Daniel Kalinaki's weblog

How do you solve a problem like Somalia?*

2010-07-15T12:36:00.001Z

SECOND FLOOR - After al Qaeda struck America on September 11, 2001, the US government declared war on Iraq and Afghanistan. The Bush Administration argued that it was in America’s interest to fight terrorists on foreign soil than on US territory.

In our case, we deployed troops to Somalia to try and hold the pieces of that country together. On July 11, the al Shabaab terrorist brought the war to our territory with the twin attacks in Lugogo and Kabalagala that have so far claimed 76 lives.

Such dramatic events have the potential to force rash or irrational decisions – in our case of whether to bring our troops home, as many people are now urging, or defiantly keep them there as the government appears inclined to do.

What we must do is rationally debate the Somalia question. It is a debate we should have had – but did not have – before sending our troops into Somalia. Now it is a debate that we must have, seeing how ordinary civilians in Kampala can become victims of a conflict thousands of miles away.

Somalia is not a new conflict; the country ‘failed’ in 1991 and has since then been a collection of tribes and clans struggling to control the territory and the people. The Americans tried to sort it out in 1993 but beat a hasty retreat when 18 US soldiers were killed by armed militia and dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. The Somalis were then left to their own devices (usually guns and mortars) until they started harbouring suspected al Qaeda terrorists fleeing the fighting in Afghanistan, and hijacking ships off the Indian Ocean coastline.

Clearly, therefore, Somalia is a global problem and an African problem but is it a Ugandan problem? Yes. A failed state in the neighbourhood is bad for everyone – especially a state that is willing to harbour terrorists who have had a record of spreading terror in the region.

But if a failed Somalia is a danger to global commerce (through piracy) and world peace (through terrorism), why has it been left to Uganda and Burundi (itself a state not too far from the precipice of failure) to try and save the world?

The Ethiopians went in before us, beat back the militias and helped install a transitional government. They then left us and Burundi to keep the peace – but there is no peace to keep in Somalia and our troops have, in some cases in the past, been sitting targets, unable to pre-emptively strike at al Shabaab even when they are aware of plots by the militia to cause mayhem.

Even worse, they are labelled as invaders or foreign occupying forces helping prop up a regime whose popularity is suspect. If it looks like Iraq and smells like Afghanistan then it just might be Somalia.

We must change the rules of engagement. First, we need more countries to commit troops to Somalia. It is a shame to the African continent for only two countries out of 53 to commit troops.

Secondly, we must change the mandate of those troops; there is no peace to keep in Somalia so they must go in to try and achieve what the US army failed to do; disarm the militias and create meaningful peace.

Thirdly and most importantly, however, the solution to Somalia will have to be political, not military. The people of Somalia have to decide how they want to be governed and by whom.

We must use the 7/11 attacks to galvanise Africa to sort out the Somalia problem once and for all – the African Union Summit in Kampala next week could not have come at a more opportune moment – otherwise those killed in the Kampala blasts would have died in vain.

*Article first published in Daily Monitor column, In My View, on July 15, 2010.

Why Museveni carried a gun and not a spade

2010-03-11T17:45:00.002Z

SECOND FLOOR - The picture of President Museveni visiting the landslide-stricken areas of Bududa last week while dressed in army fatigues and carrying an AK-47 rifle has dominated debate.

Several commentators wondered why the President carried a rifle to a scene of mourning and not a symbolic bible or a functional spade.

The real reason is probably pragmatic; that the Presidential Guard Brigade didn’t have the time to deploy fully in the area before the visit and that the President chose not to leave anything to chance and carried his rifle on him.

Nevertheless, the symbolism of the President’s rifle packs a potent political message.

In the heady days to the run up to independence across Africa, many political movements presented themselves as progressive and development-oriented, and ready to transform political power into economic self-sufficiency.

Their campaign symbols were more likely to be hoes, ploughs or guns that had been converted into farm implements. Others, to show their strength and willingness to take on the colonial masters, had clenched fists and the like.

Throughout the 60s and 70s, when coups and armed struggles raged across Africa, election campaign slogans and symbols gave way to the real thing as battle tanks jumped from party badges to city streets.

The end of the Cold War allowed us to return to western-style democracy with regular elections and campaigns but the populations remained largely illiterate and symbols ever more important to appeal to voters.

Since we were a one-party state under the Movement in Uganda, symbols had to be adapted to individuals to symbolise what they stood for. The right symbol said more to voters than a dozen campaign rallies.

Thus, when President Museveni chose to carry the grinding stone in 1996 – the year he officially became a civilian – he came off as the candidate to carry the country forward with all its problems.

Five years later, in 2001, the environment had changed and Museveni was facing a stiff challenge from Kizza Besigye, who had just quit the army and the government.

President Museveni needed to appear strong but to also represent stability and continuity so the cotter pin became the de-facto symbol of his campaign. It was a disarmingly simple message; most rural voters are familiar with bicycles and appreciate that small as it is, the cotter pin holds the whole thing together and is not easily removable – even by a hammer, which became Besigye’s symbol.

President Museveni’s 2006 symbol – dry banana leaves – came about almost by accident, as it shared a name with another term in office, which the President got thanks to a controversial process of amending the Constitution.

Although political parties are now allowed to campaign with their symbols, smart candidates acquire personal symbols that help them stand out from the crowded field.

President Museveni has the NRM bus and his distinctive bowler hat, which make him instantly recognisable wherever he goes in the country but the gun is the supreme symbol for it is recognised – and feared – by all.

The President could have turned up in gumboots and a shovel but so can Besigye, or Mao, or even Abed Bwanika.

None of the other presidential candidates can turn up with a gun without being arrested, not even former Army Commander Maj. Gen. Mugisha Muntu.

Rural voters are drawn to power and military might, not agricultural innovations. That’s why the heavily armed Presidential motorcade draws crowds while the latest tractor model doesn’t. President Museveni knows this – which is why he turned up with a gun, not a spade.

* This article was first published in my Daily Monitor column..

Of Good Grades and Bootstrap Pulling Mayors

2010-02-13T18:32:00.002Z

THE LITTLE FOREST BY THE CITY - This morning, on my Hard Talk show on 933 KFM radio show, I had Kampala Mayor Nasser Ntege Ssebagala aka Seya talking about his life, business and politics. I was impressed. Not by his intellect -- he has never been accused of that -- or by the way he has run the city (down, in case you haven't noticed) but by his tenacity and determination. This is a guy who made a fortune in his early 20s, blew it, went into politics and reinvented himself.

His English is getting better (yes, it was worse than that!) but he clearly knows what he wants and is willing to work for it. Thinking of Seya and his illiterate but smart rise to the top, I was reminded that we -- and I mean Monitor Publications -- have been running what I think is an interesting series that tracks down top students in national exams to see where they are, supplemented by an analysis of the education sector and whether it is producing grades or good people.

We -- yes, still talking about said MPL -- have also just launched a scholarship scheme to sponsor the top 24 PLE students across the country. I went in to speak to the students on Thursday about careers, etc.

These are the 'brightest' kids in the country. None of them had read a newspaper in the previous seven days. None of them had read a book -- any kind of book -- in the last month! None of them knew the meaning of the word 'fugitive'.

Ssebagala, on the other hand, quoted Sir Winston Churchill, referred to Mahatma Gandhi, and drew parallels with Jacob Zuma and his rise to power. Could it be that the more you read the less you know? I am quite frightened, to be honest! I must complete THAT book, THE BLACK SWAN!

Bash the Baganda and gag the gays; Bahati's Bill was always a diversion

2010-01-12T19:28:00.002Z

THIRD FLOOR - President Museveni today apparently told senior officials of his ruling National Resistance Movement party that the Bahati Bill, which proposes stiff penalties, including death, to homosexuals in Uganda, did not have the backing of the government and would probably be shelved.

This was the first time President Museveni was speaking out publicly about the Bahati Bill although Daily Monitor had earlier quoted a US media outfit saying Mr Museveni had given assurances to the US govt that the Bill would not be passed. So President Museveni, as usually happens, is set to come off as the voice of reason and moderation. He will have a chat with Bahati, the Bill will be sent back for further consultation and probably die a natural death. It will certainly not return before the elections due in 2011.

The reality, however, is that the Bahati Bill was a well calculated diversion by the government, designed to take attention away from the Buganda Question, which was festering in the immediate aftermath of the Sept 2009 riots in Kampala, as well as the Land Bill which was forced through soon after, with Buganda, its mouthpiece CBS radio shut down, unable to mobilise against the Land Bill.

The pro-gay rights lobby will probably celebrate this backing off as victory for reason and liberalism. Some might even congratulate Mr Museveni for being humane and progressive. But it is all one big sham -- and one that has been repeated several times over. This was never about men and women who turn out in masks to demand for their rights to an alternative sexual orientation; it was always about trying to pull a mask over our heads while Buganda was bashed in.

Can we now get back to the CHOGM inquiry? We should find out who really took the car money -- and who dished out money for hotels to be built hours to the arrival of the first guest...

ENDS

Buturo makes a mountain out of a mole of morals

2009-12-03T11:13:00.002Z

SECOND FLOOR - Ethics and Integrity minister Dr James Nsaba Buturo has just issued a statement in response to two stories in today's Daily Monitor. The first is about Sweden threatening to cut aid if the anti-gay bill is passed. The second is about the EU accusing the government of paying lip service to the fight against corruption.

In his statement, (be patient, it is pasted below) Dr Buturo warns donors against poking their long noses in what is none-of-their-business. In defending the government in its 'fight' against corruption, Dr Buturo says: "It is a failure of one's understanding of the complexities of corruption to advocate that Government, for example, addresses matters to do with morality."

Soon after, he lashes out at the Swedes by emphasising the government's support of a bill that seeks, according to its backers, to end the immorality of homosexuality. Contradiction? You decide.

Oh, and one final idle point: Length of Dr Buturo's submission on the anti-homosexuality bill: 382 words. Length of his take on what many consider to be the biggest problem in the country today, corruption; 265 words.

Here...

STATEMENT MADE BY THE MINISTER FOR ETHICS AND INTEGRITY TO MEMBERS OF THE PRESS AT THE MEDIA CENTRE ON THURSDAY 3RD DECEMBER 2009

This statement is in connection with two issues, namely, a statement said to have been made by the European Union Ambassador to Uganda on the subject of corruption and comments made that Sweden will cut aid to Uganda over the anti homosexuality Bill.

Government welcomes views that well wishers of Uganda make concerning her governance. It should be noted from the outset that when such views are from Diplomats who are accredited to Uganda, the standard diplomatic practice the world over is for such views to be communicated to Government through well known diplomatic channels. It is never, ever, standard practice in the civilized world for a Diplomat to address the Press of the country in which he or she is serving on how the host country is handling affairs of its land.

That said, Government takes interest in views that have been, allegedly, publicly aired in the Daily Monitor Newspaper of Thursday, 3rd December 2009.

It should also be clear to whoever cares to listen that nobody, including Uganda's friends, cares more about the people of Uganda than Uganda Government itself. Any pretence otherwise is simply false. His Excellency President Museveni and his Government have a passion for our citizens to a degree no one else has. We are mindful that every five years, our mandate to govern has to be renewed by the people of Uganda themselves.

Corruption
It is being alleged that Government is offering lip-service as far as corruption is concerned. Such a comment can only be made by individuals who either know the truth but choose not to say it or are unaware of what is going on. The easier part always has been to blame Government for this disaster we now call corruption. It is correct to say that Government should do more than it has done so far in the fight against corruption. Government needs not to be told this by anybody about the need to actually raise the tempo of our response against the corrupt. Government has started doing that!

Lack of understanding of complexities of corruption often leads some people or critics to expect Government alone to fight corruption. It is clear to Government and whoever cares to understand the complexities of corruption, that it will take more than Government alone to defeat the corrupt. These people that are corrupt usually enjoy the support of foreign companies. The corrupt are found in government, the media, civil society organizations and citizens, to say the least.

If one is genuine about seeing the end to corruption, one should be advocating for collective will from all these actors to end corruption. It is a failure of one's understanding of the complexities of corruption to advocate that Government, for example, addresses matters to do with morality. Therefore, one of Government's new approaches in the coming year is to appeal to all the actors mentioned above to do more that what they have done so far and that includes Government.

Homosexuality
There is a Bill in Parliament known as the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. This subject is causing a great deal of interest around the world. The people of Uganda believe that practicing anal sex at the expense of heterosexual sex is not a normal practice. Ugandans know or believe that homosexuality involves practices that are dangerous and high risk to the human body which is designed for heterosexual functions. Ugandans also believe that anal sexual intercourse, foreign objects used in sexual intercourse and promiscuity do not deserve to be defended at all.

Having said that, it is clear to many of us that the over reaction so far is not surprising to us. Uganda accepts that in some countries it is normal practice for men to sleep with men and women with women. It is often defended that imperatives of human rights defend this practice. We do not believe so in Uganda. Majority of Ugandans hate to see the promotion of illegalities that they consider as dysfunctional, abnormal and unhealthy.

Ever since the Bill on Homosexuality was presented in Parliament, there have been various reactions as well as over-reactions from countries which are annoyed at our independence to enact our Laws. Consequently, we hear they are threatening to take action against Uganda. It is revealing that support to Uganda literally translated means that it is on condition that Uganda should do the bidding of givers of such support regardless of what Ugandans themselves think.

It is also revealing that support which would benefit countless number of orphans, children and mothers can be withdrawn simply because Government is protecting its citizens against vices such as homosexuality. Government has been clear about this matter that homosexuality or homosexual practices will not be promoted, encouraged and recommended to the people of Uganda.

Finally, on the issue of the Bill, those who are promising threats to the people of Uganda need to be helped to understand that the Bill is going through the normal democratic process of debate. The Bill is not the final document that will become Law. If there is belief that threats will influence Parliament to debate against the wishes of Uganda, those responsible for such threats should forget. We should all wait to see how Membens of Parliament will acquit themselves over this matter.
Dr Nsaba Buturo (MP)

ENDS

Here is the letter closing CBS radio

2009-09-14T16:42:00.003Z

BC/FM/96/04
11th September 2009
The General Manager
Central Broadcasting Service (CBS)
Bulange, Mengo

RE: COMPLIANCE THE WITH MINIMUM BROADCASTING STANDARDS BY CENTRAL BROADCASTING SERVICES

We refer to the Electronic Media Act, and more specifically to section 7 read together with section 8 thereof, which requires that the right to broadcast be exercised in accordance with the minimum broadcasting standards which are contained in the First schedule to the Act.

We also refer to the terms and conditions for operating a broadcasting license duly executed by Central Broadcasting Service (CBS) as a prerequisite for the renewal of the license for the period 2009/2010.

As you may be aware, non compliance by Central Broadcasting Service (CBS) with the minimum broadcasting standards and other general provisions of the law has been the subject of continued dialogue between the Broadcasting Council and the management of (CBS) from September 2007 to date.

The Public Spectrum Rationale

Note that the electromagnetic spectrum has been deemed, since the beginning of broadcast regulation, to be a publicly owned natural resource. This "scarce public resource" rationale forms the foundation on which broadcast regulation is based. In the case of Uganda, the Government allocates frequencies to broadcasters

including Central Broadcasting Services to be utilised within the framework of the Electronic Media Act and other relevant laws. It must be emphasised at this point that the electromagnetic spectrum remains the property of the Government of Uganda and has simply been allocated to a broadcaster to be utilised as per agreed terms and conditions.

The Minimum Broadcasting Standards and the Terms and Conditions
The minimum broadcasting standards requires that:
(a) any programme which is broadcast:
(i) is not contrary to public morality;
(ii)does not promote the culture of violence or ethnical prejudice among the public, especially the children and the youth;
(iii) in the case of a news broadcast is free from distortion of facts;
(iv) is not likely to create public insecurity or violence;
(v) is in compliance with the existing law;

(b) Programmes that are broadcast are balanced to ensure harmony in such programmes;

(c) Adult -oriented programmes are appropriately scheduled

(d) Where a programme that is broadcast is in respect to a contender for a public office, then each contender is given equal opportunity on such a programme

You will recall that the Broadcasting Council and the management of CBS have held a series of meetings to address pertinent issues that arose in 2007 and 2008 and on the whole CBS had agreed to operate within the ambit of the Electronic Media Act and more specifically, had undertaken to comply with the Minimum broadcasting standards.

In providing proof of compliance with provisions 4, 10 and 11 of the Licensing Terms and Conditions in the previous year prior to the renewal, CBS stated that it had broadcast programs that promote public interest, local content and diversity in program content, programs that deal with educational services and safeguard, enrich and strengthen the cultural, social and economic fabric of Uganda and programs that ensure pluralism in the provision of news, views and information.

Furthermore the terms and conditions have embedded under provision 11, the minimum broadcasting standards which CBS undertook to comply with. The Licensee (CBS) undertakes under provision 13 that the Council may cancel the license by notice in writing for breach of any of the provisions contained in the Licensing Terms and Conditions.

The Broadcasting Council duly issued to CBS broadcasting licenses in respect of its stations for the year 2009/2010. We would like to emphasise that it was understood that the issues that had been raised in 2007/2008 would be adequately addressed by CBS in order to warrant the renewal of the broadcasting license.

Major Issues arising in 2007/2008
The issues that arose during the period in question, that is 2007/2008 included:
• Compliance with the minimum broadcasting standards generally
• Compliance with sections 4 and 5 of the Electronic Media Act in respect of the registration of producers and presenters with the Media Council
• Adequacy of Technical facilities which included installation of a pre-listening devise and inadequacy of the facilities that are used for the Mambo Bado Programme (which is a live broadcast made in a hall and not in a studio)

Meetings of 24th August 2007 and 7th September 2007
For your ease of reference we refer to the meetings of 24th August 2007 and 7th September 2007 which arose out of complaints made to the Broadcasting Council by the Police in respect of programmes by several radio stations including Central Broadcasting Services (CBS).

The two meetings agreed to a way forward and the broadcasters including CBS undertook:
• To comply with the minimum broadcasting standards;
• To guide personalities who are invited to discuss on talk shows by giving them guidelines;
• Instruct and take charge of their presenters / producers;
• Ensure that producers / presenters strictly adhere to the script during discussions;
• Scrutinise topics in respect of their sensitivity in relation to the public;
• Invite two persons with divergent views to discuss each topic in order to ensure balance;
• To make guests sign disclaimers before she / he goes on air taking responsibility for their actions;
• Not to invite the same persons to appear on the same programme repeatedly;
• To inform the Broadcasting Council within two weeks of the meeting of August 24, 2008, of action that had been taken against the producers / presenters mentioned in the meeting.

Meeting of January 30, 2008
Thereafter the Council received further complaints in respect of the Mambo Bado Program of 28th December 2007 which led to the meeting of 30th January 2008. At that meeting the Broadcasting Council raised the same issues in respect of the Mambo Bado Program of 28th December 2007.

The meeting of 30th January 2008 agreed to maintain the way forward agreed to in the meetings of Friday August 24, 2007 and Friday September 7, 2007 which therefore formed part of the position of 4th February 2008 arising out of that meeting.

Meeting with the Minister of ICT Held on 17th October 2008
Thereafter the Broadcasting Council received a complaint in respect of the Mambo Bado Programme of Saturday 11th October 2008. In an attempt to resolve the matter more conclusively, the then Hon. Minister of Information and Communications Technology chaired the meeting between the Broadcasting Council and CBS on the 17th October 2009 and all the instances of our dialogue were reviewed as a true sequence of events.

The most pertinent outcome of that meeting was that it was agreed that guidance will, at the beginning of the Mambo Bado Program be made by the presenter on the subject matter and on the rules of engagement during the discussion of the topic of the day so as to ensure compliance to the minimum broadcasting standards.

Suffice it to note at this point that the Broadcasting Council noted and duly communicated failure by CBS to comply to this position during the Mambo Bado Program of 18n October 2008, which was the following day after the meeting with the Minister.
This situation confirmed then, as it does presently, what the Broadcasting Council had submitted during the meeting with the Minister that the inability of producers or presenters to effectively manage the programs in question (Mambo Bado, Crossfire, Twejjukanye and Kkriza oba Gana) is one of the factors in the failure by CBS to comply with the minimum broadcasting standards as specified in the Electronic Media Act.

Non- Licensing of CBS in 2008
Due to the continued breach by CBS, the Council convened a meeting with the management of CBS on the 20th November 2008. During that meeting the Secretary of the Council gave the genesis of non-licensing of CBS 89.2, explaining that the programmes Kiriza oba Gaana, Mambo Bado, Cross Fire and Twejukanye aired on CBS 89.2 occasioned breach of the Minimum Broadcasting standards.

In addition the producers and presenters of these programmes were not qualified and therefore failed to manage the programmes. The Secretary pointed out that several meetings were held with the Management of CBS concerning those programmes whenever CBS 89.2 was operating outside the law and this had resulted in CBS not being licensed for the past six months.

During that meeting CBS undertook to:
• Pre-record some programmes.
• Suspend errant presenters/moderators
• Cooperate with the Broadcasting Council
• Regulate controversial political programmes.
• Restrain abusive/outspoken guests
• Minimise programmes that bring confrontation with Central Government
• Invite the Broadcasting Council to CBS to give guidelines to the discussants as to how programmes should be presented and explain the functions of the Council.
• Balance topics and ensure that discussants are from divergent groups.
• Invite Government officials to CBS to explain certain topics.
• Contact the Media Council once again for registration of its journalists, many of whom had qualifications.

The Council therefore agreed to issue to CBS a provisional broadcasting licence for six months and would closely monitor CBS programmes to ensure that minimum broadcasting standards are complied with. On completion of the period of 6 months, the Committee would review the performance of CBS to give appropriate remedies based on their observations.

In its letter of January 21,2009 the Council communicated its position on the licensing of CBS. Due to the progress made by CBS in complying with the minimum broadcasting standards, the Council amended its earlier resolution and agreed to issue to CBS a broadcasting license for one year.

Meeting of 3rd August 2009
The main agenda was stated as deviation by CBS once again from agreed positions which were arrived at during the meeting of 26th November 2008 and other prior meetings. This it was pointed out, arose out of a number of complaints received by the Broadcasting Council from different sectors of the public and institutions in respect of the Twejjukanye Programme which was broadcast on Sunday 19n July 2009 and the Mambo Bado Programme which was broadcast on 25th July 2009. Excerpts of these broadcasts were read out to CBS.

The Committee further informed CBS that it has taken the opportunity to listen to the recordings in respect of the programmes in question and found that they raise the same issues that have been the subject of continued dialogue between CBS and the Broadcasting Council. The issues revolve around the non compliance by CBS with the minimum broadcasting standards, which was responsible for the delay in the renewal of CBS's license in 2008.

CBS acknowledged that it had once again reneged on its undertaking to comply with agreed positions that have been the subject of the continued dialogue. While stating its apology, CBS pleaded exceptional circumstances prevailing at the time of the broadcasts that is between the period 12th July 2009 to 2nd August 2009.
By its letter of 3rd August 2009, the Committee sought clarification from CBS as to the exceptional circumstances so as to be guided in its decision. While CBS responded in its subsequent letter the exceptional circumstances have never been explained.

Complaints arising in September 2009
While the issues raised at the meeting of 3rd August 2009 are still pending, CBS has once again reneged on its understanding. The Broadcasting Council has taken exception to the role that CBS has been playing in mobilizing and inciting the public to riot around the Kakaba's planned visit to Kayunga District. This is evidenced by the escalation of violence which resulted in lose of life and property and brought business to a stand still in some parts of the city on the 10.09.09

Non Compliance with Provisions of the Penal Code Act
Note that CBS is also required to comply with other provisions of the law. The programmes in question the contravention of sections 39 and 40 of the Penal Code Act Cap 120 which provide for seditious intention and seditious offences.

Suspension of Operations &. Withdrawal of License
We note that while CBS made an undertaking not to keep inviting the same personalities to these programmes this has not been complied with.

