It is therefore incumbent upon Africans and African leaders and Pan-Africa, to begin to clearly define its interests and build capacity to defend those interests when threatened by those who still are keen on enslaving its peoples.Such clearly defined Pan-African, African, national interests codified by the AU and ratified by all African governments and Pan-Africa, enjoin African governments and peoples, collectively or individually, to take action to defend the interests of the African people, when contravened or threatened by external forces or quislings such as Morgan Tsvangirai.

Western or African interests?

When we step back and reflect on cholera outbreak the hysteria over Zimbabwe, particularly coming in the wake of a cholera outbreak with a death toll of under 600, we are dumbfounded that some Africans who would normally pass for serious-minded persons, would think that the problem of cholera in Zimbabwe is worse than the genocide in Darfur, the Rwanda and Uganda-induced rebellion in Eastern Congo, and the debacles that is Somalia. We believe, if there are any places anywhere on the African continent where the world and Africa needed to devote their attention and efforts now, it is Darfur, Eastern Congo, northern Uganda and Somalia. In fact we have a suggestion for Raila Odinga: if he is a true bleeding heart for African lives, rather than a mere new Anglo-American imperialist puppet on a string, he should turn his gaze on Eastern Congo and close the border with Uganda so no goods can go through until Museveni and Kagame bring the rebellion in Eastern Congo to a close to save African lives.

What the West want in Zimbabwe has nothing to do with saving African lives or advancing the welfare of Africans in Zimbabwe, but imperialist control and domination of Zimbabwe through quislings like the MDC, so that the land reforms that would improve the lot of Africans, does not proceed as planned by ZANU-PF and comrade Mugabe. The war against Robert Mugabe and the people of Zimbabwe is a war against African liberation, independence and freedom, started by Tony Blair, in the name of regime change because comrade Mugabe and ZANU-PF would not compromise on land reforms for Africans.

So eminent Africans such as Desmond Tutu, John Sentamu, and a leader such as Raila Odinga, despite their honourable past and forcefulness of character and integrity, must on the case of Zimbabwe, be ignored or dismissed for what they are: deeply misguided and misinformed do-gooders who have lost their bearings.

As long as the straw the anti-Mugabe cabal of misled, politically naive and unconscious Africans and their Western backers grasp at is simply free and fair elections, and that Comrade Robert Mugabe has been in power too long, and therefore must leave; or that there must be power-sharing with the opposition and a stooge and reactionary like Morgan Tsvangirai, without taking stock of history and the scale of the deprivation of the African masses in Zimbabwe and the struggles they had to wage and the reasons for such struggles; Tutu, Oginga, and Sentamu, can continue to lick Imperial Britannia's boots, but they will have no relevance to the aspiration of the African peoples today.

What about DRC Congo?

The person we pity the most is Archbishop Tutu; because he is the most reasonable and self-less person-righ up there with Nelson Mandela-and a true friend of the poor, the oppressed, and disadvantaged from the slums of Soweto to the shamelessly UN-run concentration camps that they call refugee camps in occupied Palestinian lands. We are therefore at pains, to see Archbishop Desmond Tutu, throw his lot with the imperialist forces and their mouthpieces in Africa and the Western world.

As for Raila Odinga and Archbishop John Sentamu, we are not sure about their integrity. Raila Odinga, traded a cheap ministerial position, a sham power and a sham change, and its privileges, for the true aspirations of the long suffering Kenyan people for real change and real indepnendence so that they can be masters of their own destiny. As long as Raila Odinga continues to speak on Zimbabwe but ignores the plight of Kenyans from Mathera to the landless in the Rift Valley and Western Kenya; or close his eyes to the genocide next door in northern Uganda, and the dictator Yoweri Museveni, who like Mugabe has been in power for over two decades; or fail to see the man-made disaster in Eastern Congo-rather than the natural outbreak of cholera in Zimbabwe- he has no credibility.

Archbishops Tutu and Sentamu can be forgiven, for they are men of the cloth and sometimes, their biblical lenses, betray their naivety and simplifications of complex and interacting issues and claims that cannot be addressed by rhetorical and irrational Sunday sermons to the poor and how they must accept their current destitution because they have a wealth of inheritance stored for them on high. And if not material, then it is spiritual.

It is however paradoxical that both Tutu and Sentamu, should call for external invasion of Zimbabwe, to topple the ZANU-PF government, arrest and deliver Robert Mugabe to the International Criminal Court, allegedly as a means of liberating the people of Zimbabwe from tyranny and suffering. Apparently, it is ok for foreign imperial forces to kill some Zimbabweans, in order to save some. We know that foreign invasion of a country means killing its people as we have seen in the self same efforts in regime change and imposition of democracy in Iraq. Neither Tutu nor Sentamu can tell the world and the people of Iraq that they are better off since Mission Accomplished.

In their convoluted views, it is a crime, for ZANU-PF and Robert Mugabe, to stand up for the interests of the majority of Zimbabweans- not just some urban and Ndebeleland elite, or white farmers and settlers whose intrests coincide with those of the imperialists- and say no to recolonisation of Zimbabwe; or compromise on the need for social and economic justice through agrarian land reforms to benefit millions of ordinary Zimbabweans dispossessed by British colonialism. But you will not hear Desmond Tutu and John Sentamu speak about the injustices of British colonialism, UDI and Ian Smith, and the fact that the grievances that led to the Chimurenga, remain largely unmet, and are at the heart of the current struggles in Zimbabwe. The struggle pits comrade and and patriot and Pan-Africanist Robert Mugabe and the revolutionary ZANU-PF, against the counter-revolutionaries and collaborators with the forces of reactions, organised on electioneering around Morgan Tsvagirai and his British allies who want to roll back the gains wrested from the defeated British imperialism and UDI racialism in 1980.

We would have taken these men of the cloth seriously, were they not prompted to call for external invasion of Zimbabwe by an outbreak of cholera epidemic, which is a natural occurrence due to poor sanitation, which also directly arise from poverty, whose genesis and conditions have been historical for Zimbabwean Africans who are victims of British colonialism.

The paradox is that, Archbishops Sentamu, Desmond Tutu, and Prime Minister Raila Odinga and their master, Gordon Brown, are not ashamed of themselves, to latch onto the tragedy of 600 deaths due to cholera in Zimbabwe, but are quiet, or not speaking in the same tone and rallying the world to put a stop to the plight of millions of the people of DRC Congo, killed, maimed, displaced and desperate as a result of violence perpetrated by Laurent Nkunda, Paul Kagame, Yoweri Museveni and their Western benefactor's political and economic interests in the Great Lakes Region of East and Central Africa. Moreover, Archbishop Sentamu, a native of Uganda, has been mum on his own country, where dictator Yoweri Museveni has ruled with an iron fist for 23 years, killed hundreds of thousands in Luwero before seizing power, and orchestrated a genocide in northern Uganda where hundreds of thousands have perished and two million people confined in concentration camps without food, sanitary facilities and other social and economic amenities as called for by international humanitarian law.

Furthermore, if these prelates and Raila Odinga were concerned about the loss of lives of Africans, Zimbabwe might have been on their list, but it could not have certainly eclipsed Darfur, Somalia, the DRC Congo, and northern Uganda, if the concerns were primarily with human tragedy per se without other vested economic and strategic interests. For Britain at least, it is very clear that, had there not been White British settlers in Zimbabwe, Gordon Brown would have been as quiet on Zimbabwe as he has been on northern Uganda, Eastern DRC, Somalia, Ethiopia and elsewhere where Western-backed dictators are busy oppressing fellow Africans in the economic and strategic interests of the West. Gordon Brown and Britain, with its allies, bankroll dictatorships of Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame, and are responsible for the deaths in northern Uganda, Eastern DRC Congo, and DRC Congo itself.

The question we want to put to Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the newest British imperialist Headman and slave-driver in East Africa is: Which African lives matter to you, sir? Why are you not speaking out on northern Uganda, DRC Congo, Darfur, and Ethiopia? At least for DRC Congo, you could even have an impact by blocking all goods traffic to Rwanda until they rein in Laurent Nkunda to stop him from generating the human tragedy in Eastern Congo. As we have suggested, show you care for all Africans, but not only those the British dedcied are of more strategic geopolitical interests, by closing your borders with Uganda to underline your African policy and determination to put an end to all needless bloodletting in Africa in the name of political power.

And for prelates Tutu and Sentamu, isn't it only god who gives and takes away? And which African children of god have more precious lives than the others, or they are all the same and precious to god?

We tip our hats to the correct leadership of Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania, as Chair of the AU; and to South Africa, for insisting on an African solution and repudiating any notion of the use of force on a progressive African government and state.

Chasing Kony's elusive signature another grand scheme to not do anything for the masses of northern Uganda

2008-12-06T22:22:00.002Z

Key Words: Acholi; Juba Peace Talks; Joseph Kony; LRM/A,; Yoweri Museveni; NRM/A; Genocide; Uganda; Peace; Reconstruction; Development; Programme; PRDP; Acholi Autonomy; Acholi Secession; Just Peace; Northern Uganda; ICC; LRA Indictments.

With a central government in full control of every inch and facets of life of the country, and the local governments fully functional,why must disbanding camps, resettling people to their own land, rehabilitation and reconstruction work rest so perilously on Joseph Kony's illegible signiture on the worthless Juba documents?

We have come to the conclusion, and the full realisation and firm belief that, the latest comedic episode from the Juba Pantomime, is a grand excuse on the part of those in governmnent, position of power and authority, to actually continue not to do anything for and about northern Uganda mass suffering.

Therefore, the time may have come, for Acholi as the principal victim of the war, to really speak independently and with a mind to looking out for its own interest; wanting better for itself, but not always passively waiting for crumbs to be thrown its way. It must begin to think of organising itself and use mass action and political means to stand on its own two feet and chart a more promising future for itself.

Acholi leaders -and I mean those who are leaders, not pretenders-must stop being shunted off to Juba and wherever in search of Joseph Kony, or doing other people's biddings. There is nothing that will come out of Juba any more than it has already transpired on the ground in Acholiland since hot hostilities ended there two years ago.

There is no more violence in northern Uganda. Its leadership ought to get down to civic governance and engage the problems that confront their people now. Let each level of government in Acholi: from sub-counties, Counties, Town Councils, municipalities, district councils, and if necessary, collaboration between and among neighbouring district councils, get down to work within their areas of jurisdiction and respond to the needs and provide the services they are elected, established, and mandated to do.

The camps need to be disbanded and people resettled to their own ancestral lands. Resources need to be scoped and secured to provide for the needs of people, rehabilitate hospitals, dispensaries, schools, and repair roads and bridges. To the best of my knowledge, these things do not have to wait for Joseph Kony's signaiture, or incaceration, or even death for someone to begin acting on them. What is stopping the central government from embarking on massive programmes and work to alleviate suffering in Acholi and put the people back on their feet?

Acholi must stop operating on Yoweri Museveni's agenda and time table of buying time while people's lives and the future of a whole race is further jeopardised. Acholi has the capacity, but lack the will power, to step up and be counted and confront people like Ochora, that they do not have planning authority or mandate for the city or the district. Theirs is only central government oversight, and only on programmes the central government funds. Let us make it clear that, they cannot demand accountability for what they neither generate nor provide.

Perhaps it is because Nobert Mao has provided weak leadership and surrendered the civic, political leadership of Gulu district to Col. Ochora, Brig. Otema Awany, and Richard Todwong, that Ochora can meddle even with the running and planning authority of Gulu Municipality. What power and authority did Col. Ochoro draw on to deploy police to stop the mayor from addressing townspeople, or order the municipality to shelve plans for paving roads within its jurisdictions and their boundaries of Gulu Municipaltiy? Why must paving the road, which is already a safety hazard to motorists, townspeople and a drag on businesses within the municpality, wait until 2010, when the municipaltiy has the resources and the planning authority to do so?

It is all because Ochora would rather the NRM/A government does it, on their own politically motivated time table and with Southern Sudan, rather than Acholi or Gulu Municipality in mind. In doing so, they can hope to push it as some political capital investment to later say that the NRM/A government cares and those like Ochora, Todwong, and other NRM clowns who may want to stand for parliament in 2011, can hope to draw down on it and spend it to endear themselves to the populace.

But if you thought Ochora was alone in meddling where he ought not to, then you are mistaken. How about Norbert Mao, Chairman of the district council, and DP presidential candidate in-waiting-characteristically more mouth than substance and relevance- harping on the issues of nightclubs and disco halls and noise pollution in the municipality? Whoa! What happened to the Municipality, the Mayor, and the Public Health officer, tackling this problem or speaking on it?

Unless I am mistaken, this must ideally be for some municipal bye-law enforces, regulating such businesses and the planning units, zoning, where such businesses can be located and their times of operation, which would be a condition for licencing. However, it is not a district council issue. How does Nobert Mao, a whole Chairman of the district council get to take interest in this, rather than the municipal authorities? Are they this idle even in Gulu District Council? Well, I am sure there are a lot more noble things outside Gulu Municipality that the chairman could have found to yap to the media about, if he was looking for something to do or say in order to show that he is actually doing something.

I guess things must be at a stand-still in Acholiland. Blame it all on Joseph Kony, who has for his own self-interest, rejected to sign on the bogus Juba Peace Agreement. But it has been two years since hostilities ceased in northern Uganda. We do not, and we should not buy the nonsense that without Joseph Kony's signiture, nothing can be done and life must be put on hold. At least, we know that, Gulu, Kitgum, Pader, Lira, Apac, and other northern and eastern towns flourished during the last 23 years when the insurgency was at some of its hottest peaks.

In fact, there is hardly any green, open, public spaces in Gulu or Kitgum. As far as they are concerned, development is mortar and brick. Indicating that, the war did not stop the political and business class, from trading in the aid that were meant for the people in the camps; from swindling NUSAF and NURP I and II funds to build mansions, castles, hotels, commercial properties, and other symbols of conspicuous consumptions in Gulu, Kitgum, Pader, and other places looted money and resources could be concealed and also flaunted.

It was only the people in the camps who were shortchanged. The excuse was insecurity, so no one and no aid could reach them. It was a convenient pretext for political leaders and their cronies to swindle aid from reaching those it was meant for. And now that there is no more war, the golden and holy grail of pretext is Joseph Kony's coveted signature. It is nothing but grand excuse to do nothing about the plight of the people of northern Uganda, knowing that it is difficult, if not impossible and most unlikely, that Kony would sign on the dotted line, given his concerns.

Seriously, Joseph Kony's signature or non-signature on the dotted line of the useless Juba Peace Agreement - which lies infront of me in all its uselessness as I write this-brings nothing of value to the displaced people of northern Uganda than we have already had in the last two years with the cessation of hostilities. If the government has not already poured in significant and massive resources into the problems of northern Uganda two years after active conflict ceased there, there is nothing to convince me that this will change magically with the illegible signature of Joseph Kony legitimising the incomprehensible Juba Peace Agreement and its six agenda items.

What remains in contention, is Kony's personal safety and interests. Now ask yourself, what is an agreement, if by its conclusion, you are still unsure about the things that are most important to you and the motivations for your going to the negotiation table in the first place? Is is a disagreement or an agreement; and if it is an agreement, agreement on what and between who and whom if Joseph Kony, as the principal to the negotiation, does not agree with the areas and terms that most affect his personal self-interest? But the Juba processes and those who harp for his signature, want to deny him the autonomy to make his own decisions on the issues in question.

In our view, neither the Ugandan state nor any peace agreement, can negotiate away Kony's indictment by the ICC. We would in good faith, advise Joseph Kony, to go to the Hague and defend himself....and hoping that he can win. But should he lose, as it may well be, he should prepare himself to serve out his jail terms there. By the same token, we would like to in good faith, tell Joseph Kony that, anyone who tells him there is a way around the ICC issue either through a peace negotiation or the Ugandan state or even a third country of asylum, that person is lying and does not have his best interest at heart.

Barring any UN change of mind, it is best for Joseph Kony, through his lawyers, to give himself up to the ICC in the Hague. We give this advice with the understanding that the people and leaders of northern Uganda, and the global human rights fraternity are committed to equitable justice and will continue to campaign for a special tribunal to be set alongside to complement the ICC process, so that all violators since the beginning of the conflict in 1986, are brought to justice.Those of us from northern Uganda particularly, must never be satisfied with half-measures, until justice is done. We should therefore treat every gain or setbacks, as the beginning, but not ends in themselves.

We do not entertain the ludicruous suggestion that a special division of the Uganda high court could try war crimes and crimes against humanity suspects, including Joseph Kony and other elements of the LRA. It is therefore, silly, for anyone worth their claims to leadership to think and say that we must move forward with the glaring shortcomings of the Juba process and agreement, as well as the unfairness and partiality of the ICC indictments, which gave birth to the impractical and unrealistic Juba framework in the first place. No doubt, we applaud and stand to defend its unintended positive consequence in the cessation of hostilities, and must work against anyone fomenting conflict again in the name of the suffering people of northern Uganda. We do know justice has not been done on their behalf, but that will not come through another war, but impartial international justice.

On the other hand, as existentialists, if Joseph Kony has the capacity and means to stay in the bush with his fighters and live out the ICC indictment, and if that is the kind of life he feels he is now doomed to live, we absolutely have no objections, as a personally and existentially determined options to the injustice of the Hague and calumny of a possible trial in Uganda. In fact, as people who are committed to a just and equitable peace in northern Uganda, and bearing in mind the political, partial, and convenient nature of the ICC indictments of only the LRA for the northern Uganda genocide, we would actually be ambivalent to such a move by the LRA, as long as they do not plan to resume hostilities in northern Uganda, do not harass civilians, and if at all, only confront armed elements of the repressive state and regime of Yoweri Museveni.

It is time for political clarity and clear leadership in Acholi. Joseph Kony does not have the power and authority of the state and government in Uganda; but Yoweri Museveni does. It is nonsensical therefore, to blame the current state of our people-after two years of cessation of hostilities and relative peace and with Kony thousands and thousands of miles away - on the refusal of Joseph Kony to sign the Juba Agreement. If anything, it is the failures of the national and local government leadership in Uganda and Acholi, that the people have been left on their own, as they were for 23 years while the conflict lasted.

Those of us who recognhise this, should no longer keep quiet, while those responsible cling onto the flimsiest of excuses to shield their personal , political, policy and leadership failures to understand and respond to the needs of people in northern and eastern Uganda, especially Acholiland.Or at worst, find a bullet-proof excuse to continue to do nothing significantly for the suffering people of northern and eastern Uganda. Moreover, Kony's sinature is not worth anything for the ordinary people of northern Uganda, except as a big stick for dictator Museveni and his international brotherhood to hold over the head of Joseph Kony to order good behaviour and acquiescence with dictator Museveni's political will and wishes in northern Uganda.

Whatever their excuses, it is time we and the world began to say: dictator Yoweri Museveni Must Go! No political power should be worth, even a single life of even the least of the citizenry, let alone genocide and jeopardising the lives of more than two million people.

Rwanda Stirs Deadly Brew of Troubles in Congo

2008-12-04T15:17:00.001Z

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/world/africa/04congo.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

Rwanda Stirs Deadly Brew of Troubles in Congo

Rwanda Stirs Deadly Brew of Troubles in Congo

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

Published: December 3, 2008

KIGALI, Rwanda — There is a general rule in Africa, if not across the world: Behind any rebellion with legs is usually a meddling neighbor. And whether the rebellion in eastern Congo explodes into another full-fledged war, and drags a large chunk of central Africa with it, seems likely to depend on the involvement of Rwanda, Congo's tiny but disproportionately mighty neighbor.

Jerome Delay/Associated Press

A REBELLION IN CONGO Laurent Nkunda, center, a rebel leader in Congo, was an officer in Rwanda's army. It is widely believed that Rwanda backs Mr. Nkunda; Rwanda denies it.

Jerome Delay/Associated Press

Park rangers loyal to the CNDP make their way through the Virunga National Park near the Ugandan border in eastern Congo.

The New York Times

Many of the most powerful people in Congo have close ties to Rwanda's elite in Kigali.

Jerome Delay/Associated Press

A BROTHERHOOD OF NEIGHBORS Rebel soldiers surrounded their leader, Laurent Nkunda, at a rally in eastern Congo last month. Many Rwandan soldiers are said to be members of the rebel force.

