1/6 All of Uganda’s office-seeking political factions are exactly the same but always struggling to be different. They struggle to be different by basing on their historical fortunes (and misfortunes), the communal/ethnoreligious biases of leading members and such other non-achievement (i.e., ascriptive) criteria.
2/6 Even the most disinterested scan through the 36 or so fractious political factions in Uganda reveals that they all have at their helm members of the rent-seeking non-productive middle class (call it the meddle class). Shame on all 36 of them for not realizing what they really are and saving the poor Ugandan the burden which they all are.
3/6 The reality is that, political parties are, and have always been structures for articulating and aggregating group interests in socieities that have undergone vertical differentiation, into classes: industrialists, finaciers, landowners, merchants, wage labourers. Tell me: which of the 36 petty factions in Uganda is a grouping for labourers, or industrialists, or merchants, or financiers. Tell me.
4/6 By virtue of being a mediaeval, preindustrial society, your Uganda is still only horizontally differentiated. Lack of imagination has canalised us into mechanically imposing on ourselves vertical structures when our orientation is still horizontal: castes, lineages, clans, ebyaffe, ethnicities and all those ascriptive clusters. That is how the majority of our population is still organised; that majority called peasants whose proportion is as large as when the currently developed nations were still in the middle ages.
5/6 To pretend to transact our politics through the medium of structures that are suited for vertically stratified societies when we are horizontally differentiated is like forcing Kalitusi to grow like lumonde. It either withers away or becomes a disastrous weed as it tries to conform to the undulating terrain of a horizontally differentiated reality, negotiating around one clan, and then one religious, then left over a family of pseudonotables, then right over one ethinicty and then ebyaffe and so on. Does Uganda have the time for that nonsense?
6/6 In Uganda’s case, let me ask, is it pluralism or factionalism? I do not know what quinine one can concoct to whip our pseudoelite into shape. They need to be taught a les…….
Otto Patrick
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Home News News Analysis Really, how old is Museveni?
Really, how old is Museveni?
Wednesday, 24 June 2009 07:59 By A.Rwaga
Of what relevance is the death of Africa’s longest serving president Gabon’s Omar Bongo to Uganda? It is sure to stoke a running debate about the state of President Yoweri Museveni even as he invests every effort to cling to power, which he has already held for 23 years now.
Omar Bongo died on June 8 in a hospital in Spain reportedly of cancer. He had presided over his country for a record 42 years.
The debate was recently triggered by none other than Museveni’s senior presidential advisor, John Nagenda, and the soon retiring Supreme Court Justice George W. Kanyeihamba also emphatically pronounced himself on it.
In his weekly column in The New Vision on May 9, 2009, Nagenda wrote, “…To those, myself included, who consider Museveni to be indispensable to our country today, it is absolutely crucial that he be dispensed (not dispensed with) in the best dosage commensurate with his continued existence…What is indisputable is that the ferocious pace he has set himself over the last 30 years, could be injurious: to himself, to his cause, and therefore to those he serves and leads…” Nagenda then contemplated over what he termed “inevitable wolves” that would move to fill the president’s place in the absence of a “tried and tested successor” and what the consequences of all that would be in the event Museveni is indisposed or dies. President Museveni is known for working long hours. His press secretary Tamale Mirundi confirms that the president’s typical day doesn’t end until the early hours of the morning, about 2 a.m.
In a June 3, Daily Monitor interview, Justice Kanyeihamba declared Museveni is past his “sell-by date” and should stay away from the 2011 elections to guarantee the country’s political stability. Daily Monitor quoted him thus: “I must be honest and say President Museveni is exhausted. I won’t talk much about his exhaustion but the evidence is clear; when you see him on TV, when he is in meetings, you see the man is totally exhausted.”
The job of any country’s president is both prestigious and demanding because of the myriad of responsibilities, unrelenting pressures, high-stake decisions, constant criticisms and the fluctuating public opinion that comes with it. In mostly western countries, even as the president tackles all these, he must also worry about the legacy of his leadership long after he has gone.
