Western governments share blame for Uganda's current mess
By J. Oloka-Onyango
Posted Tuesday, March 4 2014 at 02:00
IN SUMMARY
This passionate and uncritical support was reflected in the titles
such as 'new breed' leader with which Museveni was baptised.
Two groups of individuals have been greatly shocked by the recent
actions of President Yoweri Museveni on account of their previous
relationship with him, and what they believed they knew of him. These
are the National Resistance Movement (NRM) 'historicals' ambushed by
the 'Anite Resolution' at Kyankwanzi Two earlier this month and the
Western governments crying out about the recent presidential assent to
the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
The two groups nevertheless bear a great deal of responsibility for
the quagmire that Uganda is presently in. To accept that
responsibility must be the starting point for a renewed struggle for
the genuine rights and democracy that have eluded Uganda since
independence.
Let us start with the case of the historicals. The basic premise on
which the NRM was built was that overstaying in power was the root
cause of the problems we had experienced in Africa in general and
Uganda in particular. Indeed, for the first three years of its
existence (1986 to 1989), the NRM acted like a party that was devoted
to setting things right and moving on.
However, in 1989, it was well-entrenched historicals who misled the
country into the first stages of the return to dictatorship by
unilaterally extending the 'interim' term of the government and
entrenching the 'Movement' system into Uganda's body politick,
effectively turning the country into a de facto one-party state.
It is this same group who, during the Constituent Assembly debate
(1993-1995), resisted and roundly defeated any proposals to make it
treasonable for any person to attempt to change the Constitution and
remove presidential term limits, arguing that this was unnecessary
because "the Museveni we know will not hang onto power".
At Kyankwanzi One in 2003, these same historicals looked on in shock
when a meeting which had been called to discuss multi-party democracy
turned into an endorsement for the removal of term limits, and in
effect, the beginnings of the establishment of a life presidency. Many
of those elders are incidentally now in the political opposition,
while those who remained behind signed their own death sentences at
Kyankwanzi Two as Museveni took the last steps to the completion of a
life presidency with the planned (but yet-to-be announced) removal of
age-limits from the Constitution.
While we may blame the youthful enthusiasm of the Anites, the real
culprits in this saga are the elders in the party who have
continuously lacked the moral and ethical courage to resist the
dictatorship they have helped to create.
On their part, Western governments have been complicit in supporting,
defending and promoting the manifest illegalities of the Museveni
regime right from 1986. Among his most ardent supporters and those
most immune to internal criticisms of the regime were successive US
presidents, secretaries of State, officers in charge of Africa,
national security advisors, etc., who trooped into the country and
pronounced Mr Museveni as the best thing that had ever happened to the
country!
As is usually their style, the British have been content to follow the
US lead while the Nordic countries felt an affinity drawn from the
period of exile that Museveni spent in that part of the world. This
passionate and uncritical support was reflected in the titles such as
'new breed' leader with which Museveni was baptised even as Western
leaders like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair were fully aware of the
situation of a dire lack of democratic freedoms and rights over which
he presided.
That support was further reflected in the extensive military,
diplomatic and economic support that the Museveni government has
enjoyed through the years and which sits like a loadstone around our
necks and those of our grandchildren. Despite continuous warnings from
domestic human rights activists and political analysts that the NRM is
a corrupt and militaristic regime, Western governments have been
willing accomplices in the steady erosion of the rights of Ugandans.
What is the lesson that can be learnt from these seemingly unrelated
experiences? The first is that only in a dictatorship can a leader
rule for 28 years and not be embarrassed to extend his stay to 35-plus
and his comrades look on and cheer what is the ultimate recipe for
state collapse. Secondly, no country simply becomes a dictatorship
overnight--both internal and external factors are responsible for such
a situation.
Indeed, the Anti-Homosexuality Act--ironically, now called the AHA!--can
only be passed in a country that lacks an iota of democratic
tradition, and with an established practice of blatant disregard for
the protection of fundamental human rights. But this is the result of
both NRM historicals and Western governments burying their heads in
the proverbial sand over the last 28 years of the Museveni rule. For
both of them, as the old saying goes, the chicken has now finally come
home to roost.
Mr Oloka-Onyango works with Human Rights & Peace Centre, School of Law
- Makerere University.
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