There is a long and bloody history here, and this time around the evidence seems to be growing that Rwanda is meddling again in Congo's troubles; at a minimum, the interference is on the part of many Rwandans. As before, Rwanda's stake in Congo is a complex mix of strategic interest, business opportunity and the real fears of a nation that has heroically rebuilt itself after near obliteration by ethnic hatred.
The signs are ever-more obvious, if not yet entirely open. Several demobilized Rwandan soldiers, speaking in hushed tones in Kigali, Rwanda's tightly controlled capital, described a systematic effort by Rwanda's government-run demobilization commission to send hundreds if not thousands of fighters to the rebel front lines.
Former rebel soldiers in Congo said that they had seen Rwandan officers plucking off the Rwandan flags from the shoulders of their fatigues after they had arrived and that Rwandan officers served as the backbone of the rebel army. Congolese wildlife rangers in the gorilla park on the thickly forested Rwanda-Congo border said countless heavily armed men routinely crossed over from Rwanda into Congo.
A Rwandan government administrator said a military hospital in Kigali was treating many Rwandan soldiers who were recently wounded while fighting in Congo, but the administrator said he could be jailed for talking about it.

There seems to be a reinvigorated sense of the longstanding brotherhood between the Congolese rebels, who are mostly ethnic Tutsi, and the Tutsi-led government of Rwanda, which has supported these same rebels in the past.

The brotherhood is relatively secret for now, just as it was in the late 1990s when Rwanda denied being involved in Congo, only to later admit that it was occupying a vast section of the country. Rwanda's leaders are vigilant about not endangering their carefully crafted reputation as responsible, development-oriented friends of the West.

Senior Rwandan officials do not deny that demobilized Rwandan soldiers are fighting in Congo, but they say the soldiers are doing it on their own, without any government backing.

"They are ordinary citizens, and if their travel documents are in order, they can go ahead and travel," said Joseph Mutaboba, Rwanda's special envoy for the Great Lakes region.

But according to several demobilized soldiers, Rwandan government officials are involved, providing bus fare for the men to travel to Congo and updating the rebel leadership each month on how many fighters from Rwanda are about to come over. Once they get to the rebel camps, the Rwandan veterans said, they flash their Rwandan Army identification cards and then are assigned to a rebel unit.

"We usually get a promotion," said one fighter who was recently a corporal in the Rwandan Army and served as a sergeant in the rebel forces last month. He said that he could be severely punished if identified and that Rwandan officials and rebel commanders told the fighters not to say anything about the cooperation.

Another cause for suspicion is Rwanda's past plundering of Congo's rich trove of minerals, going back to the late 1990s when the Rwandan Army seized control of eastern Congo and pumped hundreds of millions of dollars of smuggled coltan, cassiterite and even diamonds back to Rwanda, according to United Nations documents.
Many current high-ranking Rwandan officials, including the minister of finance, the ambassador to China and the deputy director of the central bank, were executives at a holding company that a United Nations panel in 2002 implicated in the illicit mineral trade and called to be sanctioned. The officials say that they are no longer part of that company and that the company did nothing wrong. Nonetheless, eastern Congo's lucrative mineral business still seems to be heavily influenced by ethnic Rwandan businessmen with close ties to Kigali.

Some of the most powerful players today, like Modeste Makabuza Ngoga, who runs a small empire of coffee, tea, transport and mineral companies in eastern Congo, are part of a Tutsi-dominated triangle involving the Rwandan government, the conflict-driven mineral trade and a powerful rebel movement led by a renegade general, Laurent Nkunda, a former officer in Rwanda's army.

Several United Nations reports have accused Mr. Makabuza Ngoga of using strong-arm tactics to smuggle minerals from Congo to Rwanda and one report said that he enjoyed "close ties" to Rwanda's president, Paul Kagame. This week a rebel spokesman said that Mr. Makabuza Ngoga was on Mr. Nkunda's "College of Honorables," essentially a rebel advisory board. Mr. Nkunda's troops recently marched into areas known to be mineral rich — and areas where ethnic Rwandan businessmen are trying to gain a foothold.

Mr. Makabuza Ngoga said in an interview that he was not doing anything illegal.
"I'm just a businessman," he said. "I work with them all."

A Tale of Two Africas

Rwanda and Congo are polar opposites, a true David-and-Goliath matchup. Crossing the border from Gisenyi, Rwanda, to Goma, Congo, is a journey across two Africas, in the span of about 100 yards.

The two-minute walk takes you from one of the smallest, tidiest, most promising countries on the continent, where women in white rubber gloves sweep the streets every morning and government employees are at their desks by 7 a.m., to one of the biggest, messiest and most violent African states, home to a conflict that has killed more than five million people, more than any other since World War II.
While Congo is vast, Rwanda is packed. While the Congolese are often playful, known for outlandish dress and great music, Rwandans are reserved. While Congo is naturally rich, Rwanda is perennially poor. Yet Rwanda has emerged as a darling of the aid world, praised for strong, uncorrupt leadership and the strides it has made in fighting AIDS and poverty.

The fates of the two countries are inextricably linked. In 1994, Hutu militias in Rwanda killed 800,000 people, mostly minority Tutsis, and then fled into eastern Congo. Rwanda responded by invading Congo in 1997 and 1998, denying it each time initially but later taking responsibility. Those invasions catalyzed years of war that drew in the armies of half a dozen African countries.
When the Rwandan military controlled eastern Congo from 1998 to 2002, it established a highly organized military-industrial network to illegally exploit Congo's riches, according to United Nations documents.

A 2002 United Nations report said that top Rwandan military officers worked closely with some of the most notorious smugglers and arms traffickers in the world, including Viktor Bout, a former Soviet arms dealer nicknamed the Merchant of Death who was arrested this year.
"I used to see generals at the airport coming back from Congo with suitcases full of cash," said a former Rwandan government official who said that if he was identified, he could be killed.

Rwanda may have a lot going for it — a high economic growth rate, low corruption, a Parliament with a majority of seats held by women. But many people here say they do not feel free. When the former government official was interviewed at a Kigali hotel, he abruptly stopped talking whenever the maid walked by.
"You never know," he whispered, nodding toward the young woman who was smiling behind a plate-glass window smeared with soap suds. "She could be a lieutenant."
Scarred by a Genocide Rwanda is tiny, tough and intensely patriotic. Like Israel, it is a postgenocidal state, built on an ethos of self-sacrifice. Its national motto is Never Again.

One oft-cited threat is the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, also known as the F.D.L.R., a mostly Hutu militia that is based just across the border in the green folds of eastern Congo. The militia is thought to number 5,000 to 10,000 fighters. Some of its leaders are wanted "genocidaires" who fled Rwanda in 1994 after massacring Tutsi.
"These guys want to come back and finish the job," said Maj. Jill Rutaremara, a spokesman for Rwanda's Defense Forces.

Mr. Nkunda, the rebel leader, has used the presence of the Hutu militia and the Congo government's failure to disarm it as a rationale for his continued armed struggle. His forces have routed Congolese government troops in the past two months and pushed the region to the precipice of another regional war.
United Nations officials say he has not acted entirely alone, either: they said they observed Rwandan tanks firing from Rwandan territory to support Mr. Nkunda's troops as they advanced in October. Rwandan officials denied this.

Rwandan military officers admit, when pressed, that the Hutu militia has little chance of destabilizing Rwanda. The last time it attacked inside Rwanda was 2001.
Some Western diplomats, Congolese officials and Rwandan dissidents now believe that the Rwandan government is simply using the F.D.L.R. as an excuse to prop up Mr. Nkunda and maintain a sphere of influence in the mineral-rich area across the border.

"These are people who want to make business, and they cover it up with politics," said Faustin Twagiramungu, a former Rwandan prime minister now in exile in Belgium.
Congolese officials say that that the Rwandan government is making no efforts to bring the Hutu militiamen back into Rwanda because Rwanda wants to make sure that any Hutu-Tutsi violence plays out in Congo.

"What's happening in eastern Congo is a Rwandese war is being fought on Congolese soil," said Kikaya bin Karubi, a member of Congo's Parliament.
Rwandan officials dismiss these claims with a confident chuckle.
"We want to deal with these guys here," Major Rutaremara said. "We want them back."
Mr. Mutaboba, the Rwandan government envoy, said the allegations were part of "an organized campaign to distort the whole problem and give it a regional dimension."
"It's not," he said. "It's a Congo problem."

Ethnic and Business Ties

But it may be hard drawing a fine line between Congo and Rwanda, despite the lines on a map. There is a long history of ethnic and business ties that seamlessly flow across the colonially imposed borders, especially among the minority Tutsi who dominate business on both sides, yet at the same time, feel threatened and a heightened sense of community as a result.

For example, several demobilized Rwandan soldiers in Kigali said the vast majority of volunteers who recently crossed the border to fight with Mr. Nkunda were Tutsi. Some of the soldiers said that they had relatives living in eastern Congo and that it was like a second home to them.

According to four soldiers and one employee at the Rwandan demobilization commission, at the end of their monthly meetings, officials at the commission ask for anyone fit and ready to fight to stand up. Sometimes the commission provides bus fare to the border, the soldiers said, and other travel costs. The soldiers usually travel unarmed, picking up weapons on the other side, they said.

One demobilized Rwandan lieutenant who just got back from fighting in Congo looked surprised when asked why he went.
"Why? I am Tutsi," he said. "One hundred percent Tutsi."

Yoweri Museveni: The Godfather of the final and permanent solutions in Northern Uganda, Rwanda, and DRC Congo

2008-12-03T11:41:00.001Z

Key Words: Genocide, Northern Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Yoweri Museveni, General Nkunda, Paul Kagame, Rwanda, Uganda, Tutsi, Hutu, Bahima, NRM/A, RPF, Nairobi Accord, Arusha Accord.

Peaceful means have no place in changing a society

It is not difficult to endorse the assertions that Yoweri Museveni is the godfather of genocide, or as we want to chracterise it, the final and permanent solution-against those he disagrees with politically- in East and Central Africa. And for those who do not know yet, he is the enemy of Africa and Pan-Africanism.

Hundreds of thousands of people have perished in the northern Uganda conflict as a direct result of the policy of Yoweri Museveni to achieve a final and permanent solution to potential, imaginary, political opposition to his regime. These have been achieved through direct actions or neglecting to act to protect the population from the ravages of the rag-tag Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) insurgents. And also partly through mass displacements of the population by the government army, into centres that were not ready to receive and house, protect and care for people as mandated by international humanitarian law. Consequently, more people have died in the camps from preventable and opportunistic diseases, hunger, malnutrition and other social ills than they have in the hands of the rebels.

These conjunctions of policy failures, neglect and violence against the population were not accidental. To understand what has been going on in northern Uganda, or Uganda as a whole, as well as Rwanda, and DRC Congo, and the Great Lakes Region of East and Central Africa, we need to understand what political philosophies and strategies inform Yoweri Museveni's thinking and guide his actions. Professor Balam Nyeko and this author wrote a sketchy profile of Museveni in 2002, within editorial constraints and limited interests and scope that could not allow for the kind of analysis that we want to delve into here; regarding Museveni the man, and the northern Uganda conflict and beyond.

To understand Museveni and his actions, we will quote extensively from the thesis he wrote on Fanon's theory of violence and its validation during the Mozambican liberation struggles. Some may question, how a thesis written about 40 years ago, would be relevant to understanding Museveni the man today. Our response is that, we too have had some scepticisms, had it not been that, close reading of the paper suggests that, those beliefs and sometimes gratuitous violent strategies have largely been validated by Museveni's actions, politics, and policies in northern Ugnada, Luwero, Rwanda, Southern Sudan, and DRC Congo.

It is Museveni's faithful conviction that post-colonial African societies needed to be recast, through violence, in order to re-orient thinking and mould new individuals for new societies. According to him, where decolonisation was achieved through peaceful means, it left intact, colonised psychology and complexes in the natives, which could have only been got rid of through directed violence. Even where there were violence, such as in Kenya, he believes the violence was limited in scope, and only aimed to dislodge colonialism, but not complete overhaul of society and establishment of a radically different social and political order.

As a preface to our discussions, here is what Museveni believes the role of violence is and what change means. He remarks:

"It migh be said that one can conduct such political education without fighting so that Fanon's theory on violence becomes a superfluity or mere romanticism. I do not share that view. Without a revolution, a revolutionary social convulsion, one cannot get the necessary discipline to mobilise the population. One cannot create a new order unless one shakes the old one, that is why the Chinese bourgeois revolutionaries , like Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, and the communists were opposed to the old Chinese society, to Confucianism-which acted as a stabilising agent of the Chinese empire by providing it with an ethical basis. It is necessary to create social convulsions so that the social institutions, the custodians of the status quo ,...are not only brought into question but are actually shaken and made malleable, a pre-condition for successful recasting. To say that one can introduce fundamental changes without a violent shake-up is to say that one can turn ore into iron without melting it. Not only must you melt ore first but the fire must be of very high temperature to enable you to melt it."

When Museveni came to power in 1986, the people of northern Uganda initially embraced the National Resistance Movement / Army (NRM/A). But as far as Museveni was concerned, they were his political enemies because leaders of previous regimes came from among them. Moreover, the myth of northern martial invincibility needed to be imploded; this for the benefits of Museveni's fighters from the south of the country, to vindicate their potence, allegedly questioned by northerners for long; and also to educate the northern populace and those that still entertained the false belief in northern military prowess, that there was a new military prince from south of the country.

Therefore, the northern population, as " backward" and " politically unconscious masses", needed to be conditioned for the new order; because for a revolution to be thorough and meaningful, two conditions- the objective and subjective-must obtain or be fulfilled.

The objective conditions are the social, economic, and political situation in discontent of the people with the old society and their predilection to change. But as far as northern Uganda was concerned, the objective conditions for the NRM/A revolution did not exist here as it did in southern Uganda. In this sense, they were considered hostile to the revolution and must be remoulded. Therefore, the NRM/A had to rely on skilfully imposing the subjective conditions on them through "revolutionary violence" in order for them to also become proponents of the NRM revolutiion. Second, philosophically, Museveni believes in the therapeutic and persuasive power of "revolutionary violence"; for ordinary, unconscious masses to accept new revolutionary order, they must be passed through the wringers of "revolutionary violence".

As expressed in his much referenced yet ignored thesis: Fanon's Theory on Violence: Its verifidation in Liberated Mozambique, Museveni believes that "violence is the highest form of political struggle." That "not only is violence the only effective instrument of bringing about...real (change)"; but "it is also a laxative, a purgative, an agent for creating new men." It is the process by which "revolutionary violence" creates the subjective conditions for a revolution among population reluctant to embrace the kind of change envisioned by the revolutionaries. The need for change has to be created, instigated by cadres and agents of the revolution, through "political propaganda" among the people, and by showing the people that they have power by making sure the people witness how the "enemy can be destroyed by revolutionary violence."

As can be seen, forcing people out of their homes to townsquares in northern and eastern Uganda in the 1980s to mid 1990s, cannot be understood as anything else but to show the people the power of "revolutionary violence". The lesson was that those who resist were destined to suffer the same fate. Moreover, the myth of northern martial invincibility, needed to be permanently put to rest both in the minds of Museveni's fighters, and northern population. Accordingly, Museveni poignantly remarks that:

"It must be seen that the 'invincibility' of the enemy is just fraudulent; he is invincible because he has never been challenged by a revolutionary force using the correct methods of revolutionary violence. It ...(is)...necessary to show peasants fragments of ...(enemy fighter)...blown up by a mine or, better still, his head. Once peasants see....the head of the former master, ...the head cold in death, ..., he will know, or at least begin to suspect, that the picture traditionally presented to him of the ...(enemy's)...invincibility is nothing but a scarecrow."

Furthermore, the people need to be involved in destroying the enemy. They are therefore, to be politicised, aroused so that they can take up arms and partake of the revolutionary banquet of blood. Museveni himself asserts that it is " more remunerative to get the masses themselves to kill enemy troops. Such visual aids help (them) -to realise (their) potentiality and power." In this respect, the creation of the Arrow Brigades under Betty Bigombe, as the aptly named Minister for the Pacification of (the Primitive Tribes of) Northern Uganda, was not accidental. Nor was the exposure of captured or surrendering insurgents, suspected insurgents and alleged rebel collaborators to mob violence and lynchings by NRA commanders such as Brigadier Kazini in Gulu, accidental. These were all part and parcel of revolutionary violence and the strengthening of the subjective preconditions for moulding an entirely new society as planned by its proponents.Its other aim was also to make sure, the masses, once involved, lost their innocence and became part of the plot of the revolution and its counterinsurgency strategies against so called reactionry forces from within and without.

In addition, there is no doubt that mass displacement of people into camps in northern and eastern Uganda, and neglecting to provide social amenities as expected of a responsible government, were all deliberate revolutionary strategy to induce mass suffering and whip up the people's anger against those presumed to be the sources of their suffering. In this case, it is presented as the LRA. But reading Museveni critically, we can confidently assert that mass displacement had less to do with the safety of civilian population, than Museveni's belief that:

"...revolutionary struggles, preferably culminating in armed violence, purify societies. ...The reason for this purification is not hard to find; once the individuals are purified, then society as a whole will most likely be purified because, after all, society is an aggregate of individuals....The starting point is, therefore, the sublimation of individuals and everything will fall in its place. The sublimatory remoulding of individuals.... (leads) ...to a concomittant recasting of the whole society." (Emphasis added).

Strategies for the final and permanent solution

Museveni shot his way to power, despite the Nairobi Peace Accord, signed between the Military Council in Uganda and his insurgent National Resistance Movement / Army (NRM/A)in 1985. Perfect, it may have not been, but the Nairobi Accord did provide a credible and workable framework and incentives for peaceful political order and national reconciliation, without any further bloodshed than already shed in Luwero and during the 1985 coup. But Museveni needed war and violence, to provide the conditions for him and his forces to physically get rid of elements of the previous regimes and those considered reactionary, more than a negotiated political solution would have provided.It is the same view, that has guided his prosecution of counter-insurgency in northern Uganda.

Bent on a dubious political vendetta driven by irrational grudges and hatred against Milton Obote specifically, but northerners generally, Museveni duped the principals to the peace accord to believe he was committed to the provisions of the agreement, when all the while, he knew he wanted none of it, but to prepare for war and strike and defeat the national government he consistently mischaracterised as northern, foreign and Sudanese or Anyanya.

When he took power in 1986, Museveni knew that the rumparts of the Military Council government, and elements of the former Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA) that it had defeated, could have been absorbed peacefully through some kind of negotiation than force. However, Museveni and the NRM/A, were not merely seeking to defeat the UNLA and the so-called northerners and seize power as we have already noted, but to stamp out by all means, any potentials for future northern threats to their holding onto power as long as possible-perhaps for 50 years if the clandestine Basiita (Museveni's) Clan's Fifty-Year Plan for ruling Uganda is to be believed.

It is easy to dismiss the plan as propaganda work of Museveni's detractors. But keen observation of what has transpired in Uganda and the Great Lakes Region in the last 23 years, gives pause for thought and a second look at what the NRM/A tribal clique are up to. In our considered view, Museveni's plan is to use economic, military and other means, to enrich his henchemen, while impoverishing people considered real, potential and imagined enemies or possible future challgers to the NRm/A regime. In fact, Museveni is not alone in this. His cousins, the Tutsi Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) who themselves were wards of the Uganda president, are singing from the same hymn book, as far as holding onto power and dealing with political opponents are concerned. In both cases, they are employing a strategy of final and permanent solution-mass physical elimination of their enemies or opponents through economic and social impoverishment and employing military means to suppress and eliminate opponents and terrorise their communities.

First, on coming to power, Museveni through privatisation programmes, shared out state assets among the top people in the NRM/A-which coincidentally were mostly Bahima. In order to create some semblance of credibility, those who were allocated these industries, former government civil service and parastatal houses, ranches and machineries, gave themselves loans from the state Uganda Commercial Bank (UCB) in the hundreds of millions of Uganda shillings, without intending to pay. In the end, they again recapitalised UCB, and sold it to Salim Saleh, the president's brother well below its appraised value. When this was exposed and there was a national uproar, they brought in Standard Bank of South Africa as a partner and a mask for the NRM/A biggies, which allegedly bought UCB, turning it into STANBIC.

While the new rulers were dipping their hands into the national till, they were economically chopping off the hands of those whose political loyalty were questionable. Moreover, people from northern and eastern parts of Uganda, considered loyal to the deposed UPC party, were particularly targeted for marginalisation. Their assets were frozen, and those with seniority in the civil service were retrenched in a move calculated to weed out people from the wrong parts of the country, than any alleged serious efforts at cutting costs and making the civil service leaner and more efficient.