Most, if not all, these western leaders, however, have strong institutions to support, as well as check, their presidency. Yet it has been found that continuous stress accruing from the position they occupy still takes a big toll on their lives. In the United States for instance, an analysis of public medical records of previous presidents dating back to the 26th president Theodore Roosevelt determined that US presidents age approximately two years for each calendar year in office. It is a theory advanced by Michael Roizen, chair of Wellness Institute who has also designed an online tool of how to find out one’s real age. In an article first published in US News & World Report, Roizen calculated the biological age of previous US presidents based on factors including physical activity, diet, blood pressure, and lifestyle habits.
Leading researchers with the American Psychological Association (APA) have established that age may be more related to reactions to stress and the absence of disease rather than to a person’s chronological age. The research released in 2006 indicates how acute stress seems to enhance immune function and improves memory but chronic stress has the opposite effect and can lead to disorders like depression, diabetes and cognitive impairment in aging. The research also adds that cumulative stress effects are showing up in people who are under constant stress. A number of medical doctors The Independent spoke to confirm stress has effects on one’s age. Although none would comment specifically about the job of president, almost all say high level jobs exert a lot of pressure and anxieties on those who hold them and deprive them enough time to relax and take away their minds from their jobs. A continuous exposure to such a lifestyle could cause a number of complications including chronic headache and ulcers and make a person feel older than they actually are.
While there is no way to scientifically determine the extent to which the presidency is stressful, very few people can dispute it is a high level stress job. More so in a country like Uganda, and many others like it. In many of these countries, most presidents, by design, govern their countries with nothing more than paper tiger institutions. Deluded to believe every first and last word on any affair of the state must be issued by them, they have enlarged their burden of responsibility and have in turn increased the stress they have to endure.
Access to top-notch medical care is one among many factors medical personnel identify to counter effects of stress on one’s age. Indeed Museveni, like his American counterparts, has more access to medical care than he would ever need. Moreover, he is on record as saying he does not trust any Ugandan doctor with his health, or any of his family members. Yet the continuous stress of office still affects the lives of those who occupy these presidential positions. Even when doctors advise taking time off, exercising and spending time with close friends, for presidents this is not easy to do. Not only can’t the nation’s business wait, they also live under unrelenting public examination that limits what they would do as normal, ordinary people. Only recently when Museveni’s right hand ring finger was sore, members of parliament expressed concern over his health and some questioned whether he was in a right state to govern or needed to take leave until he recovered.
Museveni has been on record saying he has no friends, just colleagues, meaning one of the two recommended stress relievers is off for him. However, as Tamale confirmed, to relax he exercises every morning, reads, writes, meets with his family and other guests, and goes to inspect his cows. Thus, given that Museveni endures similar, if not more, pressures and challenges as the studied US presidents, and if the same determinant, which shows that for each calendar year they stay in office they age about two years more than their biological age, were applied to him, then he has actually grown 46 years over his 23 year presidency. Add this to his estimated age of 42 when he assumed the presidency in 1986, he is 88 years old now. In 2011 when his current term runs out, he will have ruled Uganda for 25 years, which makes him 50 years old since taking over power, which then translates into actual 90 years. If Museveni stretches his incumbency to 2016, seven years more, this translates into 14 years more meaning he will actually be 102 years old.
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The death of Gabon’s Omar Bongo robbed Africa’s exclusive club of big men of its most senior member in terms of holding power. Now the title of Africa’s longest serving head of state has fallen to Libya’s Col. Muammar Gaddafi. The 68-year-old eerie colonel has now ruled his oil-rich country for 40 years. If the hypothesis that presidents age twice for every year they spend in office were to be applied to him, it means Gaddafi is at 107 years old. But then how about other club members?
Zimbabwe’s octogenarian Robert Mugabe has ruled his one time Africa’s food basket for 29 years, which translates into 58 years, which makes his total 112 years.
Angola’s 65-year-old Eduardo Dos Santos has been ruling his oil and mineral rich country for 30 years now. Apply the theory, and Santos stands at 95 years old.
How about Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak? The 79-year-old has been president for 28 years now. Presidentially, he has grown by 56 years, making the total 107 years.
From North Africa comes another one, Tunisia’s Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. The 71-year-old has presided over arguably the healthiest and best educated nation in North Africa for 22 years now. If you applied the theory, that would presidentially come to 44 years old and 93 in total.
Cameroon’s 74-year-old Paul Biya has been president for 27 years. Presidentially, he is 54 years old, making him 101 years.
