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BY Hamis Kaheru
PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni is to meet senior US government officials in Washington to inform them about his vision for Uganda.
He will also meet former US ambassadors to Uganda, some of whom have been critical of the removal of presidential term limits.
Museveni arrived in Washington on Saturday from New York, where he addressed the UN General Assembly.
He was received at St. Andrews airbase. The base is reserved for Americas close foreign leaders, a statement from State House said.
Museveni was scheduled to meet Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor Steve Healey and World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz.
He will meet a Congressional caucus on Uganda and former ambassadors to Uganda Michael Southwick, Nancy Powell, John Carson, Bob Houdek, John Burroughs and Jimmy Kolker. The statement said Museveni would also address religious leaders.
He will use these meetings to explain his political and econ
omic
vision for Uganda, it said.
John Carson recently said Museveni had shown an increasing desire not to move on when his term ends in 2006.
He said Uganda, one of Africas success stories for the past decade, might return to its dictatorial past because of Musevenis thirst for power and quest for a controversial third presidential term.
He was in June contributing as a panelist to a debate titled, Uganda: An African Success Past its Prime.
If Museveni succeeds in his desire to win a third term, we may be looking at another Mugabe and Zimbabwe in the making, Carson said in his paper.
Kolker, the outgoing ambassador, this month said constitutions and elections represent the sovereignty of a country and that Ugandans, not foreigners, should decide term limits.
But he added, Presidential term limits encourage the establishment of policies and institutions that will survive any individual.
Kolker was last month addressing the Uganda North Americ
a
Association Convention in Minnesota.
Given Ugandas history, it is important that Ugandas prosperity and security are guaranteed by laws and executive, legislative and judicial institutions that have firm roots supported by a wide political consensus, he said.
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