As for the ordinary people from these parts of the country, and other areas considered UPC strongholds, the new NRM/A government dismantled cooperatives societies in Ankole, Bugisu, Busoga, Teso and Acholi, to deny the population any means of generating surplus that could be used to fund and organise political opposition to the new regime in Kampala. Particularly for Teso, Lango and Acholi, the NRM/A went even a step further, by the army itself rustling livestock and looting produce from granaries in these areas under the pretext of denying insurgents sources of food. Just to make sure no livestock was left, the other plank of the strategy was to disarm anti-stock theft militias in Acholi, Lango and Teso, while leaving the Karamojong under arms and to roam the region unmolested, in search of any cattle missed by Museveni's army.

With their livestock completely depleted, the people in these region were left impoverished, since their sources of food and animal traction for ploughs were no more and social reproduction itself became difficult. As if this was not enough social dislocation already, the NRM/A adopted mass displacements of population into so-called protected villages at short notice, allegedly to leave the countryside open for government to robustly mount assaults on insurgents. Contrary to international humanitarian laws on internal displacements, these displacement centres were unplanned and no provisions were made for the masses forced into them, where they suffered abuses, sexual violence and murders in the hands of government forces, and continued attacks and abductions by insurgents of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

Left impoverished, destitute and unproductive, these people could neither feed themselves, nor send their children to school. And as they were being dispossessed, the NRM brought in economic liberalisation measures, which nmeant, access to sevices was now through the market and availabilty now depended on ability to pay for services.It meant that, eastern and northern Uganda would lag behind the rest of the country in social and economic indices of development and wellbeing.

Second, Museveni deliberately provoked insurgency in northern Uganda by colluding with the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) to attack and drive back into Uganda, refugees from northern Uganda, particularly Acholi, who had fled into the Sudan when Museveni and the NRM/A seized power and committed atrocities against civilians in Buu-Cooro, Nam Okora, Kitgum, and throughout Acholi and eastern Uganda. These actions were preceded by rounding up of able-bodied Acholi boys and men and shipping them to unknown destinations in the south of the country, from where none returned to date.

Furthermore, with the insurgency against NRM/A atrocities picking up steam, the NRM/A adopted a strategy of gang-pressing able-bodied Acholi boys and men into so-called Local Defence Units (LDU) purpotedly to protect the local population and communities against acts of violence from any quarters. However, this was a clever strategy by Museveni and the NRM/A, to not only deny possible recruitment into the ranks of insurgents by putting these boys and men under arms on the side of the state, but it also desired to eliminate them physically, by deploying these boys and men in the front line under a Muhima or Tutsi commander, as the first line of defence against insurgents. During this time, when the Museveni government denied there was insurgency against his government but that it was Acholi killing Acholi, there was some element of truth to it.

Indeed, it served Museveni, the Basita plan, and the NRM/A vision of eliminating potential and possible sources and resources for organised opposition to them, when they could keep out of harm's way, the Tutsi and Bahima dominated NRM/A government forces, and let the Acholi local militia and the same Acholi insurgents, finish themselves off. In the end, it is Acholi that is diminished three ways-through the deaths of insurgents, local militia allied to the state, and the civilian population targeted by insurgents for supporting the government, and those caught in the crossfires, as well as those dying in the concentration camps through opportunistic diseases, hunger, and malnutrition.

All these work to fulfill the schemes for a final and permanent solution to organised political or military opposition to Museveni from northern Uganda. As he nerve-jarringly opined;

"To transform a human being into an efficient, uncostly and completely subservient slave, you have, as a pre-condition, to completely purge him of his humanity, manhood and will. Otherwise, as long as he has some hope of a better, free future, he will never succumb to enslavement."

Extrapolating northern Uganda to Rwanda and DRC Congo

As we suggested above, Museveni and Kagame in Rwanda, share the same philosophy on how to treat political opponents, particularly at the community level. As did Museveni to the northerners and easterners after he came to power-to create as much condition for violent conflict as possible, in order to draw able-bodied boys and men from particular communities considered political opponents and enemies into conflict and deaths-so has Paul Kagame in Rwanda.

In fact there are close parallels between what transpired in Uganda and what happened in Rwanda. Like Uganda, there was the Arusha Accord, between the RPF and the Rwandan government of Juvenal Abyerimana. And like Uganda, the RPF pretended to be willing to share power and abide by the Árusha Accord, when in truth, they were preparing for a military showdown, to seize power and use all resources of power, to eliminate their opponents physically. These they accomplished during their short insurgency operations and during the chaotic situation when they shot down Abyeremana's plane and plunged Rwanda into anarchy.

Just like Museveni, the RPF were crying wolf, while they were deeply involved in committing the kinds of atrocities they were accusing their opponents of perpetrating. For instance, it is known that the RPF were in full and complete control of the Kagera region, and yet that is one of the regions where the most horrendous atrocities were committed, with bodies clogging up the Kagera River. And most of those bodies were Hutus.

When the Hutus were driven out of Rwanda into Congo, the RPF followed them there; ransacked refugee camps and killed hundreds of thousands of women, children and men under the noses of the UN and international humanitarian organisations in 1994-96. Terrorised and dispersed into the Congo jungles, Rwandan refugees were hunted down like foxes by the combined Ugandan, Rwandan and Rwanda controlled and commanded Congolese Army under Laurent Kabila, the father of the current president, then an ally of Uganda and Rwanda who had put him into power after deposing Mubutu Ssesekou. Estimates have put the Congo debacles at more than 4,000,000 million people killed as a result of Ugandan and Rwandan involvement in conflicts in the region.

All these were done by Museveni and Kagame, in pursuit of the final and permanent solution-to neutralise northerners in Uganda and Rwandan Hutus in Rwanda, as potential threats to their respective regimes. Both Museveni and Kagame have followed these paths with lessons from history of Uganda under dictator Idi Amin. Amin massacred and terrorised the northern communities of Achli and Langi, after he deposed Milton Obote in`1971. According to the Museveni and Kagame strategy, Amin made the mistake of not terrorising and weakening the two communities enough to not be able to either flee into exile to swell the ranks of future insurgents, or its internal elites amassing wealth to suport future challenges to his regime. Indeed, Ugandan exiles, predominatly Acholi and Langi who had fled the Amin terror, supported by Tanzanian forces, overthrew Amin in April 1979.

Closer to home, Kagame himself being a former refugee in Uganda, witnessed first hand how hospitable sanctuary as Uganda was able to accord to them under successive governments, can make refugees communities like his integrate, prosper and penetrate power elites and mount assaults on oppressive regimes back in their original homelands. In fact they had done it under RPF with the backing of Yoweri Museveni.

It is their own success against Abyerimana, and its posssibility of being replicated in the distant future by the masses of Hutus fleeing into the Congo, that continue to haunt Kagame in Rwanda, and it is the reason that we see General Nkunda is active. It is not for nothing that we learnt recently, Rwandese Hutu children are fleeing for their dear lives from being forcibly recruited into Gen. Nkunda's rebel army-a leaf righ out of Yoweri Museveni's counter insurgency doctrine of using your opponent's own people to fight against them.

We are persuaded to believe that, as long as there are Hutu regugees-forget whether they are former soldiers or ordinary civilians-settled or attempting to settle in any part of the DRC, Museveni and Kagame will not want for tricks and stratagems to make sure they do not settle and prosper to present any threats to Rwanda in the future. That is why, Nkunda's claims about fighting to protect native Congolese Tutsis or Banyamulenge, is so convenient.

The two regimes in Kigali and Kampala would rather the Hutu refugees in Congo are either killed off or driven back into Rwanda, where economic and repressive weapons can be used to weaken, marginalise and disarm them of any ability and potential capacity to mobilise and organise internally to challenge the regime; the same way Museveni has been able to do in Acholi, Lango, Teso, and West Nile or northern and eastern Uganda through counter insrugency measures, including mass encampment without any kind of cupport to the population.

What is to be done?

We therefore urge progressive and Pan-Africanist leaders in Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Tanzania, as well as the African Diaspora-from the Caribean to Australasia-to see the jackals in Uganda, Rwanda and Eastern Congo-who cry wolf-for who they are-predators rather than preys. It is time therefore, these leaders in the region, treated Yoweri Museveni for who he is: the author and godfather of heinous crimes of final and permanent solutions against certain groups of African peoples in the region. Museveni, Kagame and Nkunda, must be treated for who they are-agents of hate, genocide and African bondage suffering.

It is time progressive African leaders actively and militarily came to the aid of DRC Congo and its people in the east of the country. We cannot repeat the mistakes we made, that cost the life of the young, progressive,revolutionary and Pan-Africanist Patrice Lumumba. We must act now and against any detractions from Washington or London or Brussels or Paris, in their stubbornness not to understand Museveni, and the diabolical social and political beliefs that underpin his exercise of political power and the use of people as mere instruments for Machavelian ends.

We must act in the interest of the African peoples.

First African American President: But Will Old Washington Power Trust Obama?

2008-11-26T16:41:00.000Z

First African American President: But Will Old Washington Power Trust Obama?

Barack Obama; US Presidency, Global Power, Axis of Evil, George W. Bush, Tony Blair, International Relations, WMD, Washington, Mitchelle Obama, Cherie Blair, Laura Bush

News that tentacles of American power could not trust its most ardent ally Tony Blair- a harmless, cuddly, and shrill cheerleader; its domestic pet, an American poodle; the former British Prime Minister- is mindnumbing.

Here was Tony, all chummy, cheerful trooper of the American Century under team leader Dubbya. His was the more legitimate and convincing voice on the War On Terror (WOT). He was the more humane and benign face of power that reassured you there could be nothing more sinister than routine exacting of just retributions against those who harm innocent citizens. After all, he was British Prime Minister; a small country and disintegrated empire unenamoured any longer with direct military occupation, control and domination of other lands and peoples as a righteous and divine duty or the whiteman's burdens unto other God's lesser creatures.

It turns out, America under George W. Bush the Dumber, could not spare the leash, even on the family's favourite pet, Tony the Poodle. He was apparently leashed all the while he was being petted. And all this, when he and the Queen's dominion were lulled into fervently believing, that America and Britain, are siamese twins: inseparable; and the interstices of their existences, as that of thier power and global interests and reach, interlinked.

We are told that Washington only eavesdropped on Tony's ' private life.' Who are they really kidding?

Okay, we know that unlike many prime ministers before him; as long as British memory can be relied upon, Tony Blair and Cherie Booth Blair were the only power couple in a long time to find the space and energy, to actually make love and father a child, Leo, at Number 10, Downing Street, between their very busy and exhausting public schedules. Might Dubbya have been interested in finding out if Tony was all au naturale, unaided by viagara, or some technique native to Britain that he could pirate and help him nudge Laura Bush into more than just giving him a back rub after his usual bouts of watching sports on TV and munching away on pretzels, and at long last give the teeen-aged twin girls a brother Herbert Walker, perhaps?

You must be kidding, if you believed that. We were warned there was an axis of evil and there were rogue states and terrorists squirming to push the nuclear or WMD trigger and obliterate the USA and the world at the slightest opportunity of complacency. So, with all the threats from the terrorists and the axis of evil, the USA could squander precious and critical survaillance resources on tracking Tony Blair's randiness, or who he plays pool with at No. 10, or if he kisses Cherie goodnight after every session of lovemaking, or if he actually used to secretly call that squirrelly chancellor at No.11, to tell him Tony's support of the American WOT was all a charade, and could he Gordon, please tell George Galloway to cool it?

Cynical of officialdom as we are wont to be at NUMP, we do not think so. We want to believe that, indeed, Tony was under survaillance, and so was Gordon Brown, all the time. We also want to believe that, it was not only their domestic lives under the microscope, but all the facets and planes of their lives, to make sure they were genuinely lock and step, with the aspirations of the neocons at the centre of forging the American century under Dubbya. Therefore, what has come out is from only one of several such nodes of intercepts on various particular aspects of the lives of those, jittery American power put under close watch.

Which begs the question for us at NUMP: If the tentacles of American power, and for our purposes, white old boys' American power, could not trust Tony Blair, either because he was British, European, centre left or closet socialist labour leader, how can we be sure that the same power sceptical of its own kin, would open up completely and trust Barack Obama- who was variously portrayed as an outsider, unAmerican, terrorist, moslem, socialist, African, and redistributionist- with its interests and aspirations?

We want to disappoint the world that, far from re-modelling American outlook and the world on a global village framework, where we are all family and share the same ethoes and pathoes, Barack Obama will be merely a figurehead, held hostage to his own visions of and aspirations for the world and the euphoric world's own unrealistic expectations for the end of self interests and the ideology of power and domination. Barack Obama may be black, but he is immersed in the same old Americal and European culture of power and domination of others to further the welfare of those they consider their own.

If the distrust shown Tony Blair is any indication, we can confidently hazard to project that, the centre of power will migrate from the Oval Office, where Obama will remain titular President of the USA, to the Vice President's Office and the State Department, where Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, will be more trusted with classified information and covert operations and actions overseas in pursuit of old American power and interests. This power will increasingly be shared with respective congressional leaders and committee chairs of both parties, running circles around The President himself, who will largely be considered an outsider and potential danger to American power that must be preserved at all costs.

Like Tony Blair, we believe, there will be files on Barack Obama, and we do not mean the interest will be driven by voyeurism into the stereotypical ready, red-hotness of the black woman and how raunchily Michelle Obama could go down on the President of the United States of America, after hours. Far from it. While that may attract some interest, the focus will be to make sure he is not palling around with the likes of William Ayers, or cussing America with Jeremiah Wright in the dead of night.

We can also project that, Obama's presidency will bring Britain, the USA, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, ever closer and closer than they were under Dubbya the Dumber, to ensure that whatever potential dangers Obama's place at the centre of traditinally Anglo-Saxon centre of power,will be minimised by running circles around him among these club who tend to act collaboratively on global issues.

The world can be forgiven for its excitements about Barack Obama as the first African-American or ethnic minority president of the USA. As far as we are concerned, the world will remain divided between us and them. Palestine will still remain the land where no justice is rendered, but might is right and who is your friend. As for Africa, Obama's presidency has come at the wrong time-we do not want him to fail, and yet there are so many dictators in Africa who were coddled by Washington, that we want to get rid of, but Washington under Barack Obama will still want to keep them in power because they further American interests in the region.

Therefore, we are headed on a collision course, if Zimbabwe is any indication, where justice and equity, which is the centre of the contention there, has been displaced by the centrality of how fair or unfair, free or unfree elections are without any thought that African states and peoples too, have national interests, the fight for which, sometimes must make the critical constructive balance of respecting fundamental rights, and ensuring that the majority of their citizens, their interests, welbeing and aspirations and future are ensured.

Raila Odinga: Here Comes Africa's new Anglo-American imperialist hatchetman

2008-11-25T14:19:00.002Z

Raila Odinga: Here Comes Africa's New Anglo-American Imperialist Hatchetman

Raila Odinga, African Union, Robert Mugabe; Zimbabwe; Morgan Tsivangirai; Land and agrarian reforms in Zimbabwe; social justice and equity; Democracy in Zimbabwe.,

There is an African saying that, fire begets cold, impotent ash. Perhaps this witticism aptly applies to Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Abongo Odinga, the son of the fire and brimstone, anti-colonialist crusader, and champion of African liberation and emancipation, and celebrated author of the anti-neocolonialist book: Not Yet Uhuru; the late Jaramogi Abongo Oginga Odinga.

We have no doubt that Oginga Sr would disagree with Oginga Jr on Zimbabwe. It is both false and errorneous for Raila Odinga to equate the national liberation and national democratic struggles in Zimbabwe, with the social and democratic struggles in Kenya, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and other African states in the throes of conflicts and violence as a consequence of neo-colonial penetration and control.

Zimbabwe won its national liberation and human equality in 1980, after a bitter armed struggle by African nationalists against the racist and oppressive settler white minority rule, and the Unilateral Declaration of Indepence (UDI) by Ian Smith. Until the imperialist and neocolonial forces were on the verge of collapse in Zimbabwe from the concerted efforts of Zimbabwean nationalists and Pan-African Front Line States, did Anglo-American imperialism begin to push for a negotiated settlement, lest they lost completely in Zimbabwe. Their suit for a negotiated settlement, was to save the rump of the settler class, and particularly ensure that white privilege and control of the Zimnbabwean economy, particularly agricultural land-the bone of contention for the liberators-continued in a post-racist and post-UDI Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwean African nationalists, led by comrades Robert Gabriel Mugabe, and Joshua Nkomo, compromised at Lancaster, and allowed for a delayed decision on the land question. The caveat on Zimbabwean independence were that, the independence constitution would not be changed for 10 years, and any land reforms must be based on a willing-seller, willing-buyer basis, determined by market forces. The sweetner on these bitter pills, was that the Anglo-American imperialist principals, Britain and the USA, would provide credit assistance to Zimbabwe, to help it purchase land for redistribution to landless Africans and freedom fighters, from white settlers who were willing to sell.

We know that Britain under Tony Blair, reneged on this deal, and left Zimbabwean patriots with no choice, but to go forward with land reforms that was necessary for the landless African masses that had been waiting since independence. Seeing that Zimbabwe was not going to grovel at the feet of Anglo-American imperialism, an African puppet, willing to betray the objectives and aspirations of the liberation struggles, had to be found. And they found this in a reactionary trade unionist, Morgan Tsvangirai.

The crux of the struggles in Zimbabwe, is therefore, justice for historically dispossessed Africans, led by comrade Mugabe, and Anglo-American re-colonisation of Zimbabwe, with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by Tsvangirai, as chief comparadore to mediate the control and domination of Zimbabwe. As far as the MDC and Tsvangirai are concerned, the problem of Zimbabwe is lie in the seizures of white-owned farms by the government, to give to landless black families and farmers. According to this logic, the Zimbabwe liberation struggle was therefore unnecessary.

This is something that Raila Odinga should understand. The Zimbabwean situation is similar to the Kenyan sitaution at the time of Raila Odinga's father, when he was Vice President of Kenya. The reason he left the young independence government was precisely because the freedom fighters who gave all to win Kenya's independence, were shortchanged by the petty bourgeoisie that seized contron of the post colonial state in Kenya. Instead of meaningful land reforms that should have seen redistribution of white settler farms in the highlands given to landless Africans and freedom fighters, the African leadership in Kenya colluded with Anglo-American imperialism to help themselves to these farms and extend colonial settler leases. As far as Jaramogi Oginga Odinga was concerned, it was Not Yet Uhuru, because the toils for Uhuru were in vain, because the population for whom the struggle for Uhuru was waged, have been cheated out of the dividends of their sacrifices for Uhuru.

It is therefore ludicruous that Raila Odinga, should declare that there is no legitimate government in Zimbabwe. and African Union (AU) should send peacekeeping troops into Zimbabwe.

Raila Odinga's problem is that of analysis by analogy, which can be very faulty. He begins to equate himself with Morgan Tsivangirai, and Robert Mugabe with Mwai Kibaki or Moi. In his thinking, the democratic struggles in Kenya, Uganda, DRC, and other African states, were and are being waged on the same issues and by the same forces. which is grossly simplistic.

In Uganda, the struggle is against an autocrat, who shot his way to power, and seized power by unconstitutional means, while murdering hundreds of thousands of fellow countrymen, with the help of Anglo-American imperialism. Dictator Yoweri Museveni, is the errandboy for Britain and the USA in East and Central Africa. It is because he helped prosecute Anglo-American imperialist plans of dislodging France from Rwanda, Burundi and DRC, and diminishing French influence in East and Central Africa, that he has been rewarded with military and financial aid, and international diplomatic protection from scrutiny for human rights violations and genocide in northern Uganda, Rwanda and the DRC. Despite the fact dictator Museveni banned political parties, and never held any elections in Uganda for 20 years, he was the west's posterboy in Africa.

As for Kenya, it was an intra-class struggle between a faction that lost out at independence, and the faction of the petty bourgeoisie that had captured and controlled the state since indpendence. While there were social justice colouring to the yearnings of the ordinary Kenyans for change, the leadership of both factions were essentially fighting for political power to control the state and continue to act as middlemen for British settler and American imperialist capital. Consequently, for the leadership of the intraclass factions, the struggle was limited to free and fair elections, supervised by agents of imperialism, but not fundamental alternations in the structure of power and the Kenyan economy, that has left so many so poor for so long since independence. For the ordinary Kenyan, as it was for Raila Odinga's father, Oginga Odinga, it is Not Yet Uhuru.