Then there’s the Congo Republic’s Denis Sassou Nguesso. Aged 64 years, he has ruled this central African country for a cool 30 years. Apply the theory and it comes to 60 years, and ultimately 94 years overall.
Also in this big men’s club is Swaziland’s King Makhosetive Mswati III. Famous for parading young virgins every year from which he picks a new bride, even as his tiny southern African kingdom retains with one of the world’s highest HIV/Aids prevalence rates, Mswati is the youngest of them all at 39 years, two thirds of which he has spent as king.
Enough’s Hypocrisy And War Designs On Uganda
By Anthony Rwaga
June 26rd, 2009
President Obama shouldn’t allow Resolve and Enough to hijack Africa policy through Hollywood tactics
[Publisher’s Commentary]
Some so-called American “peace” organizations seem oblivious to the fact that the warfare they are now advocating may cause more innocent blood to be spilled in the northern part of Uganda.
They have gathered activists, celebrities, academics and politicians from all over the world for what’s been billed as “Lobby Days,” June 22-23, in Washington, D.C., with the objective to pressure U.S. lawmakers into backing military attacks to deal once and for all a mortal blow to the “one man” who is holding the entire Central Africa region “hostage.”
That one man is supposedly Joseph Kony.
This is of course Hollywood fantasy and was also done as a public relations ploy to deflect attention from the “second man,” who is actually responsible for more genocide in Central Africa –in Rwanda, in eastern Congo, and in the concentration camps in Acholi—and that second man is Yoweri Museveni.
This ploy must be vigorously opposed because often times American foreign policy has indeed operated in Hollywood fashion. If any one doubts these words, just look at the layout and the colors of Resolve’s website and the lineup of some of the speakers.
Please see http://www.resolveuganda.org/
That’s what often happens when idealistic Americans, starving for a cause, stumble blindly and rather than doing good, may cause more harm, especially when some of the leaders have their own not-so-hidden agendas.
The Hollywood strategists are about to do to Uganda what they did to the Sudan; glamorize the conflict to attract celebrities and thereby drown the issues except the ones they want to highlight.
It is hardly just Kony.
Many people and organizations actually benefit and profit from the wars in Central Africa, especially Uganda’s 23 years war: These include some of the main combatants, the army of Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) of Kony; the arms suppliers; Western oil and mining companies; Western politicians and the African ones in their pockets; and, the NGOs.
As always, the victims are Uganda’s and Central Africa’s civilians.
So what is the Solution?
According to Resolve and Enough! it’s to increase the military attacks that will result in Kony’s demise; and then the celestial choirs will sing and peace will prevail. Resolve and Enough! have even recruited two American senators to lead their reckless and irresponsible cause.
Resolve and Enough! are trying to sell warfare by lobbying for the passage of a Bill sponsored by Senators Russ Feingold and Sam Brownback, that asks for the United States’ military to join Uganda’s army –which is being investigated for war crimes committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo when Uganda occupied eastern Congo from 1997 to 2003– when and if it next launches an attack against the Lord’s Resistance Army.
Well, rather than be persuaded by the glitzy presentations and the line up of beautiful celebrities –President Barack Obama, who is one of the most intellectually sober leaders in the world, should not fall for it – let’s examine the facts.
When Uganda last launched such an attack, with U.S. support under George W. Bush, in December 2008, it failed to capture the LRA leader Joseph Kony or neutralize his forces. Instead, it provoked reported LRA retaliatory attacks against civilians in Congo’s Garamba province.
The Museveni and George Bush attack also scuttled peace negotiations that had been going on between Museveni’s and Kony’s forces for more than two years during which there had been no fighting. The open question is whether it is Kony or Museveni that genuinely fears comprehensive peace.
After all, Kony would merely have to demobilize an army estimated at less than 1,000; what would Museveni do with his huge army and arsenal of weapons?
So, do Senators Feingold and Brownback have the complete picture? Or just the picture they want or were supplied?
Never mind that the Bill they’re sponsoring, if approved as it now reads, would align the United States with an army some of whose officers, including the commander in chief Museveni, could be indicted by the ICC on the war crimes charges. The Wall Street Journal exclusively reported that such an investigation had been initiated in a front page story on June 8, 2006. Museveni had reportedly urged then U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to block the probe, without success.