We further note that the consistent dialogue between the Broadcasting Council and the management of CBS does not seem to yield the desired results and the undertakings by the Management of CBS on the whole have not translated into action on your part.

The Council therefore proceeds under section 10 and section 25 of the Electronic Media Act. Section 10(a) and (h) provide broadly for the powers and functions of the Council.

Section 10 provides for the functions of the Council to include:
(a) To coordinate and exercise control over and to supervise broadcasting
activities
(b) To carry out any other function that is incidental to any of the foregoing
functions.

Section 25 (1) provides that the Council or its duly authorised officer may confiscate any electronic apparatus which is used in contravention of this Act.
The Council further proceeds under section 6 of the Electronic Media Act. In executing its duties under section 6 which provides for issuing of broadcasting licenses, the Council formulated licensing Terms and Conditions which are duly executed by CBS. The Terms and Conditions have embedded under provision 11, the minimum broadcasting standards which CBS undertook to comply with. The Licensee (CBS) further undertakes under provision 13 that the Council may cancel the license by notice in writing for breach of any of the provisions contained in the Licensing Terms and Conditions.

The Council therefore withdraws CBS's broadcasting license in accordance with section 6 and section 10 of the Electronic Media Act and the Terms and Conditions for Operating a License.

Godfrey Mutabazi
CHAIRMAN
C.C. Hon. Minister Information and Communications Technology
C.C. Hon. Minister Information & National Guidance
C.C. Attorney General, Ministry of Justice & Constitutional Affairs
C.C. Inspector General of Police

Kabaka/Buganda calls off Kayunga trip

2009-09-11T18:26:00.001Z

SECOND FLOOR - News just in! Buganda has issued a statement calling off the trip. They say they have failed to get guarantees for the Kabaka's safety. He who owns the guns calls the shots. Discuss.

Transcript of M7's speech to Buganda MPs on Kayunga visit

2009-09-11T13:04:00.002Z

A Statement By

H.E. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni

President of the Republic of Uganda

During the Meeting with the Buganda Parliamentary Caucus

Entebbe State House

10th September 2009

Buganda Parliamentary Caucus

I greet you all.

I have come to address you about the sustained unconstitutional behaviour of His Highness Kabaka Mutebi, the Mengo Kingdom officials and the Kabaka’s Radio, CBS.

As you know, the kingdoms were abolished in 1966 by the UPC government. Even when Uganda got independence in 1962, I was old enough to follow the events. I was 18 years old and in senior two at Ntare. I was also a youth-winger of the Democratic Party (DP) although I did not vote in 1962 because the voting age was 21 years at that time. Therefore, the youths who say the NRM does not care about them should, first, remember that it was the NRM who lowered the voting age to 18 years to include the youths early enough. In the period preceding independence, there was debate and maneuvers among the players. The Mengo establishment formed a political party called Kabaka Yekka (KY), which used intimidation, especially against DP supporters in Buganda, to win all the seats in the Lukiiko except 3. DP took a principled stand and pointed out that it was dangerous to mix politics with traditional leadership. The Uganda People’s Congress (UPC), on the other hand, deceived Mengo that they would do whatever the Kabaka wanted even if it was not compatible with the principles of democracy. The consequence of all this was, for instance, the denial of Baganda from voting directly for their 21 Members of Parliament (MPs). While the rest of the country voted for the MPs directly, Buganda had to use the Electoral College system – the Lukiiko, which itself had been elected through disgusting intimidation, being the Electoral College. The intimidation included boycotts of businesses, cutting people’s crops, etc. It is amazing that CBS, working with the Nambozes, has revived this. It will not be allowed to continue, you can be sure of this.

Then, KY formed an alliance with UPC (omukago), this was ‘a marriage-of-convenience’, based on that dishonest formula where UPC believed they were using KY and vice-versa. The Federal and semi-federal (federo) arrangements they constructed amounted to having states within states in such a small country like Uganda. Uganda is only the size of the US state of Oregon. Moreover, the concept of a modern government was new. How could you have such a paralyzed system of government with numerous power centres manned by people that were only beginning to hear of an accountable government? You can see the problems we are having with the decentralization process we put in place. On account of the incredible corruption that had crept into the systems of Local Governments, we had to re-centralize the CAOs. You have been hearing that powers of taxation have been abused by town-clerks, Gombolola-chiefs, etc. They have been, for instance, overtaxing banana-sellers, muchomo-sellers, gonja-sellers, etc. What would happen if we had been constitutionally enfettered in such a way that we could not correct these anti-people mistakes? You remember the problems of Nigeria with their Federal Regions that caused the 1965 crisis in Nigeria.

It was the paralysis in the constitutional arrangements of the 1962 Ugandan Constitution plus UPC’s lack of straight forwardness and their double standards that, eventually, caused the 1966 crisis and all the subsequent tragic events. By 1986, about 800,000 Ugandans had died through the extra-judicial violence that followed those mistakes.

In 1966, I was a very active DP youth-winger, this time in senior six. Our group vigorously opposed Obote’s actions although we were aware of the flaws in the 1962 Constitution. The situation kept deteriorating until we took up arms against the dictatorship in 1971. When we triumphed in 1986, the subject of restoring the traditional leaders started coming up. Even in the bush, opportunists like the late Kayiira started bringing it up. In the bush, however, especially during the Kikunyu conference of 1982, the NRM openly rejected Kayiira’s position of talking about monarchies. We said that we were fighting for the freedom of Ugandans; once the Ugandans had got their freedom they would decide on what to do. That was our position. Our major points were captured in the 10-Points Programme. Therefore, those liars who say that we committed ourselves to monarchism in the bush should be disregarded. Many senior Baganda leaders, etc. – came to see me about this issue. I sought guarantees from them that the monarchies, when restored, will never meddle in politics again, as happened in the 1960s and before.

They all agreed and swore that they would never allow their monarchy to meddle in politics. That is how that principle was captured in article 246 (3 e). The same article (3 f) provides that cultural leaders will not ‘wield Legislative, Executive or Administrative powers’. Article 178 reiterates the same principles and goes into details.

While those discussions were going on and decisions were being taken, other old issues re-emerged. The Banyoro MPs, especially Hon. Kabakumba and even Muruli Mukasa, raised the issue of the Bunyoro lost counties: Buwekula (Mubende), Ssingo (Kiboga), Buruuli (Nakasongola) and even parts of Bulemezi (Ngoma, etc.). They wanted them to be returned to Bunyoro. I told them that ideologically, as a nationalist and Pan-Africanist, I did not believe in the concept of “lost counties” within Uganda. I gave the example of my family. Suppose, I said, for some reasons, one of my children grew up at Saleh’s place. It could be because I was sick or away. Are you going to say that he is “lost”? I did not think so, I told them. However, there was one proviso: he must be well treated; he must be treated like Saleh’s own children. If he is discriminated against, then the question of his real parentage comes up. We, therefore, constitutionally provided that all these areas should remain in Buganda as provided for under Article 5 of the 1995 Constitution. However, also, under 37, it is stipulated that:

“Every person has a right as applicable to belong to, enjoy, practice, profess, maintain and promote any culture, cultural institution, language, tradition, creed or religion in community with others.”

In this way we persuaded all the Banyoro MPs, including Muruli Mukasa, to vote for the whole package. It was a carefully arranged package, ensuring that everybody was a winner; a win-win formula with no losers.

Unfortunately, however, no sooner had we promulgated the Constitution of 1995, than I started hearing that Mengo was undermining the NRM. I could not believe this. Whenever I would hear such stories, I would ring His Highness Kabaka Mutebi and invite him for meetings. The trend, however, continued and it grew worse in the elections of 2001 and 2006. The Buganda Kingdom Radio spends most of their time demonizing NRM and Museveni, I hear. I never listen to such Radios. However, the wanainchi listen to them. I ignored all this.

As you all know, the NRM repaired the economy of Uganda. As the economy boomed, the price of land went up. The old colonial arrangement of mailo-land now came under strain. The old mailo-land system provided for a paralyzed system of land-holding. Since the 1928 busuulu and nvujo law, the bibanja-owners could not be evicted without the authority of the Governor and there was a ceiling on the busuulu to be paid. Apart from the Idi Amin land decree of 1975, these two have remained the main principles of the land law in Buganda. Our land Act of 1997 recaptured the same principles after the 1995 Constitution had repealed the Amin decree of 1975. On account of the rampant evictions, caused by the high demand for land, which, itself, is caused by the fast growing economy, there was outcry in the public, among the peasants. Even some of you MPs, like Hon. Sekikubo, complained about these evictions. As a consequence of this, I proposed an amendment to stop the evictions. The unprincipled, opportunistic opposition opposed that proposed amendment. On account of reasons I did not initially understand, His Highness Kabaka Mutebi also came out to publicly oppose the proposed Amendment. I think this was a violation of the Constitution.

Additionally, the Kabaka’s Radio, CBS, launched a campaign against the amendment. His Highness the Kabaka commissioned a group of people led by Nambooze to travel around Buganda and incite people, with all sorts of incredible lies, against the proposed land bill amendment and the Government. Museveni ayagala kubba ettaka lyamwe – Museveni wants to steal your land, etc. CBS promoted sectarianism, at one time talking of people with long noses (ab’enyindo mpanvu). It is not our duty to measure people’s noses – long or short. My reaction was to ring His Highness the Kabaka to invite him for a meeting to sort out all this amicably as mature people. His Highness, however, could not pick my telephones or have the courtesy of returning my calls. I told my Principal Private Secretary, Amelia Kyambadde, to keep calling him to no avail. His Highness the Kabaka could not take the calls of the President of Uganda; moreover, the President that led the struggle for democracy and the monarchies. I hear that the Baganda have two proverbs: ‘gwowonya eggere yalikusambya’ (if you help a person to treat a wound on his leg, he will use that particular leg you treated to kick you). Another one says: ‘oguggwa tegubamuka (a forgetful person will not recall that the old beer he drunk, is sweeter than the new beer he is currently drinking).’ Anyway, given my work methods, I did not give up. Whenever any controversy came up involving Mengo, I would telephone His Highness the Kabaka; he would, however, not answer my telephones as usual. When the controversy over Buruuli came up, I telephoned him; but he refused to answer my telephone. I referred the matter to the National Security Council which contacted the Katikkiro and advised him to have a dialogue with the Baruuli cultural leaders or postpone the visit. They treated our advice with contempt. The National Security Council, with my full support, this time, said enough is enough; they stopped the Kabaka from visiting certain parts of Buruuli although he was allowed to visit Migyera where there were some CBS activities.

When the issue of Bugerere came up, I have been trying to talk to His Highness the Kabaka, since May 2009. Again, he persistently refused to answer my calls; I kept trying. At one time I was told that he was abroad. That should not be a problem. There are telephones abroad. My Principal Private Secretary and I failed totally to access him. When the Bugerere issues were building up, after failing to get the Kabaka, I referred the matter to the National Security Council who wrote to the Katikkiro. Rt. Hon. Kivejinja even met the Katikkiro and advised him to talk to the Banyala cultural leaders as well as the Local Government elected leaders and Administrators. Mengo made it clear that they treat all those with contempt. Given that unacceptable arrogance, the National Security Council, with my full support, through informal channels, told Mengo, most firmly, that the function will not take place. That was the position by yesterday evening.

Meanwhile, I have been consulting some of the influential Baganda about this. I told them that we can no longer tolerate this unconstitutional behaviour of Mengo with the apparent connivance of the Kabaka. The progressive forces will definitely take decisive actions soon. During those consultations it transpired that the Lukiiko is now dominated by opposition political activists especially the ones that lost elections. Most of the balanced voices have been removed from the Lukiiko.

Anyway, last evening, about 8.00 p.m., I, again, asked Amelia to try and ring the Kabaka one more time. This time the Kabaka responded; he rung Amelia who also rung me in our gazebo where I was having dinner with some friends. She rung me at 9.15 p.m. but I told her that I was having dinner and I could not have the privacy to talk. We arranged to talk at 10.30 p.m. Indeed, we talked at 10.30 p.m. I asked him: “Your Highness, why have you been refusing to answer my telephone calls for the last 2 years?” He answered that he was not “aware” that I had been ringing. I asked him: Why does your CBS abuse and demonize us?” He answered: “I do not believe that is true.” Anyway, we went into the immediate matter of Kayunga’s function. I told him that because of the sustained unconstitutional behaviours by your Kingdom, that meeting will only be permitted to take place only under certain conditions which Hon. Kivejinja will communicate to the Katikkiro today (Thursday, 10th of September 2009). I had actually wanted to meet the Kabaka himself today (Thursday, 10th of September 2009) but he suggested a later date. I have no problem with that.

On the issue of the Land bill we had to launch our own counter-campaign of sensitization and forming the bibanja associations. These associations have empowered and emboldened the bibanja-owners. Now that the bibanja members are empowered, some of them have started taking the law into their own hands, if we take the recent examples of lynching landlords in some areas of Kayunga. I blame Mengo and also the opportunists among us who delayed the land bill and created this vacuum.

I also got information that Mengo elements got foreign funds to further their aims of fighting the NRM and undermining the Constitution. We are following these reports very closely and we shall defeat all those elements involved. I encourage my friend His Highness Kabaka Mutebi to distance himself from the Judases. The NRM fought many battles; we shall win this one also.

The conditions for the Kayunga meetings are that:

Rt. Hon. Kevejinja and Mengo’s representatives together with their Katikkiro should meet with the representatives of the Banyala cultural groups as well as the Kayunga political and administrative leaders to agree on the way forward.

CBS stops forthwith their campaign against NRM, including what they have been doing recently, inciting the public to storm the Police who are peacefully carrying out their duties.

If the above conditions are fulfilled, the meeting will take place; if they are not, it will not. Besides I am looking forward to meeting His Highness the Kabaka soon to resolve all the outstanding issues. In my talk with the Kabaka last night, he referred to the difference between political and cultural matters. That is a good point. That is what we have been telling Mengo all along. Then, in that case we should not discuss with the Katikkiro because he is not political; instead we should discuss with the hundreds of the elected leaders in Buganda: MPs, LCV-Chairmen, LCIII-Chairmen, etc. Anyway, I will discuss all this with His Highness the Kabaka, when we meet soon, now that he has answered my telephones after two years.

There is more I would like to say about this. However, let me reserve it for another time. There are a number of issues on which we had agreed with Mengo on which they made about-turn and start misinforming the public. These include the Regional tier, the status of Kampala, etc. Mengo’s Radio CBS also coordinated a boycott campaign recently. This is bad politics and practices and should stop henceforth. I rarely speak publicly about such issues. My method of work is to work confidentially with the Kings or other stakeholders. However, in the case of Buganda, Kabaka Mutebi has denied me this quiet method; hence, the escalation of essentially simple issues.

On the specific issues of Buruuli and the Banyala (Kayunga), the applicable Constitutional provisions are articles 37 and Article 246 already quoted above.

In terms of implementation, we normally insist on District Council Resolutions to find out if the community wishes to have a cultural leader; this is in conformity with Article 246. Both Nakasongola and Kayunga passed the respective Resolutions to that effect. This is the method we used every where, including Buganda. In Ankole, where District Councils did not pass the requisite Resolutions, we did not allow the cultural leaders to be installed. Can more than one cultural leader exist in one kingdom? Yes, because that is what the Constitution says. They need to work out their relationship. This is what we have been telling Mengo to do in respect of Buruuli and Kayunga. In any case, this is not new. The Kamuswaga of Kooki, even under the British, co-existed with the Kabaka. In Busoga there are 11 hereditary chiefs in addition to the Kyabazinga. The bad behaviour of Mengo is being copied by other Kingdoms. Recently, in Bunyoro, there were elements calling for terrorism against Bafuruki, etc. We had to act against them. Therefore, Mengo’s impunity must stop.

I appeal to His Highness the Kabaka to prevail on his groups and stop keeping Uganda permanently on tenterhooks (kubunkeke). We need total calmness to consolidate the gains of the people. If there is anything unresolved it should be discussed quietly, not on the Radios. Decisive action will be taken on any media house that continues the practice of incitement.

I would like to conclude by condemning the criminals, hired by Mengo, that caused damage in Kampala and the suburbs. Initially, the Police acted slowly. Now, however, the Police has been re-enforced by elements of the UPDF. All areas where the hooligans are will be covered and, stern action will be taken against them according to the Police procedures. Looters will be shot on sight as will those who attack other civilians. Those who threaten the lives of security personnel will be dealt with according to the standing procedure of the Police. Shop-owners and everybody should continue with their daily activities. The security forces will protect them. The ring leaders are being hunted for (rounded off) and some have been arrested.

I extend my condolences to the families who lost their loved ones.

I thank all of you for listening to me.

Sneezing hot and cold down the Swine Flu Hotline

2009-07-23T13:19:00.002Z

THIRD FLOOR - I woke up this morning feeling like I'd been hit by a truck, my remains run through a mill and then spun dry at 160 revs per minute. Anyway, its the flu, which has been slowly taking over my life for the last couple of days.

In ordinary times this would call for a stiff drink in the morning, a cup of lemon tea, a session in the gym and sauna and viola! But these are not ordinary days thanks to the H1N1 virus which causes the sometimes lethal Swine Flu.

Having been on a couple of flights back home on Sunday, I started worrying. I quickly googled the symptoms: running nose? Tick. Lethargy? Tick (although I feel this way all the time except when in possession of stiff drink, above...). Joint pains? Tick. Fever? Yes, from being scared sick by this time. Headache? On the way.

The missus was by now looking at me with mild bemusement as I felt my nape and searched for the hotline. After being given the all-clear at Entebbe Airport on Sunday night, I had been given a small white piece of paper with symptoms and hotline numbers to call, just in case I started feeling crap and showing symptoms. As a diligent and law-abiding citizen, I had taken the piece of paper and very carefully managed to lose it in a minute or less. Now here I was showing 70 per cent of the symptoms and going through my duty free receipts for the bloody piece of paper. I found receipts for chocolate, ceiling glow-in-the-dark stickers, plenty of books but no bloody Piece of Paper

After finally getting the numbers from the office, I placed a worried call to the first hotline number.

"I think I am on the verge of starting a wave of death in the country," I said, "and would like to be taken away into quarantine and the key cast into the sea to protect the rest of all Ugandans."

Not really, anyway, I said I wanted to take a precautionary test; was there somewhere I could go or could they send in a mobile lab to check me out. The voice on the other end insisted I stay just where I was (which was at the dining table, wrapped in a towel and trying to remember if I had a valid and up-to-date will and names of all who owe me money). He then read out another mobile number for a Dr Makumbi who, Mr Voice said, would be of help to me.

I promptly called Dr Makumbi who answered on the third ring. After explaining my feelings (hehe; how I was feeling, duh!), my journeys, etc, I asked for advice.

"I am at the Airport right now," Dr Makumbi told me.

"call me back later," he added, before hanging up.

So there I am, in a house with three other people, in a towel sat at a dining table, potentially carrying a virus that could wipe out the human race and allow pigs to inherit the world, and the head of the anti-epidemics task force, or whatever it is called, was asking me to stay put and call him later? When? In an hour? In the afternoon? Just before I receive my last rites?

Being the law/instruction-abiding citizen alluded to earlier, I dressed up, had a cup of lemon tea and went forth into the world to multiply viruses. Well, I did pass by the AAR clinic where the bloke ahead of me in the queue was spotting some horrific leg injury attained in some macho activity like bungee jumping, sky diving or fighting his way out of a dangerous part of Mogadishu.

You can imagine how macho I felt when I went in after him and told the doctor that I probably had swine flu and felt like I had hours to live. She kept a straight face but I could see her smiling behind her clinical eyes when she told me all I probably have is the 'ordinary' flu and prescribed some rest, water and vitamins.

Last week I had car trouble and had to be rescued by the Missus in her car with a tow truck in, eh...er...tow. When we told the Prima Donna of the House, age 6, about it, she said I was such a baby for not being able to push the car myself (yeah, like push it for 10 kilometres, smartarse?). I wonder what she will say when I tell her later today that I went to see the doctor because I was sneezing...

Commerce vs Independence

2009-07-09T18:02:00.002Z

SECOND FLOOR - My new best friends at the Uganda Revenue Authority held a press conference on Tuesday to give more details about how some of their officials have been conniving with license plate makers to issue 'fake' or duplicate plates.

Having gotten that out of the way, they turned to the Transparency International survey which ranked them as the most corrupt tax body in the region and said the survey was, ahem, fake.

URA bosses said that because 60 per cent of the sample was made up of people from rural areas -- and who do not "interface" with URA, it could not be representative or accurate. First of all, that is wrong' opinion polls try as much as possible to mirror the national demographics and majority of Ugandans live in rural areas.

Secondly, notice that the focus has shifted away from evil Monitor which reported the survey, to the survey itself. No word yet on the advertising ban and the Commissioner General is reportedly too busy to take calls. Should we run the story of the advertising ban now or give diplomacy a chance?

Meanwhile, I learnt something interesting today; at least two of the top PR honchos at URA, the same people talking into Kagina's ears, are former New Vision (our competition) reporters/sub-editors.

Go figure!

Biting the hand that taxes you

2009-07-07T17:05:00.002Z

SECOND FLOOR - The Uganda Revenue Authority has cancelled a supplement it had earlier planned to run with Daily Monitor over a story that ran on Monday quoting a Transparency International report that listed URA as the most corrupt tax body in the region.

I can see why the folks at URA would be unhappy with them being picked on out of a report that lists other organisations including the police force (which is the most corrupt but everyone knows that so it is not news). I also can see that there was a bit of editorialising in the story, insufficient context (especially of the reforms undertaken to clean up URA) but I cannot understand the high-handed action - coming as it did amidst the license plate scandal.

Not only is it a case of attacking the messenger and ignoring the message, I am a bit tiffed that URA could choose to use 'taxpayer's' money to fight well, taxpayers. For all our faults, we, too pay tax -- we just filed the end-year financials.

There is a press conference tomorrow where expect a large dose of Monitor bashing. I don't know how it will be resolved (I will try to keep you posted) but how is this for an example of the commercial threat to independent journalism?

Thoughts on a postcard...

Let residents run Kampala; they already do!

2009-07-02T17:44:00.002Z

SECOND FLOOR - I really must find time to blog a bit more frequently. Anyway, here is a piece of my Thursday column in the Daily Monitor. The more I wrote the angrier I got but anyway, here goes:

-----------------

The government, the opposition and Buganda Kingdom are all up in arms over the Kampala Capital City Bill 2009 tabled before Parliament last week.

The central government claims that it wants to appoint a team of professionals to run the city better and plan for its future expansion. Buganda Kingdom officials say proposals to take over two town councils currently in Wakiso District are a ruse to grab the kingdom’s land. The opposition, on the other hand, says that, having failed to win control over the city for many years, the central government is finally winning the game in a draconian fashion – by uprooting the goalposts and taking them away.

So, who’s right and who’s wrong? Buganda’s claim has historical and emotional appeal but it seems a tad unreasonable. If Mengo Municipality, the heartbeat of the kingdom, is being cut out of the city boundaries, is it not fair that compensation must be found in the form of surrounding areas? We can debate which areas to include in the new city – for instance, why take Kira Town Council which is already developed, and not, say, parts of Mpigi which are not? We can also look at the maps and see who wins and who loses but the idea sounds logical – and could raise land values in those areas even higher.

While it’s true that the new Bill, if passed into law, will end opposition control over the city with the stroke of a pen, it will only accelerate a process that is well and truly underway. The opposition might control all but one of the city’s seats in Parliament but the NRM has been making inroads as more and more people became disgruntled with Ssebaana Kizito and then Nasser Sebaggala’s kleptocratic regimes at City Hall.

Instead of using their control over the city to demonstrate their managerial abilities, the opposition ransacked and plundered Kampala, stealing whatever they could carry and selling off whatever they couldn’t. Land, markets, houses, schools, cemeteries, etc were all stolen or sold.