This is in contrast to Zimbabwe, where the African leadership is striving to empower the dispossessed black masses, by speaking truth to power. And for this, the west imposed sanctions and economic blockade against Zimbabwe, so that they may suffer and grovel at the feet of the oppressors, through the MDC and Morgan Tsvangirai. We know there is enormous and unforgivable suffering in Zimbabwe as a result of this and the actions of the government to maintain law and order. But it is legitimate to wonder, what contribution covert imperialist actions and manipulation of reactionary MDC forces have made to the desperation. Whatever the answer, we believe that in the end, in the broader interests of the Zimbabwean masses, and under tremendous pressure and threats from Anglo-American imperialism, the actions of the ZANU-PF government is justified. Both Britain and the USA would not tolerate quislings.

For Tsvangirai and Raila Odinga, free and fair elections are all we need; forget about issues of justice and fairness. But to many Zimbabwean patriots and Africans, the issue of justice and fairness is critical, existential and trumps the question of free and fair elections. The landless Africans do not eat ballot papers or procedural platitudes. They want to be free, masters of their destiny and sovereign.

We believe Raila's utterances are meant to endear himself to the Anglo-American imperialists, standing him in good stead to succeed their favoured shambaboy, Yoweri Museveni, next door as East Africa's slave driver. As a Kenyan bourgeoisie removed from the trepidations of ordinary Kenyans, Raila certainly is suited for the job. However, we believe very strongly that, our hero, Raila's father, Jaramogi Abongo Oginga Odinga, is gnashing his teeth and turning in his grave, wondering, how such whitehot coals like himself, could have begotten such cold, impotent ash.

Just a piece of advice to Raila Odinga before he gets overzealous to dethrone Yoweri Museveni as regional favourite of Anglo-America: Yoweri Museveni still has some worth left with the Anglo-American imperialists. What with DRC smouldering? However, the imperialists will be happy for competition, which will drive the bargain downwards, as they will play Kampala against Nairobi, and have their biddings done on the cheap.

Nonetheless, we tip our hats to Africa's newest Anglo-American imperialist hatchetman in the region...Hip Hip! Hooray! Hip Hip! Hooray! Hip Hip! Hooray Raila Odinga!

2008-11-23T17:21:00.003Z

World powers must solve Somalia crisis
Daily Monitor, Uganda - 17 Nov 2008

Reports from Somalia indicate that the security situation there remains precarious and that Islamic insurgents are controlling more territory than the ...

United Nations Urges Somali Leaders to Unite to End Conflict
Bloomberg - 17 Nov 2008

By Hamsa Omar Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- The United Nations urged Somalia's political leaders to unite to end the nation's 17-year conflict, after President ...

Somalia falling to Islamists
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia - 17 Nov 2008

NAIROBI: The President of Somalia has said the transitional government is on the verge of collapse and Islamist groups now control most of the country. ...

Q+A-Why should the world care about Somalia?
Reuters South Africa, South Africa - 17 Nov 2008
Nov 17 (Reuters) - Daily headlines from Somalia of violence, refugees and piracy may seem like a blur to the outside world. * Islamists have been gaining ...

Rival Islamists clash near Somali capital, 6 dead
Reuters South Africa, South Africa - 17 Nov 2008
By Abdi Sheikh MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Rival Islamist militia have fought in a town just outside Somalia's capital Mogadishu, illustrating splits in the ...
Somali Opposition Accuses Transitional Government of Failing to ...

Somali Opposition Accuses Transitional Government of Failing to Provide SecurityVoice of America - 16 Nov 2008

By Peter Clottey, Washington, D.C.
17 November 2008

Somali opposition parties are accusing President Abdullahi Yusuf's transitional government of failing in its mandate to maintain law and ...

How the War on Terror pushed Somalia into the arms of al-Qaeda

2008-11-23T17:00:00.008Z

The Times November 18, 2008

How the War on Terror pushed Somalia into the arms of al-Qaeda

War on Terror, Somalia, al-Qaeda, Horn of Africa, President Bush, Iraq, Afghanistan, Islamic militancy, Islamic extremists, qat, Christian Ethiopia, Islamic Courts, Kismayo

It has been the forgotten debacle of the Bush years. But anarchy in the Horn of Africa may soon haunt the West

Martin Fletcher

As President Bush prepares to leave office, the pundits will start to produce their balance sheets. It is hard to know what they will list under “achievements”, but easy to predict their “disasters”: Iraq, Afghanistan, economic meltdown, soaring debt and America's loss of global stature.

One other debacle should feature prominently in that second column, but probably won't because it has occurred in a faraway country that most Westerners know only through the film Black Hawk Down - or from recent reports of rampant piracy including the seizure early on Sunday of a Saudi tanker, carrying more than two million barrels of oil, which had an immediate effect on crude prices.

I am referring to the Bush Administration's intervention in Somalia in the name of the War on Terror. It has helped to destroy that wretched country's best chance of peace in a generation, left more than a million Somalis dead, homeless or starving, and achieved the precise opposite of its original goal. Far from stamping out an Islamic militancy that scarcely existed, the intervention has turned Somalia into a breeding ground for Islamic extremists and given al-Qaeda a valuable foothold in the Horn of Africa.

Rewind to the early summer of 2006. For 15 years, since the fall of the dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, feuding warlords had made Somalia a byword for anarchy and terrorism - the archetypal failed state. A tenth of its population had been killed. A million had fled abroad. At that point the warlords were finally routed, despite covert CIA backing, by a remarkable public uprising in support of the so-called Islamic Courts movement that promised to end the lawlessness.

Somalia had always practised a mild form of Islam, but the Courts received a bad press in the West, being widely portrayed as a new Taleban determined to impose the most draconian forms of Sharia on a terrified populace. That was certainly what I expected when I visited Mogadishu in early December 2006. But what I actually found was a people still celebrating the return of peace and security.

Gone were the checkpoints where the warlords' gunmen extorted and killed. Gone were their “technicals” - the Jeeps with heavy machineguns on the back with which they terrorised the citzenry. For the first time that most Somalis could remember, they were walking around their shattered capital in safety, even at night. Businesses were reopening. Exiles were returning. Mountains of rubbish were being carted away.

“It's like paradise compared to even one year ago,” according to Mohammed Ahmed, a doctor who had returned from working at the West Middlesex Hospital.

The Courts had certainly imposed what would be seen in the West as some fairly repressive moral codes. They cracked down on the narcotic qat that rendered half the menfolk senseless, banned sexually explicit films, encouraged women to cover their heads and discouraged Western music and dancing. There had been two public executions. But that was a price most Somalis were happy to pay, and while the Courts' disparate factions undoubtedly included extremists with dangerous connections and intentions, they also included moderates with whom the West could have done business.

European nations favoured engagement. Washington did not. It accused the Courts of harbouring the al-Qaeda terrorists responsible for bombing US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. The Courts hardly helped their cause by claiming territory in Kenya and Ethiopia.

Weeks after my visit the US supported - morally, materially and with intelligence - an invasion by predominantly Christian Ethiopia, Somalia's oldest bitter enemy. That replaced what was, for all its faults, Somalia's most effective government in memory with a deeply unpopular one led by former warlords, which had been cobbled together by the international community in Nairobi two years previously.

“The Americans see an extremist under every Muslim stone,” one European official complained bitterly, and the consequences were entirely predictable. An insurgency that began early in 2007 has steadily gathered strength, while the reviled Government in Mogadishu has come to depend utterly for its survival on thousands of Ethiopian troops that were meant to withdraw within weeks.

As the fighting has worsened 10,000 Somali civilians are thought to have been killed, more than a million have fled their homes, and more than three million - 40 per cent of the population - now urgently need humanitarian assistance. Although the UN World Food Programme is still getting some aid into the country the situation is deteriorating and scores of humanitarian workers have been killed or abducted. Exploiting the lawlessness, pirates have turned the waters off Somalia into some of the most dangerous in the world.

In Kenya last weekend Abdullahi Yusuf, Somalia's President, finally admitted that insurgents now control most of the country and have advanced to the very edge of Mogadishu. His Government, he said, was close to collapse.

There are several insurgent forces, but one of the most powerful is the Shabab - a group of virulently anti-Western jihadists that has now eclipsed the Islamic Courts movement of which it was once part.

Somalia's nightmare may be only just starting. President Yusuf predicts wholesale slaughter if the Shabab seize Mogadishu. Diplomats fear that the Shabab will wage all-out war with other insurgent forces, including those of the Islamic Courts, for control of the country once Ethiopian troops - the common enemy - are withdrawn.

And unlike the Courts, the Shabab has no truck with moderation: in the port city of Kismayo last month a young girl who complained that she had been raped was stoned to death for adultery, while in Balad two dozen Somalis were flogged for performing a traditional dance.

Whatever happens, Somalia will be another horrendous legacy for Barack Obama, but somewhere on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border one man will be celebrating. Shabab openly supports al-Qaeda. It has adopted suicide bombings and other tactics. “Al-Qaeda is the mother of the holy war in Somalia... We are negotiating how we can unite into one,” Muktar Robow, a leading Shabab commander, recently told the Los Angeles Times. “We will take our orders from Sheikh Osama bin Laden because we are his students.”

All in all, hardly a resounding triumph for the War on Terror.

Copyright 2008 Times Newspapers Ltd.

Somalia: Analysis of a failed state

2008-11-23T16:38:00.008Z

Somalia: Analysis of a failed state

Somalia, failed state, Horn of Africa , trade routes, conflict, ohammed Siad Barre, warlords, Mogadishu, Black Hawk Down, Africa, clan rivalries

Somalia's collapse into anarchy almost two decades ago created a uniquely explosive combination

By David Blair, Diplomatic Editor
Last Updated: 12:33PM GMT 19 Nov 2008

At a stroke, the Horn of Africa acquired a failed state with 2,000 miles of coastline skirting one of the world's great trade routes.

No greater opportunity for piracy could be imagined. Whereas other countries have inefficient police forces and overstretched navies, Somalia has no national institutions whatsoever.

Other failed states – for example the Democratic Republic of Congo – are almost entirely landlocked. But Somalia's coastline is one of the great strategic prizes of the world.

With a grim inevitability, the country's anarchy has steadily assumed global importance.

Somalia has been torn by conflict for most of its 48 years of independence. But the implosion of the state itself came in 1991 when President Mohammed Siad Barre was overthrown.

A coalition of warlords then destroyed the central government and razed large areas of the capital, Mogadishu. An American-led military intervention designed to restore order began in 1992.

But this venture came to a humiliating end the following year when US troops fought militias in the streets of Mogadishu, killing hundreds and losing 18 of their number in battles later immortalised by the film "Black Hawk Down".

That searing chapter effectively ended the prospect of international intervention to rebuild Somalia. Since 1993, the country has been divided into a patchwork of fiefdoms, fought over by warlords.

The fundamental cause of the conflict lies in Somalia's bitter clan rivalries. Elsewhere in Africa, countries are divided by tribe. In Somalia, by contrast, almost all of the 9.5 million people are from the same tribe. They are ethnic Somalis, sharing a common language and loyalty to Islam.

But they are all divided into clans, for example the Hawiye and the Darod. In turn, these large umbrella groups are divided into scores of sub-clans who are then split between hundreds of sub-sub-clans. These groups, each led by a warlord, fight for the scarce resources of an arid country.

They form complex alliances, which are made and broken with bewildering speed.

Outside factors have made this situation still more explosive. Radical Islamists have clearly identified Somalia as a target for expansion. In 2006, an extremist group styling itself the Union of Islamic Courts captured Mogadishu and briefly controlled most of southern Somalia.

The possible birth of a radical Islamist state in East Africa alarmed America and her regional allies, notably Ethiopia, which shares a 1,000-mile border with Somalia.

In December 2006, Ethiopia invaded Somalia and captured Mogadishu. After overthrowing the Islamist regime, Ethiopia installed Somalia's internationally recognised government in Mogadishu.

This threadbare administration has almost no control of the capital, let alone the rest of the country. Abdullahi Yusuf, a septuagenarian warlord, holds the official title of "president of Somalia". In fact, he is the besieged mayor of a few quarters of Mogadishu.

Mr Yusuf's popular standing is undermined by his dependence on Ethiopian military muscle. Moreover, he is a Darod, while most of Mogadishu's people are Hawiyes. Mr Yusuf's militias, aided by Ethiopian forces, have destroyed much of the city while fighting a strong insurgency.

Elsewhere in Somalia, two independent enclaves have emerged – Somaliland in the north and Puntland in the centre.

Somaliland has achieved a measure of stability, while Puntland has become a global centre of piracy. Unless there is a successful rescue mission, the Sirius Star may find itself anchored off the coast of Puntland. Thanks to Somalia's anarchy, this lawless mini-state has effectively become a pirate kingdom.

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Guinea-Bissau restores calm after mutiny

2008-11-23T13:29:00.011Z

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Guinea-Bissau restores calm after mutiny

Guinea-Bissau ,mutiny, President Joao Bernardo, presidential residence, African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde (AIGC), Bissau,renegade soldiers, Abdoulaye Wade , Senegalese

DAKAR, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- In defiance of international appeal for respect for election results in Guinea-Bissau, fighting broke out in a pre-dawn raid on Sunday at the presidential residence between mutineers and government soldiers before calm restored in the capital of Bissau.

The attack followed the unveiling of provisional results of last Sunday's legislative election by National Electoral Commission President Aladji Malam Mane.

Guinea Bissau's President Joao Bernardo and wife is seen in this file photo taken on Nov. 16, 2008, when they arrived to cast their ballots at a voting station in Bissau. Soldiers attacked Guniea-Bissau's presidential residence on Sunday morning.

(Xinhua/AFP Photo)
Photo Gallery>>>

The results showed that the traditionally dominant African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC) secured 67 of the 100 parliament seats.

A group of gunmen fired at the residence of President Joao Bernardo Vieira after midnight. Witnesses in Bissau heard explosions of artillery and rockets. The latest report said Vieira survived the attack by renegade soldiers who fled the scene after hours of shootout with Vieira's guards. The presidential residence was partly damaged in the fighting.

At least one presidential bodyguard was killed and several others wounded in the exchange of fire, the press service of the president told Xinhua. The authorities arrested several suspects of mutiny.

Vieira made an emergency phone call to his Senegalese counterpart Abdoulaye Wade after the incident, apparently in a bid to seek supports from the north neighboring country. The movement of troops was reported on the side of Senegal, before Vieira's presidential press service declared the situation was "under control."

Guinea-Bissau's Communication Minister Fernando Mendonca confirmed to Xinhua on a separate occasion that calm has returned to Bissau after fighting.

Although the Nov. 16 election was widely hailed as a success without tensions or disruption, there were complaints about "signs of fraud."

Mohmed Koumba Yala, leader of the Party of Social Renovation (PRS), has rejected the results after complaining that the vote at the party's northern stronghold Circle Five was delayed until Monday.

Yala, who won a presidential election in 2000 but was overthrown in a 2003 coup, met with UN special envoy in Guinea-Bissau Shola Omoragie, one day after the election to file a protest against the PAIGC, which claimed to win more than 80 percent of votes before the official results were published.

A high turnout of more than 70 percent was reported for the election. Nearly 600,000 of the country's 1.5 million population were registered to chose lawmakers for the country's fourth National Assembly since its independence in 1974.

About 20 political parties contended in the race, where the most influential included the PAIGC, the newly-formed Republican Party for Independence and Development and the PRS.

The UN Security Council on Thursday welcomed the legislative election in Guinea-Bissau, urging the political parties to respect the results.

Guinea-Bissau has been plagued by coups and revolts since its independence from Portugal. Instability triggered a civil war between 1998 and 1999, toppling Vieira who had ruled the country for 19 years.

Vieira, stilled seen as a hero by many in the struggle for the country's independence, returned to power after winning the presidential election of the country in 2005. But the situation has remained unstable with changes of government. 　In August, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed deep concerns after a failed coup attempt and the dissolving of the parliament, calling on all national stakeholders to work cooperatively and peacefully in the run-up to the election in November.

To ensure the success of the vote, the United Nations, the European Union and the Economic Community of West African States have contributed millions of U.S. dollars. More than 150 international observers were deployed across the country to monitor the process.

On the tip of West Africa with jagged coastline, Guinea-Bissauis being used by traffickers as a major hub for the flow of cocaine from Latin America to Europe, narcotics experts say.

The international community hopes the election will lead the country out of the shadow of both instability and drug trafficking.

Guinea-Bissau is one of the poorest countries in the world, being ranked the 175th out of 177 nations in the U.N. Development Programme's Human Development Index. The country's life expectancy is averaged at less than 46 years.

Covering an area of 28,120 square km, the country lies on the west coast of northern Africa, bordered by Senegal to the north, Guinea to the east and south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Its main exports include cashew nuts and fish.

Cashew nuts account for 90 percent of the country's exports, which are estimated by the International Monetary Fund at nearly 94 million U.S. dollars in 2008, up from 71 million dollars in 2007.

Guinea-Bissau's presidential residence under attack

DAKAR, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- Soldiers on Sunday morning opened fired at Guniea-Bissau's presidential residence, agencies' reports said.

President of the West African country, Joao Bernardo Vieira called his Senegalese counterpart Abdoulaye Wade and told him the event, the reports said. Full story

Guinea Bissau says situation "under control"

DAKAR, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- The situation of Guinea Bissau is "under control," the government of the tiny West African country declared on Sunday after shootouts between guards of the presidential residence and mutineers early in the day.

Communication Minister Fernando Mendonca told Xinhua by telephone that unidentified soldiers fired at the residence of President Joao Bernardo Vieira before calm returned to the capital city of Bissau. Full story

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Fierce gun battle rocks Mogadishu

2008-11-23T12:53:00.010Z

Fierce gun battle rocks Mogadishu

Ethiopian troops, Ethiopian withdrawal, insurgents, Islamist groups, Mogadishu, north-east Mogadishu, peace deal, Somali capital, UN Security Council

At least 15 people have been killed after insurgents attacked the Somali capital, Mogadishu, witnesses say.

Heavily armed men were repulsed after they attacked the house of district commissioner Ahmed Da'i just after dawn prayers, resident Ahmed Mumin said.

Mr Da'i confirmed the attack and said the bodies of the attackers "now littered the streets".

The raid comes on the day Ethiopian troops are due to start leaving Somalia, under a recent peace deal.

The BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says there is no sign yet that the planned Ethiopian withdrawal from Mogadishu's residential areas has begun.

They [bodies] were unfamiliar faces in the our district, so we think they were the insurgents Dahir Mohamed South Mogadishu resident said.

He says in contrast, they started patrolling in new areas of north-east Mogadishu, leading to clashes with residents and insurgents.

The pull-out is due to finish on 29 December, according to the UN-brokered deal between the government and some moderate Islamist groups.

The UN Security Council on Thursday unanimously passed a resolution imposing sanctions - an assets freeze and travel ban - on anyone threatening peace in Somalia.

"The prime goal of this is to provide a framework to stem the flow of arms into Somalia, which is causing such mayhem there," said John Sawers, the UN ambassador of the UK, which drafted the resolution.

The resolution also mentions anyone disrupting aid deliveries.

Mosque killing

Meanwhile, a gunman has killed one clan elder and wounded three others in an attack inside a mosque near the northern town of Hargeisa.

Hargeisa is the capital of the self-declared republic of Somaliland, which has been spared much of the violence of the rest of the country.

Government officials say there were two hours of fighting between insurgents and security officials in south Mogadishu.

The bodies of at least 15 of those killed were displayed by the authorities.

"They were unfamiliar faces in the our district, so we think they were the insurgents," said resident Dahir Mohamed.

The Islamists have not commented on the incident.

Ethiopia sent troops into Somalia two years to help the transitional government oust Islamists from Mogadishu and surrounding areas.

But President Abdullahi Yusuf last week admitted that Islamists now control most of the southern part of the country.

Story from BBC NEWS:

Published: 2008/11/21 15:48:53 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

Is Somalia on the verge of an Islamist takeover?

2008-11-23T12:26:00.010Z

Fri 21 Nov 2008, 9:16 GMT

SCENARIOS-Is Somalia on the verge of an Islamist takeover?
By Andrew Cawthorne

NAIROBI, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Rampant piracy offshore and an advance by Islamist rebels on Mogadishu have put Somalia's long-running civil conflict in the global spotlight.

