The LRA Excuse for Ugandan Troops in Congo---Again

LRA militia leader Joseph Kony

KPFA Audio link:  http://goo.gl/0kSN9


KPFA Weekend News Anchor:  Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's state newspaper, The New Vision, has reported that the UN Security Council and the Democratic Republic of Congo have agreed to join Museveni's army, the Uganda People's Defense Force, in a new offensive to hunt Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, and Jamil Mukulu’s Allied Democratic Forces, or ADF, in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.   The U.S.A.'s LRA Disarmament Act, which President Obama signed into law in 2010, authorizes funding, training, and collaboration with the U.S. Department of State, the Department of Defense, the US Agency for International Development, and the U.S. Intelligence Community to hunt down the LRA.   KPFA's Ann Garrison has more:

Uganda and its neighbors, the
Democratic Republic of
Congo, Central African
Republic, and Sudan. 

KPFA/Ann Garrison:  The Security Council, and the Congolese and Ugandan Defense Ministers said that the Ugandan Army needs to launch this new military offensive in Congo and the Central African Republic, or CAR, because the LRA keep raping and killing civilians there, though the UN Mapping Report released on October 1st, 2010, documents the Ugandan Army's own civilian massacres, mass rapes, and other sexual atrocities in Congo.   


Michael Kirkpatrick is a Black Star News contributor who has traveled back and forth to Uganda and its Acholi region frequently since 1998.  He says that Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army are always the most convenient excuse for military intervention: 

Black Star News contributor Michael
Kirkpatrick in Northern Uganda

Michael Kirkpatrick:   There is a pattern of demonizing Joseph Kony for every atrocity and every crime.  Joseph Kony has become demonized to justify military intervention by the U.S. and by other forces in that part of Africa. He's become a phantom menace.  He's almost like this mysterious fog that is just creeping around Central Africa but he's been able to survive for over 20 years.  He's nothing but a gang leader. He's a thug. He's a rag tag bunch of criminals that's somehow been able to survive for over 20 years. There's a reason he's been able to survive.  He is the bad guy in the battle.  To say that, somehow, modern armies haven't been able to capture, in twenty years, a rebel thug, is preposterous.  

Uganda's Rolling Stone tabloid's cover story
about Islamic "homo generals" with ties
to the Lord's Resistance Army.

KPFA:  Last November Uganda's fanatically homophobic tabloid newspaper Rolling Stone ran a story about what it called Islamic Homo Generals, meaning terrorists, with ties to the Lord's Resistance Army.   

For Pacifica, KPFA Radio, I'm Ann Garrison.

Can Barney out legislate Bahati?

KPFA Weekend News Anchor Cameron Jones:  On Tuesday, Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, moved a human rights amendment to the Financial Services Bill out of committee on a unanimous vote. The amendment urges the U.S. Treasury Department to advocate that multilateral development banks supported by the U.S. not assist nations engaging in gross human rights violations, including denial of the freedom of religion and physical persecution because of sexual orientation or gender identity. KPFA's Ann Garrison has more.

The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power  protest
against Uganda's  Anti-Homosexuality Act,
a.k.a. Hang-the-Gays Bill, in New York City.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: Congressman Barney Frank, in his press release about the amendment, used the physical persecution of sexual minorities in Uganda as an example of the sort of human rights violations that his amendment would discourage, so most of the press has interpreted it as being targeted singly at Uganda's pending Anti-Homosexuality Act, otherwise known as the Hang-the-Gays bill, or, the Bahati bill, after its author Ugandan Parliamentarian David Bahati. Last week the New Vision, Uganda's state-owned newspaper, reported that Uganda's Speaker of Parliament has summoned MPs to report on March 22 to take up “unfinished business,” including the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

Liberian born Emira Woods, Co-Editor of the Institute for Policy Studies' Foreign Policy in Focus, and one of the African advocates at the March 2nd Congressional briefing on the UN Mapping Report on Congo atrocities, told KPFA that although LGBT rights activism had most likely inspired Frank to write the amendment, it should apply to the whole range of human rights violations. She added, however, that an enforcement mechanism is hard to imagine:

Emira Woods:  With the amendment and press release coming forward, what Congressman Frank has done is call much needed attention to the anti-gay legislation and I think we should commend that, and yet I think it is difficult to imagine how that will be implemented by Treasury using its leverage on the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the other international financial institutions. I think this is an instance where a Congressman is using the political, sort of like a bully pulpit.

KPFA:  And then you think the amendment's advocacy might be expanded to stop other gender violence such as the sexual terrorism in the Democratic Republic of Congo?

