[Ugnet] Can You Count on Voting Machines?
Interesting article to read - Semei http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/magazine/06Vote-t.html?_r=1oref=slogin Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs___ Ugandanet mailing list Ugandanet@kym.net http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/ugandanet % UGANDANET is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way. ---
[Ugnet] Re: KENYA - Pictorial
The difference between tribalism and racism among living homosapiens and extinct neanderthals is that one is rudimentary in comport while the other is chronically uncivilized. They both exude lethal amounts of force with one verbally vitriol and the other of the matchette rapid justice. One inflicts exogenous damages that satisfies its wants by literally bleeding the opponent to death while the other produces vials of endogenous substances so stupefying and retrogressively shocking that it often results into the heart attack type. One is debilitatingly progressive while the other has stayed still and remained oblivious to the history of time. One is stealthly coward while the other is a face-to-face action-packed thriller. One is slow but sure while the other is speedy and regretably irreversible. One is for Africans and the other for Westerners - I mean white Westerners and their revamped slave cohorts aka Kyeyolanders, not the stilleto pinhead herdsmen of western Uganda who can momentarily morp from questionable spurts of peaceful coexhistance to something indescribably worrying. Oh, for Christ's shake, I hate to see African judges in white imperial wigs -they look ridiculous. Canadian and American jusdges threw them a long time ago but CHOGM membership dictates we be as Anglo as possible for there is evidence of civilization - To The Queen! Actually, one is Kenyan and the other is American - I mean racism and tribal tendencies. Fortunately for my personal conscience emotional imbibement, the O-factor stands out prominently in both as the opposite sides of the same coin. Whatever the consequences, one or both will make do - for a long time. Go Obama. go Odinga!!! ___ Peter-Rhaina Gwokto Remember: Even a small dog can piss on a tall building. Jim Hightower C'mon in to my Blog - Original Message From: AnneMugisha [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Forum For Democratic Change [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, January 7, 2008 10:04:11 AM Subject: KENYA - Pictorial___ Ugandanet mailing list Ugandanet@kym.net http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/ugandanet % UGANDANET is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way. ---
[Ugnet] AFRICA MUST CONSOLIDATE GAINS
Africa must consolidate gains By Isdore Guvamombe AFTER a year in which Africa, through Zimbabwe, successfully scored major governance and diplomatic victories against the United States of America, Britain and their allies, time has now come for African leaders to maintain the tempo and concretise their position while reflecting on the past and projecting into the future. The platform is the African Union Summit scheduled for the end of this month. After taking in a lot of punches in Lisbon, Europe is now having sleepless nights, on how to woodwink Africa into allowing it to exploit Africa's rich resources, like it has plundered before. With lessons from Zimbabwe over the war on resources offering a case study for all patriotic African leaders, it should be easy for them to seriously consider harvesting the continent's natural resources for the benefits of their citizenry, without necessarily pleasing the West. Zimbabwe has been steadfast in proving to the world that its citizens should come first in enjoying the country's natural resources, regardless of what the world's super powers think and regardless of the subsequent backlash in form of illegal sanctions and this should give Africa new political impetus. To date, Bush, Blair, John Howard, and of late, Gordon Brown epitomise the latest evil insult and assault on African humanism, through their refusal to accept that President Mugabe is helping Zimbabweans benefit from their resources that had for long, been a plundered by minority whites. From now on, African leaders must rise to the occasion and demand deals that are beneficial to their people, because America and Europe are now more desperate for African resources, after seeing the course successfully taken by Zimbabwe and the push effect it now has on other countries. Africa's enemies and former colonial masters have changed strategy and now want to maintain hegemony on the continent's resources through subtle colonial structures and illegal regime change tactics, to enable them to continue tapping resources under so-called partnerships, which are in fact, tricky tactics of maintaining a grip on Africa's resources. America in particular, has crafted a new project, the Africa Partnership Station through which the US is trying to create special sea bases using warships that will patrol African waters without building shore bases, as a means to block other countries, especially China and Russia from accessing African resources. As African leaders prepare for the AU Summit, they should know that the victory for Zimbabwe in Portugal was indeed victory for the entire continent. But the victories that Africa has scored in the past year or so, might end up at zero unless they are followed by concrete measures to guard against subtle exploitation of African resources by America and Britain and their allies. Coming up with regional positions on matters of interest such as exploitation of resources, is important but coming up with a continental position, like what Africa did by insisting on President Mugabe's invitation to Portugal, is more important than anything else. African resources for Africans! Africa should also fight being lectured upon by America and Europe on issues like democracy, good governance and accountability, because Africa is indeed the vanguard of those virtues after years of fighting against colonialism and imperialism. Allowing America and Europe to lecture Africa on good governance, democracy and