"Recent "leakages" from the Sebutinde report on the purchase of junk
helicopters has revealed the low level to which our country has sunk.
Ugandans will take stock of the very bad state of affairs that prevails in
their country and note that the kind of leadership, which claimed to bring
about "fundamental change" has turned into a no-change regime, emulating and
over-doing the bad practices it has always blamed on "past-regimes."
Museveni Should Give US a X-Mas Gift And Resign
Email This Page
Print This Page
The Monitor (Kampala)
OPINION
December 25, 2002
Posted to the web December 27, 2002
Dani W. Nabudere
Kampala
Recent "leakages" from the Sebutinde report on the purchase of junk
helicopters has revealed the low level to which our country has sunk.
Ugandans will take stock of the very bad state of affairs that prevails in
their country and note that the kind of leadership, which claimed to bring
about "fundamental change" has turned into a no-change regime, emulating and
over-doing the bad practices it has always blamed on "past-regimes."
The 1965-66 Congo "gold affair" pales in significance when compared to the
plunder and pillage of Congolese resources by high-ranking political,
business, and military leaders of this country. This abuse of power has
resulted in the emergence of what the UN Panel of Experts have recently
called an "elite network" which collaborates with mafia criminals to plunder
Africa's resources and intensify ethnic conflicts around that country.
When president Museveni came to power and subsequently helped to unleash a
war in Rwanda that resulted in the genocide in that country, he may have not
been aware of the dire consequences of his actions. Standing on the high
moral ground of a new generation of young "revolutionaries" fighting old,
corrupt, and inept regimes, this "new breed" exuded a sense of confidence and
a great estimation of themselves as saviours of the "peasantry" who, these
days, are called "my people!" All this has turned out to be a great falsehood
and a nightmare for the people of Uganda.
I feel justified for having turned down the offer by the president, when on
my return from exile in 1992, he asked me to assist him "raise more cadres."
In my view, I felt that the then existing "cadres" had turned themselves into
Napoleons of the Animal Farm type. Later, I told the president that I felt
some his cadres had let Ugandans down and if there was any role I could play,
it was to work at grassroots level and hope to develop a new group of
grass-root pan-African intellectuals who could become part and parcel of the
struggles of the African people for self-empowerment.
I feel saddened that people like Lt. Gen. Salim Saleh can do this kind of
thing and be abetted in their action by politics of nepotism by his brother,
the president. How can the president feel justified in his actions when he
advises Saleh, at the time his Military Adviser, to keep a bribe and use it
for military operations in the North, when the general could not account to
anyone for such illegal expenditure? How can the president expect Ugandans to
abide by laws passed by their Parliaments and assented to by him to become
law when he can ignore them at will and yet insist that ordinary Ugandans
abide by them?
In my view, the Sebutinde Commission understated the problem when they called
this kind of illegality "double-standards."
Even in some African countries, including the embattled Democratic Republic
of the Congo, ministers and leaders have either resigned or been compelled to
resign over allegations of corruption and lack of political accountability.
President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal recently asked a minister whose ministry
was responsible for transport to resign after a publicly owned ship sunk with
almost 1,000 people on board. This was Wade's attempt to make his government
politically accountable to the Senegalese people.
Equally, when the United Nations Report of Experts on the plunder of the
resources of Congo recently accused some ministers and officials in the DRC
for participating in the plunder, president Joseph Kabila boldly suspended
all of them until further investigations were complete.
In Uganda, where similar allegations were made against Saleh among others,
for the same plunder, we did the opposite by appointing a Commission of
Inquiry, at great cost, not really to carry out an independent investigation,
but to challenge the UN findings. In many countries such an alleged activity
would have led to a criminal investigation of the individuals concerned
instead and not the appointment of costly Commissions of Inquiry whose
reports sometimes get buried in government cabinets. In our case they are
subject to the whims and wishes of the president, who can decide to "pardon"
individuals implicated in such illegal acts.
Indeed, we are told that even the little we have been told of the findings of
the Sebutinde report has been as a result of "leakage" and not public
disclosure The report seems to have been put away, despite assurances from
the Ministry of Defence.
This "Chopper-gate" affair could have led to the impeachment of the president
and a demand for his resignation in some countries. But perhaps this is too
much to expect of the "personal merit" Movement parliamentarians who are so
easily swayed by the president in closed door "Movement Caucuses" whenever
the need arises.
The result is that Ugandans have been abandoned to their own devices such as
regular resort to revenge and public lynching of suspected criminals. These
Ugandans are not protected by any law, while relatives of the president are
protected against the laws to which they should be subjected. Ugandans find
themselves without any constitutional guarantees of good governance having
been left to the individual whims of a leader whose arrogance and disregard
of public opinion is the hallmark of his claims to superiority over previous
regimes.
In these kinds of circumstances, people like Col. Kizza Besigye make a case
when they declare Uganda to be ill governed. While one may not agree with
their solutions to the crisis, one is tempted to go along with their
diagnosis. Surely President Museveni can see that what he is doing is
outrightly illegal, impeachable and despicable.
If he is to protect the image of Uganda in the eyes of the international
community that keeps our government financially afloat, and show some little
respect to Ugandans who gave him votes in two previous elections, he should
apologise to them and then resign. If he cannot do so, then he should respect
the recommendations of the Constitutional Review Commission and not even
appear to be encouraging those Ugandans campaigning for a "third term bonus"
for him, which would in effect be a fifth term of misrule through
monopolisation of power.
It will not do for the president to make apologies to the people of Acholi
for not protecting them when those who were charged with the responsibility
are free after having committed crimes that have contributed to untold
suffering in the area. The junk helicopters, which were allegedly "bought" by
the government for this purpose have become an unusable waste while the money
which was spent on their purchase to protect Acholi lives remain unaccounted
for because of nepotism and abuse of power.
How can the same government justify the arrest of journalists and the
harassment of newspapers like The Monitor for doing their job in boldly
trying to reveal the truth behind government corruption, when at the same
time, it tries to protect those who have wronged the people by subjecting
them to poverty through corruption and abuse of their public office?
In many countries such harassment of the press would be regarded as a serious
breach of the Bill of Rights under which these freedoms are protected and
guaranteed. But here in Uganda we can ignore these guarantees and yet be
called "beacons of light" by the same countries that claim to be
super-democratic and which should know better.
The people of Uganda call on the Parliament of Uganda to demand the immediate
official release of the Sebutinde Commission's report and for the report to
be debated freely so that the people may have a test of political
accountability on the part of the executive, parliament, and the defence
forces. Failing such openness and accountability, even those Ugandans who
have been manipulated into campaigning for a "third term" should abandon such
activity if they have to be taken seriously.
Nay, Parliament should go further and impeach the president and demand his
resignation if our commitment to the Peer Review Mechanism in NEPAD's search
for respectability is to be taken seriously by the African people.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