Emira Woods:  I think its first important to applaud the attention that he's bringing to the issues of the anti-gay legislation in Uganda.  That's huge.  And I think it's much needed.  And all of the champions and defenders of human rights broadly, of LGBT right in particular, throughout Africa, welcome the statements and the actions from Congressman Frank.   So I think wee have to applaud that first.   Acknowledge it, support it, strengthen it.  And then, I think, moving further to encourage a similar bully pulpit be used to address the atrocities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

KPFA:  For Pacifica, KFPA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.

Audio link: http://www.anngarrison.com/images/mp3s/barneyfranklgbt.mp3.

Africa advocates head to Congress re Congo atrocities

KPFA Weekend News Anchor Cameron Jones: The Great Lakes Region of Africa Coalition of peace and social justice activists in the U.S. is preparing for a March 2nd Congressional briefing on the UN Mapping Report documenting atrocities committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The report was leaked on August 26th, 2010, and officially released by the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights on October 1st.

President and General Paul Kagame leads the army whose
crimes in Congo are documented in the UN Mapping Report
leaked 08.26.2010, and officially released 10.01.2010.

The armies of Congo's neighbors to the east, Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi, and most of all that of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, are most implicated, but the U.S. continues to collaborate with all three militarily. KPFA's Ann Garrison has more.

KPFA/Ann Garrison:  International, multilingual broadcast headlines following the August 26th leak of the UN Mapping Report were later combined into this sound collage to introduce "The contradictions of General Paul Kagame:," a video posted to the Youtube and Jambo News, a publication covering Africa's Great Lakes Region:

Audio collage of headlines:  (Audio collage of broadcast headlines during the week following the 08.26.2010 leak of the report.)

KPFA/Ann Garrison:  Despite the Mapping Report's documentation of atrocities including mass rape, civilian massacres, destruction of hospitals and other essential infrastructure, and even genocide, there have been no international criminal indictments. Within the last year Rwanda's President Paul Kagame, Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni, and Burundi's President Pierre Nkrunziza, all of whom are implicated in the UN report, held onto power in elections that much of the world understood as window dressing for dictatorship.



The U.S. and UK have continued to arm, train, and collaborate with the armies of Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi in Somalia, Sudan, and elsewhere on the African continent. Last July the Pentagon awarded Northrop Grumman and three other defense and security contractors a $500 million contract to train the armies of Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi and other African allies.

Jacques Bahati, Policy Analyst for the Washington D.C.-based Africa Faith and Justice Network spoke to KPFA about the Great Lakes Coalition's hopes for its March 2nd briefing on Capitol Hill:

Jacques Bahati:  Our goal is to rally U.S. support for justice for the crimes committed by the Rwandan, Ugandan, and Burundian armies and their Congolese collaborators in the war against Congo in 1996 to 2003.  Also we want the U.S. to take a clear stand on this issue, supporting the UN Mapping Report recommendations to set up an investigation to determine whether the targeted and massive killing of Congolese, Burundian, and Rwandan Hutu were a genocide.    

KPFA:  There have been many Congressional hearings and many UN reports about this.  What are you hoping might be different this time?

Jacques Bahati:  Well, we can't get tired.  We will continue to push and rally the international community for peace and stability of the region.  Although they might not hear us or they haven't heard us, we believe that one day they will hear what we are saying, because the evidence is very clear.  Many people died and justice has to be served.  

President  Barack Obama, as a Senator, authored Senate
Bill 2125, the Congo, Relief, Security, and Democracy
Promotion Act of 2006.

Ann Garrison:  Bahati also said that they would be asking Congress to push for implementation of Senate Bill 2125, the Obama Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act of 2006, and the only bill that President Obama, as a Senator, ushered into law on his own. The bill calls for appointment of a Special Envoy to the Congo, and for the cancellation of U.S. assistance to any country invading the Congo and plundering its resources, as the Mapping Report and previous UN reports demonstrate, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi have.

The Great Lakes Coalition is asking Americans to call their Senators and Congressmembers to ask them to attend the March 2nd briefing on the UN Mapping Report on Capitol Hill.  For updates on the hearings, see the websites of the Africa Faith and Justice Network and Friends of the Congo.

For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.

(For Congressional contacts, see http://contactingthecongress.org/.)

Besigye rejects Museveni's rule

KPFA Weekend News, 02.20.2011:

Audio link: http://goo.gl/3K2nu

KPFA Weekend News Anchor Anthony Fest: And this is KPFA/KPFB in Berkeley, or KFCF, 88.1 in Fresno.  The program is the Weekend News; I'm Anthony Fest with David Landau.   Turning now to news from Africa, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has been in power for the past 25 years, with military, diplomatic, and intelligence support from the U.S.  He officially claimed victory in Uganda's presidential election this morning, but opposition parties and election observers claimed widespread election fraud. KPFA's Ann Garrison has more.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni entered his 26th
year in power, after claiming victory, on 02.20.2011, in
yet another presidential election that opposition parties
declared fraudulent.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: In his introduction to a recent interview with Ugandan President Yoweri Musveni, Aljazeera host Mohammed Adow said that  Museveni had joined the League of African Rulers whose only wish is to stay in power forever. In conversation with Museveni, the Aljazeera host asked whether he would ever consider retiring, and criticized his extreme concentration of power, in his own hands.