This was not just an opposition racket; officials from the very same central government that is allegedly riding to our rescue were involved in the relocation of schools to pave way for investors, the boarding off of public parks to set up malls and pubs, and the dubious allocation of markets to hawk-eyed, claw-fingered Merchants of Vice.

The central government had a chance to show its abilities in the run-up to CHOGM when it sank billions of our money in fixing the city’s roads, street lights and ‘beautifying’ it. Within weeks the potholes were back; traffic and street lights had ‘died’; the grass had grown back; the rubbish skips had been turned to scrap; and the potted plants down the road from State House – part of Shs4.5 billion spent by highly-placed politico-entrepreneurs on beautification – had been returned to the palaces from which they were, ostensibly, hired.

How can the same central government then claim that it will run the city better? It might be a good idea to appoint lawyers, engineers, environmentalists etc to the new Authority to run the city but do we not already have those specialists at City Hall?

Kampala does not need anyone to manage it. The city manages itself by the grace of God and the fortitude of its residents. We pay private companies to collect our garbage; build walls, hire guards for our security; replace the shock absorbers in our cars when the potholes wear them out; tarmac the roads to our residences; pay to use what’s left of the city’s only public park; produce our own electricity half of the time off generators and ‘inverters’; pay street kids not to break into our cars and generally get by despite, and not because of, the city administrators.
So you can fight all you want for what’s left of Kampala, all you bloody politicians. Just don’t claim to be doing it in the name of its residents.

In search for the winds of change

2009-05-25T11:29:00.000Z

SECOND FLOOR - I gave this speech earlier today at the Afrobarometer Global Release Event at the Serena Hotel Kampala today. Here is hoping that it makes a bit of sense.

Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen

It is my honour and privilege to speak to you today about a matter that is dear to my heart and should be to all who love their country and seek progress for it and its people. First, I must apologise, on behalf of the organisers, for my selection to speak here today. They tried very hard to find someone intelligent and distinguished but they were all too busy or unavailable. So they invited me. Please forgive them.

The timing of this event could not have been more opportune. As we mark Africa Day today, we must ask ourselves the question, as we are doing today: How much progress has Africa made in regard to consolidation of democracy and fighting poverty? Robert Sentamu has given an excellent presentation on the Afrobarometer and its findings, over the last decade, of social, economic and political progress in selected African countries. In my short remarks I shall attempt to share some thoughts about the progress we’ve made in Uganda.

First the good news. Uganda has made some progress in the political arena including: enacting a fairly progressive constitution; holding elections at national, parliamentary and local council levels; lifting the legal (some would say illegal) restrictions on political pluralism and multiparty politics; and bringing some semblance of peace and stability – albeit a fragile one – to northern Uganda and other regional theatres of conflict like Burundi.

Economically, we posted year-on-year Gross Domestic Product growth for more than a decade and have consistently been higher than the Sub-Saharan Africa average. The country has continued to attract foreign direct investment that has created jobs, grown tax revenues and continued to reduce our dependence on foreign donors.

There has been some social payoff from these political/economic developments with more children going to school and more health centres built across the country. The number of Ugandans living in abject poverty – defined as less than a dollar a day – has fallen from 56% in 1992 to less than 40%.

While this progress is commendable, it begs three questions that all Ugandans ought to ask themselves. One, is this the best we could have done with the resources available to us? Two, is it sustainable? And three, what must we do as a country to improve our lot sustainably and equitably?

Our political reforms have not been deep enough or backed by the development of institutions that would engrave them in our political culture. Thus the Constitution was doctored for 30 silver coins to achieve short-term political ambitions of the Executive; armed men have raped the temple of justice; our elections have been marred by rigging and smeared with the blood of the innocents; political freedoms have been given with one hand and then taken away with another through manipulation, coercion or intimidation; and the voice of the people has been silenced to a whimper through the emasculation of Parliament and the enfeeblement of the press.

The socio-economic gains, too, have been lost in many areas. An unsustainably high population growth rate continues to put pressure on the social infrastructure and has thrown more people through the cracks back down into abject poverty. Teachers and pupils have abandoned classrooms often to eke a more rewarding living off the land; doctors have abandoned their patients for fatter paycheques abroad and a cloud of hopeless has descended over the land, giving cover to the thieves and the corrupt to loot, pillage and plunder what’s left of our national resources. Things have, indeed, fallen apart.

As the figures from the Afrobarometer show, there is a direct correlation between the way a country is governed and the quality of life its citizens enjoy or suffer. It is the politics, stupid.

The Afrobarometer shows growing demand for democracy in Uganda. It also shows that many people are unsatisfied with the quality of democracy we have. We must not clamour for democracy as an end in itself but as a means to an end. Democracy should empower the voice of ordinary citizens, not just to be heard, but to also be listened to, especially in the allocation of national resources.

Democracy, right from its origins in the Greek city states, revolves around the core assumption that ordinary people cede some of their power to elected leaders who are them supposed to act in the best interest of the people. If we pose and take a look around our country today, do our leaders act in our best interests? Are we spending our meagre resources in productive areas that will generate more opportunities or are we splashing out on primitive and predatory displays of insensitive luxury? Do our elected leaders deliver on their promises or do they shift the goalposts every time to manipulate ignorant and illiterate voters, seeking re-election with fistfuls of coins and shovels of sugar?

More than one in every two Ugandans alive today was born after 1990. They don’t want to know about the “bad old days” of Idi Amin, Milton Obote, or the bloody war that brought the current government to power in 1986. What they want to know is that there will be jobs when they graduate; that they will be able to compete for those jobs on merit, not on the basis of their surnames or facial features. That they will afford medical care and housing when they need it and that they will inherit a country that is stable and prosperous and a society that is dynamic and inclusive.

As we head towards the next election in 2011, we find ourselves at a crossroads. We can choose to continue the personality-driven winner-takes-it-all political model where we have an election and petition every five years and then let our MPs and other politicians sleep on the job as long as they wake up and vote for their parties. Alternatively, we can choose a bi-partisan approach that puts Uganda first, that allows free and open debate about our burning priorities and how to achieve them, and which puts power back in the hands of the people.

Asking the politicians to decide which model to adopt is, like an African saying goes, asking the monkey to decide whether the forest should be cut down. It is up to the people to demand this right to be heard and served. The Afrobarometer survey and others like it help provide a reality check for our countries and provide useful information that can be used by the media, civil society, and progressive political groups to empower the public.

At the end of the day, however, the responsibility falls on every individual to inform themselves and others, in order to build political awareness and a critical mass of interested and involved publics who can mobilise, organise, demand and receive what is fairly due to them.

On a recent visit to Robben Island, I was struck by many things, not least of all the fact that the dog houses were much bigger than the cell in which Nelson Mandela spent his time in detention. Some of the inmates like Mandela were educated professionals at the time they were jailed while others, like current President Jacob Zuma, were illiterates. The inmates developed a phrase; each one teach one, which helped those who knew to teach those who didn’t.

In many ways, our own long walk to true economic and political freedom can never be complete unless those who know can teach those who don’t. Only such political enlightenment can end the manipulation of the masses and ensure that they do not live a dog’s life.

I thank you.

It's the war of attrition

2009-01-19T08:40:00.003Z

SECOND FLOOR - As it turned out, the interrogation was more farce than fierce. We presented ourselves at 10am, as requested, and were led to the Media Offences Department of the Uganda Police Force. We do not have a Child Sacrifice Department but we have one for media offences, real and imagined. Classic Uganda.

After a while, Charles Kataratambi, the head of the MOD turned up. A stocky fella with a law degree and a sharp brain, Charlie, as many of his friends call him, could have made a smart lawyer or more but he has to 'serve' and his service is to keep an eye on the media.

After a few pleasantries, the interrogation started with Angelo, one of the two authors of the story. Grace, the other author, and I, were asked to step outside and wait in the room next door. Considering that the rooms are separated by thin plywood, this was the equivalent of listening in, rather that watching proceedings.The main thrust of the interrogation, as expected, was to try and extract the source of the story.

It would have been easier to squeeze water out of a rock. An hour later, Grace was next and the routine was repeated with no more success until it was my turn. Charlie and his team of co-inquisitors, including a cameraman who captured proceedings on a small camcorder (so that we could not claim to have been tortured, according to Charlie) wanted to know who had edited the story. I told them I did not edit the story but I was the editor of the paper. Two different things that took a while to sink in before Charlie declared; we have the wrong man. We need to person who edited the story.

Three weeks later, I am a free man but both Grace and Angelo are out on police bond which has been renewed several times. (The editor of the piece was never summoned, after all). The police say they need more time to find evidence to take the duo to court and charge them with endangering national security, abetting the enemy or same such. The idea that the LRA rebels in their DR Congo hideouts are waiting for copies of the Monitor to be delivered to them every morning so as to plan their military formations in ludicrous to the extreme. And yet, as we head closer to the magic year of 2011, there is evidence that this is just the start of a different war against the media; the war of attrition.

It does not matter whether there is evidence or not to justify prosecution; the plan is to keep summoning journalists and make them jump through hoops until they are physically, mentally, emotionally and financially worn out (the lawyer's meter keeps running!). it is a nuisance and an irritation but it could be worse. Ask journalists in Somalia, Iraq, Philipines or Sri Lanka.

So we keep soldiering on, keep packing overnight bags every Friday just in case you are arrested and taken to court after the banks close (so they can't take your bail money) and have to spend the weekend in the chiller. But we shall keep speaking truth to power and keep saying things that officialdom does not want to hear. After all, we are not here to please; if we were, we would have been dressed up as clowns.

Merry Christmas; you have the right to remain silent...

2008-12-31T19:50:00.006Z

THIRD FLOOR -- I got two letters from the police this week. The first was a belated Christmas card, personally signed by the Inspector General, Maj. Gen. Kale Kayihura, bless his soul, to me and my family.

The card went to the ornamental table, next to the rest of the batch from workmates, sources, clients, etc. The second letter, copied to two workmates, was less pleasant and more direct: it was a summons to present ourselves at the Criminal Investigations Directorate to assist the police investigations that a story we published in the paper was prejudicial to national security.

To that uninitiated, that would be section 37 of the penal code act of Uganda. Maximum sentence? Seven years.

In many ways, I saw it coming. Being a journalist in Uganda is increasingly becoming unpredictable, rough and dangerous as President Museveni seeks to tighten his grip on power. Dissent and critical voices must be silenced. A department has been set up in the police force to deal with errant media. A Cabinet sub-committee was tasked to find ways of 'sorting out' pesky hacks through all means possible. The President has, on several occasions, vowed to deal with the media.

While this reference to the 'media' is wide, The Monitor, which I edit, is the 600-pound gorilla in the room, complete with a target painted on its backside. It is us that, more often than not, are foolish enough to question government actions, inactions, graft, incompetence, insolence, etc. It is us (with others) who question why political appointees, many of them school drop outs, are paid more than doctors; why public land is given away in dubious circumstances; why we spend more on the Presidency than on agriculture which employs eight out of every 10 Ugandans, etc.

So to work with the Monitor is to expect these kinds of things. If anything, it is surprising that it is the first summons in the six months I have been back at the paper. Yet, to be honest, when they come, as they did this week, they still send a chill down the spine, however momentarily. Friday is a dreaded day; if you don't have the time or money or sureties to arrange bail, a weekend in custody is on the books. But even if you do get bail, the incessant visits to court or to the CID are as schedule-disrupting as they are energy-sapping.

And yet, these trials -- and the fortitude with which other editors and journalists have faced them -- have a way of strengthening the resolve, of helping you see the posturing of power for the regime weakness and insecurity that it really is. I have been there before; once beaten, second time dragged to court, twice, to gag me.

I will be there again on Friday to take the latest installment from the state. If you don't hear from me for the next seven years, I will be doing my PhD by correspondence in the calm and quiet of the lakeside resort of Luzira (or, God-forbid, Kyenjojo!), all expenses paid by the state. Considering the dearth of social services, that might be the only time I benefit from my taxes, no?

Whatever happens to me, Happy New 2009 to you.

Daniel

Navigating the Great Lakes

2008-11-24T11:00:00.002Z

KIGALI - I had a kodak moment at the hotel this morning when Fred Opolot, the executive director of the Uganda Media Centre came over to say hi to Monica Chibita, my former lecturer and now colleague at Makerere University.

We were all on the same flight from Entebbe to Kigali, shared cars and are also staying in the same hotel (the spankling new Top Tower hotel about which I ought to say a bit more later). Fred did not recognise me despite us having met at State House in Kampala a year or more ago, and speaking on the phone once in a while.

Of course there was that public spat a few weeks ago when Fred called a press conference to rubbish the findings of an opinion poll we'd run in the Daily Monitor on the basis that they'd asked for a copy and we'd not given it to them. We carried the story from his press conference and, asked for a comment about our position, I quipped that all the information about the poll was in the newspaper and that Fred ought to buy a copy.

So you can imagine how interesting it was this morning when Fred walked up to me and said, "Sorry, I am not sure we've met; what's your name?"

"Kalinaki," I said.

Cue a very shocked Fred almost jumping out of his skin before composing himself and reminding me that he actually buys a copy of the paper everyday. Classic.

We are in Kigali for the Conference of the Media in the Great Lakes region, another talking shop (why do I never learn?) I will say more about this. I just listened to a presentation by Dr Mvungi Edmund Sengondo of Tanzania about "a comparative analysis of the legislative framework for media and freedom of expression in the Great Lakes region". I regret to say that I was underwhelmed.

More later.

McCain and Abel

2008-10-16T09:50:00.003Z

SECOND FLOOR - It was supposed to be a ground-breaking campaign; one that would discard with Washington's dirty and dark politics-as-usual and redraw the lines (and rules of engagement).

It was historic, all right, in the sense that we had the first woman with a realistic chance of becoming the first female President of the United States, only for her to be upstaged by the first black man with a realistic chance of being the first Black occupant of the White House, only for him, albeit temporarily, to be upstaged by the first pig with lipstick to have a realistic chance of being No2 at 1600 Penn Ave.

As Senators Barack Obama and John McCain head to the last stretch of their campaign, it looks as though, to borrow a European cliche, America has learnt nothing and forgotten nothing from its political past.

Far from the issues-based campaign it was meant to be, the race has been a business-as-usual affair of mudslinging, smearing and scaremongering. Obama has been cast as a Muslim (like that's a bad thing!), a terrorist supporter, a flipper headed for a flop, and all sorts of nasty names. The Democrats have not been entirely clean either, labelling McCain's policies as a continuation of those of the ill-fated G.W. Bush, ignoring the several issues on which the Senator voted against the President.

Even the few issues that emerged have changed faster than you can say Capitol Hill. First the campaign was supposed to revolve around foreign policy and the war in Iraq. Then, as the first signs of the credit crunch appeared, it turned to local economic issues, only for it to swing back to foreign policy when Russia and Georgia went to war. Now, at the final bend, it is the economy, stupid, and it has left McCain looking, ah, stupid.

Of course our own elections in Uganda are rarely about issues and more about primitive symbols of power (Essanja, cotter pin, hammer, olubengo, etc) so we are not any better than the Americans. The only difference is that we never claim to have an issues-based campaign; whoever breaks more skulls and stuffs more ballot boxes wins. Our system is simple, shallow, and stupid -- but so is America's!

Are Ugandans really kind and hospitable?

2008-06-20T08:53:00.002Z

THE TOWER - There is this stereotype that's been around for as long as I can remember, about how kind, hospitable and welcoming we Ugandans are. Over time, I have come to have my very strong doubts to a point where I think it is all bollocks, honestly.

Mind, I have seen some Ugandans whose welcomes and kindness appear genuine and these, for the most part, I have encountered in the village; they scream, ululate and envelop you in unwashed and unwanted hugs when you arrive, while admonishing the younger family members to make haste, detain one of the ubiquitous chickens and bring its life to a screeching, bubbling halt in a stewing pot.

The more distant relatives hold out organic dirt-stained hands, grubby with the ardours of ekeing a living out of the land in handshakes and greetings that, in good old Busoga can go on for minutes, punctuated by endless 'uuuums', 'aaahs' and inquiries about the health of the clan, the livestock, the village, etc.

In my younger days when my visits to the village were more regular -- if not always made on my own volition -- I was always amazed at the generosity of these village folk who showed not a moment's hesitation in ordering the slaughter of a chicken for a city-dwelling relative who, in most cases, had more regular access to chicken. On departure, they would offer groundnuts, peas, maize -- anything that was in season -- and with a genuine, infectious smile to boot! A few even offered their own children to come along to the city to help out with household chores!

This generosity wasn't always one-sided; we, the city-dwellers, usually gave cash (a rare commodity in these lands of livin' hand-to-mouth and which we take for granted in the urban lands of livin'-la vida-loca), sugar, salt, soap, kerosene, medicine or simply gave advice and wise counsel (which, come to think of it, made us the equivalent of modern-day technical advisers sent by western donors!) But I digress.

This generous, kind and welcoming side of Ugandans does not exist in the Uganda I know today, and certainly not in the cities. How many times do you walk into a bank or a restaurant and feel like an unwanted intruder? Or spend 10 minutes waiting for service while the waiting staff go about their business gossiping and texting? What happened to people greeting you, asking how they can help, listening patiently, doing it with a smile and getting a genuine 'thank you' at the end?

Far from a welcoming oasis of warmth and kindness, we are a country with our finger on the trigger, always a twitch away from a rapid-fire outburst of bile, recoilless and remorseless fulmination over the most mundane things, and a gritty determination to win all arguments and at all costs, even where we are hopelessly and incontrovertibly wrong.

Have you been on our narrow roads and seen the selfish and self-centred way we drive? Hardly anyone allows you to join the main road or indicates their intention to allow other road users a chance to react in time. One moment you are driving behind a car, the next you are stuck behind the same car while a passenger alights and, for the next 20 seconds, continues their conversation with the driver through the car window. When overtaking and encounter on-coming traffic, the driver in the left lane is more likely to pick up speed and try to have you slam into the on-coming car than let you get out of harm's way. We are not just impolite and impatient; years of war, deprivation and disease have left us with a mean, ruthless streak, a dog-eat-dog mentality where survival is for the fittest, the loudest, the harshest and those whose airbag-laden cars are more likely to survive a head-on collision.

We are not kind, generous and welcoming people on the whole. We just pretend to be. We have this superiority complex that we confer upon visitors, especially white visitors, falling all over ourselves to impress anyone with a white skin (and hopefully green bucks). Everytime I have walked into a restaurant or a pub with a white friend, I have been served faster and with more warmth. And the bill has always been put infront of my white friends, even when I'd done the ordering.

It's not just at the personal level; have you seen the fixation we have with 'foreign investors' offering generous incentives to all sorts of briefcase-type investors while our own entrepreneurs (save, of course, for those with access to the corridors of power) struggle to raise capital?

It is subtle reverse racism; where slave owners in the American south used to lash their black slaves, we kneel upon the floor, disrobe and flog ourselves while apologising for not being worthy!

We are not just gifted by nature, we Ugandans; we are listed by nature as double edged swords; kind, welcoming and generous to foreigners, harsh and unforgiving to our own. It's about time we cracked open the oyster shell to reveal what really lies within the Pearl of Africa.

Down memory lane - part III of III

2008-05-19T18:08:00.003Z

NEW CROSS - It's a bit strange to be writing about Kampala so many miles away from home, but again, the memory goes back both in space and time. Apologies if anyone, apart from me, was waiting out on this. Travel, slow internet, and the need to earn a living took a few pages out of the diary. Anyways, here we go.

I am at the junction where the Lugogo by-pass, since renamed Rotary Avenue (although I am not sure anyone calls it that) joins Jinja road. A few weeks after I started writing these diaries I would walk round this corner and gaze, in wide-eyed amazement, at the number of people who'd queued up to watch UB40 at the Lugogo Indoor Stadium. Later, feeling totally out-of-place in the VIP section upstairs, missing the banter and bustle nearer to the stage, I would recall the only time I payed cricket on the oval -- for a media team in the short-lived professional's league -- sharing the crease with John Nagenda before departing lbw for 19, before returning to claim four wickets for 36. Truly my 10 overs of fame.

I look across at the Game/Shoprite mall and try to remember this place before 'development' moved in. I recall the football matches we played here in the sweltering sun with the boys from Naguru, in the days when the best place to shop was in the kikuubo or at the roadside kiosks. A lot of the green has now given away to the concrete roar of development. Even the field behind Shoprite, once used for the national handball team, and which I and about 20 other friends played soccer on every weekday evening over the last five years, is gone; being turned into a hotel(!) or car depot, depending on who you speak to.

I walk up the bypass, past the Shell filling station and recall the days when every such station was called a 'Shell' regardless of whether it was a 'Caltex or Total'. With more fuel stations than you can shake a stick at, I am not sure if this is still the practice. As I walk on, I notice that the green space after the Shell has been boarded off (another hotel, I hear). I come to the road that snakes up to Kololo Airstrip and my mind goes back to the heady days of the revolution when, as kids, we'd queue up to attend Independence Day and other national celebrations. As kids, our main attraction was the police brass band and its eclectic band master (Okello was the name, memory tells me; present whereabouts unknown) who'd toss his mace in the air and grab it with effortless guile while, behind him, banners aloft, women groups, teachers, doctors and other same such types marched, often in white T-shirts printed just for the day. The invited guests in the covered pavillion would have to endure hours of lecturing -- literary, I daresay -- from Museveni on infant mortality rates and 'backwardness'; the in-phrase of the day, complete with chalk and a small portable blackboard.

If you were lucky, and depending on the celebration, there'd be a show of arms by the army feeding our and any boy's fascination with big guns and the latent threat of the military. I have not attended anything at the Airstrip in more than 10 years, not even to glimpse at the heroes' tombs in one corner, but I have, on the few times that there are no spikes left in the road, zoomed past, my own motorised contribution to the counter revolution.

I walk past City High School which, unlike Shimoni, lost only some and not all its land (but for how long?) The land grab has been so frenetic, it's got people turning in their graves, and I mean literary. At the cemetery opposite City High School, a low brick wall has been built around the property to allow the grave diggers relocate the remains interred there and open up this prime land for development. If any new residents are kept awake by things that go bump in the night, they can at least talk to their neighbours in the greenish flats further up the road which, as we grew up, we always thought or believed, from rumours, to be haunted.

I am now almost halfway down the bypass and to my right lies the massive Naguru slum, whose tin-roofs are slowly giving way to majestic tile-roof mansions. The Naguru hill overlooking Kampala Parents, home to mud-and-wattle houses only ten years ago, is now full of posh houses; part of the fruits of the revolution.

The field opposite Kololo Secondary School has not been taken -- yet -- and I remembered the good old footballing days when we played with the likes of David Obua, Jackson Mayanja -- two of those who pulled themselves up by their football bootstraps, so to speak, and Charles Kayemba, who overcame his lack of talent to become national league top scorer with SC Villa but was unable to overcome the downward Okonkwo-esque spiral that saw his early death a couple of years ago.

The steep hill at the end of the bypass, from the spring where we collected water whenever the taps ran dry, leaves me a little short of breath as I recall the old dilapidated houses of Kanjokya and Bukoto Street, whose occupants, most of whom were employees of the Uganda Electricity Board, have given away, with their red landrovers, to new-monied types who've converted the houses to offices. I remembered the days when we attended Catholic mass in the hall at City Primary School before moving over to the main church in Kamwokya, long before the school was returned to its Asian owners.

The light is now failing and while the houses are lighting up, the street lights along the bypass are dark with only a handful working. I remember, less than three years earlier, when the lights had been installed with great fanfare, and wonder who would be able to climb up those thin poles to steal street lights and why they can't be replaced. Thoughts of lights bring back childhood memories of collecting grasshoppers drawn to the lights at night (lights that also attracted older teens to one another, many of whom found darker spots -- which were many -- to douse the flames of their passion) wonder how we survived being hit by motorists.