Never mind that the Leahy Amendment precludes U.S. military assistance to Uganda’s army –and that President Bush and Bill Clinton before him might have been in violation— not only because of the alleged war crimes being investigated by the ICC, but also because Uganda’s army engages in torture, as comprehensively exposed in an April 2009 report by Human Rights Watch.
The chilling 89-page report that describes some of the most fiendish torture, “Open Secret: Illegal Detention and Torture by the Joint Anti-terrorism Task Force in Uganda,” is available on
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/04/08/uganda-end-torture-anti-terror-unit
Did Resolve and Enough! not make Senators Feingold and Brownback aware of this report?
The official host of Lobby Days is Resolve, which was once operated by young and idealistic Americans who seemed to want to help highlight the atrocities in Uganda, but who have now lost their way by aligning so closely with the Museveni regime.
Yet, the main organization that has been drumming for war is Enough! On its website, this organization which claims it aims to fight genocide and crimes against humanity, advocates for the exact opposite with respect to Uganda.
The December attacks did not succeed because the Ugandan military, the same one being investigated on war crimes allegations by the ICC, was not competent , Enough! maintains. This time, with U.S. involvement, civilian casualties would be limited so it’s worth another try, Enough! argues.
Please see http://www.enoughproject.org/
From where Enough! garners this confidence is not clear.
The country sides in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan are littered with the graveyards of civilians that are “collateral” damage in the U.S.’s “war on terror.” In fact, so high are civilian deaths in Afghanistan now that General Stanley A. McChrystal, the U.S. commander there has said it could undermine the U.S. effort there.
Uganda and Central Africa does not need any of this type of “precision” attacks. The “smart bombs” aren’t that smart. Anyone advocating expansion of military theater anywhere in Africa has evil intentions.
What makes Enough!’s propaganda most galling is that its leaders speak from both sides of the mouth. They’re even bold enough to leave the evidence on their website, thinking everyone can be fooled all the time.
Enough! is a unit of an outfit called “Center For American Progress” which sponsors Enough! and is headed by John Podesta, who was Bill Clinton’s chief of staff. Recall that it was during the Clinton Administration that Uganda was allowed to invade what was then Zaire (now DR Congo) and occupy the mineral rich region and loot resources from there, hand in hand with Western companies some of which were later identified in a United Nations report. It was during this occupation that seven million Congolese perished in a genocide Western newspapers downplay since their governments –especially the U.S. and U.K.– were clearly complicit by backing Uganda.
Of course Enough! and the Center For American Progress know about the Leahy Amendment. Why it’s mentioned right there on the Center For American Progress’s website on http://www.americanprogress.org
An article dated March 24, 2008, under the headline “Seek Enforcement of the Leahy Amendment,” reads: “ The federal government should cut off unconditional U.S. support for Iraq’s national security forces. Congress should stop training Iraqi national forces and seek enforcement of the Leahy Amendment. The Leahy Amendment, first introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) as an amendment to the 1997 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act, prohibits U.S. security assistance to foreign military or security units ‘against whom exist credible allegations of gross violations of human rights.’ Since 1997, Congress has continued these restrictions on such assistance in amendments to the Foreign Operations and Defense Appropriations Acts, which permits the Secretary of Defense to waive the restriction on assistance if ‘extraordinary circumstances’ require assistance to continue to units credibly believed to have engaged in gross violations of human rights. Since 2003, the Bush administration has refused to apply the provisions of the Leahy Amendment to U.S. security assistance to Iraqi units.”
So it’s all well to invoke the Leahy Amendment when it came to Iraq but the U.S. should continue financing a Ugandan army that engages in torture and which is being investigated on war crimes allegations by the ICC?
Senators Feingold and Brownback have some things to reflect upon. Perhaps they should amend the Bill they’re sponsoring and excise any mention of supporting or working with Uganda’s military. They should replace it with a call for Museveni and Kony to come to the table, under the eye of the International community; unlike the previous talks, laudable as they were, which were conducted in the forests.
The so-called “big” newspapers are still sleeping as usual.
Sooner or later, they will catch on to this story. Hopefully before those dumb smart bombs drop on Uganda.