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The Monitor (Kampala)January 29, 2004
Posted to the web January 29, 2004 Emmanuel N. Mugarura
Kampala
The German ambassador, Mr Alexander Muhlen, has urged President Museveni to accept advice."When Germany was in shambles after World War II, America sent us food aid. When they gave us advice on how to build democracy, we were grateful. It is not colonialism, it is human," Muhlen said yesterday while visiting the Uganda Human Rights Commission.
He was responding to a question put to him by a journalist about how the donor community feels about Mr Museveni's outburst against donors on Monday.While speaking at the national celebrations at Kololo Airstrip, Museveni told donors to keep off the internal affairs of the country.
He told them to mind their business and leave Uganda alone."What the donor countries and especially the European Union will want to provide is offer to help dialogue based on their own experience, that is not colonialism," the diplomat said.Several donor countries have publicly encouraged Museveni to leave office at the end of his last constitutional term in 2006.In a recent television interview, the US government's acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Mr Charles Snyder, said his government was talking to Museveni to persuade him to leave.
Museveni is constitutionally ineligible for another term in office and has not publicly said he will seek one.However, a Cabinet proposal to lift the two five-year term constitutional limit would allow him to stand again - and Museveni said on Monday that he would not listen to donor advice on electoral matters in Uganda.Muhlen, however, said that the German taxpayer cannot be offended by the President's outburst because Museveni is judged by his track record and not by what he says."
A German taxpayer has no reason for concern, a political speech is a political speech, it is always intended for different reasons," Muhlen said."Your President's record is good despite what he says."I understand what he said but it doesn't necessarily mean that someone should feel uneasy about the situation."On Uganda's human rights record, Muhlen said that so far the situation is not alarming and that there would be a delegation on human rights from Germany that would give its findings on Uganda.
The UHRC head, Ms Margaret Sekaggya, said Uganda has done well on the human rights path and that women and children groups are the most vibrant."The women are doing a great job in the human rights sector and they have been useful to us," Sekaggya said.
"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the state."
- Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels - Hitler's propaganda minister