As I turn into the flats for the final walk home, I realise how far we've come as a country in the last 20 years, and how, without really knowing it, the cloak of adulthood came to weigh down on our shoulders. I recall all the slogans of 'Water/Education/Food etc for all by 2000' and realise how empty they all turned up. I also realise that when we were told, as kids, that we are the leaders of tomorrow, that a new day has actually arrived and that this is our time! Do we really know it? Will our generation make a better country and society? Shall we even be allowed to shape the country or shall we have to engineer our own revolution? Will that revolution be fought out in the streets, in the jungles of Luweero or will it be a battle of ideas, fought in cyberspace aided by technology? I am not sure I know any of the answers to any of those questions but as I let myself into the flat, I was gripped by a fierce, unrelenting realisation that for me and my generation, the future is here!

Basking in Bali, Bustling in Bangkok, Bluffing in Kampala

2008-05-12T14:42:00.003Z

BANGKOK - And finally we came to the shores of Bali, amidst the heat and humidity, the hustlers offering coupons, the taxi drivers hooting at anything that walked, and the Kuta cowboys -- the legendary gigolos of these sands -- who, with their overtanned bodies, fisherman's pants and greasy hair reminded me of a greasy rolex from Wandegeya. What, I wonder, do the Japanese women see in them?

Anyway, more of that later in settled times and climes (back to dreary but good old L soon). I am writing this chop chop in our hotel lobby in Bangkok with the rain falling outside. It will not stop the party tonight and it never does. Bangkok, of which I hope to write more later, seems to change shirts in the evening, from a busy, bustling metropolis, to a busy, bustling (and drinking) Metropolis. Oh, how time flies! But soon, very soon, shall we return to these matters.

I could not help reading, in our papers, about President Museveni's missive to his government and MPs expressing shock at learning that government contracts are inflated and that money is siphoned. Oh, dear me! What's with the president's memory? Does he not remember the 4,000 litres of fuel siphoned off by an elder in his National Resistance Movement who is currently a minister (after losing his parliamentary seat on grounds that he rigged the last election?)

If that is too far back, should someone not remind him of the 1998 small matter of the junk helicopters in which President Museveni revealed he had forgiven his brother, Gen. Saleh for inflating the contract, and asked him to use the proceeds in the war in the north? Come on! Was the President not involved in the creation of Tri-Star which went down with about 20 billion of our cash, and which is on the verge of getting more? or Basajjabalaba, the head of the NRM Entrepreuers team who got a government bailout on the President's instructions -- money that was meant to recapitalise Uganda Development Bank?

The list of inflated contracts snakes all the way back to the hallowed corridors of State House (both Nakasero and Entebbe whose costs were also grossly inflated!). Look around you in Kampala and try to count those projects that we not inflated or whose construction did not involve cutting corners. UBC's relocation costs? Inflated. UCB's sale? Muddled and inflated. CHOGM costs? Inflated. National ID costs? Inflated. Army numbers? Inflated. Oil pipeline costs? Inflated.

If all this is news to the President then I fear we might be in more trouble than earlier feared. Corruption is probably the biggest threat to Uganda at the moment (an upset tummy having done more harm to Kony that thousands of bullets). The cancer of corruption in Uganda will not be cured by parliamentary speeches and angry missives from State House but from strong, sustained and impartial investigation, arrest and trial of all involved -- including those who walk the highest corridors of power!

Now, my beer Chang warms and the rain has stopped. Time to party.

Addis and that

2008-03-05T13:55:00.002Z

ADDIS - The view from my 8th-floor room of the Hilton overlooks a shanty town not too dissimilar to the Katanga slum in Wandegeya. It is hard not to have preconceived ideas about a place like Ethiopia, with Band Aid and all that hunger and poverty stuff fed to us by the media about the place. We are the world, yes, but the luxury of the hotel is a far continent from the city a few metres away. Been here two days and yet to venture out into the city save for my drive in from the airport where two things caught my eye: the large number of Fiat Lada taxis, a legacy of the country's links with Italy, and several cranes at several construction sites across the city, a symbol, in large part, of the country's current links with China.

More about Addis later.

Feeling the pulse of Sharia law and a crash course in fasting

2008-02-07T08:26:00.000Z

THE TOWER - I really must get around to posting the third and last part in the back-in-time series otherwise the first two will get all mouldy. Soon, I hope. A certain story recently caught my eye in Bukedde, the Luganda-language tabloid published by the New Vision, about a Ugandan Muslim pilgrim accused of theft during the Mecca -- in Saudi Arabia.

Now, compared to murder, kidnap, arson, terrorism, etc, theft might seem as easy as taking candy from a child (although, technically speaking, you could be charged with robbery or aggravated robbery if you threaten or use a weapon to do so). Not in Saudi Arabia, which practices Sharia (Islamic) law.

Unlike other legal regimes that waffle and wander along the corridors of legal argument and counter argument, Sharia law tends to cut to the chase; literary! Those convicted of capital offences like murder, rape or drug trafficking have their heads chopped off to teach the rest of their bodies (or the head, depending on whose side you are on) a lesson. Lesser offences like theft are not punished by harmless slaps on the wrist; the thieving hand is separated from the rest of the body!

So, our Ugandan Haji was (and I believe still is) in a tight spot of bother. Although he'd not yet been convicted, the evidence seemed to be clear, at least according to Bukedde. It is not clear what kind of defence one offers in such a matter; really hard to put a finger on a fool-proof defence when the whole hand is at risk! One could argue that one is a first-time offender but the judge could thumb his nose at you and point out that that, precisely, is why they are cutting off only one hand -- the other to be cut off if one steals again. Perhaps a good defence lawyer could argue that coming from poor old Uganda, the Haji was driven by poverty and tempted to touch and that the judge should hand down a lenient sentence. But what kind of sentence would be lenient under these circumstances? Having the hand cut off at the elbow rather than the shoulder? Or at the wrist rather than at the elbow? The difference, sadly, would be the same!

One must feel for the Haji's family, back in Mbarara, I think, who had organised a party to welcome back the pilgrim from the Holy land. Some might have hoped that he would return with a few second-hand items from Riyadh, only to be reduced to hoping that he, somehow, returns home with a second hand!

The defence lawyer could also argue that in the milling crowd our Haji couldn't tell his elbow from his ars* and put his hand down the wrong bag but the judge could easily dismiss this as an attempt by the lawyer to put his hand over the judge's eyes. In a world where a fool and his money are soon parted, it is clear that in Saudi Arabia, any thief and his arm would, too, soon be parted. Unless, of course, the thief can somehow escape the long arm of the law.

Still on the theme of suffering in the name of religion; yesterday was the first Day of Lent and the start of my forty days of fasting. Yes, I grew up Catholic, in case it hasn't caught on yet, and although I describe myself as Christian in a continued stay-away from the dogmatic pedantry of Rome, I decided to try and test my resolve over the next six weeks. Initially I thought I would stay away from meat during Lent as many do, but didn't think that was too much of a sacrifice. So, I went the whole nine yards; no alcohol, no late nights in the club, and certainly no sex.

For some reason, the booze is the hardest to avoid because drinks turn up without too much thought; yesterday (on day one), I stopped over in Ntinda for pork (part of the reason staying away from meat was never going to cut it for me) and instinctively ordered for a beer. The waitress, who has served me several times before, thought I was feeling dizzy when I called her back and ordered for a sprite instead. I also need to get out of the nightly habit of pouring myself a glass of wine or a shot of Green Label, slouching into the couch and watching a movie.

I imagine there will be various temptations in varying permutations; innocent forays into Just Kicking to read a magazine or hang out with the boys resulting into an 'oops' when I realise my beer is halfway, or same such. So I am building my resolve using faith. Everytime temptation rears its ugly head, I ask myself; 'What Would Jesus Do?' I tried walking over a puddle the other day but my foot sank firmly into the muck so I crossed 'Walk over water' off the list. I have considered trying to turn water into wine but from experience all I have been able to do is turn wine into water so that is off the list too. I could try feeding 5,000 folks off two fish and five loaves of bread but I am not sure the police would give me permission to hold such a large gathering in Kampala so that, too, is out.

I guess I need to keep thinking hard for something doable that JC would have done and hope that all the hard thinking does not leave me dying for a drink!

Feeling the pulse of Sharia law and a crash course in fasting

2008-02-07T07:31:00.000Z

THE TOWER - I really must get around to posting the third and last part in the back-in-time series otherwise the first two will get all mouldy. Soon, I hope. A certain story recently caught my eye in Bukedde, the Luganda-language tabloid published by the New Vision, about a Ugandan Muslim pilgrim accused of theft during the Mecca -- in Saudi Arabia.

Now, compared to murder, kidnap, arson, terrorism, etc, theft might seem as easy as taking candy from a child (although, technically speaking, you could be charged with robbery or aggravated robbery if you threaten or use a weapon to do so). Not in Saudi Arabia, which practices Sharia (Islamic) law.

Unlike other legal regimes that waffle and wander along the corridors of legal argument and counter argument, Sharia law tends to cut to the chase; literary! Those convicted of capital offences like murder, rape or drug trafficking have their heads chopped off to teach the rest of their bodies (or the head, depending on whose side you are on) a lesson. Lesser offences like theft are not punished by harmless slaps on the wrist; the thieving hand is separated from the rest of the body!

So, our Ugandan Haji was (and I believe still is) in a tight spot of bother. Although he'd not yet been convicted, the evidence seemed to be clear, at least according to Bukedde. It is not clear what kind of defence one offers in such a matter; really hard to put a finger on a fool-proof defence when the whole hand is at risk! One could argue that one is a first-time offender but the judge could thumb his nose at you and point out that that, precisely, is why they are cutting off only one hand -- the other to be cut off if one steals again. Perhaps a good defence lawyer could argue that coming from poor old Uganda, the Haji was driven by poverty and tempted to touch and that the judge should hand down a lenient sentence. But what kind of sentence would be lenient under these circumstances? Having the hand cut off at the elbow rather than the shoulder? Or at the wrist rather than at the elbow? The difference, sadly, would be the same!

One must feel for the Haji's family, back in Mbarara, I think, who had organised a party to welcome back the pilgrim from the Holy land. Some might have hoped that he would return with a few second-hand items from Riyadh, only to be reduced to hoping that he, somehow, returns home with a second hand!

The defence lawyer could also argue that in the milling crowd our Haji couldn't tell his elbow from his ars* and put his hand down the wrong bag but the judge could easily dismiss this as an attempt by the lawyer to put his hand over the judge's eyes. In a world where a fool and his money are soon parted, it is clear that in Saudi Arabia, any thief and his arm would, too, soon be parted. Unless, of course, the thief can somehow escape the long arm of the law.

Still on the theme of suffering in the name of religion; yesterday was the first Day of Lent and the start of my forty days of fasting. Yes, I grew up Catholic, in case it hasn't caught on yet, and although I describe myself as Christian in a continued stay-away from the dogmatic pedantry of Rome, I decided to try and test my resolve over the next six weeks. Initially I thought I would stay away from meat during Lent as many do, but didn't think that was too much of a sacrifice. So, I went the whole nine yards; no alcohol, no late nights in the club, and certainly no sex.

For some reason, the booze is the hardest to avoid because drinks turn up without too much thought; yesterday (on day one), I stopped over in Ntinda for pork (part of the reason staying away from meat was never going to cut it for me) and instinctively ordered for a beer. The waitress, who has served me several times before, thought I was feeling dizzy when I called her back and ordered for a sprite instead. I also need to get out of the nightly habit of pouring myself a glass of wine or a shot of Green Label, slouching into the couch and watching a movie.

I imagine there will be various temptations in varying permutations; innocent forays into Just Kicking to read a magazine or hang out with the boys resulting into an 'oops' when I realise my beer is halfway, or same such. So I am building my resolve using faith. Everytime temptation rears its ugly head, I ask myself; 'What Would Jesus Do?' I tried walking over a puddle the other day but my foot sank firmly into the muck so I crossed 'Walk over water' off the list. I have considered trying to turn water into wine but from experience all I have been able to do is turn wine into water so that is off the list too. I could try feeding 5,000 folks off two fish and five loaves of bread but I am not sure the police would give me permission to hold such a large gathering in Kampala so that, too, is out.

I guess I need to keep thinking hard for something doable that JC would have done and hope that all the hard thinking does not leave me dying for a drink!

The true face of tribal politics in Africa

2008-01-14T10:02:00.000Z

KAMPALA - I had hoped to complete the three-part series on walking down memory lane but the rude interruptions of the "festive season" followed by the violence across the border means we cannot fiddle while Rome burns.

It might have taken a stolen election to spark off violence in Kenya but the tribal and ethnic fissures have been there for generations. The Kenyans might refer to them with the politically-correct title of 'communities' but the Kikuyu dominance, both in politics and the economy over the last several decades, have left lingering resentment and anger amongst other tribes, especially the Luo.

In Uganda this resentment was, for a long time, reserved for the Baganda for the lofty position they found themselves in the colonial Uganda -- a direct outcome of geography, a bit of scheming and generally being in the right place at the right time. This tribal friction continues today in the context of the proposed land law reforms which Buganda says, in a cloud of half truths and half lies, is a plot by the Central government to steal its land.

Other tribal sentiments continue to flow quietly but steadily. Ex-minister Mike Mukula recently raised the matter in a meeting of the ruling NRM (of which he heads the party's eatern wing) by claiming that most of the top jobs in the country are held by people from western Uganda. This claim is not new; sometime in the late 90s, The Daily Monitor ran a story in which it clearly showed how the west had a disproportionately large number of ministers in the Cabinet.

In a rather unconvincing rejoinder to Mukula, MP Frank Tumwebaze points out in today's papers that many of the institutions led by people from western Uganda, like the Uganda Revenue Authority, the Police Force, etc, have senior managers from other parts of the country.

I have always thought that people of my age and generation identify themselves more by achievement and other associations, such as schools attended and premier league clubs supported than by tribe. Evidence from Kenya suggests that while tribal sentiments might not be worn on sleeves, they remain close to the heart.

Rwanda, just next door, showed how extreme tribal (or ethnic) feelings can go when close to a million people, most of them Tutsi, were slaughtered in the 1994 Genocide. If the international community did not have residual guilt over its inaction over the Rwanda genocide, the Kenyan violence could have been worse.

On a continent of contradictions, tribes give us so much of our history, culture and tradition but they can also spark so much divisionism, death and destruction. The challenge for anyone seeking a new Afrikan body politik, therefore, is how to harness tribal/ethnic power for social and communal good.

I used to think that economic prosperity in a globalising world would rid people of much of the tribal sentiments. I always thought that as people travel more around the world, they would stop identifying themselves through tribal and local lenses and become part of this global mass of humanity.

How naive I must have been! If you look at the online discussions of tribal issues, most of the contributions are from Africans living in the Diaspora (and therefore more exposed and hopefully more affluent on average). It now appears to me that this fast globalising world, rather than give people a new and highly individualistic, capitalist and consumerist identity, is so faceless and empty of real meaning that it forces many Africans to try, as much as possible, to retain their original identify of tribe, language and culture.

It might help explain why many of the Ugandans living away from home pay silly money to buy matooke in East London markets, flock to shows featuring Ugandan musicians, and use every opportunity to speak their mother tongues. Man is a social animal and wherever we go or however wealthy we become, we seek social acceptance in one form or another, but often through tribal identity.

The notion of the nation-state imposed on Africa by colonialism cannot bind this continent together neither can 'free and fair elections held under a multiparty political system' offer a sufficient fulcrum for political-economic change within these artificial borders.

Maybe the solution is to the embrace the tribe as the unit of social, political and economic mobilisation -- as was the case in pre-colonial times. We would eliminate the sham of having 'broadbased' governments that in reality represent the interests of a small ruling elite with a sprinkling of outsiders to give beef up their political-correctedness credentials. Maybe tribe should be embraced, not abused as a primitive and backward form of social mobilisation and political organisation.

Burundi, which has had its fair share of Hutu-Tutsi ethnic violence, has sought to take the sting out of ethnic differences by drawing up a power-sharing constitution between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority. It might still be very shaky but at least it offers an agreed-upon template of how power (and resources) should be shared.

Western-style democracy is simply a system for the articulation of varied interests, many of them mobilised along class or occupational lines. Hence farmers in Iowa will support candidates who promise to give them subsidies and protect them from foreign competition, private equity barons will support candidates who promise not to over tax the rich, and so on. In the absence of trade unions, a true middle class in formal employment, and with a large peasant population, maybe it is time to mobilise and lobby according to tribe and vote for candidates who promise to share the spoils. Smaller tribes would ally with bigger ones to play kingmaker and any one group, needing the support of others to govern, would have to build bridges and roll the pork barrels over them.

It might be backward-looking, but at least it will ensure that when angry members of disaffected tribes come running after you with a machete, you will be able to see them before they strike.

Walking down memory lane - Part II

2007-12-03T11:04:00.000Z

JINJA ROAD - I stand at the new Kitgum House junction for a couple of minutes to catch my breath. I remember the old round-about, with its power substation and shrubs and wonder why it has taken us several years to realise that round-abouts are an inferior form of traffic control only useful for one-street towns.

The junction is new but driving habits die hard. There is a express lane down from Garden City for motorists headed out of the city towards Jinja road but this is clogged by cars trying to sneak back into the lane for cars headed towards Mukwano! I look up and see the cameras installed as part of the CHOGM package and wonder hwo they are supposed to work. They don't seem to be pointed at the cars, so they are not really traffic cameras, and I don't think anyone gets their pockets picked at a busy junction. Well, you never know.

I turn off towards Jinja road and walk past the Centenary Park, set up in the 90s to commemorate 100 years of Kampala's existence. My mind goes back several years when an Egyptian circus, called AKEF or something similar, came to town and set up giant tents with acrobats, fire-eaters and other same such. That circus, opened by no less than President Museveni, was part of our coming out party as a country -- not out of the closet mark you, but out of survival mode to party mode. Those were the days of Lucky Dube's mega-concerts, of travelling Congolese music troupes with catchy Lingala tunes we could sing word-for-word but did not understand, of bleached female dancers with gyrating waists and who seemed to glow in the dark. Those were the heady days of partying, or lotteries, of stunt men kissing or groping cars to see who had more staying power and would be able to tell off the rest: Hands off my Hyundai. Those were the days when Sanyu FM was Sanyu FM; when Dance Force still had the force; when Rasta Rob was on the M.I.C; when motorsport was still popular -- and competitive and was often flagged off here. Ah, those days!

The park has now been privatised and commercialised; children pay to use the playing area and the green spaces have been shared out by restaurants and pubs. The jungle that once was the back end of the park is now being replaced by a concrete jungle.

I walk past the crowd waiting for rush hour taxis, at the stage by the park and wonder why some of them -- especially those spotting pot bellies -- do not just walk home. I get to the Celtel roundabout, which I hear was supposed to make way for a junction but got a stay of execution because it would be too disruptive and, also, I hear, because someone needed the money to complete some urgent personal projects. Mbu!

As I go round the 'bout, I look up to the Celtel House, once one of the swankiest office blocks in town and still a looker, and remember the days when mobile phones in Uganda were called 'Celtels'. They were not for everybody, mark you. One needed about $2,500 just to get connected and hundreds more dollars in monthly bills. One also needed to take out a gym subsription in order to be able to lug around the heavy bricks they handed out as mobile phones -- in reality payphones in disguise.

I could never have afforded a 'Celtel' even if my life depended on it, and when MTN came to town, I remember close family members admonishing me for 'wasting money' on a mobile phone. As I walk past Celtel House, I chuckle, remembering how, one after the other, the sceptics all took to mobile phones and how the ubiquitous they have since become.

I walk up past the Internal Affairs ministry and the passport office, and recall the days when passports took months to come and had entries at the back for you to register foreign exchange purchases. Those were before the days of a certain man called Sudhir Ruparelia and Red Fox Foreign bureau and Crane Forex bureau whose 'Growing to serve and serving to grow' might easily be the longest-running radio ad known to me.

The cars are now zooming past me much faster but the sidewalk, made ready for CHOGM, is a reassuring presence underfoot. Across the road, the British American Tobacco factory roof has been given a fresh coat of paint but the smell of tobacco still lingers in the air, as do memories of the street bashes they brought to down with their Benson and Hedges brand, skirting bans on direct advertising with enticing and rowdy street shows outside Club silk.

The new Ange noir club still towers over the daytime din and bustle of industrial area as well as the night-time commerce -- legal and otherwise -- and cacophony of catcalls, thumping music, drunken arguments, etc. I am reminded of the days of sneaking out school to come party at Club Silk or Ange Noir often armed only with the entrance fee and transport back to school -- sometimes not! I recall the smarter boys who, tired of spending their pocket money on club entrance fees, invested in duplicate stamps and ink. The clubs would have two different stamps and one group member would pay, have their wrists stamped, come out and compare notes. The appropriate stamp would then be retrieved and, for a small fee to recover the initial investment and to cover finance and other charges, would be administered to willing members. Until the clubs introduced glow-in-the-dark ink we couldn't find in the shops.

I am almost lost in thought when a car turning into the Jinja road police station almost runs over me.

To be continued.

Down memory lane -- and Nile Avenue

2007-11-19T11:24:00.000Z

KAMPALA - I had not walked along the streets in a long time, save for the ocassional forays from the office into the town to pick up my mail, get my hair cut or meet people close to the CBD. With the traffic jams in Kampala, you either walk or crawl along in the car, feeling stupid.

Anyway, I am talking about walking home from town. When I was much younger, one of our favourite holiday pastimes was walking. Just leisurely taking in the five kilometres from home into the city centre to window shop and immerse ourselves (me and my big brother -- not he of the House) into the hustle and bustle of the city.

The walking had to be calculated to take advantage of short cuts, such as that through the golf course, that offered good scenery and the chance to pick up goodies like stray golf balls (which we'd try, unsuccessfully, to crack open). The walk also had to have strategic resting points, preferably relatives, close and otherwise, who were gainfully employed and who, as we hoped, would be willing to offer lunch and some pocket money. Two such relatives worked at the UTC bus terminal near Owino market so this was a popular stop for us. One a good day, you'd be taken inside the giant garages and offered lunch, usually large chunks of meat, which you ate close to the parked buses, the acrid diesel fumes mingling with those from the giant saucepans as the afternoon heat sent streams of sweat down the neck and beyond.

After lunch there'd be pocket money and a free ride home on the bus -- you only had to tell the conductor 'I am a staff member's son' and in most cases you'd have been introduced beforehand.

Other days were not so lucky. You'd arrive at the bus terminal only to learn that John, one of the two, was away in Fort Portal or Mubende and would not be back for at least two days. A frantic search would then ensue for Stephen, the other, only for you to learn that 'he's just left on bus number 5 for Ibanda (or some such place).

It was on one of the good days that we were "shown Kampala" as we say in, well, Kampala. Sweaty but well-fed and armed with a stash of cash, we descended on Owino market to buy swimming costumes (no sniggering in the back; most of the shops sold bitenge anyway, and I have not seen kitenge swimming costumes -- although as I have not been to DR Congo.....). Anyway, on the way in, we encountered a small crowd and, naturally curious, drew closer to see what the fuss was all about. A man, seated on a stool, had a small table infront of him on which he'd lain a large piece of cardboard and had three poker cards; two black, one red.

He would lift one of the cards, show its face the crowd, turn it back onto the board and shuffle them around. "Throw your money onto the red card and I'll double it," he shouted above the market din. By this time we'd squeezed through the crowd and were now right in front of the action. A man to our left threw some money onto a card.

The 'dealer' lifted it, turned it round and it was red. He reached into his pocket, counted the money the man had thrown and gave him back twice the money. Our minds were now racing. We could double our money instantly! Imagine the endless possibilities; not one, but two -- no; make that three -- swimming costumes each, houses in Kololo, etc.