Here are some possible scenarios for the country.

ISLAMIST TAKEOVER?

* After a two-year insurgency, Islamist fighters are within nine miles (six km) of the capital and President Abdullahi Yusuf admits his Western-backed government is on the verge of collapse. The Islamists or aligned groups now control most of the south, except Mogadishu and the seat of parliament, Baidoa.

* The Islamists' momentum in recent months has led to some predictions of an imminent assault on the capital, where they launch regular guerrilla-style attacks on the government and its Ethiopian military allies.

* But the rebels are split. The most militant wing, al Shabaab, which is on Washington's terrorist list, is urging jihad, or holy war. Moderate elements in another faction, the Islamic Courts Union, are leaning towards talks. The umbrella opposition Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS) is divided into a pro-peace group known as ARS-Djibouti and a hardline wing ARS-Eritrea.

* Some analysts say the Islamists may be quietly satisfied with the current, Iraq-style situation of daily attacks in Mogadishu, drawing in African peacekeepers and keeping Somali-Ethiopian troops bogged down. The presence of several thousand Ethiopian troops -- who beat them militarily at the end of 2006 -- is a major deterrent to an assault on the city.

* Should the Islamists take the capital, hardline leaders say they will impose sharia law across the south. Washington fears that would make it a haven for al Qaeda-linked extremists, and neighbouring Ethiopia fears a push on its ethnically Somali regions. But some regional diplomats say the world should have nothing to fear from an Islamist-led Somalia, provided -- crucially -- al Shabaab and other militants are marginalised. The northern states of Somaliland and Puntland run their own affairs, with the former having declared itself independent.

* Islamist leaders have publicly vowed to stamp out piracy if they take over and cite their action against gangs when they ruled the south for half of 2006. But analysts say some factions, including Shabaab, are increasingly linked to piracy, using the gangs to bring arms from abroad and sharing spoils.

POWER-SHARING?

* After 14 attempts to re-establish effective central government in Somalia since warlords toppled a dictator in 1991, another one came along this year. The U.N. special envoy to Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, has been leading talks in Djibouti between the government and moderate Islamists.

* Both sides have signed a ceasefire in principle and an agreement to form a power-sharing government. But with hardline Islamists stepping up attacks every time the peace process moves a notch forward, it has had no impact in stemming violence on the ground. Further, Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein says Yusuf himself is opposed to the peace process. "The president is an obstacle, no doubt," he told Reuters this week, underlining rifts that are frustrating the government's foreign backers.

* East African nations and the wider international community are backing power-sharing as the best way to avoid the collapse of Yusuf's government while adapting to the reality of Islamist power on the ground.

* A regional summit in Nairobi at the end of October gave the Somali government a 15-day deadline for a cabinet reshuffle to bring in some moderate opponents. The deadline has expired.

FOREIGN INTERVENTION?

* Any talk of foreign intervention in Somalia is tinged with memories of disastrous U.N. and U.S. interventions in the early 1990s, perhaps most vividly illustrated by the "Black Hawk Down" battle in 1993 when 18 American troops were killed.

* The African Union (AU) has a 3,000-strong peacekeeping force of Ugandans and Burundians, but they have been unable to do much more than guard a few key installations like the presidential palace and airport. Both of those have been hit by insurgents, however, and AU troops themselves are targets too.

* The AU is struggling to increase the force to an intended 8,000, though Nigeria and others are talking of soon sending reinforcements. The pan-African body's preferred option, however, is to hand over to the United Nations.

* The U.N. Security Council appears to have no political appetite for another major intervention in Africa -- at a time when it is facing criticism over failing to keep the peace in Congo and Darfur -- but has begun contingency planning in case.

* By contrast, foreign nations have swung into quick action to try to contain piracy which has reached unprecedented levels this year in the nearby Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean waters.

* The NATO alliance and the European Union (EU) have sent ships, while the United States, France, Russia, India and others have all stepped up patrols in the area. As if mocking their efforts, pirates took a Saudi supertanker off Kenya last weekend in their biggest and geographically furthest strike yet.

* Ethiopia has been quietly withdrawing soldiers it sent in 2006 to back the government. But it still has several thousand there and is viewed as unlikely to pull them all out for fear of an al Shabaab assault on Mogadishu.

CHAOS AS NORMAL?

* In the absence of any major shift in Somali politics, the current quagmire would simply continue.

* Fighting has killed 10,000 civilians since early 2007 and more would undoubtedly be caught up in daily clashes. More than 1 million are internal refugees, and that number would grow.

* Foreign fighters may continue to be attracted to "Africa's Iraq" which militants present as a war against infidel invaders.

© Reuters 2008. All Rights Reserved. | Learn more about Reuters

Mogadishu clashes leave 20 dead, 15 wounded

2008-11-23T12:18:00.002Z

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Mogadishu clashes leave 20 dead, 15 wounded

Mogadishu, Somali Militants, Somalia, Somali capital, Ethiopia, Ethiopian troops, Islamic Militants

MOGADISHU, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Heavy fighting between insurgent fighters and Somali government forces and Ethiopian troops in the Somali capital of Mogadishu has left nearly 20 people dead and almost 15 others wounded, police and witnesses said Friday.

Fifteen people, most of them young men, were killed after a gunfight between Somali government security forces and heavily armed fighters, who attacked the home of a Somali government official in the southwest of the restive capital, witnesses said.

It is not yet clear who the dead were but police spokesman, Colonel Abdulahi Hassan Barise, claimed that they were insurgent fighters.

Barise said his forces lost two men while four others were wounded in the gunfight that lasted for nearly two hours.

In separate clashes involving Ethiopian and insurgent fighters in the northeast of Mogadishu, three civilians were killed and 11 others were wounded after stray shells and bullets hit residential areas away from the battle scenes, witnesses told local media.

The escalation in fighting between insurgent fighters and Somali government forces and their Ethiopian allies comes on the day the Ethiopian troops were expected to withdraw from some of their bases in Mogadishu in accordance with a peace agreement between Somali government and a faction of the opposition Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS) signed in Djibouti last month.

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Dozens Killed as Fighting Intensifies in Somalia

2008-11-23T12:03:00.007Z

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November 22, 2008

Dozens Killed as Fighting Intensifies in Somalia

By MOHAMMED IBRAHIM and SHARON OTTERMAN

MOGADISHU, Somalia — At least two dozen people, including six children, were killed in heavy fighting here in Somalia’s capital on Friday as government troops tried to reassert control and Islamist insurgents fought back fiercely, witnesses said.

Bodies littered the streets of the bullet-pocked city, and hundreds of residents began to flee. Both sides claimed victory.

Violence between Islamist rebels and government forces has intensified over the past few weeks. Islamist insurgents now control much of south central Somalia, including many neighborhoods within Mogadishu, and seem intent on seizing the few enclaves the government, with Ethiopian muscle, still controls.

The gun battles on Friday started just after dawn outside the house of a local district commissioner, Ahmed Daaci, in a southern neighborhood of the city. At least 17 people died and 6 were wounded in that fighting, according to witnesses’ accounts.

Mr. Daaci, who survived the attack, said that government forces had repulsed a group of insurgents who attacked his house, and that 17 of the attackers were killed.

The bodies were left on display for hours, after government forces blocked residents from collecting them, an apparent attempt to ward off further attacks.

“I saw 12 dead bodies lying on the streets, and there were 2 bodies in front of my house,” said Abdurashid Abdullahi, a resident of the Medina neighborhood, where the fighting took place. “They are the Islamists,” he said.

More fighting erupted in the afternoon, when Islamist insurgents and government forces, backed by Ethiopian troops, fired artillery at each other. Six children were killed when a mortar shell slammed into their house, said a resident who lived next to the crushed building.

Ethiopian troops were to start leaving some positions in Mogadishu on Friday, under terms of a recent United Nations-brokered peace deal in Djibouti between the transitional government and a coalition of Islamist groups. African Union troops are scheduled to replace them.

But there were no signs of a withdrawal, witnesses said.

One of the insurgent groups, a faction of the Union of Islamic Courts, considered one of the more moderate Islamist groups in Somalia, said it had lost six men in the day’s fighting and had killed 15 government soldiers. The figures could not be independently verified.

Ethiopian troops entered the country in late 2006 and ousted an Islamist administration that briefly controlled much of south and central Somalia. But the Islamists regrouped, and have steadily progressed from staging sporadic hit-and-run guerrilla attacks to seizing — and holding — large swaths of territory.

A deal reached late last month between the transitional government and the main Islamist-led opposition group called for Ethiopian troops to pull out of areas in Mogadishu and the central garrison town of Beledweyne by Nov. 21, which was Friday.

Under the deal, the Somali government and the opposition Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia are to assemble a 10,000-strong police force to help the African Union peacekeepers control the areas.

Somalia has been without a functioning central government since 1991, when Mohammed Siad Barre was removed from power and the army fell into the hands of clan militias, throwing the country into lawlessness.

Mohammed Ibrahim reported from Mogadishu, and Sharon Otterman from New York.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

Ethiopian troops remain in Somali capital

2008-11-23T11:33:00.005Z

Ethiopian troops remain in Somali capital

Ethiopian troops yet begin to withdraw from key positions in Somali capital

Ethiopians had agreed to withdraw from some bases by Friday

They were supposed to do so under a peace agreement designed to end conflict

MOGADISHU, Somalia (CNN) -- Ethiopian troops have not yet begun to withdraw from key positions in the capital of Somalia two days after they were supposed to do so under a peace agreement designed to end years of conflict.

The Ethiopians had agreed to withdraw from some bases by Friday under an agreement signed last month by the Somali transitional government and a rebel faction known as the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia.

Ethiopia invaded Somalia two years ago to expel Islamic forces who had conquered Mogadishu. Under the deal signed October 26, a cease-fire between the transitional government and the ARS went into effect November 5. The Ethiopians were to withdraw from from key positions in the capital on November 21, and leave the country entirely early in 2009.

Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein has said that Ethiopian troops will withdraw as agreed.

Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a moderate leader of the rebel ARS, told the local radio station Shabelle Saturday that the Ethiopian troops would pull out on schedule.

Insurgents clashed with Somali government forces and their Ethiopian allies Friday, witnesses said, leaving at least 11 fighters dead.

The fighting started when armed insurgent fighters attacked the house of a local commissioner in Mogadishu's Wadajir district, sparking heavy fighting between the government troops guarding the house and the insurgents.

"I saw 11 men wearing red turbans on the heads dead on the ground," local resident Mohamed Haji Ali told CNN by phone from a house near where the clashes took place. Other residents provided a similar death toll.

The commissioner whose house was attacked, Ahmed Da'd, said that his soldiers killed 17 insurgents. He displayed what he said were some of the dead insurgents for the media.

It is not clear what will happen if the Ethiopian troops remain in Mogadishu despite the October 26 peace deal. Under that agreement, government and opposition members will form a 10,000-member joint police force to keep order, along with the African Union peacekeeping mission now in place and a U.N. force to be deployed later. Both sides will work toward establishing a unity government in Somalia, which has been riven by 17 years of strife since the collapse of its last fully functional government.

Ethiopia invaded Somalia in December 2006 to install the transitional government in Mogadishu after a decade and a half of near-anarchy. The invasion had the blessing of the United States, which accused the Islamic Courts Union -- which captured Mogadishu earlier that year -- of harboring fugitives from al Qaeda. The Islamists responded with a guerrilla campaign against government and Ethiopian troops.

Efforts to replace the Ethiopians with an African Union-led peacekeeping mission faltered as the violence worsened, and heavy fighting in Mogadishu and other cities drove hundreds of thousands from their homes. The lawlessness also spilled on to the seas off the Horn of Africa, where international vessels are routinely hijacked by suspected Somali pirates who demand large ransoms.

Journalist Abdinasir Mohamed Guled and CNN's Mohammed Amiin and Amir Ahmed contributed to this report.

Find this article at:

Links referenced within this article

Copyright 2008 Cable News Network.

Fortress Britain: Poor Self-Paying Overseas Students Unwelcome!

2008-11-15T14:47:00.001Z

University education for overseas students at British universities is expensive. The cost of living in its major cities is high. Now, The British Council and the UK Home Office have just made choosing a British university for self-paying students from developing countries, less attractive. In terms of tuition and cost of living, compared to a country like Canada, one would half their costs and obtain comparable or even more superior, world-class degree from a Canadian University, than from Britain. Unless one is on a government, state, Commonwealth and other scholarships, a British university may just cost you an arm and a leg for no good reason than vanity. If value for money and thrift are any part of the bargain, the arguments for a self-sponsored student from a developing country going to study in the UK, is marginal, barring that the programme they will undertake is unavailable in Canada.

According to The Times Higher Education World Ranking of 200 universities in 2008, British Universities; Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial College, University College, King's College, University of Edinburgh, Manchester, and Bristol, are ranked among the top 50 in the world. Only Canada's McGill, University of British Columbia, and University of Toronto, make the grade in that league. However, this alone does not give a complete picture of what quality and excellent education many more Canadian universities offer for a fraction of the costs of comparable UK programmes.

Down the ranking, Canadian universities; the University of Alberta, Université de Montréal, McMaster, Queen's, Waterloo, Western Ontario, Simon Fraser, Calgary, and Dalhousie, compare very favourably with or ahead of LSE, Warwick, Glasgow, Birmingham, Sheffield, York, St. Andrew's, Nottingham, Southampton, Leeds, Durham, Sussex, Cardiff, Liverpool, Bath, Aberdeen, Queen Mary, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Lancaster, Leicester, and Reading. The complete ranking can be seen here:

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/hybrid.asp?typeCode=243&pubCode=1

Another disincentive for choosing a British University is the recent UK Home Office announcement of major new immigration rules for highly skilled and skilled people who want to come and work, and for overseas students who want to study, in the UK. We agree with Alan Travis of The Guardian (London), that the ''New Points system (is a)'barrier to migrants'', The Guardian, Wednesday November 5 2008.

The new immigration rules will come into force on 27 November 2008. For highly skilled migrants seeking work in the UK, before a visa can be issued, they will need to have in the bank -and for a minimum three months before making application- £2,800 pounds for themselves as principal applicants, and £1,600 for each family member. For the three months preceding application, the sums must not have dropped below the threshold, even by a penny!

Here is the crux of our argument why a UK university is less attractive for self-sponsored students from developing countries. Prospective overseas students, who wish to study in the UK for a period of 12 months or more, must have £9,600 for self, and £535 for each dependent at hand for living costs, and the full amount of their required fees for their respective programmes, as part of new conditions for student visa. The new conditions were arrived at with extensive input from the British Council, including the recommendation the £800 pounds a month as reasonable and fair amount for personal needs for students attending British universities.

On average, postgraduate arts and social sciences programmes cost £9,500, while sciences and technology programmes can set one back about £12,000 at most British universities. Research, professional, business, and specialist degrees cost more. Roughly, a prospective student from a developing country who is self-paying will need a £20,000 pound kitty to get the nod for a student visa to the UK. Such amount will be out of reach for many prospective students from the developing countries, whose parents must scratch for this amount, but most will no longer afford a British degree, unless they could spread the costs over semesters.
Relative incomes to the pound, and the new immigration rules, will make a British education not an option for underprivileged self-paying applicants and their families from the developing countries. Traditionally, many families from the British Commonwealth look to an overseas, particularly British university degree, as a sure shot at evening out social odds and inequality, to leapfrog over corruption, influence peddling, and cronyism, which block their chances for local university places, official state scholarships, sponsorship, and opportunities in their native homeland.

Marginalized and deprived of access and opportunities at home, the new visa requirements will put private sponsorship to British universities out of reach for them. Closely controlling access to power and resources, not only do developing countries’ elite and the politically connected reserve the privileges of state sponsored university education at home for their own children, but they will also be the only social stratum with the wherewithal to access highly sought after graduate and postgraduate education at British universities. It also means that, lacking university level education, and particularly prized overseas qualifications, children of the poor will not be able to compete for state positions, opportunities, and managerial level jobs in the public and private sectors, at home. This freezes upward mobility for the underprivileged, further exacerbating and fossilising inequalities and iniquities among social groups. In other words, such policy and practices will inadvertently reward corruption and cronyism by the politically powerful and their associates in developing countries.
With the new rules, you had better have a scholarship. If you are Ugandan, your father had better have fought in Luwero and you come from somewhere in south-western Uganda. Or you have one of those state house scholarships awarded on the basis of the shape of your nose. Better yet, your parents call Amama Mbabazi, the powerful minister for security and NRM secretary general; Ezra Suruma, the minister for finance; Emmanuel Tumusiime Mutebile, the governor Bank of Uganda; and super rich businessman, Amos Nzeyi, a friend, village mate and fellow tribesman; or a British university degree is a pipe dream.
This is where Canada comes in. For a fraction of the cost at British Universities, Canadian universities provide world-class education, with first rate research and teaching and learning support. Compared to Britain, the cost of living is lower, and the country warm and welcoming, despite its winters. The average cost for an overseas student in arts and social sciences is CAD$12,000. At current exchange rates to the pound, this works out to roughly CAD$8,000 dollars cheaper than a comparable British university programme in arts and social sciences.

If thrift and the prospect of a quality education, with thousands of dollars to spare in fees and living cost is not yet persuasive enough to make you take a serious look at Canada as the British Commonwealth’s destination of choice for prospective under- and postgraduate education, then may be its global cultural mosaic will tilt the scales of your mind and heart in that direction. Canada is a microcosm of the world-every identity, ethnicity, and corresponding culinary tastes you can think of in the world is represented there. Don’t you worry then, because homesickness will be none of your afflictions. Moreover, Canada probably has the most diverse and the best gene pool in the world. This means that for those single students, who may not just come out with a degree but also life-long partners, you could not have come to the right place to bespoilt for choice. You must have to be a very difficult customer to satisfy, if you will still need to write back home to uncle Patel, Hussein, Kwame, Singh, Lam, or Park to search high and low for a suitable hometown girl or boy, to reserve or send on over.

Forget about Britain and its claustrophobic, fortress mentality immigration rules. Together with the relative value of the pound, and comparable programmes and degrees in Canada, it is only a foolish student who would want to splurge on a British degree, when a superior four-year or postgraduate degree could be had for half the cost in Canada. Try Canadian universities and, your soul, mind, life and career will be enriched a hundred folds.
Although it did not make it among the top universities this year, I recommend my Alma Mater, York University, Toronto, Canada:
http://www.yorku.ca
Its Osgoode Law, and Schullisch Business Schoools, and Faculty of Environmental Studies, are world renowned.

Lessons of Obama to the black child

2008-11-06T13:51:00.002Z

Lessons of Obama to the black child

By Okello Lucima

I Cradle Him In My Arms
Only Two Months Old
Riveted By The Unfolding Drama
On The Telly

Thousands Throng Grant Park
In Chicago
An Expectant Night
Is At Hand

A Greyed White Man
Extols A New Era
Weighted On The Shoulder
Of A Tawny Black Child

Nonchalantly Asleep
On My Lap
He Does Not Discern
The Ecstasy at Grant Park

Only Two Months Old
He Does Not See My Tears
When Obama’s Declared Victor!
And Grant Park Exultant!

He Slumbers Unaware
Of News Of Renewed Hope
For The Black Child
Of Haze of History and Race
Receding From His Horizon

His Humanity
No Longer Caged
His Dreams
No Longer Obscured

He May Dream Bigger
Now
And Aim Higher, Or
Shoot For The Stars
It Is Up To Him?

But Still A Black Child
His Historical Baggage
Unloosened
Like A Calling Card He Carries

Obama’s Rise To Power
At The Citadel
Of White Racial Privilege
Releases Not The Black Child
From His Racial Cage

Held Back By Chains Of Slavery
In The New World
And Disinherited In The Motherland
By Capital and Tyranny
He Wallows In Perpetual Want

Lying Asleep In My Arms
My Eyes Wet With Rears
Joyful And Terrified At Once
Of The Paradox

Of The Black Child
Fated By History
Henceforth Tempted By
Obama’s Story

Bears Double Burdens
Of Race and Ambition
Of Unfettered Dreams
In A Changing…
Yet Unchanging World.

