http://www.dispatch.co.za/1997/11/27/page%2013.htm
Thursday, November 27, 1997
Uganda rallies against corruption
KAMPALA -- In disbelief Ugandans are witnessing for the first time in decades cabinet ministers being challenged by parliament to explain and clear themselves of corruption allegations levelled against them.
Another surprise for Ugandans also rare in Africa is that a head of state comes out to encourage inquiries into the allegations some of which are targeting his closest political friends.
The current legislature elected in polls called in the East African country more than a year ago, the first to openly distance itself from politicians in the executive, has made these surprises real.
In July a minister was forced to resign his cabinet post after it was revealed by an opposition legislator that he diverted several thousand litres of fuel from the indebted state railway firm for his political campaigns.
A scrutiny of papers from the run-down railway company implicated the prime minister and he narrowly survived censure.
Ninety-five out of the total 274 members of parliament have signed a petition likely to censure Education Minister Brigadier Jim Muhwezi for his alleged shady involvement in the rent of a commercial structure at a costly rate by a national revenue collection body.
Muhwezi, one of the figures behind President Yoweri Museveni's five-year rebel war which propelled him into power in 1986 and who once headed the influential Internal Security Organisation, is accused of shadowy dealings with an Asian tycoon who owns the building.
"It's all due to democracy. In this new era of democracy people have a right to inquire about the way public funds are spent. It has taken long for people to realise this," Museveni's press secretary, Hope Kivengere, told the German Press Agency dpa.
Apart from one debate involving a corruption scandal in 1964, Uganda has never had a free legislature which dared censure government officials since independence from Britain in 1962.
Parliament in 1964 discussed former dictator Idi Amin, then army commander, over his involvement in the smuggling of gold from Congo, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, and his alleged funding of proceeds to rebels then fighting in that country.
The then head of state, now exiled Milton Obote, two years later dissolved parliament and declared a one-party state after the revelations which culminated in Uganda's first civil war in 1966.
Obote was overthrown by Idi Amin in a 1971 military coup and during Amin's lawless bloody regime there was no parliament.
Amin was overthrown by exiles and Obote became president again but a parliament elected in 1980 was suppressed by his supporters and did not mention anything about the then existing gross human rights violations, let alone corruption.
Museveni, who fought an insurgency throughout Obote's regime, promised to stamp out the evil once in power but it thrived unchecked until he called for general elections in May 1996. Many of his opponents belonging to political parties which Museveni hates sailed into parliament.
As Museveni is busy selling off state-owned parastatals -- a step which he argues will help stamp out graft and leave the economy in private hands -- a fearless parliament is also busy singling out political figures alleged to be corrupt.
Three weeks since the still-unresolved issue of Brigadier Muhwezi began, opposition legislators have come up with another charge this time levelled against a deputy local government minister.
Colonel Kahinda Otafiire is being accused of diverting wagons full of enriched copper blocks from a refinery in western Uganda. The colonel like others before him has denied the allegations.
Museveni was quoted by the local press as telling visiting Swedish politicians on November 15 in a village 40km north of Kampala that he encourages legislators to fully disclose officials alleged to be corrupt in order to wipe out graft from the country.
He was quoted as having laid out strategies towards this endeavour including following the cases up to district level, encourage public debate on the issue, giving investigative powers to parliament and encouraging a free media.
"The president's position is clear: anybody who can assist in the fight against corruption is welcome. We are aware that those being investigated include top politicians but if they are proved guilty, the president cannot do anything about that," Kivengere said.
Allegations against the corrupt officials have however not gone beyond the confines of parliament and definitely not to the courts.
Last week however, a former justice minister and attorney-general who was in office shortly before polling took place last year, Joseph Ekemu, was brought before a Kampala Chief Magistrates' court charged with stealing more than R450 000 meant for restocking cattle in a former civil war troubled area in the east of the country.
This was not the work of the new parliament but the fiasco will only strengthen their battle against graft. -- Sapa-dpa
Rwanda ponders high price of returning refugees
KIGALI -- A year has passed since Rwanda took back hundreds of thousands of Hutu refugees in the name of "national reconciliation" but the authorities now say the policy only aggravated a bloody rebellion in the north and northwest.
Now the authorities are paying a high price for having neglected to take enough precautions. Since May, civilians have been dying every day around Gisenyi in the northwest and Ruhengeri in the north. Rebel ambushes, attacks on markets and massacres occur with morbid regularity. At least 300 people were killed last week in northwest Rwanda, military officials said. A total of 88 prisoners died when 1 200 rebels stormed a prison in the northwestern town of Giciye on November 16 in an attempt to spring Hutu inmates. The attack sparked a week of violence in the area.
The link between the civil war and the refugees' return appears increasingly evident, but the authorities refuse to look on the black side and say they are glad that the refugee camps in the former Zaire, which were used as training bases by Hutu militiamen, have been dismantled. Western diplomats here say however that there is no sign that the army is any closer to crushing the rebellion.
"The situation is worse than what they expected. Nobody could have known last year what form the insurrection would take and how long it would last," said one diplomat who said the fighting was an extension of the civil war of 1994. -- Sapa-AFP
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