Making sure our eyes did not leave the card last identified as red, we watched the shuffling intently until the dealer called for the ante. We both agreed it was the middle card and threw our stash on the card. In a flash, the dealer reached down, grabbed our stash of cash and put it in his pocket. Then he picked up the card to the right and showed us the face. It was red. Like our faces. We tried to appeal the decision. We demanded to see the colour of the card we'd picked or else...

He quickly shuffled the cards and muttered under his breath: "mwagala tulemesa kunywa butunda?" which translates easily to 'f*ck off you tw*ts'.

I remembered that story and other childhood moments as I walked out of the Crested Towers into the fading afternoon sunlight. I remembered, vaguely, coming here when my dad still toiled away as a civil servant. I remembered the brown and ugly facade of the building which reminded me of Buganda Road primary school uniforms and the precarious lifts. I wondered about the renovation that turned the brown into blue, the time bombs of the lifts into swanky and efficient machines, and wondered to myself whether anyone would ever investigate the renovation, whose costs were more than double by the time they reopened the new building.

I walk down Nile Avenue and look across to where Shimoni Demonstration School and Teacher Training College once stood. The students were thrown out several months ago to make way for a hotel that was, some reports claimed, supposed to be built to host CHOGM delegates. I can see white tents in the distance and there is frantic activity. CHOGM has come to town, all right, but this is just an exhibition. The hotel will or will not be built at HRH's pleasure. After all, HRH is the fifth richest man in the world and he just bought himself an Airbus380 Jumbo jet. I wonder why the kids had to be dislocated, so to speak, before the hotel plans were ready to go.

As I walk down towards the Garden City round-about, I notice that at least the 'other hotel' right next to Garden City, is going up in the wetland. Did I say wetland? Yes; there once was a wetland there and I remember, as recently as three years ago, playing football in this park on Sunday afternoons. Most of it is now gone, its legs forcefully spread open to allow concrete pillars and coffee parlours.

Across the park, I notice that the trees that lined the Shimoni fence have been cut down, allowing muddy sludge to spill over into the newly-paved road. Were the trees not ready for CHOGM? Does development always have to come at environmental cost? I am lost in thought and almost get run over by a truck as I approach the Kitgum House junction.

To be continued...

Asking for long-overdue credit

2007-11-01T13:47:00.000Z

THE TOWER - A month ago, Ben Oluka, a brilliant young journo on my team brought a shocking story. Uganda's Attorney General was asking to write off 1.2 trillion shillings (more than half a billion dollars) that Govt had lent, lost, or just could not recover. The sum was staggering and my cautionary radar went off. But little Ben is brilliant and rarely gets it wrong. Plus, he had a good set of sources and a chunk of the holy grail: the report itself, exclusive.

So we did the story, a brilliant cover piece. Two weeks later, the dailies, one after the other, carried the same story without any credit to the good old East African, or young Ben for breaking one of the biggest stories of the year. It is not the first time the dailies pick up the pieces after we've rammed first into a story, but this was one of the bigger ones and I felt rather shortchanged, on behalf of paper and boy, that not a line of credit was given. When we quote a story carried exclusively by the dailies, we always, to the best of my knowledge, to give them credit for breaking or scooping the field. That should be reciprocated. Sadly, the peculiarly adversarial nature of Uganda's journalism industry means the occasional tipping of the cap for the competition is unlikely to happen soon.

Anyway, the story has since filled column inches in all papers and save for an agonised response from Keith Muhakanizi at Ministry of Finance, it is business as usual in the Govt of Uganda. It is this indifference, this lack of public anger, this absence of civic or bureaucratic responsibility, that irks more than any missing compliments. How many stories have we (and I speak for the industry) done showing graft, incompetence, ineptitude or human rights violations? With the exception of the Mabira stories, how many outpourings of anger/concern/advice have we seen? Next to zilch. But then someone returns from the big brother house (without even winning the money) and people pour out into the streets to catch a glimpse of her, the Ethics Minister addresses the press on the matter and a celebrity is instantly born. I wonder how many people would recognise young Oluka on the streets.

Why Kalyegira needs a dayjob

2007-10-17T20:58:00.000Z

WASH, D.C - Timothy Kalyegira is intelligent and industrious. His work (book and website) on the Uganda and Africa Almanac was ground-breaking and a useful compilation of historical facts that, sadly, have not been updated. Some of Tim's newspaper articles are very well informed and insightful, drawing on extensive research and scholarship. It is not uncommon, in the midst of a discussion or a radio debate, for Tim to quote Newsweek of 1983 or a BBC broadcast from 1973 or thereabouts. But Tim, like many of us, has his moments of madness. The only difference is that while we spew our madness into cyberspace, Tim does so through a national newspaper. How I wish Tim would use that space to construct, rather than destruct and distract!

I have been meaning to write and respond to one of his regular themes but had not found the time to do so until now. Just before I started writing this I read a piece by Jenkins Kiwanuka questioning Tim's demands for someone -- anyone -- to produce evidence that Idi Amin killed more than 600 people during his reign. Tim is right to note that some of the claims about Amin have been exaggerated -- but to use these broad brushes of inexactitude to try and gloss over the canvas of Amin's terror is mischevious at best and provocative at worst. Amin could have killed 5, 10 or 100,000 people but those would still be people he need not, should not, have killed. Tim has not provided the list of the 600 (or less) that he believes Amin killed; why then does he want or expect others to do the harder job of listing the 300,000 that are often quoted?

I think Tim would serve his readers better if he used his research skills to find out the exact (or approximate) number of people Amin killed -- and the whereabouts of their remains for those who are still listed as missing -- to allow friends and family find closure, not dance on their presumed graves in a mathematical tango of indifference and pedantry.

While Tim calls for scientific proof on Amin's murders on one hand, he, on the other hand, holds out encounters with a 'seer' about events that are likely to happen in the region, as truths that he holds to be self-evident!. Beyond the obvious contradictions between science and speculation, readers are subjected to doses of latter-day Nostradamus-like posturing by an unnamed oracle! Should we, really, not watch the weather forecast or carry out economic research because we have seers to tell us what next year's inflation rate will be (come rain or shine) and which countries will go to war? This from a guy who compiled an almanac and who says, in his latest column, that the most brilliant Ugandan is Fred Guweddeko, a researcher? Tim!

I, of course, have my own thoughts about that matter of brilliance (the original Daily Monitor stories on the matter, which were flaccid and insipid, spoke of the most powerful/influential Ugandans so this rejoinder was a comparison of apples and oranges) but let me say that while brilliance is relative, authorship of a letter speculating about possible motives for the presumed poisoning of a government civil servant do not hold much sway in my stable, but to every man his own.

More troubling for me, however, of all the things that Tim writes, is his regular theme on higher education, particularly that pursued by Ugandans abroad. In a nutshell (at least the way I understand it), Tim says Ugandans go abroad for master's degrees as a fad and that they have nothing to show for it in terms of changing the country when they return. This is a dangerous and false generalisation that needs to be exposed for the fallacy it is. Tim seems to have a problem, not only with higher education per se, but with higher education sought abroad, particularly in western universities. Tim has previously thumbed his nose towards Ugandans who go abroad for 'kyeyo' but these same folks keep people in school and food on tables in Uganda.

Of course many Ugandans who have gone for "further studies" in "outside countries" have ended up staying on, sometimes to do menial jobs that put to waste years of education. Others have returned to lives of crime, indifference or obscurity (or alcoholism, I hear some of you wags saying). But is a higher education to blame for these choices and other shortcomings? Why not encourage people to drop out of school at primary seven, then? Are the people who do their master's degrees at Makerere, Nkumba, etc., necessarily better than those who do them abroad? Does it even matter where you do it? And who says your degree is supposed to change the world? What of the hundreds who've used their opportunity to change/improve themselves and their families? Should they refund part of their scholarships or family contributions to their tuition because we still have no cure for Aids and still have a war in the north? Getting an MA or a PhD might not make you a better person or any smarter -- and it certainly won't change the world -- but neither will discouraging people from nurturing their aspirations and ambitions.

Tim is a smart fella and he ought to use his skills to do research to inspire people to work towards achieving their dreams. He does not need a PhD for that and while he might not change the world, he will change people's lives.

Here's to faster internet

2007-10-16T20:16:00.000Z

GEORGETOWN, DC -- And so it came to be that the son of man (this version, not THE son of man) lay in his hotel room, recovering from jet lag and tried to take a nap in the afternoon with the aid of Mr Jack, Mr Daniels, and Ms Pepsi.

Many people have written to me wondering why I only blog sporadically. Looking through the posts, it appears that I seem to blog a lot when I am away from the office, which is understandable, considering the pressure of the job (hint hint, boss: pay rise). There is something about going away, from home, from the office, that allows one to think and, time and resources allowing, write about what they see and what they miss. Part of it is the loneliness, having so many hours to kill at airports and in hotels. Damn, I got so much time on my hands today, I even went out of my way and signed up to Facebook, all my misgivings notwithstanding! However, several times it is just the speed of the internet.

Several times I have tried to blog at home or in the office only for the internet to go off. Other times I have written extensively and hit the 'publish post' button, only for the damn thing to go off. We really need to do something about the speed and reliability of our internet connectivity in good ol' UG!

Anyways, gotta get some shut eye. Before I go, a few snippets about what's going down here: George W is hosting the Dalai Lama down the street at 1600 Penn. Ave, much to China's chagrin while there's worries about immigration, Russia's attitude towards the planned US missile defence shield (and Iran), as well as the price of oil which is flirting higher and higher and is expected to hit the $100-a-barrel mark soon!

The sun was out earlier and I was tempted to do one of my favourite things in Georgetown; rent a bicycle and cycle along the Potomac river. It (the sun) is now behind clouds so will take a nap and hit the pub later.

Later, folks.

P.S When we return after the break: Why Timothy Kalyegira needs to find a day job!

Chewing funny mushrooms in Amsterdam

2007-10-15T05:09:00.000Z

SCHIPHOL AIRPORT - Killing time. Trying to type as fast as possible so that I do not have to fork out another $10 for half an hour of internet time. Thankfully it is fast. A ferrari compared to the boda boda cyber cafes back in Kla.

Have not been to Schiphol before and it is like you would expect of any western airport. Went through Entebbe last night and noted that they are about done with laying the tiles. We are getting ready for CHOGM. And then? Will things fall apart soon after, having been hastily put together? Only time will tell. At least the guests will all be gone so it will be 'just Ugandans' to worry about.

Have tried to find one of those cafes that famously spice one's tea or coffee with stuff to send them high. Not that I would even contemplate trying it. Who me? Well, possession of small amounts is legal, but not sterner stuff. Just read a piece in the IHT (or was it the Guardian) on the plane about plans to make possession of 'funny mushrooms' illegal. See, while we go around eating mushrooms back home, here people eat some of the half-poisonous ones to get a high. There are reports of several deaths and injuries as people, high on mushrooms (lol!) jumped off buildings in the midst of hallucinations. Another guy drove his car through a campsite, although no one was injured.

If you hear of a guy who jumped out of a plane thinking the stewardess was trying to kill/kiss him, it would have been a good life (a good laugh, for you sadists).

Yours truly is off to DC, covering the IMF/World Bank annual meetings, and more. More about that and Georgetown -- oh, Georgetown -- if I am able to fight the temptation to jump.

D.K.K

P.S I am sure Dennis Matanda won't believe me posting more than twice in less than a month. Mid-life crisis or wanderlust/cyberlust? More about that, and Rwanda, soon.

Mosquitoes on a plane - scary

2007-10-11T17:31:00.000Z

KIGALI - I thought 'Snakes on a Plane' was a bit scary, ish ish, although I liked the thrill. Had a similar experience Wednesday night on the small-plane ride to Kigali when I had to battle three mosquitoes for the 55-min flight. Of course I have grown up with moquitoes and know how to toss and turn -- but try doing that in a cramped, non-pressurised cabin with the propeller (yes, propeller; it was a tiny plane) roaring in your ears. More about Kigali soonish. Off to dinner then have early morning drive to Lake Kivu....

Orakoze Kyana! Or something like that

Earning an honest wage – yeah right!

2007-10-10T10:20:00.000Z

KAMPALA - Why is it next-to-impossible to find honest contractors in Uganda? Of course we know that government wastes a lot of our taxes on all sorts of schemes, school children are thrown out of their schools, buildings are razed and the ground is let to fallow, awaiting some hotelier to make up his mind. We know that people displaced by war are given rotten seeds when they finally get to return to their homes, complete with flexi-pangas to help them till the land and start new lives. We know all that, and more.

What irks me the most are the smaller things; the micro-corruption, the cutting corners that we are subjected to daily – and not from Mr Government, which is too busy carving out plots, parcels and projects. Several months ago, one of the panes in my living room window broke. No, I have not been throwing stones and I do not live in a glass house, you desperate pun-hunters. The pane intercepted a rock cast by kids playing in the grass below. It fought a good fight, the pane, but ultimately suffered a fatal blow that left a huge gaping hole.

After unsuccessfully asking the estates manager to fix the pane (part of their contract, by the way) for several weeks, I took matters into my own hands, identified a fella who was fixing a window somewhere in the estate and paid him to fix mine. I paid for the cost of a new pane, his labour, and money to hire a ladder. He turned up the next day with one of his mates and they started fixin’ it up. In the course of holding down the glass in the frame, his mate broke it. Just like that.

I told the fella that it was his responsibility and that he should buy a replacement pane as the breakage was his fault. He mumbled something under his breath, climbed down from the ladder and went away, his mate in tow. They returned, all right, in the dead of the night, and carried away their ladder. My window is still undone. Even the shattered bits that offered some respite from mosquitoes and the elements were knocked down.

A few weeks later, in a moment of madness, and against my better judgement, I reinstalled satellite television. The crew turned up, and installed the dish smack right over my neighbour’s, blocking out his signal. When I called them back the next day, they said it was my fault, living in a flat. Or not seeing my neighbour’s dish. Or subscribing to satellite television. Whatever. It somehow had to be my fault. So they grumbled, moved it to a new spot and asked me to pay an installation fee. I refused but offered Shs10k as their transport refund. Two days later, the signal was off; they had unscrewed a bit off the dish and rainwater had now poured in, literary drowning the signal. I had to get a new crew to replace the missing bits.

Three other episodes come to mind. The first, involving a boda boda. One of those crazy days when the roads are all blocked, getting them ready for CHOGM, I am running terribly late for an appointment so I do the natural thing; park my car by the roadside, jump onto a boda and ask him to whisk me as fast and as safely as is wistfully possible, to my destination. After my appointment, I grab another boda and ask him to take me to my car. We get there. I get off. I ask him what the fare is. “Shs1,500,” he says. So I hand him two thousand-shilling notes and turn to open the car door, holding out my hand for my change (note: change, NOT balance, people!). I turn back to see the fellow speeding off on his boda, confident in the fact that I am not likely to chase him down the road screaming thief. That is what dressing up like a ‘corporate’, complete with flash disc hanging down your neck does to you. It soothes the primal instinct out of you.

Another time, another scene; a roadside roast meat market in Kamwokya, a Kampala suburb. I park by the roadside and a fella dutifully comes to the car and takes my order. He returns 10 min later with the sizzling meat, packed to go. “That will be Shs8,000,” he tells me. I give him a Shs10k note. “Let me bring your change,” he says, and walks away. I wait. One minute. Then five. Then 10. Then it becomes clear; the only change the fella is getting is a change of scene for the rest of the evening, or until, as happens in another minute, I drive off.

I could go on and on – just don’t get me started with the car mechanic who got his house up to foundation level by inflating the cost of spare parts which the car seemed to need every time it had to go in. “Anti this is a German car,” he’d announce, until the day I rejoined “and I am a Ugandan employee” and found a new mechanic.

Why can’t people do an honest day’s work and earn an honest wage? Maybe it’s me putting too much trust in people; not holding the boda guy by the scruff of the neck – just in case – while he found a coin for my change; holding the bottom of the ladder and telling the window man I would pull it away if he did not somehow get an accomplice to bring a new pane.

Maybe everyone is doing it and I just came late to the party. You just have to read the papers and learn of folks bottling tap water in mineral water bottles, supermarkets recycling goods by printing new expiry dates and sticking them over the old, expired ones, etc. I guess everyone is stitching someone else up somewhere, somehow. This thought has just brought shocking images of what chefs, having been cheated out of their change by boda boda riders on their way to work, might be doing in revenge. Let’s just say that I am eating in today.

Enjoy a stitch-free day.

Of wine that matures after 3 days and saving for a rainy day

2007-09-28T11:40:00.000Z

KAMPALA - Rachaal M, who I hadn't seen in a bit, reminded me to update my blog. She said it was bad for image, the stale news. I didn't know she read my blog. Then Dennis 'Agony Uncle' Matanda posted a comment. As did Ernest 'Buzz' Bazanye, who enjoys the company of such illustrious literary luminaries like John O'Farrell and Jonathan Safran Foer among my favourite writers. Bannange, I didn't know that celebrities 'whom we read about in the newspapers' read my blog!

Anyway, the last time I blogged (or is it blag?) we was down under, drinking fermented grape juice and enjoying uncharacteristically warm weather in Grahamstown/Jo'burg. Everything went swimmingly until the day before we left when one of the guys from Zimbabwe, having had three too many, imagined that I had said something positive about Mugabe and wanted to 'take it outside'. As the bus was actually in motion, that was not a possibility but I offered to beat him up the next morning if he had the time. It did not matter that I threw him this gauntlet from behind the locked door of my room...

On a more serious note, such is the pain and suffering that the guys from Zimbabwe are going through, that while the rest of us went around shopping for some fine South African wine, the guys were stocking up on soap, toothpaste (Colgate, if you are Ugandan), sugar, salt and other groceries to take back home! This breadbasket-to-basketcase story should end soon.

I did get my hands on a bottle of what looked like a good red and entrusted it with Elias, my travelling companion, seeing as he had chosen to leave his bag at the carousel after the flight from Port Elizabeth. (Mbu he thought they would bring it for him.) I planned to keep the wine for a couple of years, put it away on my 30th. You can imagine my horror, three days later when an ecstatic Elias called me to announce that his bag had finally arrived. Oh, and that he'd put away half of the wine in celebration!

Since he couldn't let my wine mature, I can't see how I can let him grow into a ripe old age. He is still in hiding and should stay there if he wants to propagate his family line.

While those ones are still there (translate), there is the news that the university admin at Makerere has dipped its hands into the staff savings scheme to pay lecturer's salaries. The lecturers are up in arms but should they be? First, the uni says that the money shall be put back into the scheme which, if the uni admin is anything like one or two of my friends, means it will switch off its phone, change numbers or refuse to take calls whenever the lecturers call. But the whole essence of saving is to prepare for a rainy day, right? So what is wrong with dipping into one's savings to pay for daily needs? We do it all the time, plus if you ask anyone from Teso or Karamoja, these are indeed rainy days!

Saving Africa's media one workshop at a time

2007-09-10T13:42:00.000Z

GRAHAMSTOWN - After a long and ardous flight, in which we were not met, as expected, at Jo'burg or at Port Elizabeth, and in which overzealous cops at PE airport took us in to question why my visa for Mali (Yes, Mali!) did not have a picture attached (what am I supposed to do? Call the Malian embassy and inquire? For Chrissake the SA visa has NO photo!), we eventually got to Rhodes University, Grahamstown for this annual pilgrimage of African ICT journalists.

It is the first one I am attending but it seems like half of Kampala's newsrooms are empty, going by the number of Ugandan hacks I have run into in the three hours I have been here! Robert Kabushenga, the New Vision honcho, is here too, and this morning, I am told, held sway in a discussion on professionalism in the media (Yes!). I tried to dig snippets from 'Robbo' in the bus on the way from lunch (a very insipid affair, that) but we had to part ways just as the discussion turned intellectual (basically, at what point do the interests of media owners, who Robbo represents, diverge from those of the journalists?). It shall certainly be continued, that conversation, over some South African grape juice!

There is a huge sense of deja vu when one attends these things; in the past year alone, I have sat in half a dozen such meetings across the world to discuss the problems in journalism. In some, solutions have been suggested, usually on the last day, but it appears that the zeal to implement is drained away by the flights home. Nothing seems to happen!

Nevertheless, there are some interesting discussions to look forward to; in particular one on Convergence and Print Media at which Phumelele Ntombela-Nzimande (SABC), Matthew Buckland (Mail and Guardian), and Arrie Rossouw (Media 24) will speak, tomorrow morning. Quality and professionalism then returns to the table, this time with a gender dimension before we talk about mobile technology and the future of journalism. Considering the growth of mobile phone access and use in Africa, this is one I certainly want to listen in to.

But now, it is off to find a room with a shower and a quick snooze. The night ahead, after all, is ours for the taking.

Sharp! sharp! (as we say down under...)

Frustrating

2007-08-22T12:33:00.000Z

KAMPALA - After typing out close to a thousand words on the gay debate currently raging in Uganda, the computer f's up and I lose the lot. Moreover on a hot, humid wednesday afternoon. Here is what I meant to say: as long as it is between two consenting adults, I don't really care what goes on in people's bedrooms.

There is a difference between homosexuality and theft, murder, rape, paedophilia, necrophilia, female genital mutilation. If someone's actions do not violate other people's rights, their judgement should be left to God or whoever will be there to dispense justice on D-Day.

Pastor Martin Ssempa, who led the anti-gay demo, gave a brilliant quote, that God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. But the idea that we should send cops to check out which courses people play their golf on is ludicrous. They should focus on the really important crimes and we have enough of those already. After all, even if your name is Adam, you are more likely to have your pockets rifled by the government's tax collectors than have your pants pulled down by a guy named Steve.

Needless to say, if you are reading this in jail or on your way there, you are not expected to pay tax -- although it is in your interest to watch your back, if you permit the flaccid pun.

Idle and Random thoughts from today's paper - Part I

2007-07-25T13:35:00.000Z

KAMPALA - The New Vision reports that the government chemist will soon run DNA paternity tests for just $240. Appropriately, the scheme was launched by Vice President Gilbert 'Mahogany' Bukenya, who, readers of this blog would remember, apparently needs no reminding (or fancy test kits) to know which holes hold his mahogany seeds.

Timothy Bukumunhe, writing in the same paper, tells us about Miss Uganda beauty pageant contestants visiting the cancer unit at Mulago Hospital, complete with the girls, in sponsor's kits, talking to patients. Usually it is Sanyu Babies' Home. I personally fail to see what help these beautiful ladies are to terminally ill patients; give them a reason to try and fight on and enjoy the fine things in life?

Then Daily Monitor has a most surprising caption story on the cover, of more than 400 death row prisoners in Luzira attending a symposium on capital punishment. The prisoners were unanimous in their opposition to the death penalty. Hmn. What a surprise!

Oh, and then there is 'shocking' news that Pastor Kojo Nana, he of the electric shock gadget is wanted back home in Ghana for jumping bail. Could it be that he actually walked free with Ghanaian police too scared to touch him and bring him in lest they were shocked?

The way things are going, nothing is too shocking!

Mayor Ssebaggala throws money down the trash can, ex-President Binaisa talks trash

2007-07-09T19:08:00.000Z

KAMPALA - I have heard of several cases of waste and public money going down the drain but the latest is quite something. It was reported today that the mayor of Kampala, Nasser Ntege Ssebaggala had spent Shs300 million (about U$185,000), supposedly of public funds, to plaster his face on new garbage cans in the city.

Kampala City Council has a waste-disposal problem on its hands and its efforts to collect and dispose of rubbish in the city are, if you will forgive the pun, rubbish. The usual excuse given is lack of money. So the donation of the trash cans by the advertising firm, Clear Channel, should help the council's efforts, right? Well, until they decide to spend as much on advertising the mayor's face on the cans as the damn things cost!