Northern Uganda Messenger Post (NUMP) © 2008

A Man Eeateth Where He Worketh

2008-10-22T11:55:00.001+01:00

From Monitor Online

Jamwa pens secret letter to Museveni
Posted in: News
By Risdel Kasasira
Oct 20, 2008 - 1:52:45 AM

Kampala

NSSF Managing Director David Jamwa last month wrote a secret brief to President Museveni detailing the political pressure he was put under to approve the controversial land deal with Security Minister Amama Mbabazi and businessman Amos Nzeyi, Daily Monitor can reveal.

Mr Jamwa denied having acted under political pressure but changed his position and confessed to MPs behind closed doors on October 2. It now appears that he did so after writing his September 29 letter to the President.

Details of Jamwa’s brief to President Museveni come a day after MPs on the Parliamentary Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises completed their eight-week inquiry into the matter without agreement.

Six MPs on the 15-person bipartisan committee – all from the ruling National Resistance Movement party – said yesterday they would present a minority report after a leaked report criticized Mr Mbabazi’s role in the deal.

The six include Stephen Tashobya (Kajara) the NRM whip on the committee, Pereza Ahabwe (Rubanda East), Rose Munyira (Busia), James Kakooza (Kabula), Tress Bucanayandi (Bufumbira), Aggrey Bagiire (Bunya West) and Eric Kaahwa (Buruuli).

MPs on the committee, who are investigating allegations of price inflation, violation of procurement laws and political influence-peddling in the Shs11b deal, have complained of sustained efforts to influence them during the hearings. Mr Mbabazi, who is also NRM’s Secretary General, denies any wrongdoing.

Mr Jamwa’s letter to Museveni is kinder to Mbabazi but does not absolve him entirely. The letter lays more of the blame before Mr Nzeyi and Finance Minister Dr Ezra Suruma who is in charge of the National Social Security Fund and who approved the controversial deal.

It chronicles an attempt by shareholders of the National Bank of Commerce – where Nzeyi is the chairman and both Suruma and Mbabazi shareholders – to raise money to buy out their Kenyan-based majority shareholders and keep out cash-rich Nigerian investors.

He reveals that the NSSF was put under pressure to deposit money in Tropical Bank to guarantee a loan that the bank advanced to the shareholders to stave off the Nigerians. The land deal was then done hurriedly – in 10 days – and the proceeds paid into Tropical Bank

Mr Jamwa says Mr Nzeyi allegedly assured him that “he was so close to the President”, claimed he had helped fund the First Lady’s parliamentary campaign in Ruhaama, and assured the NSSF MD of political protection, in case anything went wrong. “In a quite intimidating fashion, the main seller (Mr Nzeyi) would tell me how close he is to you, Mr. President, Sir. He mentioned having constructed your Rwakitura home, divulging to me intimate details of the layout of your house, and who sleeps in which bedroom,” Mr Jamwa alleges.

Mr Jamwa also alleged that Mr Nzeyi had assured him that Mr Mbabazi, who is a right hand man of the president, had asked for the President’s approval for the minister to sale his land. Dr Suruma, Mr Nzeyi and President Museveni’s spokesman, Mr Tamale Mirundi, were all unavailable for comment yesterday.
Mr Mbabazi and Mr Nzeyi have admitted investing the money into the NCB to stave off the Nigerians but deny putting any pressure on the Fund.

After Jamwa’s in-camera testimony before MPs on October 2 – following which he asked for police protection claiming his life was in danger – Dr Suruma addressed a press conference and denied putting pressure on the MD.

Dr Suruma said the NSSF had brought him five different land purchase deals which he approved without looking at the specifics. Mr Nzeyi, who re-appeared before the committee on October 3, dismissed Mr Jamwa’s turn-around, describing the Fund boss as “a sinking man”.

Jamwa’s brief to State House appears to indicate that President Museveni has been fully aware of the politics around the inquiry – including Dr Suruma’s refusal to suspend the NSSF boss on the orders of Vice President Gilbert Bukenya who chaired a Cabinet sub-committee on the matter.
Mr Jamwa does not answer to the President but his brief will put the burden of action squarely on Mr Museveni.

© Copyright 2008 by Monitor Online

cronysm and corruption in Uganda

2008-10-22T11:47:00.001+01:00

From Monitor Online

Jamwa’s letter to Museveni on Temangalo- NSSF deal
Posted in: News
By
Oct 20, 2008 - 1:44:34 AM

29th September 2008
Your Excellency Mr President, Sir
Introduction

It’s painful and a regret for me to bring the real truth to your attention about the Temangalo land deal. However, as a humble Civil servant I am obliged to do so without fear of favour.

The issue at hand in the transaction is that there was influence peddling and political interference. NSSF was under pressure to execute the transaction.

As the MD of NSSF it’s my job to prepare investment proposals for consideration and approval by the Board of Directors (BOD), the Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic development (MOFPED) and the Solicitor General (SG).

My job description that is in line with the NSSF Act does not include either approval or authorisation of investments. This power lies with the three authorities mentioned above. The NSSF MD is the implementer of the decisions of the policy maker and not the approver.

In this matter therefore, the position of the MD as the implementer puts me in a vulnerable position to implement inappropriate actions of the policy makers who may have embedded interests in specific investment activities that they may approve.

Further, as the key generator of investment proposals, the NSSF MD can also be exposed to undue influence in the investment proposal generation process where interested policy makers may coerce the NSSF MD to include specific investment proposals in which they may have embedded interests in the approval pipeline.

In this case under consideration, I attest that at both levels, that is during the investment proposal generation process, I was under pressure from various parties with interest in the transaction to have it cleared it at [all] costs. This pressure was unmanageable and way beyond my practical administrative power position.

Role of MOFPED matter
On the evening of January 9, 2008 after the WARID ceremony at Munyonyo which you launched, the MOFPED in the company of his wife bumped into me and he asked me to spare him a few minutes to discuss important matters pertaining NSSF. He excused his wife to have a private conversation with me and we sat on the external customer tables, right after the new Hotel complex lobby area next to the moat.

MOFPED
In the conversation we had, the Minister asked me to help him and his fellow local shareholders in the National Bank of Commercial Limited (NBC) to “save their bank” by buying the Temangalo land from his two colleagues.

He explained that the majority shareholders at the time (a group of Indians) were desperate to sell their 86.23% of the bank to a group of Nigerians unless the local shareholders could come up with $7 million to purchase the stake from them instead. He indicated that apparently the Nigerians had offered the Indians $9 [million].

The MOFPED added that he and his fellow local shareholders in NBC were under significant pressure to buy this stake from the Indians, and only NSSF could bail them out.

I informed the Minister that the Temangalo land purchase was far from complete as a number of titles presented to the NSSF by the sellers were not legally “clean”, and NSSF had asked for replacement land that was buyable from the sellers. I further told him that by that time no replacement land titles had been received.

The MOFPED requested me get the sellers to speed things up, to which I obliged. The MOFPED then told me that if I executed the Temangalo transaction for him, then he would also do me a favour.

The MOFPED urged me that in order to ease the financial pressure he faced with his colleagues, to put him in consideration and in the meantime deposit Shs15 billion Tropical Bank as collateral for a short-term loan that Tropical Bank would forwad to the Temangalo land sellers, so they could pay for the Indians stake in NBC, that would be repaid once NSSF paid the purchase price for the Temangalo land.

I obliged but only up to the level of UGX 10 billion. However, later after reflection I found this line of action extremely risky for NSSF members’ funds and eventually declined to go through with the instruction from the MOFPED. The MOFPED also inquired from me the progress on NSSF’s investigation into NEC for the purposes of investing in 40% of NBC’s share capital.

I informed the MOFPED that the progress on the same was minimal as the procurement process of the reporting accountants to perform a due diligence on and a valuation of NBC was not expected to finish until the following month (February, 2008). The MOFPED asked to speed up the procurement process to which I obliged.

The MOFPED asked me to focus on having both of the above transactions expedited and keep him informed of the progress. At this juncture our discussion that lasted an hour and half came to an end [and] the MOFPED proceeded to leave.

In May 2008 the MOFPED raised me in my office to ask about the progress of NSSF planned purchase of 40% of NBC shares. I updated the Minister that progress on the same especially in the area of evaluation had been stifled by NBC management failure to provide the necessary information (specifically financial projections).

The Minister assured me that he would follow up this deficiency with the NBC chairman (who was the Main seller of the land). Please note that to date, this investigation into NBC has been aborted by NSSF as NBC management has failed to provide the necessary information to the reporting accountants to enable them value NBC. It should also be noted that NSSF is still coming under pressure from the NBC chairman to revive the process.

In summary, the MOFPED exercised significant political pressure and influence on me
•Generate the investment proposal for the purchase of the Temangalo land; and
•Expedite the execution of the purchase transaction in a rushed timeframe including paying before the land was regularised to meet his own personal business needs that he shared with both of the sellers of the land.

Further MOFPED exercised significant political pressure and influence on me to commence an investment proposal process for NSSF purchase of 40% of the share capital of NEC, a bank in which the MOFPED and the two sellers are key share holder, and from which they would be expected to accrue sizeable personnel gain.

The role of Main seller (NBC Chairman)
As much as the main seller of the Temangalo land is not a public official, per se, he, in fact was also able to exercise considerable political pressure on me in terms of the Temangalo land and NBC shares purchase transactions.

I first met the main seller at an NSSF cocktail to commemorate our purchase of shares in Serena Kampala Hotel that was one of the first successful investments under my watch at NSSF.
The main seller immediately floated the Temangalo land deal to me at this first meeting, saying the offer price was Shs35 million per acre.

I informed the main seller that the offer price sounded quite high, but before we did inspections, valuations and due diligence we could not form an opinion on the same. I advised the Main seller to contact our investment department for more details.

From the meeting, and over the course of 2007 to date, the Main seller commenced exerting political pressure on me as follows:
•In a quite intimidating fashion, the main seller would tell him how close he is to you, Mr President, Sir. He mentioned having constructed your Rwakitura home, divulging to me intimate details of the layout of your house, and who sleeps in which bedroom;
•He boasted of always hosting you, Mr President, Sir, in his Kabale home or Hotel, whenever you travel there, adding that that was because he is your close confidant. Many a time he has shown me various numbers on his mobile phone claiming that they were calls from you, Mr President, Sir.
• He also declared that he a close friend of the First Lady and provided immense assistance to her in her campaigns for MP of her home area;
•Further he claimed he knew State house and all the people who work there, especially the secretaries, like the back of his hand;
•He informed me that every election he is a key contributor/raiser of campaign funds for the NRM;
• He also claimed very close relations with the Main seller (Minister of Security) whom he said is your right hand man and on whom the smooth running of this country rests.

The political pressure reached a crescendo over the period from December 2007 to the time of the Temangalo transaction execution on March 10, 2008. In December 2007 the Main seller claimed that the Minister of Security had asked you, Mr President, Sir, for permission to sell his land to NSSF.

The main seller further added that you, Mr President, Sir, had approved the this sale and even advised on the composition of the land valuers that, apparently you noted, Mr President, Sir, was only comprising land valuers from the Bakiga tribe, and it should incorporate and internal land valuer as well. It is on this information that NSSF switched to Knight Frank from Mr Byokuseka’s firm.

The Main seller assured me that the Ministry of Security and MOFPED would provide me with all the necessary political protection in terms of the Temangalo land transaction, and back up protection would be provided by some other politically connected shareholders in NBC e.g. the Governor, Bank of Uganda, the Minister of Internal affairs and my Deputy. In his own words he said “You couldn’t have chosen a better group to deal with.”

The above political pressure was, between January and March 2008, further exacerbated by the financial pressure the sellers were coming under from Tropical Bank, from whom they had borrowed UGX 10.5 billion to clear the Indian majority share holders in NBC.

Over this period, the main seller literally lived in my office! Moving back on forth, trying to clear all our due diligence points for transaction to proceed. I can assure you, Mr President, Sir, the pressure was almost atmospheric!
In summary, the Main seller (NBC Chairman) exercised great political pressure and influence on me to;
- Generate the investment proposal for the purchase of the Temangalo land; and
- Expedite the execution of the purchase transaction in a rushed timeframe including paying before the land was regularised to meet his own personal business needs that he shared with both of the sellers of the land.

To meet his own personal business needs, that he shared with both the MOFPED and Minister of Security. Further, the Main seller exercised significant political pressure and influence on me to commence an investment proposal for NSSF’s purchase of 40% of the share capital of NBC a Bank in which he, the MOFPED and Minister Security are key share holders and from which they would be expected to accrue sizeable personal gain.

Minor seller (Minister of Security)
Although I never at any one time, had direct contact with the Minister of Security, save for casual chat on a plane trip back to Entebbe from Nairobi in August 2008 (five months after the Temangalo land transaction had been completed), the manifestation of his political power and closeness to you Mr President, Sir, as put by the Main seller was pressure enough.

Pressure Management on my part
Given the immense amount of pressure exerted on me to execute Temangalo land and NBC shares purchase transaction, only two options were open for me to keep a sensible balance for the sake of the safety of NSSF member funds.
• In the first place, I had to ensure that the investments made economic and value sense for NSSF. In [the] case of Temangalo, I ensured that I cut the seller price down from Shs35 million per acre to Shs24 million per acre that was very reasonable given market prices for that area at around the time of transaction (March 2008), were in the region of Shs30 million per acre.
Further, the planned project for Temangalo i.e. that of 5,000 unit low cost residential housing estate is an extremely viable project that would not only contribute significantly to your vision of every Ugandan owning a house, Mr President, Sir, but would also provide significant economic velocity to the construction and housing industry in Uganda by creating over 15,000 jobs. US $97.5 million project in itself is planned to earn the NSSF members a margin of 37% on the US dollar that is in obsolete terms would translate to US $36 million over 6-7years.
• Secondly I had to rely on the third parties to ease the pressure that worked very well for the intended NSSF investment in 40% of NBC share capital, as reporting accountants were unable to satisfy themselves as to the value of NBC that served as a good excuse to abort the investment investigations.
In the case of Temangalo, my first pressure management point was the Board that is charged with the responsibility to approve NSSF investments.
To my surprise and even after one of the Directors, during the Board meeting to consider Temangalo, raised the issue of political pressure, the Board disregarded his concern and approved the transaction. It has now come to light that the NSSF Board has multiple conflicts of interest and linkages with the MOFPED as follows;
• Two Board members (i.e. Professor Kagonyera and Dr Kabumba) are share holders together with the Minister of Finance in NBC.
• The two other Board members (i.e. Mr Gaamuwa the Chairman and Ms Acigwa) are share holders together with the Minister of Finance in a micro-finance institution (Ugafode).
• Four Board members Mr Gaamuwa, Dr Kabumba, Ms Acigwa and Mr Olwenyi attend the same church as the Minister of Finance.
It’s no surprise now that the Board was unable to provide adequate independent challenge to the whole Temangalo land transaction.

My second pressure management point on Temangalo transaction should have been the Minister of Finance himself. It usually takes to an average, close to six weeks for the Minister of Finance to approve the investments that the Board Chairman submits to him.

In the case of the Temangalo land transaction, the Board Chairman submitted investments for approval and it was approved in two weeks time.

My last pressure management point was the Solicitor General on whom I relied to raise legal issues with transaction especially in the areas of political correctness, conflict of interest and PPDA compliance.

The Solicitor General happily approved the transaction with no mention, whatsoever of the three areas of concern above. It is rumoured that the Main seller has good connections in the Solicitor General’s office.

I should say, as well Mr President, Sir, that I have been dismayed at the several attempts made by the Minister of Finance and the Vice President without your specific clearance to have me unceremoniously suspended for Temangalo land transaction given the hard facts I have provided.

Surely I am worth more to this country than being a sacrificial lamb in the middle of a web of politically fuelled conspiracy and self enrichment.

© Copyright 2008 by Monitor Online

Contemporary African opposition, incumbents lack grand vision beyond power

2008-09-17T10:52:00.001+01:00

Contemporary African opposition, incumbents lack grand vision beyond power

After the Kenya and Zimbabwe election debacles, progressive forces in Africa and their allies ought to have no illusions about the true drivers of Western, particularly British and American interests-global / African domination. It is clear, the forcefulness with which Bush or Brown invokes democracy, freedom and good governance, have little to do with morality than state realism. This truism was well understood by decolonization generation of Pan-African leaders, from Kwameh Nkrumah, to Robert Mugabe.

However, post-independence generations of African leadership, most coming to power -with Western connivance- by overthrowing nationalist, anti-imperialist leaders like Nkrumah in Ghana or Milton Obote in Uganda, are clueless about the global structures of state power and trans-national modes of production and imperialism. They and post-nationalist opposition leaders have internalised neoconservative theoretical and normative propaganda and taken them as one-size fits-all, standard templates for resolving every socioeconomic question everywhere. In the case of their opposition antagonists, the fight has become not one over grand ideas and vision, or substantive body of policies that are thought to be more responsive to the objective needs and aspirations of their citizens, but over procedural matters of electoral processes. In the end, their only grand agenda is to defeat the incumbent, and for those in power, to hold and retain power at all cost.

Consequently, post-perestroika and post-bipolar global political economy saw opportunistic African leaderships abandon their people's dreams for national liberation and consolidation of hard-won economic and social justice policies, including racial equality, by latching onto theoretical and analytical precepts of development economics –dusted and resold by western neoliberals-as magic panacea to Africa's problems. These problems are perceived simply as lack of or poor economic development, and the solution lies in economic growth. The notion of economic development, by transforming economic conditions and causes of unemployment, subsistence livelihood, low growth, low levels of national incomes / savings, high levels of indebtedness, low levels of domestic investments, high levels of urbanisation, and depleted rural / agricultural sectors, are recited as mantra without normative and theoretical explanations. Faced with expectations that outstrip possibilities, it becomes a matter of faith, rather than theoretical and practical relevance, how these problems are overcome, or national economies are supposed to register economic growth and development, as a result of efficient use of domestic resources, improved levels of economic productivity, accelerated economic growth, which is thought to stimulate rising national income, domestic savings and internal investments.

Obviously, it is not their concern, who benefits and who doesn't. By focusing on the technical aspects of development economics, African leaders and their policy advisers miss the important interconnections between socio-political institutions and economic growth, and the need for the outcomes of development or growth to promote human dignity, wellbeing, and engage the socio-political and moral challenges which are beyond the grasp of market economics, but the prime concerns of political economy of development.

Perhaps, not sophisticated enough to understand that, despite the heralded end of history and the last man, the triumph of neoliberal global capitalism –like mercantile global capitalism before-still operates on largely Darwinian and imperialist assumptions. Humanity still has no common destiny; survival is for the fittest; third world and African natural and mineral resources are open commons, beyond respective African national flags, and to be enclosed and exploited by those with the technological know-how and financial wherewithal. Developing countries that resist penetration and domination and try to assert their independent identities, interests and aspirations- from Cuba, Venezuela to Palestine and Zimbabwe-are labelled as autocrats, terrorists, and enemies of democracy and human freedom. Where direct intervention is deemed too costly, proxies like Zionist and racialist Israel, or puppets like Morgan Tsvangirai, are heavily coddled to do the dirty deeds.

Compromised by self-interests to hold and retain, or acquire power; propped up by neo-colonial interests; and uncritically immersed in the dictates of development economics, contemporary African leaders and opposition –exemplified by dictator Yoweri Musevni in Uganda and Morgan Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe- lack moral and political courage, as well as intellectual probity of their decolonisation era predecessors. They are incapable of exploring alternative policy frameworks responsive to specific, objective material conditions of their peoples; the rural poor; urban derelics, and slave-wage workers in global sweat-shops as primary beneficiaries of any social revolutions and material gains from economic growth and development.

But such concerns are outside the interests of current policies conceived externally in London, Washington or Paris and foisted upon these collaborators by their Western benefactors. These are primarily developmental policy thrusts beneficial to international capital, because it ignores the interplay of politics, power, class, social structures, and the dialectics of change. That is why Uganda's billionaires are people closely connected to the state and political power, while the poor have been left on their own and state-provided social services severely contracted or even eliminated. As a study in contrasts, witness how the USA or China responded the plight of its peoples struck by natural disasters on the one hand, and how Uganda has responded to the plight of inmates of concentration camps in northern Uganda.

Looked at differently from outside the box of development economics, political economy of development teaches us that development must also grapple with the questions of how processes of change in social, economic, and political structures affect the living conditions of urban and rural poor in our societies. In the case of Uganda, the verdict of political economy on the outcomes of so-called 22 years of growth and development, and their impacts on the livelihood of the poor, is damning. The heroes of Luwero War have grown filthily richer and richer, while the "wrong elements" and "bad peoples" of Uganda have grown filthily poorer and poorer, despite twenty-two years of uninterrupted, double digit growth figures.

