‘A million Ugandans are starving’
By Henry H. Ssali & Rogers Mulindwa
Oct 17, 2003 - monitor
SEMUTO – About a million Ugandans were starving yesterday during celebrations to mark World Food Day.
In a speech read for him by Vice President Gilbert Bukenya, President Yoweri Museveni painted a grim picture for Uganda’s hungry people.
“Most of the hungry people are women and children trapped in war-torn areas. They have been reduced to beggars, surviving on random handouts from relief agencies,” Mr Museveni said.
He lamented the irony that Uganda, which produces surplus food and sells to the World Food Programme, has hungry people.
Museveni urged Ugandan farmers to take advantage of the African Growth and Opportunity Act to sell goods to the American market.
He said Ugandan farmers could add value to their produce through research and processing. State minister for Agriculture Kibirige Ssebunya hosted the function.
He amused the crowds after area MP and Energy minister Syda Bbumba referred to him as “the minister who advised people to eat monkeys”.
Said Bbumba: “He ordered Kalangala people to eat monkeys but here in Semuto we don’t eat them.” But Ssebunya had an apt response.
“If I tell people to dig and they give excuses that monkeys and birds will eat their crops, what should I tell them?” he said.
The Food and Agricultural Organisation representative in Uganda, Mr Ajmal Quereshi, said 840 million people world-wide live in hunger, poverty and malnutrition – the majority of these in the developing world.
Brief comment.
Museveni says quote "Most of the hungry people are women and children trapped in war-torn areas. They have been reduced to beggars, surviving on random handouts from relief agencies,”
The Irony here, fellow citizens, is that dictator Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is the very culprit who is responsible for creating the wars in Northern (and now Eastern Uganda) .
For 18 years Museveni's military dictatorship has promoted militarism as a matter of policy be it in Uganda, Rwanda DRC Congo, The Sudan e.t.c
..and now that People of Uganda are suffering because of Yoweri Museveni's such policies.. the dictator has the audacity to turn his arround and make such nonsensical remarks as noted above!
This fellow really has no shame ... what a bloody double dealer!
Matek