accountability is akin to allowing a devil to preach sanctity for George Bush and Tony Blair and several other past colonial and imperialist leaders before them, have committed more sins against African humanism than anybody else. America and the majority of European countries are fighting a war to block rising economic power and trade bases in the form of Russia and China, which have sought genuine fair deals with African countries. The deals from Russia and China have sailed through without political strings attached hence, African leaders are showing more interest in the Far East, compared to the West. This has sent panic to America and Britain. A case in point is the fact that the US is having sleepless nights in its impish attempt to establish a permanently resident, armed force for Africa, the Africom. Sadc has stood strong and said no to hosting of Africom and Central Africa has done the same but the problem seems to be in West Africa where Liberia has clearly said it was prepared to host Africom. After Algeria refused to host the force that would give America an advantage in milking Africa of its resources at will, and in influencing the political governance of the continent, America is now using divide and rule tactics. America has now introduced Africa Partnership Station, a framework in which America plans to create special sea bases, to patrol the continent News is that one of the major tactics adopted by
[Ugnet] NYT OP-ED: Federalism is the way to go in Africa
New York Times, Op-Ed Contributor No Country for Old Hatreds By BINYAVANGA WAINAINA Published: January 6, 2008 Nairobi, Kenya THIS thing called Kenya is a strange animal. In the 1960s, the bright young nationalists who took over the country when we got independence from the British believed that their first job was to eradicate “tribalism.” What they really meant, in a way, was that they wanted to eradicate the nations that made up Kenya. It was assumed that the process would end with the birth of a brand-new being: the Kenyan. Compared with other African nations, Kenya has had significant success with this experiment. But it has not been without its contradictions, though they had never really turned lethal until now. Our Kenyan identity, so deliberately formed in the test tube of nationalist effort, has over the years been undermined, subtly and not so subtly, by our leaders — men who appealed to our histories and loyalties to win our votes. You see, the burning houses and the bloody attacks here do not reflect primordial hatreds. They reflect the manipulation of identity for political gain. So what was different about this election? What brought Kenya’s equilibrium to an end? Five years ago, we voted for a broad and nationally representative government. Inside this vehicle were the country’s major tribes: the Luo, the Luhya, the Kikuyu, many Kalenjin — all the people now killing one another. We wanted this arrangement to quickly introduce a new and more inclusive Constitution, deal firmly with corruption and start a process of defining the nation in terms that include everybody. Tragically, President Mwai Kibaki instead steered a course away from the coalition and cultivated the support of his Kikuyu community. He did a good job rebuilding the civil service and managing the economy, but he did it within a framework that was not sustainable. When it came time to conduct our most recent election, Raila Odinga had built a movement on the back of President Kibaki’s betrayal of the spirit of 2002. His political party, the Orange Democratic Movement, was the big ethnic tent similar to the one that had first brought President Kibaki to office. On the day we cast our vote, we thought that our optimism and desire for an inclusive and broad government would prevail. Instead, three days later — after reports that votes were being “cooked” in Kikuyu strongholds, after skirmishes in the room where the results were being announced, after the news media were ejected — Mr. Kibaki was announced the winner and a haphazard swearing-in took place. And Kenya exploded. Mr. Odinga and President Kibaki are not really ethnic leaders, but in the days since the disputed election they have stoked tribal paranoia and used it to cement electoral loyalty. Mr. Odinga and his fellow party leaders are now determined to avenge the wrong they believe they have suffered. Sadly, this leadership now appears to believe that the violence spreading across the country might be a valuable bargaining chip. My further suspicion is that Mr. Odinga wants to sell to Kenyans and the world a sort of Ukrainian “people’s revolution” — where protesters take to the streets and change the order of things, and are seen to be throwing happy pink petals on television, so America can say, ah, the people have spoken. But rather than matters leading to a popular but peaceful uprising against a flawed election, we are likelier to suffer an escalation of retaliations and a descent to that special machete place that nations rarely recover from. Yet all is not lost. Nations are built on crises like this. If there is such a thing as Kenya, it should be gathering energy right now. Two leaders can sit down, form a power-sharing agreement and put together a system to handle elections and transition. A Constitution that names and recognizes the tribal nations within our nation, that decentralizes some power and that includes us all in the process is possible. For 40 years we have been dancing around each other, a gaseous nation circling and tightening. The moment is now to make a solid thing called Kenya. Binyavanga Wainaina, a writer in residence at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., is the editor of Kwami?, a literary magazine. www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/opinion/06wainaina.html?_r=1oref=slogin i.e. a call for federalism to take root in Africa -- js. Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping___ Ugandanet mailing list Ugandanet@kym.net http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/ugandanet % UGANDANET is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including attachments if any). The List's Host