Undoubtedly, policies made in Western capitals do not benefit the majority of our peoples who need government the most. It is meant to take from those who have the least, and give to those who have the most. And in Uganda, if you did not fight in Luwero, or you have not been co-opted by the regime in power, you do not count.

In the final analysis, collaborator African leaders such as dictator Yoweri Museveni in Uganda, or Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia, have brought to nought, the anti-colonial and national liberation efforts from Omukama Kabalega, Menelik II, to Kwameh Nkruma, Robert Mugabe. More than anything else, they lack moral and intellectual basis for leadership greater than their self-interests, and in comparison, they are morally, intellectually stunted than their anti-colonial predecessors. There is a deep ingenuity gap between Milton Obote's Move to the Left and the Common Man's Charter, and Yoweri Museveni's Ten Point Programme and Prosperity for All development model-in favour of Milton Obote.

In conclusion, it is no longer enough for the NRM/A to proclaim that they fought; they must be challenged to underline what they fought for and how such alleged ideals have become habits of our public affairs and political culture. And for the opposition, it is not enough to want to toss out the incumbent-surprise-with the help of the same foreign interests that facilitate their opponent's death grip onto power. Mere rousing stump speeches on how corrupt and autocratic the current regimes are, should no longer cut the mustard. Whether it is Morgan Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe, or Kiiza Besigye in Uganda, they must be challenged to offer grand vision and seminal policy positions to deal with Zimbabwean or Ugandan deepening poverty, historical, economic, and social inequalities and injustices, and how they intend to return people into the centre of governance.

NORTHERN UGANDA MESSENGER POST: Racist imperialist bully defeated at the UN as Another African war criminal is ensnared by the ICC

2008-07-13T16:05:00.000+01:00

NORTHERN UGANDA MESSENGER POST: Racist imperialist bully defeated at the UN as Another African war criminal is ensnared by the ICC

Racist, imperialist Anglo-American bully floored at the UN as another African leader is ensnared by the ICC

2008-07-13T16:02:00.001+01:00

Of the Anglo-American racist, imperialist Bully being Socked in the face at the UN and hauling that Afrikan dictator who raised frankenstein of northern Uganda to the dock.

Sometimes, when things seem so daunting, and your spirits are in the doldrums, and you are ready to resign yourself to the notion of fate and impossibilities; suddenly, the gods smile on you and you wake up with elation to a dream-come-true reversal of fortunes in your favour.

We woke up at NUMP this morning, to two exhilarating pieces of news. The improbable kinds that cheers up the underdog; the downtrodden; the doormat of international justice; the kind of news that gives the scrawny little boy on the school playground a startling sigh of relief. The news that the strapping, fat, ugly, greedy brute ; the schoolyard bully that preys on other kids and their lunches by throwing his weight around, was socked in the face and floored by some courageous new kid who suffers no fool!

Our ecstatic ululations at NUMP, is for the double servings of the tasty fare of justice. The first is the defeat of Anglo-American racist imperialism on the floor of the UN Security Council. The British and American sponsored UN resolution for sanctions against comrade Robert Mugabe, ZANU-PF, Zimbabwe, Pan-Africans, and all anti-imperialists, was vetoed by China and Russia.

The second piece of news is the imminent indictment, by the International Criminal Court (ICC), of the president of Sudan, Omar Hassan al Bashir, for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur by Sudanese forces. We at NUMP applaud and support this new development on justice and ICC front.

NUMP has always been clear in our views on issues of justice. On Zimbabwe, we have been relentless in articulating the position that opportunistic electoral politics must not be used to obscure the fundamental questions of social and economic justice for black Africans in that country. We have no doubt that comrade Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF represent and articulate the yearnings and aspirations of landless, poor, hungry and dispossessed Zimbabweans, Namibians, Azanians (South Africans), and Africans at large.

We have previously expressed here in

http://northernugandapost.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-robert-mugabe-is-demon-but-mandela.html#links

the fundamental considerations for equitably resolving the Zimbabwe land question. We argued that, Morgan Tsivangirai, is a puppet who has opportunistically latched onto first-generation rights to detract and obfuscate the critical issue of social and distributive justice for Zimbabwean Africans, based on second and third-generation rights claims recognised by the UN rights declarations.
First-generation rights or negative rights, prohibiting the state from certain acts towards the individual civic citizen, have valid and pertinent historical origins and relations to European experiences under absolutist monarchs that were bitterly fought and defeated. Such instances as the 1688 Glorious Revolution in England; the 1776 American war and declaration of independence; and the 1779 French Revolution, all ended with legal and constitutional codifications asserting English, American, and French freedoms from arbitrary, despotic rule.

In the African context, Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF fought against the vestiges of the absolutism the English, Americans and the French overthrew in their own respective struggles. Unfortunately for Africa and Africans, Anglo-American imperialism today occupies the thrones and plays the roles vacated by 17th and 18th centuries European monarchies. While they profusely profess human solidarity in rhetoric infused with tear-jerking first-generation rights phraseologies, Anglo-American imperialism still speaks the language of cultural, political and racial domination and superiority. In our view therefore, comrade Robert Mugabe and the courageous people of Zimbabwe are on the right side of history, and all the oppressed peoples of Africa need to give them their support.

We by no means and pretences reject or deny the importance and relevance of first-generation rights as a common human heritage under Article 2-21 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is rather our intention to assert that the second and third-generation rights are more relevant to the phase and conditions of the African and former colonised people’s experiences and struggles. We do recognise the need and relevance of Article 2-21 of the UN Declaration, but we are of the view that Articles 22-28 of the second and third-generation rights; the claims to equality is first and prior, and where a choice and rank-ordering has to be made, it ought to take precedence.

We unequivocally reject the American and British, ideologically and politically motivated strategic use of the first -generation rights claims as tools to regularise unjust domestic, transnational, and international social orders. Faced with threats to public peace and national security of their own after 9/11, the American and British themselves deliberately chose to forgo first-generation rights through the Patriot Act, and Anti-Terror legislations that stripped even their own citizens of basic and fundamental rights guaranteed under first-generation rights the Americans and British harp about ad nauseam.

If we learnt anything at all from 17th and 18th century western experiences, it is that they did not get to the elaborately developed social, political, and economic and moral values they have adopted, in one fell swoop. It took time, efforts, and radical, revolutionary actions and direction to break with the past.

This is not to say Africans must retrace the western footsteps from European barbarity and absolutism to liberalism. What we are saying is that, first-generation rights must remain part of the African long-term goal; but it cannot be achieved meaningfully without fundamental economic, social and ideological transformations through deliberate, calibrated, and directed political and policy actions as is the case in Zimbabwe. This is why we are immensely gratified by the courage displayed by Russia, China, Vietnam, and South Africa. As for Bukina Faso, not only have they defamed the revolutionary and Pan-African spirits of Thomas Sankara, but they have betrayed Africa and Africans.

LRA benefactor snared by the selective long arm of international justice

The other piece of news that has brightened our morning is the impending charging of Omar al Bashir with war crimes and crimes against humanity. We previously spoke on this issue here in

http://northernugandapost.blogspot.com/2008/01/icc-charge-bashir-or-let-taylor-go.html#links

in our unrelenting quest for equitable justice. Our arguments then and now remain the same. It is the position that charging Charles Taylor of Liberia for supporting rebels who committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone, the ICC must shake off labels of political expediency and hatchet man by also charging leaders like Omar al Bashir, for supporting, arming and hosting Joseph Kony and the LRA, as a counterweight against the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) wielded by Yoweri Museveni against Sudan. It is our firm belief that Omar al Bashir must be equally accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity levelled against his protégé, the LRA and Joseph Kony, in northern Uganda.

When we at NUMP, through our articles, expressed this view directly with the ICC through their media and information office, we have always been disappointed with curt, form reply and acknowledgements that did not express any views on the issues and questions we raised with them. Consequently, we feared that there was bureaucratic stonewalling, as they have successfully done on the partial indictments of the LRA alone, and not also Museveni and his NRA generals.

The news today that the ICC is considering laying charges against Omar al Bashir, gives us welcome glimmer of hope in the slow wheels of justice. While cheer and look forward to the ICC charges against al Bashir, we however hold our breath; hoping that the charge sheet will be comprehensive and complete enough to include his role as LRA benefactor and accountable for their behaviour and actions; as well as his other more high profile role in Dafur region of western Sudan. The case against al Bashir for his relations and dealings with the LRA is stronger than that against Taylor and the Sierra Leonean rebellion and atrocities. Al Bashir used the LRA as a tool; a Frankenstein of sorts, against the Uganda dictatorship and the SPLA. Therefore, the LRA insurgency in northern Uganda was more or less al Bashir’s war; and the atrocities and crimes in the northern Uganda genocide the LRA are culpable for, is as much al Bashir’s responsibility as it is Joseph Kony’s and the LRA’s.

We are therefore at the edges of our seats; waiting and looking forward to the ICC making its case Monday. We wholeheartedly hope that Moreno de Ocampo will do the right thing and acquit the ICC and himself well by charging al Bashir also with culpability for war crimes and crimes against humanity in northern Uganda.

Might the head that wears the crown in Uganda rest uneasily?

The news of al Bashir’s forthcoming indictment must cause reasonable uneasiness for the head that wears the crown in Uganda. By and by, the circle is narrowing. Sooner rather than later, the son of Kaguta will have fully served his utility to Anglo-American imperialism. They will soon be casting for new characters to take his place. Museveni must and will sooner, rather than later, be indicted. But this will only become a reality if Acholi victims and their sympathisers ceased being passive and work on making sure the long arm of international justice catches up with Museveni and his NRA generals.

The Acholi have borne their suffering with remarkable resignation, and without as much as a murmur of dissatisfaction. It is a wonder how they always seem to undervalue themselves, settling for second-best, taking the imperfect, accepting half-measures and mediocrity.

We at NUMP reject the notion the Acholi have become inured to; the practice of accepting to have to do with half-measures, imperfections, and mediocrity. The Acholi have justified and rationalised ineptitude and naivety with reasoning along the lines that it is better than nothing; that they can work with it despite the glaring shortcomings; or that they can make adjustments to either the square poles or the round holes. This is nothing short of accepting and glorifying mediocrity. It is the equivalent of taking satisfactions
from efforts that fell short of the required capability and diligence to achieve particular goals. Instead of pulling those responsible aside as they should, and letting them know however they look at it, they fell short of the goals, and therefore they should give way to fresh ideas and fresh faces with renewed energies and clearer vision, the Acholi instead are coy and would rather substitute mediocre efforts for the ends and elevate and lionise failures. For their part, those who assume positions of leadership in Acholi, have fragile egos and very convoluted sense of accountability.

They are hopelessly passive. They put too much faith in prayers and hoping that some benevolent spirits would crack their kola nuts for them. For sure, they will all be grateful or fearful if the ICC charge Bashir for his role in northern Uganda genocide. How doubly sweet it would have been, were the Acholi victims on the forefront of the efforts to bring perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity to justice, and their efforts had resulted into forcing the ICC hands on Bashir!

Well, as Acholi, we did not do as much as we should have. We confined ourselves inside the LRA box, but nothing lateral. We let Museveni –a suspected war criminal himself-and the Uganda government define our needs and aspirations. Hoping that Bashir’s charge sheet will include genocide in northern Uganda, the Acholi have better than a good chance to move forward with suing Bashir, the government and state of Sudan for tens of billions of dollars for abetting genocide; physical, moral, social, and economic destruction in Acholi through the their support of the LRA insurgency.

This brings us to the last, but by no means least of the challenges facing Acholi today. It is the unilaterally conceived Peace, Resettlement, and Development Programme (PRDP) that the Acholi-again-seem to accept with resignation and without any circumspection.

It cannot be overstated that the PRDP as it is, is useless and unequipped with tools necessary to respond to social, economic, ecological, and civic breakdowns in northern Uganda as a result of 22 years of brutal and destructive war. It is simply unconscionable that some wiseacre in Kampala or Gulu, Amuru, Pader or Kitgum should think and believe that ordinary budgetary subventions and normal budgetary cycles of capital and recurrent expenditures would be the best means to respond to the need for resettlement, reconstruction and development; and uplift two million people from abject poverty, homelessness and food insecurity, and bring them to a reasonable and comparable national level enough to sustain their social responsibilities and civic duties. In practical, comparative and realistic terms, what the government proposes in its PRDP schemes for insurgency affected greater northern Uganda, can barely fund a comprehensive scoping, mapping and assessments of the host of differing and complex categories and levels of needs and necessary assistance in the four Acholi districts alone.

Rather than timidly accept and work with it as the Acholi are wont to do-because it is better than nothing-we at NUMP think the Acholi in particular should tear up this useless document and enter into fresh and serious conversations with the Ugandan government and state, for the way forward on this and other critical issues that we seem to be waiting to deal with one by one and only after they will have become crises. What needs to be done in order to tear up the government PRDP, is for all Acholi district councils and their MPs as ex-officio members of the respective district planning committees, to carry out needs assessments in their districts and come up with estimates that can then be synthesised into a more realistic PRDP with local inputs and reflecting real needs of real people. Priority must shift away from strengthening state infrastructure-as it is in the current PRDP-to immediate issues of resettlement and livelihood, housing, heath and sanitation, clean drinking water, education, and other subordinate infrastructures.

There is therefore, an urgent need to build the capacity of the districts by assembling a team of experts and professionals form the diaspora and at home, to work on new PRDP proposals based on data from all the districts. Who knows, with hard work and the unexpected good luck, we may sooner rather than later, wake up to another morning of double good news as we at NUMP certainly did this weekend. We can even grudgingly admit that there is some truth in “No Pains; No Gains” motto of Lira Town College, in northern Uganda. However, coming from across on the hill at Dr Obote College, Boroboro, as we at NUMP did, we have no doubt that given the characteristic Acholi indolence that has made a mockery of the abundance of talents and skills among its intelligentsia but scarcely anything stupefying for their ordinary people to sing hallelujah about, it may just be more pains but no gains, unless we commit to “Be at the right place, at the right time; doing the right thing at the right time”.

Zimbabwe Must Become Pan-Africa's Afghanistan or Iraq!

2008-07-03T01:31:00.001+01:00

From the English Civil Wars to the American War of Independence, American Civil War, the French Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution and through to ZANU-PF and the ANC, some people had to give their all and die for the right causes so others may live in peace and freedom.

For instance, the English people and the British people will never allow any stooge, even a prince, to sanctify the vote more than the ideals the votes are supposed to protect. There will never be any return to absolute monarchy where there is no parliament and the kings and queens can do as they please. Similarly, the French Republic will stand against any notion of restoration of the bourbons. And, America will not soon want to revert to control from the kings and queens of England; the Republic is there to stay and so are the ideals for which the American Civil war was fought.

Were there another power from mars strong enough to create a Morgan Tsivangirai in England, France, or America, who would want to roll back these achievements of centuries of human struggles, they would no doubt resist with all their might, and deal with him as harshly as Mugabe has dealt with Morgan Tsivangirai.

The proposition that the issue of iniquities of racialism and domination and exploitation and dispossession and disenfranchisement of Africans that ZANU-PF fought against should now be relegated to a footnote of history, and electoral formalities should obfuscate and trump the central dispute of historical injustices, is a twisted logic and convoluted sense of realism. How sensible would it be, for anyone to tell the ANC, PAC, that they fought against apartheid alright, but sooner or later, those laws and practices of segregation should be re-established simply because a majority voted for it in a referendum or election? What bull that would be!

The moral of the racist apartheid regime and the justification of the ANC and PAC struggles and triumph against it, are no different from the morals of the racist UDI of Ian Smith and the robbery of Africans of their land and confinement in barren and rocky reserves in Zimbabwe. ZANU-PF and ZAPU struggles were against racialism, and justice for Africans in Rhodesia. They cannot now trade their blood-earned freedom to vote, and for the African to be a human being and exercising his inalienable rights to their land, for a piece of paper called a ballot with Morgan Tsivangirai's name on it. The African that ZANU-PF liberated yesterday will not eat dry, bland paper. He does not need to wait for British or American aid; he can till his land and feed himself. He needs not be held hostage to Cargill, Nestle and other western conglomerates that control global food distribution and are used by the west as weapons.

Only African Presidents, Prime Ministers, opposition politicians, intellectuals, youths and commentators without a contextual sense of history and justice would look at Mugabe, Museveni, Idi Amin, and other African dictators as moral and political equivalents. And sadly, it is only African youths and intellectuals of all the other former colonial peoples of the other worlds, who have acquiesced and are comfortable in mental, cultural and ideological slavery.

From Asia to Latin America, the tradition of resistance to oppression, servitude, slavery and cultural genocide is as vigilant as ever. Closer to home, the youths of the Middle East flocked to Afghanistan in the 1970s; to Pakistan in the 1980s; and today, they are fighting running battles with the forces of global oppression and domination in Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and Pakistan, while the youths of Africa are perishing under planes as stowaways and drowning in the seas on make-shift rafts because they want to enter Europe so they could imbibe of the pop culture of the land of milk and honey that rappers , the BBC and CNN and MTV have popularised. While they are engaged in such unproductive enterprises, their counterparts in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America are busy leading social and political struggles to transform their societies so they would have no need to migrate to Europe and America where humiliating visa processes and immigration policies leave no doubt that they are unwanted in the first place.

In despair, we are bound to ask: when is Africa's century? Sadly, it may never come, until Africans are capable of identifying who their real enemies are, rather than being instigated by covert CIA and British and American Special Operations Forces and their African agents to define their problems and identify their enemies for them; thereby turning brother against brother, and egging us on to commit fratricide for their economic and strategic benefits. In the case of Zimbabwe, it is not Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF, the man and liberation organisation that first made the African in Rhodesia a human being and gave them the rights to vote.

It is a sad, sad, sad day and century for Africa, for people like Raila Odinga, who seems to have never learnt what his father struggled for and why his father believed Kenyan or African independence meant nothing with the presidencies of people like Jomo Kenyatta then or Yoweri Museveni today-Not Yet Uhuru until the African could control his own destiny. Raila Odinga should have been the last person to uncritically buy into the western rhetoric against Robert Mugabe.

Instead of uncritically chorusing the imperialist Anglo-American axis and their African lackeys in blaming Robert Mugabe, African youths should be flocking to Zimbabwe, and turn it into Pan-Africa's Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine; the Mecca for the reclamation of the African soul and personality and aspirations. It is time Africa stood for something, as was the case for those anti-colonial heroes from Agustino Neto to Robert Mugabe, whose paths were beaten by the courage and legacies of Samori Toure, Shaka Zulu, King Lobengula, Hendrick Witboi, Nyunga ya Mawe, Omukama Kabarega and those courageous men and women of Lamogi rebellion in Acholi.

It may yet be done; African youths, dispossessed, oppressed; the landless and poor; the unemployed of all Africa, trekking to the Matopos hills to the ruins of great Zimbabwe and waging the Pan African struggle for the soul of Africa. It may yet become a reality.

We should no longer accept the propositions that it is only the black man and the black race that must be punished for transgressions but those committed against them must be forgiven. We have seen that sixty some years after Nuremberg, the perpetrators of genocide are still being hunted and brought on wheel chairs to justice. But for the genocide of slavery, of colonialism, of apartheid and racialism, Africans must forgive and forget, and be content with Truth and Reconciliations Commissions. In cases where African collaborator regimes have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity with western complicity, such as that of Yoweri Museveni in northern Ugnada, Rwanda and Congo, we must turn a blind eye or invoke traditional African mechanisms to shield the regime and its agents from scrutiny. But African regimes and leaders considered recalcitrant to western biddings are dragged before International Criminal Courts and International Special Tribunals.

It is time the Poor and dispossessed of Africa looked to Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe, and turn Zimbabwe into Pan-Africa’s Afghanistan or Iraq or Pakistani Madrasa, where the spirits of African resistance and liberation shall be rekindled and the struggle for African soul re-launched. The Poor of Africa unite and trek to Zimbabwe! You have nothing to lose but the yokes of slavery and poverty in your own lands.