Why would anyone even want their faces peering out from soon-to-be overflowing trash cans? It is a bit trashy, if you ask me, and the mayor is scrapping the bottom of the barrel on this.

Which brings us to former president Godfrey Binaisa, he he ruled Uganda for about a year at the turn of the 80s, before fleeing abroad to run a very successful legal practice. He was sulking in the news, claiming his allowances, due to him as a former president were delayed and that his five-year-old Mercedes Benz is grounded in the garage over an unpaid bill of slightly more than $10,000.

I think it is ridiculous for us to keep handing out allowances to former leaders, especially those who (a) did little for the country and (b) have worked all their lives and should therefore have pensions or retirement eggs nestled away. The idea, that a guaranteed income after office would keep their hands out of the cookie jar is naive and idealistic.

Presidents are not that highly paid but when and how do they spend their money when all their needs are taken care of while in office? They should be encouraged to save their money for life after state house. I have nothing against Binaisa except when government sticks its hands in my pockets to buy him another walking stick or set of dentures.

ENDS

The logo no-go, Mohammed rising, drunk Bishops and other short stories

2007-06-11T11:20:00.001Z

LONDON - And so it came to be that, having burnt a hole through his shallow pockets despite taking it slow in Oslo, the son-of-man made a quiet re-entry into good old London to find the sun still out and the pints still reasonably priced at less than a fiver!

The news last week was dominated by a few amusing tales. First was the debacle of the 2012 London Olympic logo that was unveiled with aplomb, only to bomb with the public. Like many folks, I was shocked to learn that this caricature (pictured) had been drawn at a cost of £400,000! Some said it had the markings of the infamous swastika. A more cheeky pundit said it looked like a woman performing fellatio on a bloke (you have to see the Olympic rings for her supposedly curly hair). Then the kicker; it was revealed that the animated version on the website could trigger epileptic fits and had, indeed, caused eight of such.

The Olympic organising committee appears to be sticking to its logo despite 48,000 protests online within two days, and despite several (in my opinion) better logos being sent in to newspapers by disgusted artists. One, which had me in stitches, showed the above logo being flushed down the drain, a funny metaphor of the sums in question.

To the news, then, that there is a new most-popular first name in Britain. Forget Jack, Nick, Tom, Dick or even Harry. Top of the naming tree is the Muslim name Mohammed, with its various spellings. The reason given to explain this is that the Muslim population in Britain is having more children and many obviously want to name their offspring after the prophet.

Considering that the average first-buyer has to fork out an average £180,000 or so for a one-bed house in the lower end of London's housing market, it is easy to see why many people are taking longer to have babies. A report in the papers also warned of slave-wages; young people who must work for a large chunk of their lives in the hope that their wages can pay off the mortgage. We've had our own over-heated housing (or rather land) market in Kampala and its environs which seems to be cooling at last. I just wonder what happened to the much-taunted mortgage scheme that President Museveni promised in his campaign manifesto to help younger people get onto the property ladder.

Was it just another flash in the pan? Or was it flushed down the pan? It is clearly raining puns here.

One show that has been scrapping the bottom of the barrel for a while now is Big Brother. I don't watch much TV, let alone wanna-be celebrities in C-lass reality tv shows but Big Brother UK was on the news after one of the contestants, Emily Parr, I think, was booted for referring to one of her Afro-British BB housemates as 'nigger'.

No word seems to hold as much potential for trouble. It is all around us in rap songs and many young Africans still use it amongst themselves, almost like an antidote against its racially-offensive and demeaning origins. It appears, however, that once spoken by a white person, it takes on intent and purpose, wildly bouncing off the walls like a noun possessed by an adjective.

It might be possessed by evil spirits or by the devil's juice. Tom Butler, the Bishop of Southwark in south London might have had a dose of both after having drinks at a Christmas party last year. It was reported that Butler had one glass of Portuguese wine too many and then set off a series of unfortunate incidents.

As he sssssshtaggered off in search of public transport, he came across a parked Mercedes, got into the back and started throwing toys out of the window. When he was accosted, he reportedly said: "I am the Bishop of Southwark; it is what I do".
He incurred the wrath of the car owner -- and cuts, bruises, and a black eye as he was thrown out. He was later seen sssshhtaggering away in the rather inappopriately named Crucifix Lane. No one remembers seeing him carry a cross. Sorry but nice try.

Somehow he got home without mobile phone, briefcase and other personal items and turned up in church the next day with a black eye and claimed he'd been mugged. After details started seeping through about his inebriation, the church called an investigation which was leaked last week by the Times.

It now appears that, in true Christian spirit, Bishop Butler has been forgiven and there shall be no more whining about the wine. Vintage stuff.

Red Indians and Negroes

2007-06-05T14:45:00.000Z

OSLO - I just came out of a two-day dialogue we've been having on covering diversity in the media. The view from the venue, the Soria Moria resort up on a mountain overlooking the Norwegian capital, is stunning, but so have the revelations from journalists within the conference centre.

This dialogue, initiated by the governments of Norway and Indonesia, came out of the Prophet Muhammed cartoon controversy when angry Muslims across the world rioted and demonstrated to protest the appearance, in a Danish publication, of cartoons that they said portrayed the leader of their faith in bad light.

There is a new study out on the cartoon controversy and how it was covered in 14 countries across the world. It is a thickish document that I will read over the next coupla days, but the controversy showed how the media is struggling to catch up with globalisation.

Journalists are no longer writing for local audiences. A story written in Malawi can and will be picked up off the internet and read by people across the world. While it might not offend the sensibilities of local audiences, it sometimes can offend those of people for which it might not have been intended in the first place, as the cartoons appear to have done.

So hacks from about 60 countries have been sharing experiences on how to report diversity and not our differences. In otherwords, how to be sensitive to minorities and to other cultures and beliefs that may be different to our own.

On reflection, it reminds me of some of the stories carried in the Ugandan papers talking about an "Asian businessman" or describing people by their tribe, as if that can explain their actions. Sometimes it does (the unfortunate soul lynched by a mob during the anti-Mabira demonstrations appears to have been, at least in part, a victim of his Asian ethnicity. Most times, however, it is journalists and other commentators sub-consciously playing identity politics; seeking understanding in our differences, rather than accepting the diversity that the world thrusts upon us as it comes closer.

It will not happen overnight, neither will perceptions change so fast. On Monday night we were entertained by Queendom, a group of five young Norwegian women, all of African ethnicity with hilarious skits about immigration to Norway (a full review of the group will run in The EastAfrican later this month or early next). In one of their skits, they read from real stories run in Norwegian newspapers, including one in which a university professor, no less, addressed an African as a Negro.

Such overt and covert racism remains across the world and many of us have been on the receiving end (including a British cop who once racially insulted me and my brother in Tottenham as we tried to find a pub to watch a football game). The shocking thing is how it is perpetuated in and by the mainstream media.

I have always been irked by tke fact that the Arab-Israeli conflict appears in the international press almost everyday while conflicts in Burundi, DR Congo, Darfur, northern Uganda, etc, rarely do, despite the death toll being much higher in those places.

The answer is that the international media, a lot of the time, reports the news for and in the way their audiences (i.e people like them back in the west) want to see it. The emergence of alternative media outlets on the internet, through blogs and through al-Jazeera appears, at least in part, an attempt by other people to tell their stories their way.

Unless mainstream media can learn to cover diverse issues (and reflect the diversity of their audiences through their newsrooms and coverage), many audience members will seek their information elsewhere.

Oh, well, enough rambling. It is off to the SS Johanna for an evening sail from Rådhusbryggen through the fjords. Good food, free wine, a diverse cultural crowd and the sun that won't set until about midnight. Surely a man can enjoy a few such moments, no?

Taking it slow in Oslo

2007-06-04T11:12:00.000Z

Overlooking OSLO - Summer has finally arrived in Norway. The glaciers are melting, the waterfalls are gushing, the fjords are full and ever-so-beautiful, and the sun is out in full force. Even London last week had some sun, lifting the gloom of the spring rains.

Over the weekend I did the Norway-in-a-nutshell run; train from the scenic Bergen to Voss, then a coach, ship and another train ride up to Flam and then another train back into Oslo. Very beautiful and scenic.

It is also extremely expensive; waiting for my flight to Bergen at the airport, I decided to have a beer -- Heineken. I had read the Lonely Planet guide to Norway and its warning about the cost but I was still shaken when the bill came to about 6 pounds. For a pint! I, quite frankly, can't afford it at that price and it is the last beer I am paying for (not drinking, mark you), until I return to lovely old London.

It is off the sun for a lunch of smoked salmon salad whilst overlooking the fjord down in Oslo. Later, I will try to remember what it is I am doing here and, hopefully, share.

The revolution and its children - Part II

2007-05-30T08:32:00.000Z

KAMPALA - Former health minister Maj. Gen. Jim Muhwezi (seen here in this internet pix while still holding that office) returned to Uganda in the same way he'd left -- stealthily -- on Sunday night. One (seemingly credible) account suggests that he flew BA from Heathrow to Nairobi and then flew the last KQ flight into Entebbe on Sunday night, met his lawyers for several hours and presented himself for arrest on Monday morning.

At the time of writing, Muhwezi was still in Luzira prison from whence he says he is not in a hurry to apply for bail, that he is innocent, and that the real culprits in the embezzlement of part of a $4.3 million grant meant to immunise children will be revealed. Oh, he also draws comparisons between his predicament and that of Nelson Mandela who was jailed for 27 years for opposing apartheid ("Mandela is my hero, Muhwezi gushed, less than 27 hours after being remanded for theft, among other charges).

From his swagger on his way to court to his lake-side (jail) comments, Muhwezi has the confidence of a man with an ace up his sleeve. It is not clear whether Muhwezi intends to only clear his name in the matter or willing to bring down the roof at State House which has its fingerprints over the matter.

In my last post I expressed dismay (not as strongly as I could/should, but maybe old age is catching on) with the massive outpouring of support for the first two former ministers arrested, Mike Mukula and Alex Kamugisha, and of the former presidential aide, Alice Kaboyo.

It was shocking to note that people poured out to support the accused officials, not because they genuinely believe in their innocence, but out of indignation that the 'system' could turn against its own.

Muhwezi also condemned the raid at his house and questioned whether Museveni's government was doing the same things previous governments, which they fought, had done. In other words, the government is being measured, not for arresting and prosecuting former public officials, but for the high-handed manner of that arrest.

I suspect that corruption has become so endemic in our country that it has become a legitimate tool for the accumulation of wealth and power. The president is accused of stealing votes to retain power; ministers steal from their ministries as do the civil servants; policemen steal exhibits and demand for bribes from accused and accusers; NGO workers steal from their donors; MPs steal from the taxpayers, and so on. You can almost sense the public feeling that the ministers are the victims in this matter. There was almost no public uproar over the much-bigger Global Fund scandal because half the country appeared to have had its fingers in the cookie jar!

I was born before Museveni came to power -- but not that far off. In a way, I still see myself as part of the Museveni generation; those born and who've grown up under his rule. I remember, as a young primary school pupil, Museveni's speeches in the countryside, chalk and blackboard at the ready for demonstration, about the fundamental change he was bringing.

Twenty one years later, some argue that things are falling apart and that the centre, like Chinua Achebe proclaimed, can no longer hold. Others defend Museveni's record to the hilt. What about you, dear reader? Do you see the fundamental change? Are Museveni's failures blinding us to his achievements? Has his lengthy stay in office and his efforts to prolong that even further cost him whatever achievements he had to his name?

In other words, is the Muhwezi/Mukula/Kamugisha/Kaboyo case a sign of rot in the system, of the system's anti-corruption machinery finally coughing to life, or a smoke-and-mirror bluff that shows that the more things change, the more they stay the same?

Has the revolution began to eat its children? - Part I

2007-05-22T13:12:00.000Z

KAMPALA - What a dramatic day! Former health ministers Mike Mukula and Dr Alex Kamugisha were this morning arrested, interrogated and, later in the afternoon, charged with corruption.

It all relates to the $4.3 million corruption scandal under which chunks of the said money from the Global Alliance Vaccine Initiative were 'eaten' as folk say in these parts.

The two ministers have been remanded to Luzira prison until June 6, 2007, and the hunt is now on for Maj. Gen. Jim Muhwezi, the head of the ministry at the time who has vowed to go down fighting.

A source who attended the court proceedings tells me that several 'cadres' and officials of the ruling National Resistance Movement were at Buganda Road Court in Kampala to protest against the arrest of their fellow cadres. Spotted in the crowd was Singh Katongole, the NRM deputy treasurer, Prof. Peter Kasenene, former privatisation minister and several others.

None of them seemed to consider the charges labelled against the ministers -- and another former State House aide who is still at large -- unfair. They seemed more irked by the whole idea of the 'system' turning against those who helped build it (and according to the charge sheet, their pockets) in the process.

Has the revolution started to chew its children?

Here is an extract from a statement Mukula's lawyers prepared for the press in the course of the day:

"Today the 22nd of May, 2007, at around 6.30 a.m. several soldiers of the [Uganda Peoples Defence Forces] dressed in battle fatigues and armed with heavy automatic weapons together with several police officers riding in 13 vehicles including 5 mobile patrol pick ups raided our client's residence...

"They cordoned off an entire street adn besieged our client's residence for more than an hour...Our client was then driven in a high speed convoy complete with baring sirens in total disregard of other road users and subsequently dumped at the CID headquarters...

"We condemn in the strongest terms the manner in which our client was arrested. As a political leader, he was undeservedly hounded out of his house as if he was a run away criminal whose guilt had been predetermined..."

Of course all the officials are innocent until proven guilty. But when 'inner cadres' of the regime are picked up, sirens blazing in a manner more commonly used with pesky opposition types, the sounds of infant bones being gnashed under the giant molars of the revolution can be heard all over the hills of Kampala.

To be continued.

The pot and kettle are both black!

2007-05-11T09:58:00.000Z

Robert Kabushenga, in today's Newvision, of which he is CEO, takes a snide swipe at Andrew Mwenda and Timothy Kalyegira, accusing them of dancing on the late Brig. Noble Mayombo's grave.

Robbo, as Kabushenga's friends refer to him, takes exception to the obits that both hacks wrote about Mayombo, and accuses the "Mwenda-Kalyegira axis of commentary" of "deliberate distortion", of "elitist arrogance and narcissim", and of being "diabolic". He did not accuse the duo of causing global warming, selling nuclear fuel to Iran or arming the Janjaweed, but maybe he only ran out of space.

I read Robbo's piece at the end of a week in which I have been thinking a lot about the African culture of never speaking ill of the dead. It is a line of thought that emerged as I wrote my own obit for Mayombo for The EastAfrican (see post below). I personally thought that Mayombo's life was a contradiction and said as much. I was, thus, a bit disappointed that Robbo did not include me in the axis of evil commentary.

I also thought that Kalyegira's column, last Saturday, was one of two things; read as an obit on its own, it lacked balance. As a critique of the effervescent see-no-evil, hear-no-evil eulogies of Mayombo in the dailies, it was brilliant. Andrew's piece in Sunday Monitor was a bit weepish and flaccid.

So what got Robbo foaming at the mouth? He accuses Daily Monitor of being a "mouthpiece of the Forum for Democratic Change", and its owners of a deliberate effort to "create despondence and undermine(s) our national self-confidence". Without saying so, he refers clearly to the Nairobi Stock Exchange-listed Nation Media Group.

Robbo draws parallels with the way Daily Nation covers President Mwai Kibaki, as well as members of the opposition and sees two editorial standards; one for DN, another for DM; "one that promotes social responsibility in Kenya and another one that advocates anarchy".

Robocop is armed and loaded.

I agree with Kabushenga that Daily Nation covers Kibaki's 'policy pronouncements' better than Daily Monitor covers Museveni's. But is it part of a grand conspiracy theory? I don't think so. Daily Nation also covers Kibaki better than New Vision covers Museveni.

(Part of the reason is that Kibaki's policy pronouncements are few and far between and therefore easier to give prominence, but that does not vindicate some of the Monitor's -- and New Vision's lapses).

However, what Robbo is doing is not new, but equally dangerous; insinuate ill-motive in everything Daily Monitor publishes, add a pinch of salt, a spoonful of xenophobia and you have a flambe of hate, marinated in its own juice, topped with rejection and with spite offered as a side dish.

It is easier if it's just the odd critical foreign correspondent; deport him.

Robbo does not point out one fact about Mayombo's life that the Daily Monitor got wrong. He also says nothing about the gushing eulogies the paper also carried on Mayombo. He chooses to only see evil, hear evil.

The Ugandan media has several weaknesses; money, people, processes, public image, and the products themselves. To critique the media through politically-partisan foggy lenses swings the debate away from the critical issues that need to be addressed.

It allows us journalists wiggleroom to ignore valid criticism by labelling it the rantings of the politically wounded. It puts undue pressure on Daily Monitor not to run anything critical of government lest it confirms the conspiracy theorists. It puts New Vision reporters under pressure to write conformist articles, lest they follow their more independent-minded editors out of the door. Media managers spend time scheming against the competition instead of planning for their readers.

Robbo, of course, has a right to critique his rivals' content and reportage. He is better off doing so as a media executive, to improve that of his own enterprise, and not as a party cadre criminalising alternative thought by pouring scorn and ridicule upon political opponents, real and imaginary.

----------

P.S Am I the only one who imagined, on reading the NV, Kalyegira frantically calling the editor of his Saturday column, asking to be allowed to add a juicy rejoinder before the paper went to the press?

Brig. Mayombo; the death of an enigmatic officer and gentleman

2007-05-07T08:58:00.000Z

Brig. Noble Mayombo, 42, who died in Nairobi’s Aga Khan Hospital after a short illness last week, was an enigmatic face of President Yoweri Museveni’s government; brilliant and brutal; kind and cunning; ruthless but forgiving.

He was also daring – he dropped out of law school at Makerere University to join Museveni’s rebel National Resistance Army in 1985 – and driven; he would return a few years later to complete his degree and later, a masters in human rights law.

His was a life of contradictions; despite his degree in human rights law, he was accused, during his time as head of military intelligence, of allowing the torture of suspected rebels and political opponents in ‘safe houses’.

In its 2004 report on Uganda, Human Rights Watch accused the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence, then under Mayombo, of widespread torture, illegal detentions, and the execution of political opponents like Patrick Mamenero, who had supported opposition candidate Kizza Besigye in the 2001 presidential election.

Yet many people saw Mayombo’s noble side and will remember him for brilliance, not brutality. That brilliance first shone through in 1994 when, aged only 29, he was picked as one of the army delegates to the Constituent Assembly then debating a new Constitution for the country.

It was here, in his opening speech to the Assembly, that Mayombo’s political ideology – of the carrot and, often, a large stick – came to the fore. Quoting the legal philosopher James Bright, Mayombo said: “knots which the law cannot untie may have to be cut by the sword.”

He added: “I and many others in uniform today symbolise the politics of resistance to misrule and injustice in Uganda. We wear uniform not out of choice but compulsions to keep power away from those who think power is an end in itself, to keep power away from those who think the people of Uganda are not important, to keep power away from those who think they cause use power to kill, plunder and settle personal scores with impunity.”

His critics, including opposition leader Besigye whom he forced into exile in 2001, claim that Mayombo abused his power when he rose through the ranks. His defenders, particularly in the army say, in effect, that the sword was required to untie the knots.

His impassioned and persuasive arguments helped entrench the Movement as the ruling party in a no-party state and set off a meteoric rise through the army ranks, from Lieutenant in 1994 to Brigadier by the time of his death. As expected, there were grumbles about the speed of his star, especially among more stagnant officers – but Mayombo was not the only beneficiary of quick promotions, and there is little to suggest that he was undeserving.

Brig. Mayombo was extremely loyal and unrestrained by pride; the enduring image of him as President Museveni’s aide-de-camp – one of the several short stops on his career trajectory in the 90s – was of him kneeling down to lace up his master’s shoes after Museveni had just visited a mosque in Kampala.

Mayombo was also very loyal to his family and friends; his father, an elderly reverend last week spoke of his son’s generosity in paying for the old man’s medical treatment in South Africa, one of many tales of his philanthropy. But loyalty came after service to the cause; Mayombo famously ordered for the arrest of his brother, Okwir Rabwoni, in 2001 just before the latter joined Besigye, whom he supported, on a campaign flight to Arua, northwest Uganda.

Even here the contradictions showed; Mayombo helped his brother obtain visas and money to go into exile in the United Kingdom – but later prevented Okwir from being granted asylum by swearing an affidavit declaring that the applicant would face no danger if he returned. As it were, Okwir has since returned to the country and apparently made up with his brother before his death.

Both brothers strongly professed Pan-Africanism and Mayombo, who received military training in Libya, routinely spoke out in support of its ideals of a peaceful and united Africa – but he was one of several Ugandan army officers accused by a 2002 UN Security Council report of plundering mineral resources from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

All officials named in the report, including Mayombo, denied the allegations and a subsequent judicial commission of inquiry found no evidence to initiate prosecutions. True to form, Mayombo made both foes and friends while in DR Congo. Prof. Wamba dia Wamba, who once headed a rebel faction supported by Kampala last week recounted to the government-owned New Vision newspaper how Mayombo had put his life on the line and braved bullets to save the rebel leader’s life. There was another touch of ingenuity from Mayombo; to get the light-skinned professor past the Rwandan army to the airport, he dressed him up in UPDF camouflage and painted his face black. Genius.

In person, Mayombo was full of humour and vivacity but the smile he always wore never concealed his sometimes ruthless cunning. And cunning he was. In 2002 when the Daily Monitor, which, like this paper, is also published by Nation Media Group, wrote an article claiming that rebels had shot down an army helicopter in the north of the country, irate government officials scoured the law books to find a way of shutting down the paper. Finding none, Mayombo recommended that the newspaper plant and offices in Kampala be sealed off as a crime scene to allow police investigations. The closure lasted a week.

He got on well with journalists always giving quotes and returning calls when he could – but he could also be ruthless in his clampdown. When he was appointed as chairman of the board of the New Vision last year, Mayombo promised to uphold press freedom and allow the hacks to get on with their work. A few months later, the editor, William Pike, and his deputy, had been forced out for carrying articles critical of the government.

It is widely agreed that Mayombo, who was defence ministry permanent secretary at the time of his death, had, despite such an action-filled career, not fulfilled his true potential. There have even been suggestions that he was a potential successor to President Museveni, or at least continue to be a king maker. We shall never know.

His death, due to a failure of his pancreas, and after such a short illness, has sparked off speculation that he might have been poisoned. Defence minister, Crispus Kiyonga announced last week that government was not “ruling anything out”. But excessive consumption of alcohol can lead to the condition – and Mayombo, in his social times, certainly knew how to negotiate his way around the bend of the bottle.

How will Brig. Mayombo be remembered? His family (including wife Juliet and six children) and friends mourn a loyal and loving man; the president mourns a most-trusted confidante; while the regime mourns an intellectual who was also capable of ruthless implementation.

It is perhaps a sign of which side of Mayombo Ugandans most identified with – or perhaps a reflection of African respect to the dead – that the country was united in mourning this enigmatic officer and gentleman.

Cutting Down Mahogany Trees and Sowing Mustard Seeds

2007-04-03T10:54:00.000Z

LONDON - When I left last weekend, Kampala was abuzz with two stories that, from the surface, appear to be only about the environment. First was the public protests over government's decision to degazette about 7,100 hectares of the virgin, pristine Mabira tropical rainforest in the heart of the country to allow a sugar plant owned by the Mehta family to double their capacity.

The other story was about Vice President Prof. Gilbert Balibaseka Bukenya, who found himself at the heart of a sex scandal that forced him to cut short his 'development tour' of the country. Mahogany, as Bukenya has described himself in previous battles against a so-called Kitchen Cabinet mafia that he says is out to get him, was accused of planting his mahogany seed in a hitherto little-known woman, Jamilah Nakku, who is currently going through divorce proceedings with her husband.

