| KAMPALA
PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni has again come under attack from the international community for his quest of a third term in office.
They argue that this could "open a door to another dark and negative period in Uganda."
The former US ambassador to Uganda and Kenya, Mr Johnnie Carson, criticised Museveni as a would-be despot whose current policies are undermining his past accomplishments.
Carson and Joel Barkan, an Africanist at the University of Iowa in the United States, said Museveni is in danger of destroying the positive legacy of his rule.
The two were key speakers at a forum in Washington DC on June 2 co-sponsored by the U.S. government's Woodrow Wilson Centre for International Scholars and the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
The debate focused on President Museveni's bid for a third term and the rising corruption and nepotism in the ruling elite and military.
Understand Uganda
The Minister of State for International Affairs, Mr Okello Oryem hit back and said what the two said was the opposite of the facts on the ground.
"You should look at Uganda through the eye of a Ugandan and not from the American point of view. There is nothing concrete and substantial to prove that if Museveni gets another term, the country would return to chaos," Oryem said.
The minister said the third term debate is a foregone issue. This event is "very significant," co-sponsor Stephen Morrison, director of the CSIS Africa programme said in his opening remarks.
Both President Bush and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, he noted, have publicly advised Museveni against the third term.
Carson is now senior vice-president of the National Defence University.
Joel Barkan is a professor of political science at the University of Iowa and a consultant to the World Bank on East Africa.
In a report titled "Th
e
Political Economy of Uganda: The Art of Managing a Donor-Financed Neo-Patrimonial State," Barkan argued that Uganda could be plunged into civil war if Museveni insists on a third term.
Causing concern in Washington is not only a third term for the 61-year-old president, but the potentially devastating effects of the tactics the President must resort to in order to stay in power.
Within Museveni's own National Resistance Movement, Museveni's base of support has narrowed considerably, as one after another NRM leader has exited his camp, most notably the former foreign minister, Mr Eriya Kategaya.
The issue of the repeal of the constitutional term limit has "split the movement," argued Professor Barkan.
Both speakers agreed that Museveni's power now rests on a "web of business and monopolies" that enmesh his own family and those of his closest associates.
Barkan agrees that a portion of the money accrued by these means becomes the "slush fund for m
oney and
patronage for the regime to stay in power."
The war in northern Uganda against Joseph Kony, both speakers charged, has been prolonged because the system of organised corruption in the army built around it helps keep the president in power.
Rugunda reacts
Uganda's Minister for Internal Affairs, Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, objected strongly to some of Barkan's and Carson's characterisation.
Rugunda denied that Museveni is angling to hold on to power at all costs.
�The ability and capacity of the people should not be underestimated," he said, suggesting that ordinary Ugandans are raising the demand for repeal of term limits.
Barkan also cited "the persistence and spread of grand corruption" that, he said, "involves First Family members, if not the President himself.� | 