The Way Forward in Northern Uganda is through a Just Peace

2008-06-06T20:38:00.001+01:00

The way forward in northern Uganda lies with justice being seen to be done in the efforts for a just peace. Therefore, the way forward out of the impasse lies not in a regional military solution, foolishly supported by the UN forces in Congo, but unequivocal support of the ICC indictment of the LRA leaders; the rejection and renunciation of Mato Oput-the Acholi tradition justice mechanism-and the Special unit of the Ugandan High court as complementary and alternative justice mechanisms to the ICC; and the creation of an international Special Tribunal for northern Uganda at the Hague, to investigate and try all cases of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the period of the conflict before the ICC came into force (1986-2002). The special tribunal and the earlier ICC indictments of the LRA, would then run successevely. Time is of the essence.

There is already something in the air about a possible regional coalition of the willing, to smoke out the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA)from wherever they are. The Ugandan press has reported a meeting among military chiefs of Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudanese and UN peacekeeping forces in the Congo. They have resolved to share intelligence and resources, and marshall it to once and for all, deal the LRA and Joseph Kony, a fatal and final blow.

If there were still sceptics, who are unsure whether Juba is comotose or dead, this could not be any clearer signal that, the Juba stage of the long and checkered northern Uganda peace process, needs an undertaker. But who is going to be the brave, clinical mortician who is going to clean up the blood and gore and putrid gashing wounds to make the corpse sterile enough for relatives, friends and sympathetic onlookers to approach and pay their last respects? Possibly none, for the immediate future.

It cannot be Acholi political and civil society leaders. They are in denial, afraid to admit that Juba is dead and it has to be buried. To admit Juba is dead, is to bring in the inquest, and none of them wants that, for were one instituted sooner rather than later, they would haver to face the revelation that, one did not need to support Kony, in order to sabotage or spoil the Juba process. You could be one of its ardent advocates, but if you confine yourself to a narrow perception of the problems, your solutions will also be narrow, and you are bound to make tactical and strategic mistakes. There is no doubt that tactical and strategic mistakes were made by Acholi proponents of the Juba peace process.

First, at times, there was no telling, whether they were and are part of the LRA delegation and aspirations, or not. Cases in point: at the initial stages of the deliberations at Juba, elected leaders-including the leader of the opposition-and civil society leaders vehemently objected to the LRA negotiators talking about northern Uganda and eastern Uganda issues of marginalisation and other war economy related matters. They pointed out that the LRA did not speak for them. This was fair enough, though. However, it was surprising that the same coalition of leaders, did not press strongly for the peace conference and the parties not to include agenda on post-conflict resettlement and reconstruction, because this should be an agenda item to be taken up at a post-Juba phase of a broad and overarching discussions between the government and the greater northern Uganda or Acholi, how the region could be re-absorbed into mainstream life, politics and culture of the Ugandan nationhood.

Second, both the civic and elected leaders were too coy and opportunistic. While they could rightly say that the LRA did not speak for them, they also should have rightly said that most if not all of the other political, social and economic issues the LRA raised in connection with the root causes of the conflict, the historical grievances that existed before and those that were generated by the conflict were true and legitimate. Because, these grievances are real, and the LRA's notoriety does not diminish them. It should have not been thought that to have shared views with the LRA amounted to being an LRA. It was such shallow thinking that led to some of the positions that these issues, including ideas of a federal Ugandan state, giving autonomies to the region, were derided by Acholi civil society and elected leaders-again including the leader of the opposition-that such notions were not the original issues the LRA were fighting for!
Granted, but as part of envisioning the future, could this provide better prospects for stability, peace and better forms and safeguards for people's rights, security and wellbeing, regardless of the fact it originated from the notorious LRA?

Third, these were mistakes that were made, and they were made because these leaders accepted to be forced to think within a box that compartmentalised each and every issue of the conflict and of national importance. Whether it was Acholi local leaders or elected members of parliament, and even those in opposition, including the eminent leader of the opposition, they looked at and they spoke of the LRA insurgency in complete isolation from its broader national context of an autocratic, military dictatorship in Uganda, and the lack of democratic and fundamental freedoms and rights of individuals and groups. In essence, the LRA, as much as the Ugandan state, was responsible in their own shared and different ways, for the debacles of nortehrn Uganda. And any search for a lasting peace with justice, needed to have taken that into consideration and an impartial mechanism put in place to ensure that justice is done.

Unfortunately, we have leaders of political parties and Acholi leaders who for the benefits of their political parties and those who pay the pipers, sometimes speak with candour about the Ugandan military dictatorship in the same tones and on the same themes that the LRA delegates raised in Juba but were shouted down. But how can these problems of lack of democracy, the respect for fundamental rights and freedom, and the tribalism in the distribution of national resources and opportunities and the marginalisation of northern and eastern Uganda be real and legitimate when UPC, FDC or DP raises it, but becomes ethereal in the context of Juba and when the LRA raised it? The enigma of that question is the reason why, neither the Acholi civil society leaders nor the Acholi elected national and local leaders, will not admit Juba is dead and they ought to assume the roles of morticians and bury the corpse, we mourn and raise new hopes elsewhere.

The way forward from a necessary, immediate requiem for Juba, therefore, lies along these paths.

1. First, Acholi leaders must admit that Juba is dead and something new needs to be put in its place. And to recognise that the ICC partiality in indicting the LRA alone, and its seeming injustice, is partly to blame for the death of Juba. But before anything new can be contemplated, Acholi needs to claim some bequeaths from Juba:

a. To do everything in their power, to ensure that there is no return to war, despite the drumbeats. And should they be ignored on this, Acholi must be ready to throw all caution to the wind, and begin to reflect on how it will take its own destiny into its own hands;

b. To do everything in their power, to rampt up disbandment of the camps and resettling people back home. The critical element here is to reassure the population that, they should be calm and continue with preparations for returning to their ancestral homesteads. This will involve campaigns and advocacy in collaboration with progressive NGOS to ensure that resettlement and reconstruction is directly funded and not merely undertaken as a governmental, normal, budgetary planning and squeezed among anonymous recurrent expenditures, rather than a massive response to a chronic emergency and transition to resettlement and reconstruction.

While this is on-going with a dedicated, multidisciplinary team of Acholi technocrats and experts-drawn from inside and outside Uganda-, another team and similarly constituted, must work on the way forward. And their task will entail the following:

1. Accept the ICC indictments in principle and spirit, and undertake to work with the ICC and investigators, to uncover evidence and provide testimony;

2. De-register or delete, or renounce and reject Mato Oput and the special division of the Uganda high court, as alternative justice mechanisms to the ICC and means to a just and sustainable peace in northern Uganda;

3. Instead of Mato Oput and a special division of the Uganda high court, propose and work hard on the creation of an International Speical Tribunal for Northern Uganda, to undertake investigations and bring to justice, all the parties to the conflict, who committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, between 1986 -2002, the period ommitted by the ICC Rome Statute. To continue with the status quo, is a moral outrage.

For fairness, this tribunal should also be based in the Hague and the same judges of the ICC who would try the LRA for the ICC indictments, should try those implicated and indicted by the special tribunal. Peace and justice are not mutually exclusive. A national Truth and Reconciliation Commission can then take care of other minor crimes and the need to reconcile the fragmented nation.

Failure to tread this path, will hand the opportunity to those who are beating war drums and care jack, about Acholi suffering and future. The time has come for those who care about Acholi and its future, to put their feet on the ground and say enough is enogh; we shall not be pushed any further against the wall.

Why Robert Mugabe is a "Demon"but Mandela a Moral Icon

2008-04-11T01:15:00.003+01:00

WHY ROBERT MUGABE IS A “DEMON” BUT MANDELA A MORAL ICON

Reframing the Zimbabwe debate in equity terms

In contributing to the debate on Zimbabwe, we would like to employ the equity maxim that “He who comes to equity must come with clean hands”, to reframe the Zimbabwe debate, by inserting an essential moral question, ignored by Robert Mugabe’s detractors. We take the view that, past immoral conduct of those who use moral and rights arguments to condemn and hang others, is relevant to the test of the merits of their claims. In our case, we would like to argue from the vantage point that, British and American breach of Zimbabwe Independence covenants on land and corresponding British and American obligations, undermined their and Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) -as -their client’s moral claims of standing for the force of good and Mugabe as evil personified in Zimbabwe.

Our sympathies are with the view which asserts that, British and American reneging on their undertakings with specific regard to land in the hands of white farmers, against historical equity and justice claims by displaced and dispossessed majority black population, have precipitous, compelling, and relevant connection to equity claims by Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) leadership in its defence, and to current turmoil in Zimbabwe. Consequently, in broad terms and taking a complete historical, moral, justice and equity vistas of the Zimbabwe debate, we take the position that, alleged rights violations in Zimbabwe, electoral malpractices by ZANU_PF, cannot be imposed as moral equivalents and bar, to vitiate incontestable arguments for justice and equity for the black masses, who were displaced, dispossessed and dehumanised by predatory British colonial rule, and under racist Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) of Ian Smith.

State Realism or altruistic cosmopolitan morality?

The issues of contest in the Zimbabwe debate ought to be the question of the moral, fair, just and equitable treatment of people, black and white, in Zimbabwe, by the proponents on both sides-the British, American, Western Alliance and Tsivangirai on one end, and ZANU-PF, Zimbabwean nationalists, Pan-Africanists and Mugabe on the other. Moreover, we cannot limit the time frame to recent electoral politics of Zimbabwe, but the gamut of that nation’s and its people’s history of struggles and past and present roles of those currently engaged in staking moral and political claims to its fortunes and future. The questions whether Robert Mugabe is a corrupt despot or has conducted fair or unfair elections or not, are secondary, if what we are interested in is to genuinely search for solutions to the roots of the Zimbabwe debacles.

Mugabe’s perceived dishonesty, whether in the redistribution of land appropriated from white farmers; or in conducting elections; or heavy and underhanded treatments of political dissent in Zimbabwe, though deserving attention, revulsion and contempt in their own objective context, cannot and should not, however, provide a defensible stratagem for Britain, USA and the Anglo-Saxon alliance, to use to trump justice and equity questions in a post colonial and post-racialist Zimbabwe. By latching on recent claims of electoral malpractices, cronyism, and authoritarian bent of ZANU-PF and its leadership, while disregarding the fundamental question of social justice and equity posed by the land question, Britain and its Western allies are immersed in realist politics, pure and simple, while dangling renegade Tsivangirai, who is nothing more than a puppet on a string, to proclaim their moral posturing on Zimbabwe.

For Western state realism, Tsivangirai in opposition serves the same interest as Yoweri Museveni of Uganda does in power. While Tsivangirai is feted as champion of democracy in Zimbabwe, the opposition and oppressed masses of Uganda are treated with suspicion; but Museveni, a man who banned political parties for 20 years, was all the while coddled and dotted in Western capitals. His human rights and democratic credentials were none purer, if not more despicable than those of Mugabe. No doubt, the Zimbabwean security forces were heavy-handed in putting down dissent in Matabeleland in mid 1980s. And Mugabe has been inflexible and understandably less accommodating in his dealing with political opposition in Zimbabwe. But these pale in comparison to the counterinsurgency brutalities perpetrated by Museveni’s National Resistance Movement / Army (NRM / A) in northern Uganda, where a silent genocide has been going on for the last 22 years with complete Western connivance through their national aid agencies and non-governmental organisations, who turned blind eyes while northern Ugandan population were forcibly herded into concentration camps and left to their own devices by the security forces.

In addition, political parties, other than the ruling NRM, do not operate freely outside their national headquarters in the capital. Because Museveni bought into neoconservative agenda of economic liberalisation, privatisation, and global capitalism, his sins, whether for holding sham elections, brutalising opposition, maiming and killing or abandoning two million of his citizens in concentration camps without a care, can be forgiven by his Western benefactors. He is forgiven not because such policies benefit the Ugandan masses more than it has been achievable in Zimbabwe; nor that the welfare of ordinary Ugandans are better off than those of ordinary Zimbabweans because of ZANU-PF’s socialised approach to welfare and beneficence. Musevni’s sins are forgivable because his client regime provides a staging deck for Western imperialist capital into east and central Africa. But god help you, if you are Robert Mugabe, and you fought British imperialism and racialism, and you have white settlers in your country, whose historical rights and privileges as a master race, are pitted against poor black souls and their claims for social justice and equity.

He who comes to equity must come with clean hands

Given Western hypocrisy and double standards in dealing with issues of democracy, human rights, justice, and equity in Africa, without pointing out those in the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, we are convinced that fair-minded people will agree that British and American imperialism have no basis to claim equity interest in the moral and justice claims on behalf of the people of Zimbabwe, as something that arises from some kind of cosmopolitan moral trust, to which the West somehow contributed and have this recognisable altruistic faith and commitment. On closer scrutiny of Western involvement in the Middle East, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Colombia, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Chile, to mention but a few, their claims are at times contradictorily realist, relativist, and internationalist at one and the same time. But in all cases, regardless of the moral position adopted, they are never on the sides of those whose rights are abused or justice claims denied.

In the Zimbabwean disputes, it is apparent that British, Western, and intellectually, morally bankrupt African leaders, intelligentsia, and Western –patronised opposition politicians put considerations for political power over and above questions of fairness, justice, equity and basic morality. That being the case, they, and particularly Britain, have no higher grounds to assert any equitable rights to the political, social, moral and economic fortunes of Zimbabwe; whether in condemning Mugabe, or questioning the sense of his holding onto power for 28 years, without at the same time recognising and attempting to justly and equitably remedy past British imperialist and UDI / Ian Smith racialist injustices, and breach of the Lancaster House stipulations on land and agrarian reforms in independent Zimbabwe. In equity terms, the British are not coming to equity on Zimbabwe with clean hands. Had the British made good on their end of the bargain on the independent covenants on land reforms, and had Mugabe then become the villain and the callous, racist despot that the West have cast him after everyone had lived up to their obligatory undertakings, the equity maxim would have been essentially irrelevant and Mugabe alone would have been accountable for the fiasco that is Zimbabwe today.

In this debate, I would like to encourage those who uncritically dismiss moral and equity arguments in support of Mugabe’s political actions, to at least be intellectually courageous enough to countenance a public conscience test of the Zimbabwe imbroglio. This is to say, there is need to carry out a dispassionate assessment of the adverse consequences of British colonialism and Ian Smith’s UDI against the adverse consequences of Robert Mugabe’s rule, land reforms and agrarian policies on the peoples of Zimbabwe and Africa. In our view, as far as things obtain in Zimbabwe and Africa today, it matters little, if at all, whether it is Morgan Tsivangirai or Robert Mugabe who is president in Zimbabwe. What matters, is however, that such a leadership has a proportionate view of history and justice as progressive, refined and improved. And whether in opposition or in power, their sense of self-importance should not obscure their intuition and unsolicited unity on questions of social justice and equity, and the priceless sacrifices Zimbaweans such as General Tongogara made so their compatriots should be free. Given its history and context, and aware of Tsivangirai’s preoccupation with form rather than substance, we are not coy to pronounce that Tsivangirai is not fit to rise to position of national leadership in Zimbabwe during these contentious times.

We have no doubts in our minds that had Robert Mugabe, like Morgan Tsivangirai, put his self-interest ahead of the interests of the poor majority of Zimbabwe; closed his eyes to the justice claims of blacks; scrapped any notion of land and agrarian reform and distributive justice, and left Zimbabwe to the devices of pre-independence structural and institutional inequalities, he would be the darling of the West and a celebrated freedom fighter, hero and moral icon. But with a clear sense of history, purpose and destiny, he could not do that and live with a clear conscience. And for this, he is demonised, because he “failed” to “achieve” in Zimbabwe, while Nelson Mandela “succeeded” in South Africa-to acquiesce in white and racial privileges through forgiveness and truth-telling and pardoning apartheid crimes against African humanity. Had Mandela taken the path of equitable justice against white perpetrators of apartheid crimes, social and economic dispossession of black South Africans, he would not be the moral icon he is today. In that sense, Mugabe’s crime is not that he brutalises his political opponents and ordinary black Zimbabweans, but that he dares tell truth to white racial privileges and power.

ACHOLILAND / NORTHERN UGANDA GENOCIDE REMEMBERANCE DAY 26 JANUARY 2008

2008-01-26T10:22:00.001Z

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No man is an iland, intire of it selfe;
every man is a peece of the continent,
a part of the maine;
if a clod bee washed away by the sea,
Europe is the lesse,
as well as if a promontorie were,
as well as if a mannor of thy friends
or of thine owne were;
any mans death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankinde;
And therefore never send to know
for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

John Donne
-----------------------------------------------------------http://folk.ntnu.no/makarov/temporary_url_20070929kldcg/internationale-instr-defence_ministry_nazarov_1977.mp3
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Acholi / northern Uganda genocide rememberance day

2008-01-26T03:07:00.000Z

ACHOLI MEMORIAL DAY 26 JANUARY 2008

2008-01-24T10:33:00.000Z

Dear Friends, readers and Acholi compatriots,
It will be 22 years to the day, on Saturday 26 January 2008, when an ethnic army seized state power and initiated a pogrom against the Acholi people. Former soldiers, Acholi civilian, children, women and the elderly were rounded up, imprisoned, tortured, raped, sodomised and massacred throughout Uganda. A war was imposed on our people, and a genocide has been decimating our people since. They were driven from their homes, dumped in concentration camps without protection and provisions. As our people hang onto their lives by the skins of their teeth, the murderous NRM /A regime is conniving with Acholi apostates to make the final solution a reality by denying Acholi forcibly confined into concentration camps undisputed rights to return to their ancestral lands. This is being done under the pretext of development and creating employment.

This is most harrowing because education and other socio-economic infractures in Acholi ground to a stand still for the last 22 years. Even if thousands of industrial jobs were created in Acholi today, the the places will have to be filled up by qualified applicants from outside Acholiland. The neglect of schools and and abasence of any kind of planned education strategy to respond to the emergency situation and its long term implications for human resource development in Acholi lest it lagged behind, has been part of the strategy to marginalise the people in this region. As we speak, a complete generation of Acholi in the camps have not gone to even elementary school in the last 22 years. We ask ourselves, who are the government fooling, that expropriating land for sugar cane growing and creating jobs is the best way to respond to the dire situation in Acholi?

As we can see, different pieces of Museveni's strategic plans to marginalise Acholi are coming together. First it was depletion of livestock through cattle rustling by soldiers, rebels and Karimojong, with the government failing or neglecting to provide effective security. Second, it was driving people out of their homes into the camps without any form of emergency provisionings and social services planning for health care and education and subsistance. It was international charities that rescued the Acholi from immiment extermination by starvation. Third, a generation of Acholi children and youths have not gone to school in the last 22 years and many of whom were abducted, maimed and killed in the insurgency. Fourth, the slow pace and the vagueness of the government on when and how the Acholi can finally go back to their own homes now that there is relative peace. And fith and finally, government intentions to expropriate land in Acholi before people are resettled to their own former homesteads to cultivate and regain selfsuffiiency in food. Therefore, it does not seem that poverty alleviation and empowering the Acholi is the priority for government in its emphasis on land alienation, industrial development and creating employment. The Acholi are certainly not the intended beneficiaries, given the conditions outlined above.

For the record, the Achol are in the desparate sitaution they are in not because they were poor in the first place. These are a people who were self reliant and industrious. Today, they are no better than street beggars and transients. They have been reduced to to this sub-human level as a result of deliberate government policy to permanently debilitate the poeple in this region socially and economically so that they have no ability to organise to challenge the Bahima ethnic hegemony imposed on them by force of arms.

On Saturday 26 January 2008, the murderous regime of Lt. Gen. Yoweri Museveni, the dictator of Uganda, with his generals, will break into chants, called Wayo in Acoli, a ritual to celebrate their valour in killing Acholi over the years. On Saturday 26 January 2008, Northern Uganda Messenger Post and its sister SOS Africa News & Events, will feature blacked-out pages in commemoration of 22 years of genocide in Acoli. In other words, the blogs will not publish from mid night until mid night, Sunday 27 January 2008.

I would like to urge our readers, Acholi compatriots, Acoli forums and other Acholi run media groups to shut down on this day and join in commemoration of the dead, the maimed, and the suffering Acholi in the death camps in northern Uganda. Those in Uganda and in Acholiland can show their solidarity and in memory of their dead, by staying away from government functions and celebrations. Let no government officials force any Acholi to go celebrate the deaths of their compatriots and cheer those guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated against their kith and kins.

May the souls of our departed compatriots rest in peace and may they never be forgotten.

In Solidarity,

Okello Lucima.