From: Oryema Johnson [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, March 04, 2012 12:13 PM To: str8talk ug2011; [email protected]; m e Subject: This piece is written by a keen Sudanese observer of Uganda's affairs and with some inner insights..Let me call it a view from our neighbors in the new Republic of S. Sudan
Friends: I am very familiar with the political history of Uganda. The leaders of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) were part of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) that effectively ousted the regimes of Obote II and General Tito Okello in the mid-1980s. However, when the NRM came to power, it split into two antagonistic camps; those who were committed to the founding principles of the NRM and those who wanted 'to make money' by all means. The NRM supremo chose to ally himself with the latter. Until recently, the NRM claimed to have 'nipped the FDC and any opposition in the bud'. In the last Ugandan parliament, many junior NRM legislators became increasingly critical of corruption in government. That group of critical legislators was 'muscled out' of parliament and replaced by a new wave of youthful and ostensibly loyalist NRM parliamentarians. Unfortunately for the rotten leadership of the NRM, the new wave of MPs are too young to remember the heroism of the so-called liberation war in the 'Luwero Triangle' or the excesses of any government that preceded the NRM; it is the only corrupt government they have known. Whatever the NRM says about Idi Amin, Obote II or Tito Okello is simply viewed as a basic 'history lesson' and nothing else. That is why the new generation of NRM politicians has not wasted any time in tackling their own party stalwarts with rotten records in public office. They will leave no stone unturned. I have every confidence in that generation because I was the guardian of their legal adviser when he was in the UK to read for his PhD in Constitutional Law. Through my young friend I met some of the current Ugandan MPs before they were nominated to contest for parliament; they are young, educated and a bunch that is committed to change whatever it takes. I am greatly impressed by the bravery and sense of urgency of the young lads and lasses in the Ugandan parliament. The Ugandan foreign Minister, Sam Kutesa, a brother-in-law to the NRM supremo, had been viewed as a foreign-minister-for-life. Sam's departure must be music to the ears of many reformists in the beleaguered nation. That, unlike the bloody Arab Spring, might be the Sub-Saharan version revolution. It is a pity that change in Uganda will be attained by patriotic children pitted against their corrupt and failed parents, mentors and leaders; a younger generation routing an older generation and its rotten ways. Is this the way forward for Uganda's neighbour to the North? 'Aluta Continua!' Hakeem Legge, Esquire Leeds, UK
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