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

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?

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

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.