You must, of course, forgive the quality of that pun, but this was no laughing matter as the VP's dirty linen was spread out to dry and as the custodians of morality in the Catholic Church, to which the VP belongs, called for his head. The reaction from the chaplains was predictable. Closed away in the Catholic cupboard of celibacy, they were always going to cast the first stone.

They also felt justified in their attack on the VP because it is widely assumed that he was appointed to that office largely as a balancing act for the Catholics in the country.

Now, I am certainly disinclined to add to the pile of boulders at the VP's feet and the liberal anarchist in me is inclined to believe that Bukenya's philandering are between him, his wife, and his God.

Of course public officials have to be paragons of morality and to lead by example, etc. On that standard it would be right to cut Bukenya lose because he, unlike his colleagues in cabinet and elsewhere, both above and below, got caught. Sexual shenanigans, including polygamy, defilement, etc are rife in our government and society.

What I would like to know, however, is whether the VP influenced Nakku's appointment to State House where she is employed as an aide of sorts, and whether he influenced her inclusion to his entourage when he got stranded by a coup (and as it turns out, Nakku) in Thailand. If he is found to have abused his office, Mahogany should face the axe. If Mahogany 'only' planted his roots in a different hole, the man should be left to his wife and God.

The trees in Mabira, however, should not just be left to God. The New Vision has soared above the competition (like a Mahogany tree) in its coverage of the scandal (a much bigger scandal than the VP's restless tree, if you ask me). What has not been reported -- but has been widely rumoured -- is that the lease to most of the land on which the Mehta sugar plantation sits has or is on the verge of expiring, and that negotiations to renew the sugarcane lease have turned sour.

The outgrowers who also supplement Mehta's sugarcane raw materials are also reported to be disaffected and considering a switch to a new fly-by-night sugar factory set up only recently in the area. If either scenario is true, Mehta is certainly in trouble and needs some form of help to stay afloat.

Any help from government, however, should be in the form of tax credits or helping him to negoatiate with the landowners and have hi lease renewed. It should not be in the form of giving away virgin forest cover.

In his book, Sowing the Mustard Seed, President Yoweri Museveni waxes lyrical about his life-long drive and ambition to liberate Ugandans politically and economically. The jury is still out on whether the political liberation aka the 'fundamental change' is temporary or a mere papering over the cracks. Economic development, however, will certainly not come by pawning the family silver as giving away Mabira represents. To do so would be to see the forest for the trees, instead of seeing the trees for the forest.

Discrediting the messenger - Part I

2007-01-05T11:29:00.000Z

NAIROBI - A couple of weeks ago, I was awoken by the shrill ring of my cell next to my bed at the ungodly hour of 7am and a voice at the end saying sorry and asking if there was anything he could do to help during these difficult times.

G, my friend, was talking about a tabloid report which claimed that HH the Aga Khan, who is a principal shareholder in the company that owns the newspaper that I work for....(in other words, the top honcho), had fired me for having a written a 'negative' story about the Kenya-Uganda oil pipeline project.

Over the next few weeks (and particularly after a second version of the story was published with 'details' of my sacking) my phone rung off the hook, if a mobile phone can boast such an appendage, earning the phone company tonnes in roaming charges at my expense.

Having followed the pipeline story for months and having written about it more than anyone else, and having uncovered a lot of dirt in the project, I would have been extremely foolish to expect hugs and kisses from those with their hands in the $100 million pipeline.

I was still shocked by the temerity with which they carried out their mischief of trying to discredit both the author and the story. What was disappointing, but not surprising, was that someone had been paid to concoct that wicked poison from which the tabloid readers drunk.

Not everyone had sympathy for me (in fact, the vast majority did not). There was talk of the hunter finally being hunted, of being served in the same currency that, as a journalist, I dispense to others.

I will return to that later. In the meantime, here http://www.monitor.co.ug/specialincludes/ender/endbus01012.php is the story that they were trying to discredit. The names have been edited out for legal reasons in this and the version than first ran in Daily Monitor of Jan 01, 2007.

Comments on a postcard. Or by email.

Ask not what Rwanda has done,

2006-10-03T07:26:00.000Z

KIGALI – It is 7am and the city is just stirring from its slumber. The rays of the sun gently but resolutely torch the mist that envelops the valleys, slowly bringing a golden hue to the tin roofs and shanties in the distance.

Kigali is still a poor, shanty town and from my penthouse suite on the sixth floor of the City Plaza, where our newspaper has an apartment-cum office, you can see the shanties all around the place.

But there is more to Kigali than tin roofs. The city is in the middle of a construction boom with new office blocks going up all over the city. When I first came here, in 2002, the largest shopping centre was KBC, a strip of a block that has a coffee shop, a discotheque and a couple of shops.

I have been here a number of times since but now there is a Union Trade Centre in the heart of the city, a complex with, I reckon, more than 100 shops waiting to be filled. But the impressing things about Kigali are not big buildings, but the small things.

The few tarmac roads are kept in tip-top form, with no potholes. Most of the (few) traffic lights work. Last night, as we returned from dinner at a small but lovely restaurant in Remera, a place popular with Ugandans, we went past several policemen standing by the roadside in many places, their reflective jackets the only protection from the cold and dark. I was told that there is always a police presence on the streets (to prevent crime, catch traffic offenders) come rain or shine.

There is a temptation, both in Kigali and Kampala, to compare Uganda and Rwanda on everything. When I flew into town on Sunday night, the buzz was about President Paul Kagame of Rwanda visiting his alma mater, Ntare High School in Mbarara, where he was warmly received by President Yoweri Museveni, also an alumnus of the school.

One cannot, or should not compare the two countries on size. Uganda, with 28 million people and a GDP of about $8 billion is way larger than Rwanda, population 8.3 million and a GDP of under $3 billion.

Some of the comparisons of military might arise from the late 90s when the two countries, once very strong allies, fought in eastern DR Congo over mineral rights and local political influence. The Ugandan army, led then by businessmen in fatigues, lost the battle and, one feels, still itches for a real war.

But the things to compare the two countries are the smaller, innocuous things. Take security. When I was last here, in May, I returned to Kampala to cover President Museveni’s swearing-in ceremony where, despite the presence of heavy security to protect the 10 or so presidents or leaders in attendance, my car was broken into and my laptop and passport taken.

In the four months since then, I had another laptop almost stolen and have had my car broken into thrice. I know at least 10 people, personally, who’ve lost laptops to this racket. There are hundreds more unknown to me. Despite reporting to the police and paying them to ‘facilitate’ the investigation, nothing has come up. Nothing. Today people in Kampala do not leave their laptops in their cars. Not even in their trunks. They lug them around.

Switch to Rwanda. A mate who picked me up on Sunday took me to a hotel for dinner. I got out of the car with my laptop.

“You can leave that in the car,” he said.

‘Hell no,’ I retorted. ‘They might break in and take it.’

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “This is Rwanda.”

So the laptop stayed in the car, my heart stayed in my mouth throughout dinner, but the bloody thing was there when we returned after two hours.

Crime is severely punished in Rwanda and I would be arrested if I offered the policemen money to help aid their investigations. The government runs a zero-tolerance on corruption and several officials have either been jailed or sacked for embezzlement.

In Uganda, we run, on paper, a zero-tolerance to corruption. We have a full ministry for Ethics and Integrity (which spends most of its time lambasting the gay community) and an Inspectorate General of Government, which does some good investigations, writes good reports and submits them to the President for action.

The only action that usually happens is dust slowly gathering on them as they rot away on the shelves. Of course we have the political will to fight corruption. Our Cabinet would know.

It includes a senior member who was impeached for corruption a few years ago (and promptly reappointed, with a promotion), a senior minister who resigned in 1994 for stealing 4,000 litres of diesel (he was given a job in the ruling party structures and then bounced back, with a promotion), two ministers, who are also soldiers, who were accused by the UN Security Council of looting timber, gold and other minerals from the DR Congo (both have a litany of other corruption cases against them), as well as another minister who is battling allegations he took a $1.8 million dollar bribe to help a company win a tender.

Oh, the vice president also withdrew a defamation suit he’s brought against a local paper that accused him of buying a government house below the market price, and without bidding!

President Museveni recently accused his ministers of being sleepy and not sharing his vision. Anyone who’s been in school knows that in a class of 69 (that’s how many ministers we have), it is easy to dodge or just doze off in the back. Add to that the comfort levels of air-conditioned 4WD cars, a bevy of staff to open doors and carry bags, and sumptuous lunches and you have a sleepy and bloated Cabinet – bloated in more ways than one.

We could take a leaf from Rwanda, which took all government cars away from the ministers (if you are earning a minister’s salary, you should be able to afford your own car, they argued) and auctioned them.

Ministers have performance contracts with clear terms of reference which are reviewed regularly to ensure that they meet their targets. In Uganda, our newly-appointed Lands minister has been tussling with his Works and Transport counterpart, who previously held that docket, for control of the ‘lucrative’ project to repair State House in Entebbe.

Rwanda’s critics accuse President Kagame and his government of jailing political opponents (a reference to former President Pasteur Bizimungu) and for being authoritarian. Bizimungu’s case was heard by the courts and he was convicted. Whether it was fair or not is a matter for the courts and judicial reviewers to decide.

But the ‘authoritarian’ regime has managed to return peace and security to the country, and keep out the FDLR rebels, many of whom are accused of participating in the 1994 genocide (I thought I would write an article about Rwanda and not mention the genocide; I guess you just can’t run away from it), and who are hiding in eastern DR Congo.

We’ve had our share of authoritarian tendencies in Uganda (the banning of political parties, break up of demonstrations) and jailing of political opponents (including the leader of the opposition, Dr Kizza Besigye on what court later ruled were trumped-up charges). Nevertheless, we’ve had war in the north for 20 years.

We could go on and on comparing our two countries on all sorts of things, like why Rwanda, which a few years ago we used to thump 5-0 regularly, qualified for the last African Cup of Nations when we have not been there since 1978.

But that would be an exercise in self-humiliation. We Ugandans should ask why we allow our government(s) to get away with murder, why countries do more with less while we squander our resources (taxes, public land, etc) as well as our future (forests, wetlands, etc). Do we really need 69 ministers, 84 districts (and counting) over 333 MPs, hundreds of political bag carriers (RDCs, presidential advisers, special assistants) to run the country? And if we do, why isn’t there a single road in Kampala without a pothole (a local radio station has, for the last month or so, been offering a cash reward to anyone who can “find a track without a crack”; the last time I checked, the cash was still a stash), why are our streets covered in dirt? Why don’t the traffic lights work? Why do the taxi drivers act with deadly impunity on the roads? Why do we go for 24 hours or longer without electricity? Why don’t we have medicine in our hospitals? Why are our doctors paid a third of what RDCs get?

We could go on and on. But we won’t. My coffee is getting cold. The point? We should not ask what Rwanda has done with its meager resources; we should ask why Uganda has not done better with much more resources. We could learn one or two things from Rwanda, but we must start questioning why most things don’t work in Uganda. We are not fascinated by Rwanda – we are passionate about Uganda.

ENDS

Two weddings and a last funeral rite

2006-08-28T18:36:00.000Z

I actually never watched the movie; Four weddings and a funeral, but someone told me it was funny. I doubt his sense of humour, so I will wait and see but I lived through a bit of that last weekend.

On Saturday morning I woke up earlier than usual and drove out of town for about an hour and a half; destination? Nkokonjeru, Mukono district, a round journey of more than 80 clicks from the capital, Kampala. Reason? To attend the last funeral rites of my departed friend and colleague John Ogen Kevin Aliro.

It was a simple ceremony, attended by relatives and a few close friends, as well as the boys from the Weekly Observer; JT (James Tumusiime, who took over the unenviable task of running the WO after KA died), Hassan Badru Zziwa, who knew KA for donkey's years and Benon Oluka and Richard Kavuma who counted KA among those who inspired them.

It was also touching to see three of the Monitor Crew; Wafula Oguttu, David Ouma Balikowa and James Serugo turn up. They did have their run-ins with KA at The Monitor, and later when he left to form the WO, but it was a touching sight (Charles Onyango Obbo did not attend as he now lives and works in Nairobi, while the last of the six musketeers, Richard Tebere, died in a car accident in 1998?).

Life can be strange. Later that night I was back in Kampala, in the polish and glitter of Sheraton Hotel, attending my mate, Mark Ssali's wedding to his longterm girlfriend, Lydia. It was a bit strange seeing Mark up there as the groom, dressed to the nines and all, but hey, stranger stuff happens.

I had been invited to two other weddings, including that of my colleague Alex Atuhaire and another but three weddings and a funeral would have been to close to the movie so I went home instead and wondered about the strangeness of life and death and how they are so mashed up.

Hmn.

50,000 dollars for an egg!

2006-07-28T11:49:00.000Z

I met a friend in Nairobi last week who was travelling around with what I considered an obscene amount of money; 20,000,000 dollars. In cash! When I asked him if he was not worried about personal safety (or that of his cash), he said not to worry; he had more where that came from.

To drive the point home, he pulled out his wallet and handed me 50,000 dollars!

Now, under normal circumstances, this was the point at which I would quit my job and spend the money traveling around the world or finally settle down and write a book.

The only problem this time was that my mate, Mernat, was from Harare and the money he was lugging around was Zimbabwe dollars, not the more valuable US dollars. A mismanaged land redistribution policy has left Zimbabwe's agro-dependant economy on the ropes while international political and economic isolation has only made a dire situation worse.

Zimbabwe's inflation is currently at around 1,100% and growing every day. The value of the currency is more like 'here today, gone tomorrow'. The 50,000 Zim dollars that I was given -- it is a single note, mark you, has an 'expiry' date. It is a bearer cheque which should be cashed in on or before 31st December 2006. By then I am not sure it would be worth the paper on which it is printed.

I asked Mernat what I could buy with my windfall.

After a short pause, he told me.

"An egg".

Once the bread-basket of Southern Africa, Zimbabwe has ground to a halt as South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki looks on in comical 'silent diplomacy', probably trying not to end up with egg on his face. Too late for that for the rest of the Zimbabweans!

ENDS

When Africa is cooler than Europe....

2006-07-21T14:33:00.000Z

I have been in Nairobi for a couple of days. I have been to this city several times but this -- seven days -- is the longest I have been here.

Officially, I am attending a Reuters Foundation meeting for African journalists discussing this whole debate on whether Africa needs more aid, trade, both, or none of the two. In reality, I have been using the break away from work to shoot the breeze a bit and catch up with my reading.

I have been reading William Easterly's book, the Elusive Quest for Growth (you can never really run away from work, can you) which has some interesting stuff on how to develop, or not to develop Africa.

Temps in Nairobi have been in the single digits on some nights (at least it feels that way) and it has been one of those times when I wished I could go to England to escape the cold (temperatures in London have been a golden 27 degrees plus. Can you imagine? Think picnics in Hyde Park, think swinging Stella Artois on tap at the Nobody Inn at Newington Green....

Stop dreaming and get back to blogging.

Anyway, the news in Nairobi has been all about Raila Odinga, the veteran politician, who is running for President next year after falling out with President Mwai Kibaki. It started with the release of a half-official biography about Raila in which he revealed some involvement of sorts (have not read the book yet, no details) about his role in the failed coup in 1982.

His political opponents quickly jumped into the fray and said Raila, whose father, Jaramogi was an icon in Kenyan politics, should be arrested for treason. No chance, said Amos Wako, Kenya's Attorney General.

The admission in the book was not the same as a court admission, there was no complainant and the charges were time-barred, anyway.

Little has changed in Nairobi. The streets are still as dirty as those in Kampala, the traffic jam is worse but I am told you now get mugged after dark, not in the day as used to happen.

I have been too busy with this aid and trade stuff, I have hardly seen the town at night (did not want to get mugged as well). That is about to change.

Carnivore is on the cards tonight and although I have an early flight to catch tomorrow, I might squeeze in one or two clubs. Nothing fancy, just my humble contribution to the Kenyan economy (giving aid so that Kenyans can trade).

D

Oh, the irony of the LRA

2006-07-14T08:12:00.000Z

Now that the Lord's Resistance Army rebels are in the news, let's just look at their latest offering dripping, not with the blood of the innocents, but with irony.

According to the Vice President of the Government of South Sudan, Riek Marchar, the two LRA top honchos, Joseph Kony and Vincent Otti refused to travel to Juba to attend the planned peace talks with a Ugandan government delegation because they were afraid of being abducted whilst there, and handed over to the International Criminal Court, which has already issued warrants for their arrest.

Well, after ordering and masterminding the abduction of thousands of children in Nothern Uganda over the past two decades, the two rebel leaders probably know what they are talking about.

Oh, the irony!

Was Kony born to be wild?

2006-07-05T10:34:00.000Z

A lot of stuff has been said about LRA rebel leader Joseph Kony. He has been accused of rape, murder, abduction, defilement, forceful surgery on unwilling victims, etc., but he has never been accused of having a sense of humour.

Until now.

What else can you make of this picture, which ran on the cover of the Daily Monitor on July 5, of the rebel leader, in his 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' pose, wearing a T-shirt with the words 'Born to be wild'?

Let us narrow the possibilities. One, unbelievably, is that Kony has either a sense of humour or irony, or both, and selected the T-shirt himself in a second-hand clothes market in Juba.

Two, that the rebel leader is totally clueless or too busy with matters of life and death to wonder what the words on the T are, in which case he is like those unknowing souls (God bless their innocent souls) who proudly walk around with Tees that have phrases like; 'New York City Mortuary Attendant'.

Still in the papers, there is a story about Government plans to install alarms in resettlement homes to fight insecurity, according to the good commander of the land forces, Lt. Gen. Katumba Wamala.

Unless we have devised new, solar powered alarms, I don't know how this will work in an area that largely has no electricity. But let us imagine, somehow, that the things are installed, and that a few remnants attack a home. Excerpts follow.

Resident: Hello, is that the police/army/whatever the case maybe?
Officer: Yes, go ahead, over!
Resident: We are being attacked by rebels.
Officer: Declare your location, over!
Resident: Kacoke Madit resettlement home
Officer: How do we get there, over!
Resident: You walk towards Gulu town until you find an anthill that is near a mango tree. You might see some small boys playing there. Then you turn left and go until you find some old women arguing over a land boundary....
Officer: We don't have fuel
Resident: But officer, we will surely die if you don't come
Officer: You mean they are armed?
Resident: They have machetes, Ak-47s....
Officer: Beep...beep...beep...(phone hang up)
Resident: Hullo? Hullo?
(Sound of gunfire, machetes, wails, etc)
Rebel leader: Shut up! Don't you know we were born to be wild?

End credits...

Surviving the budget on two wheels and tick spray

2006-06-17T11:39:00.000Z

Dr Ezra Suruma presented his budget on June 15; in summary, he scrapped taxes on condoms and tick sprays, introduced tax on bottled water, increased tax on non-malt beer, and road licenses and traffic fines.

What does it all mean? For starters, it is going to hurt if you own a car or were planning to buy one. With a 10 percent environment fee on all non-commercial cars made before 1998, probably eight out of every 10 people buying a used car in the next 12 months will pay more.

If you have a tough skin (and an even tougher skull), you might consider buying a bicyle and riding to work. On the plus side, there is no traffic jam to worry about, it is good exercise and cheap too. Plus you don't have to pay Multiplex for parking (although you might have to invest in a chain).

On the negative side, your workmates might have a problem with you walking in all sweaty and your dating diary might suddenly become blank -- especially if you buy a 'Hero' or 'Raleigh' bicycle. I do not see many chicks taking up your offer to give them a 'ride' from Just Kicking to Rhino Pub, especially if they have to get off the bicycle and walk up Ternarn Avenue...

The levy on the bottled water might make it a bit more expensive but I wonder if you would still have to pay if you poured the water in a kaveera instead? It would still be cheaper than Eagle and Senator beer (who drinks this stuff? does it taste like bottled malwa?).

But you can take some bits of the budget to heart; slashing tax on condoms means protected sex just became a bit cheaper and if you do a 'Jacob Zuma' and forget one, don't just take a warm bath; use a tick spray; it just became cheaper too!

Don't hate the player; hate the game, grave diggers!

2006-06-07T10:52:00.000Z

My posting on my late friend and colleague Kevin Aliro has generated several interesting comments, not on the man who inspired many journalists of his and my generation, but on my own career and my relationship with him.

In a nutshell, the claims are that I got to the top(?) by sucking up to Kevin, that I claim to be the best in the business(??), that I am not that good anyway, etc. It was also claimed that a few of the comments being written in my defence were by me!

Kevin must have turned in his grave!

Frankly, shit don't faze me.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions, however inaccurate or malicious. And with the anonymity granted by the Internet, even moral and intellectual cowards can vent. Still, African culture teaches us that we should have some respect for the dead and not speak ill of those who cannot answer back.

I have been absolutely humbled by the unsolicited defences that have been written to try and detoxicate the poison, hate and malice. A few weeks ago, Timothy Kalyegira asked me what, from my travels around the continent, amazes me most about Africans. I told him it was our inability to plan long-term.

With the benefit of hindsight, I think it is our zero-sum attitute to life. We seem to think that people who succeed in one thing or the other do so at our cost; that if one makes a million shillings, that person reduces, by that amount, the maximum amount of money that others can make!

Other people, unshackled by spite and envy, learn, emulate, do things better, become better people. When the Americans started making cars, the Japanese did not call them names or pray for earthquakes to level the States (although my friends in San Francisco might have a thing or two to say about this earthquake thing...). They took the concept back to Japan and simply produced better and cheaper cars.

Just for the record, I do not think journalism is a (zero-sum) profession of rank, where one is better than the other; different people bring different gifts to the party. I think younger journalists (and I fall in this category although I no longer qualify for student fares. Damn!)and those who feel that the sun is setting on careers that promised a lot and delivered little are best advised to be humble enough to learn from those that know what they, themselves, do not.

If I know anything in the trade, it is because I have been lucky to work with, and learn from truly brilliant journalists. There are the veterans like Wafula Oguttu, David Ouma Balikowa (a father-figure, if I ever had one in the trade), Charles Onyango-Obbo (a man I think is smarter than even he realises), Onapito Ekomoloit (who might have nipped my career in the bud if he'd gone on to throw out the gangly teen he found sitting behind his computer at The Crusader in '98) as well as the rest of the Crus crew; George Lugalambi, Laura Mulenga, Sara Mirembe, Martin Mpuuga and Richard Tusiime who gave me my first break -- not to take anything away from Opio Sam Caleb, Oscar, a poor English teacher who introduced me to journalism while only 8!

People like Joseph Were, Sara Ssegane, Sara Namulondo, Robert Kasozi, Charlotte Kaweesa, Odoobo Bichachi, Loy Nabeta, Jim Mugunga, Simwogerere Kyazze (a great guy, truly), Mark Ssali and others too numerous to name helped make Monitor my second home; Andru Mwenda made it a very noisy home (boy, is he loud!) but he helped set the bar and still does; I have shared lots of beers with Gerry Loughran and Peter G. Mwesige (Doc!) but those two, plus Kevin, taught me more on the job than I learnt at J-school (the times I did turn up).

I do not think of myself as brilliant (but don't let that fool you!). I do not look back at how far I have come. I look at how far I can go. What I can do. What I can learn. I started low. Covered trash no one wanted. Beauty paegents. Product launches. Did sports. Did radio. Produced programmes. Hosted shows. Did foreign news. Did TV. Did local news. Now I do business. And political economy (The Chinese are coming!). I read books. I went back to school and got my MA (with merit). I have not ruled out a PhD!. I am learning French. And Spanish. Then Chinese. Maybe even Arabic, Insh Allah. I taught myself photography. Documentary making. Web design. I've been on the Gang. And in Bush House. I am working on projects. To get out of the projects.

I have not arrived. I am not even on my way yet. I am just getting started. So don't hate on me. Don't hate the player. Hate the game. And let Kevin rest in peace.

