By Oweyegha Afunaduula
Dec 6, 2004
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O.E..Bukabeeba’s article: “It is donors and environmentalists to blame, not Museveni,” which appeared in The New Vision of 1st December, 2004 in response to Mr. Oweyegha-Afunaduula’s article: “Donors and environmental NGOs should not be taken for criminals”, published in The Monitor of 9th November 2004, and which he needs to read over and over again to understand, deserves a comment.
First, Mr Bukabeeba wrote his article so hurriedly that he forgot to indicate the source of the article he was responding to. Reading Bukabeeba’s article, I discovered that quite often those who struggle to show that they are not ignorant, and pose as if they are the ones we need to defeat ignorance, turn out to be the more ignorant. Not until they seek knowledge will they be able to show capabilities. This is a tentative statement derived while studying Mr Bukabeeba’s article. It is open to criticism. I do not know why Bukabeeba does not want to remember that Mr Museveni is a self-declared capitalist without capital and capacity to man a self-sustaining economy despite what appears in the now ancient Ten Point Programme of the “National” Resistance Movement (NRA) or in his self-indicating book “Sowing the Mustard Seed”. For a long time Museveni talked as if in the shoes of Clinton. He manifested as an agent of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs), and like a priest sent from Washington to preach the gospel of SAPs to all leaders of Africa. One would easily forget that not very long ago, he was a self-confessed Marxist. While he preached and unquestioningly implemented SAPS, he did so with a lot of pride – totally oblivious to the damage his stance would impact on our esteem as Africans. We now know that his strategy was to survive in a new situation while using Marxist and Machiavellian strategies to rule. Didn’t Jesus say that in those days Satan would shine like an Angel of God? Whereas speaking out what the conscience holds is recommendable, Bukabeeba missed “shots at the goal” by saying that poverty, unemployment, external debt burden, conflicts among others, are not government’s responsibility – as being the sparkling agent. Yet he knows that Ugandans have never cried as much about these indicators of failure in social responsibility as they are doing now. Looking at Bukabeeba’s picture in The New Vision one easily notices that he is not a young man. Despite what many believe, it is possible to teach an old dog a new trick. Objectivity is possible and one can develop the art and science of pursuing it. May be Mr Bukabeeba lived abroad for a very long time without interest in what was going on in Uganda. Otherwise, he would have known that the poverty, excessively high unemployment, debilitating debt burden, non-ending conflicts, etc, which he mentions in his article have all emerged and assumed unmanageable levels when Museveni is presiding over Uganda. If Museveni has been blaming his “swines” and “the ghost” for the past mistakes and failures because they were in charge of Uganda, then he must be held responsible for current failures because he is the one in charge. We should not blame those he invited to help him legitimise his rule. Perhaps Bukabeeba was living between “Britain and German”- in the Atlantic Ocean. If he was in Uganda he would have grasped that during the early days of the Museveni regime, an AIDS and conflict corridor was created between Kampala and Gulu. There was no AIDS/HIV or conflict in Gulu until Museveni and his gunmen went there. There would be no Kony if there was no Museveni. In my view the two are mirror images of one another! In fact it is now known that IDP concentration camps are centres of some of the worst human rights violations on Earth today. It is as if there is a plot to use this means other than guns to make a whole ethnic group become extinct. It is difficult to resist thinking this way. Why then can one not think that if there is such a plot then whoever is behind it is engaged in “self-imposed trouble” sooner than later? When the NRM/A captured the instruments of power through the barrel of the gun SAPs were emerging globally and Obote II had introduced aspects of them albeit subtly. If taken as music, the SAPS in Uganda were like low-tone music during Obote II. When applied by NRM/A it was like high-tone music. High-tone music is noise pollution, so SAPS were like noise pollution. Whereas government’s idea of re-establishing kings and implementing the Universal Primary Education (UPE) programme were good, the motive of their implementation betrayed it. With UPE, its intention, in my view, was to attract political support rather than to actually provide UPE services. Many have discredited government over UPE because services are poor and numerous children are dropping out of school. The well over six million figure government recited over the years became only some four hundred thousand during the first UPE-dominated Primary Leaving Examinations this year. What can Bukabeeba say about this? Re-establishing kings who lack political power (they remain as disempowered as any other Ugandan and an LC Chairman 1 has power which a King doesn’t have) was, in my view, intended to hoodwink the unsuspecting masses while reaping political capital out of the act. In fact, there are commoners with the power than NRM/A’s “cultural kings” to influence the discourse of things. We have to propel ourselves out of the present mess if we are to be a part of 21st Century humanity. Otherwise I note that by writing your article you were doing a job as Secretary of Mobilisation (or Propaganda?) in Mbarara District.
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© 2004 The Monitor Publications
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