Peace.

Diary of a weary traveller - updated

2006-05-18T15:43:00.000Z

BAMAKO, May 16, 2006

It is 41 degrees celsius in the shade and empty, desolate desert land lies on both sides of the road. I am in Bamako, Mali, where I have just arrived after a seven hour flight from Nairobi.

The flight, like all good flights, was uneventful. I once remember spending what felt like an hour circling Kigali airport in nasty turbulence. Give me a boring, uneventful flight anyday.

Anyway, the airport at Bamako is one of the lousiest I have seen. It makes Entebbe look like Heathrow or JFK. I had walked out of the pressurised cabin into the hot and humid desert and into the slightly warmer arrival's lounge, a small room teeming with busy bodies, a few immigration officials, and cops, who I would have a run in with, but more of that later.

I had filled in an arrival form, 'assisted' by one of the busy bodies, never mind that he did not speak a word of English. My own French, c'est un peu. I asked for a transit visa, had my passport stamped, handed over my yellow fever vaccination card to a bored official for examination and walked out on the other side, back into the heat.

I ask the busy body to find me a cab to take me to a hotel in Bamako so that I can freshen up while I wait for my connecting flight. I am led to a parking lot with three cabs and I choose the best. Ha. The best. Yeah. I do not want to dwell on description here. You are probably a busy person, reader, but suffice to say that it had been a very long time since I last rode in a car that was started by clenching two wires together.

The driver, an elderly man with grey hair and beard, looks 65, but he could be 40 for all I know (the desert is a harsh place to live, let alone drive a cab in).

I settle into the back of the dirty cab which is searing hot. As we roll down towards Bamako, I open the car window to get some fresh air adn I am hit by a gust of hot air, like someone has turned on a hair dryer or industrial furnace in my face. I roll the window back up. That way, if I steam to death in the back of the cab, at least the vultures will have to wait a few days for the glass to crack.

I eventually end up at the Hotel Olympe, an unsightly hulk designed or built by someone with more money that style/brains. I have no complaints, however, about the airconditioned lounge, where I rest my weary bones, check my email on one of their computers and head to the restaurant for lunch.

I order some chicken and rice and sit back and chill, avec un glas de coke. Le restaurant il ny pas chaud, c'est bon!

I am jolted out of my lull 20 minutes later when the waitress turns up weighed down by two plates, one with about a kilo of steamed rice, another with what looks like a cooked goat, but is actually a chicken.

I now realise why some of the guys from West Africa are easily over 6 feet; it is all that food!

After playing around in the pool, it is time to get back to the airport. I ask the hotel staff to get me a cab and the bellhop helps carry my bags to a cab that looks familiar. It is my cabbie from the airport, the old man around Bamako.

The bellhop tells him to take me to the airport, turns to me and tells me to pay CFA 5000. "Oi!" I howl in protest. "How come it is only CFA 5000? I paid this guy CFA 7500 to bring me here."

We both turn to the Old Man About Bamako, who smiles sheepishly as the bellhop inquires about the discrepancy, and lies through his grey beard that he was waiting for me all along. I think honesty does evaporate under the desert sun.

Anyway, we head back to the airport in the steaming, rickety cab and I am too relieved to get out, I forget and give the guy CFA 5000, instead of the CFA 2500 I had wanted to give him.

As I walk into the airport, I am stopped by half a dozen policemen lounging on chairs in the entrance, dressed in sky blue shirts and black trousers.

"Passport," orders one of them, and I hand the document over together with my ticket.

He flips through the pages, looks up at me, shakes his head, flips the pages again, then turns his head back to me and addresses me in French. I can figure out he is saying something about me violating my transit visa but I feign complete ignorance of French and force him to say in out in terrible English.

He says my transit visa does not allow me to leave the airport grounds and that since I did and went into Bamako, I have to get a tourist visa.

I politely explain to him that I was told by one of his own that I could go to Bamako, and that if that was wrong, it was an honest mistake by a law-abiding citizen with good intentions.

After another five animated minutes in which I insist that (a) I have no money, (b) I could get money if I could an ATM that could take my mastercard (a bit like asking for a jacuzzi in the desert) and (c) that in any case I would insist on getting a receipt for accountability, he asks me to go check in and then return to pay for the visa.

Yeah right. I kept thinking about him and his blue uniform as my plane soared above the west african skies, taking me to Ouagadougou.

Actually, that is what I wish had happened. As it turned out, I did check in and went to the lounge, waited for the boarding call, and walked to the plane. As I went through the last security check, another cop asked for my passport and boarding pass.

He did not even look at them; he put them behind him on the table and told me I was not leaving unless I had a visa. In the background, I could hear the final boarding call being announced. This was the only flight out of Bamako to Ouagadougou. The next was in two days, after my meeting had ended.

First I asked the guy to be reasonable and let me go. Then I realised that he wanted a bribe and I decided I would only give it to him as the very last resort. Since he was playing bad cop, I would play bad passenger.

'Look,' I told him. 'I have to be on that plane there whether you like it or not. So if u insist on me getting a visa, take me to the visa office, I will pay for it as long, and I repeat, as long as I am issued a receipt in accordance with internationally accepted norms and practices.'

To be totally honest, I was not that eloquent, but I made myself clear enough to show that I was not going to give a bribe. So i was led out of the building to the tarmac, led into Arrivals where I paid $30 for a visa, walked back out onto the tarmac, and onto the plane!

When I return to Bamako a few days later, I walk up to the visa office and insist on getting a visa this time, since I have a 24-hour lay off in the city. The visa official -- the same guy who issued me with a visa a few days earlier -- tells me that since I did not use it then, I could go into town on the visa.

That is how I ended up setting myself up in the Hotel Olympe in Bamako, hiring a cabbie and driving through the warm night catching in the beautiful sights of the city lights reflected in the Niger river, eating roast meat at a restaurant whose name I can't remember for the life of me, and drinking Red Label at Privilege, a decent nightclub with blond waitresses from Eastern Europe and hookers, some of whom looked like they had more fingerprints on their bodies than the FBI has on its databases.

After watching Watford walk all over Leeds into the Premiership at the hotel, I take another rickety cab to the airport. As I walk in, I am stopped again by the cops at the entrance but this time I confidently hand over my passport and ticket.

But you can never win with these guys. This time the issue is not that I do not have a visa, but that I have a single-entry visa but have been in the country twice. I point out that I offered to pay for a visa when I came in but was not not to...bla bla bla.

After another ten or so minutes of back and forth, the weariness finally gets to me and I just want to go home. A fellow passenger who has been mediating between the hostage, me, and the hostage takers, the cops, finally tells me that they are willing to let me go for a ransom of 40 dollars.

I fish through my wallet and chance upon a $5 note. I empty the rest of the money into my rucksack unseen and make great ceremony of pulling the $5 out of the wallet.

'This is all I have left as you can see,' I tell the cops. 'Will you please let me go?'

They grab the money like piranhas and allow me to go check in.

As I am checking in, another cop, one I haven't seen before, turns up and asks me to go see him after checking in. The lady at the check in desk gives me a knowing sympathetic look but advises me to just go to the lounge.

The 30 minutes in the lounge, waiting for the boarding call are the longest I have sat through in a long time. I expect one of the gendarmes to turn up any minute looking for me but they don't.

I have never been as relieved as I was when I got onto the plane and as we taxied on the tarmac, I did peep outside, just to make sure there was no jeep following the plane with a cop in blue shouting "Give us $35 or we shoot the damn thing down".

I would love to visit Bamako again, eat that delicious roast fish I had in the hotel again and find out what those Blondes from Belarus are doing in Bamako. But I will probably parachute in next time, just to avoid those piranhas at the airport. ENDS

A tribute to Kevin Aliro

2005-11-14T00:18:00.001Z

LONDON – We’d planned to spend a week in London and another in Paris. Kevin would bring the money. I would provide the company. Things didn’t go as planned. Kevin was still unwell when he turned up, having spent a week in hospital in Kampala; he ended up spending his vacation bed-ridden in a north London flat.

In fact, although he was supposed to be recuperating, Kevin could not switch-off. The first night I went to see him, he insisted on checking his e-mail off my laptop and then, when I had to leave, made me configure his so he could read the news and check mail at will. When I went back the next day, he’d set up a mini office next to his bed, with a laptop, printer, fax machine and three cellphones next to his medicines! And he claimed to be on leave.

He was irritated that he was not in the office to co-ordinate the Weekly Observer’s coverage of Dr Kizza Besigye’s return and that of former president Milton Obote.

John Ogen Kevin Aliro was a workaholic. At the Daily Monitor, where he worked since the paper started in July 1992 until December 2003, he was often the last person out at night. At the Observer, he often left in the wee hours of the morning, turning his green Prado, which he parked along Clement Hill road, a soft target for side-mirror thieves.

It was not that Kevin had no other interests; he was loyal to his family, passionate about SC Villa football club and a regular at Kampala Casino where he was to be found on many nights either feeding the insatiable slot machines or entertaining his sources at the bar.

But it was in journalism that Kevin found meaning. He brought a passion and intensity to the profession that was breathtaking and inspiring. His coverage of the 1990-94 war in Rwanda and the Uganda-Rwanda invasion of the DR Congo – a story he broke to the world, despite initial denials by both governments – earned him a place as one of the finest journalists in the country. His ‘Baba Pajero’ humour column mirrored Kevin’s light-hearted side and was so popular, the moniker stayed with him long after the column ended.

As an editor, Kevin was a bit of a bully. He’d walk down the stairs to the newsroom, holding a steaming cup of coffee and look over people’s shoulders, criticising errant reporters and subs. The criticism, like his praise for good work, was fair and honest. Both were delivered openly.

He seemed to enjoy this intimidation but it never lasted long; in a few moments he would be exchanging jokes or mild insults with the very people he’d been criticising. With Kevin the carrot was always bigger than the stick.

At the Monitor he had a reputation as a reporters’ editor, and was often the first to complain to management when he felt that his charges did not have proper or adequate resources to do the job. The very strong and public nature of this criticism meant that he was often at loggerheads with management and contributed to his earlier-than-expected departure.

A small, shortish man, Kevin often punched above his weight and gave as good as he got in any argument. Notably, he had public spats with Lt. Gen. David Tinyefuza as well as President Museveni’s spin doctor John Nagenda, whom he famously ridiculed as a “bloated spring chicken.” He later made up with Nagenda and privately admitted that he’d gone a bit over the top during the exchange.

Kevin’s love for the devil’s drink was his Achilles heel, although it never stopped him from coming to work. About two weeks ago, when I spoke to Kevin on the phone, he said the doctor had told him to stop drinking. We both laughed when I said he’d probably told her he’d rather kick the bucket than kick the bottle. It was the last time I spoke to him, and how the words return to haunt me!

In mourning Kevin, we celebrate the good things he brought to our lives; his friendship, his courage, his brilliance, his sense of justice, his humour, his humility and his passion. Thank you Kevin, and I hope wherever you are is better than Paris. ENDS

Sleeping with the enemy; thoughts on the Ugandan media

2005-11-08T14:26:00.000Z

Reconciliation won't come easy

2005-10-25T14:53:00.000Z

President Yoweri Museveni tried his hand at statesmanship this last week when he reached out with an olive branch to former president Milton Obote's family and the supporters of his Uganda's People's Congress.

In seeking reconciliation, Museveni sought to put closure on the 20-year running feud he'd had with his erstwhile mentor, Obote and appeal more reasonable and understanding to middle-of-the-road voters ahead of next year's election.

But Museveni and his government's ability to seek genuine reconciliation had already been questioned by the length it took cabinet to allow a state funeral for the former leader (12 hours) and the initial refusal to grant a public holiday for Obote, a few weeks after two different public holidays were granted for former Sudanese VP, John Mabior Garang and Museveni's ill-fated presidential helicopter crew.

Museveni had the chance to rise above the petty politicking when he delivered a speech before parliament as Obote's body lay in state. Unfortunately, he dwelt more on the size of his forces during the 1981-86 guerrila war that brought him to power, than on reaching out to those who, like Obote, Besigye, Mande, Kyakabale, have been critical of his own regime.

While Obote's death brings reconciliation to the debating table, the proof of that particular pudding shall be known by whoever tastes defeat in the March 2006 presidential election. If Museveni, who is expected to win the election, reaches out to the vanquised to ensure that they remain opponents and not enemies, his talk of reconciliation would have the moved beyond rhetoric.

If, however, Museveni wins-all, takes-all and goes after his political opponents, as happened after the 2001 election, the chance of genuinely reconciling our politics and politicians would have been lost, perhaps until the current generation of leaders follows Sir Edward Muteesa, Prof. Godfrey Lule, Tito Okello, Idi Amin and Obote to political dust. ENDS

Obote’s death closes chapter on the past

2005-10-12T15:44:00.000Z

By Daniel K. Kalinaki
LONDON
Published in The Monitor, Kampala, on October 12, 2005

DR APOLLO Milton Obote’s death ends an era in Ugandan politics in which former leaders have provided a perfect scapegoat for everything that’s wrong in the country.

A lot of it was justifiable; by invading the Lubiri in 1966, Obote released the dogs of war from their barracks and turned the military into the weapon of choice for those interested in gaining and retaining political power. By abrogating the 1962 Constitution and forcing another on the country through the pigeon holes in Parliament, Obote gave precedent to other leaders to make laws when it suited them, and break them when it did not.

If Obote manoeuvres were experiments in political brinkmanship, Idi Amin was the mad student who sneaked back into the laboratory at night and tested them on the guinea pigs that Ugandans became throughout the Savage Seventies.

Other leaders were either not in office long enough to change the course of our history (Prof. Yusuf Kironde Lule), were too overwhelmed by the office and those who continued to wield real power (Godfrey Lukongwa Binaisa) or found themselves in State House with more bullets than brains (Gen. Tito Okello Lutwa).

Obote’s death signals the end of the national pastime, of looking over our shoulders into the past and marks the start of one in which we must take responsibility for the present and the future. Apart from Binaisa, all the former leaders are now dead and can no longer account for their actions.

Death, that leveller of man, has ensured that their records will be examined in history books and not commissions of national reconciliation.
To many people, however, these former leaders do not even feature in memory.

The dilemma
During next year’s election, President Museveni would have been in power for 20 years; more than half of the voters will be people born under his watch or who were young innocents during the late seventies.
Many of us in this category have never lived under multiparty politics, never seen any of the former leaders in the flesh - except Binaisa, who, lets be honest, doesn’t really count.

We might have seen war during 1981-86 and those in northern Uganda still live under the horrible spectre of the LRA, but we cannot easily relate to the 300,000 killed during Amin’s days, many of them dragged away from their beds.

How do we relate to the expulsion of Asians and other foreigners when they are running most of the supermarkets and computer shops in the big cities on top of owning half the real estate?

How can we be expected to care about the effects of Obote’s Common Man’s Charter, his socialist leanings and other economic misadventures when every other business is a forex bureau and when the only thing keeping you from buying sugar or other groceries is the hole in your pocket, not on the shelf?

Tribal identity, long a tool of social-political mobilisation, is hardly felt in our generation; your friends are likely to be people of similar income or who support the same Premiership club, not your village mates.

Of course there are lessons to be learnt from the past; that the military should neither be personalised nor used as a tool of political persuasion (yes, and please stop sniggering); that there should be equal opportunities for all based on ability and merit, not ethnicity; that we should have a clear process of changing leadership at all levels.
Part of the problem is that our history is interpreted by whoever is in power to demonise the past and whitewash the present.

So while the current regime talks of Obote’s atrocities in Luweero Triangle (like it was a one-sided war), UPC stalwarts remind us about how Obote built schools and hospitals, as if he was doing us a favour.

Because Amin’s soldiers killed thousands, we are supposed to be grateful for going through a night unmolested, as if personal safety is a favour from the government and not its obligation to its citizens.

Some of our current dilemmas - like the reluctance of leaders to leave office, a politicised and some argue, personalised army - are hangovers from the past.

Others, like unemployment, corruption, poverty are either self-inflicted or continue to exist because we have failed to solve them, not because we inherited them.

If President Museveni is still president in 2009 - and there is little to suggest that he won’t at least try to be - he would have been in office as long as all the past leaders combined.

If, at the end of his time all that Museveni or any leader has to show is the fact that they were better than Amin or Obote, we would have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing from our history

The story behind Museveni's third term bid

2005-09-18T16:13:00.000Z

President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni of Uganda has changed the constitution to allow him stand for another term in office, 20 years after he first took power. This interview, which I carried out with Prof. Fredrick Ssempebwa, shows that the calls for the third term did not come "from the people" as has been said elsewhere...

The Monitor newspaper - March 23, 2004

After handing over the final report of the Constitutional Review Commission to government, Prof. Fredrick Ssempebwa sat down with Daniel Kalinaki and repeated his opposition to lifting the presidential term limits. Excerpts.

You chaired the CRC then wrote a minority report against lifting the presidential term limits. Why?
It is not a minority report but a minority position within the main report. Two of us wrote minority positions on one issue. My position is that this issue is one of orderly succession. Uganda has never experienced an orderly succession from one leader to another; this is the reason the people who wrote the Constitution included a clause on term limits. People should not stay in power until they are pushed. This is a good position; we have not tested it and I did not see any reason for it to change or for us to change it.

The CRC said the limits should be resolved through a referendum. Why are you opposed to this?

The CRC was appointed to make recommendations; it was not our mandate to recommend that an issue goes to the people - otherwise we would have been useless. We could have said that let all these issues go to the people. If the people are really sovereign, they should have been handed all the issues to decide.

One view is that this is a contentious issue for the people to decide...

It is not the only contentious issue; federalism is also a contentious issue, even the issue of multiparty politics is a contentious issue. I did not believe that being contentious was good enough for it to be subjected to a referendum. The CRC should have made a decision - which I made; they should have had a decision then gone to the public to approve it.

Those in favour of lifting the term limits say they do not apply to other elected officials, such as MPs. Why the president?

The CRC considered that and we went to the statistics; we realised that the turnover of MPs is very high, about 70 percent in every election. That argument is therefore not valid. The power of incumbency is very minimal as far as MPs are concerned but if it is good, then the limits could apply to both the MPs and the President. The power of incumbency of African leaders which they use either consciously or subconsciously to win elections cannot be ignored, neither does it compare to that of MPs.

Those for lifting the limits say democracies elsewhere do not have these limits. Why in Uganda?

That is valid but the countries we are dealing with are different. In jurisdictions where they have perfected their institutions for democracy that is valid; elections are completely free and fair, there are no complaints of abuse and intimidation. We have not perfected our institutions, which is why we need artificial limits. Once we perfect those institutions like the Electoral Commission, institutions of accountability and can hold completely free and fair elections then we can drop the limits. The presidency is still regarded as everything. I am not blaming anyone but this is the situation where the president is considered a demigod. When he decides to stand, there is hardly a politician who will beat him. That is the reality.

Where do you draw examples to back this line of argument?

Well, countries like Tanzania, Kenya, Ghana, with which we are comparable jurisdictions as far as the level of democracy is concerned have these presidential term limits.

A leaked draft CRC report (web Ed.part of which www.sadterm.s5.com published) said you had rejected the proposal to lift the term limits. What changed between then and the time you wrote the final report?

After the report was leaked, I said at the time that the people who leaked it, and I believe it was you The Monitor, had had access to parts of our draft, but we had not finished. I am not in a position to say whether the leaking affected our work or not but obviously the commissioners were not happy about the leakage.

Were you pressured to change your position on the term limits?

I am aware of those insinuations but I did not see that the CRC was pressured to change its positions. Even government proposals were considered like any other, although they carried a bit more weight. Other pressure groups also tried to influence us.

You say government proposals had more weight; does that mean most of them made the final report?

No. Actually, we rejected many of the government proposals, in fact the majority. For instance, we rejected the proposal to give the president power to make decrees; we said it is not proper to give the president or the executive legislative powers. We also rejected plans to abolish the Uganda Human Rights Commission, as well a proposal to modify the presumption of innocence. Government had proposed that if a suspect, who was medically fit refused to enter a plea, they would be considered guilty. We said no.

We also rejected a proposal to have the district Chief Administrative Officers appointed by the Public Service Commission. This recommendation actually came from the people and was logical. But we felt it was contrary to the principle of devolution and decentralisation of power. The CRC also rejected a government proposal that had sought to shorten the tenure of judges.

Were not some of the government proposals red herrings to give legroom for the one on the term limits to go through?

I do not think so. Government went out of its way to prepare these proposals; I do not think they said: "let us flood them with proposals and get a few through". It would in fact, have been better to bring one, two or three issues and insist on them. These were well considered and well argued proposals.

At what point, during the lifetime of the CRC, did the term limits become an issue?

The term limits had not emerged from the public consultations; they began with the NEC [the Movement National Executive Committee] meeting, then the Cabinet proposals. We had already done two thirds of our consultations when they suddenly emerged as an issue.

Does this mean that this issue is not important to the public?

What I am saying is that before Parliament deals with it, it should be widely discussed. Right now the principle of term limits is tied up with an individual. The right thing is to separate the two. The principle of indefinite eligibility as opposed to Museveni the individual. Right now I think the people have been misled - they are using the people's support for Museveni to shroud the issue. The people should be explained to properly and told to discuss.

What, in your view, are the major recommendations in the report?

We retain the executive form of government; that is a presidency that has power but make it more accountable by separating it from the legislative. We recommend that ministers should not be MPs. They can sit in Parliament, but as ex-officio members. We recommend that ministers who have been censured should not be reappointed in the life of that Parliament or the subsequent one.

We also downsize Parliament using a population quota of 200,000, which, if you take our population to be about 24 million people, gives you about 120 elected MPs - excluding women and disabled. We recommend that the youth, workers and army should not have MPs and that the women and disabled MPs be elected by universal adult suffrage.

Soon after the end of the CRC, your law firm got a lucrative deal to prosecute officers in the ghost soldier court martial. Is government rewarding you for something you have done?

As you can see, most of the government proposals were rejected and I wrote a dissenting opinion on the term limits. I do not see how I can be rewarded for that. The firm was approached through my colleague, to provide professional services and this is being done on a professional basis.

What can you say about the final CRC report?

I can not blow the trumpet for the Commission but I think we made every effort to guide this country into the future.

And what are your views on that future?

Well, I am concerned about the transition, especially the lack of tolerance for dissenting views. It is wrong to stop people expressing their views on the grounds that they are not registered organisations. I made this point while handing over the report - then I went home and saw the police beating up opposition people in Masaka under the guise of protecting them.
This lack of tolerance and absence of liberalisation is bad for our transition; how do you open up the political space and then stop people from enjoying their rights of assembly and speech?
If this continues and we continue to have these repressive laws then the transition is going to be unhappy. ENDS

Daniel Kalinaki

2005-02-18T22:49:00.000Z

Daniel Kalinaki

Daniel Kalinaki's weblog

2005-02-17T18:44:00.000Z

Daniel Kalinaki

Big Blogger is watching!

2005-02-16T11:27:00.000Z

The media news story in 2004 was, without a doubt, the emergence of blogs as an alternative source of news on the Internet. And yet blogs were not the new radio, the new television or even the new Internet news websites.

These were sites sourced, maintained and published by ordinary people, many of whom did not have any background or training in journalism. They used the forum to report what they considered to be news -- which wasn't always along the traditional news values -- while questioning the authenticy and quality of mainstream media reporting.

I do not think that blogs will replace the mainstream media as the predominant source of news and information; bloggers lack both the financial and human resources as well as the priviledged access that the mainstream media enjoys.

What the blogs will do in 2005 and hopefully beyond, is to watch over the mainstream media and expose cases of distortions, bias or sheer lazy reporting. We in the mainstream media have always watched over governments and other institutions around us.

We will continue to do so only this time, somewhere in cyberspace, Big Blogger will be watching!

Daniel