Aljazeera's Talk to Jazeera Host Mohammed Adow:  Mr. President, your National Resistance Movement Party is run like a one man show, not an institution. You are the NRM and without you, some say, it's the end of the party.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni:  Oh, they must be sick, because NRM has got nine million members now.  Many of the things they do, I don't even know.  So anybody who said that I'm running that huge organization alone must be sick in his head or her head.

KPFA:   Opposition presidential candidate Dr. Kizza Besigye and the Democracy Group, a non-partisan election monitoring team, were collecting their own election poll tallies after Ugandans went to the polls on Friday, so as to publish their own results, but Museveni's Communications Commission made that impossible by ordering telecom companies to jam their SMS message reception. Besigye, his party and other members of the opposition categorically rejected the election results, and denounced the National Electoral Commission which Museveni selected himself.

They also accused Museveni and his party of ballot stuffing, unsealed ballot boxes, voter intimidation by the army, flagrant vote buying, and using state resources to win. Commonwealth observers observed the same irregularities.

Commonwealth election observers spokesman:  The power of incumbency in this general election, and during the campaign leading to it, was exercised to such an extent as to compromise severely the level playing field between the competing candidates and political parties.

KPFA:  Poverty, especially among Uganda's majority subsistence farmers, was the opposition's central issue, but, poverty also made Ugandans vulnerable to widely reported, flagrant vote buying by the rullng party. Besigye urged hungry Ugandans to take the money, then vote against the thieves who gave it to them, but Job Collins, who ran for Youth Member of Parliament in Uganda's Northern Region, and other members of the opposition said that many impoverished Ugandans feel too disempowered to defy the authority of those who paid for their votes.

Speaking to the press, Besigye said that the opposition rejected not only the election results but also any legal authority based on them:

Dr. Kizza Besigye has rejected the authority of Ugandan
President Yoweri Museveni established by the
02.20.2011 election, because, he claims, it was fraudulent. 

Dr. Kizza Besigye:  We have rejected the outcome of this election.  We are rejecting the leadership that emerges out of this sham election.   And we are going to take steps, in consultation with the various people we have pointed out, all the stakeholders in our country, including the public, as to the means we are going to use to bring the country back to Constitutional rule.  

KPFA: Africa peace and justice activists in the U.S. have stepped up their calls for the U.S. to stop supporting both the Museveni regime and the Rwandan regime of Paul Kagame since the October 1st release of the UN Mapping Report documenting their armies' war crimes in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.  

Uganda: Museveni Claims Victory, Opposition Claims Fraud

KPFA Weekend News, 02.19.2011

Audio link: http://goo.gl/Ay90J

KPFA Weekend News Anchor Cameron Jones: Ugandans voted in parliamentary, presidential, and local elections on Friday, after the Uganda Communications Commission’s telecom companies told bulk SMS providers to block messages containing key words or phrases such as “Tunisia,” “Egypt,” “Mubarak,” “Ben Ali” or “people power.” Uganda’s National Electoral Commission has projected President Yoweri Museveni the winner. Museveni has ruled Uganda since 1986, with U.S. military, diplomatic, intelligence and financial support. KPFA’s Ann Garrison has more.

President Yoweri Museveni
celebrating his 26th year in power. 

Ann Garrison: Before yesterday’s polls, Uganda's Daily Monitor reported that there were roughly 140,000 dead people, 5,000 people 110 years and older, and half a million foreigners on Uganda's voter rolls. Ugandan American newspaper editor Milton Allimadi wrote that, “The dead people might be so appalled that they’ll vote for the opposition this time,” but leading opposition presidential candidate Dr. Kizza Besigye warned that ghost votes would be some of the most serious fraud.

He also predicted widespread vote buying by Museveni’s party and urged hungry Ugandans to take the money, get a good meal, then go out and vote against those who paid them:

Campaign posters for opposition candidates Anne Mugisha
and Dr. Kizza Besigye at a campaign rally in Uganda.

Dr. Kizza Besigye: Well, the money must be eaten. It is our money. It is not anybody else’s money. This is YOUR money. Eat it and vote against the thieves.

Ann Garrison: Today Anne Mugisha, a member of Besigye’s party and a candidate for Women’s Member of Parliament in Uganda’s Mbarara District, reported that one of her volunteers came close to being arrested for disturbing the peace when she objected to agents of Museveni’s party openly buying votes in a village square.

Mugisha, like Besigye, is reporting a host of election violations as the National Electoral Commission projects her as a second place finisher, but she says this is no surprise:

Anne Mugisha: It’s like walking into a casino knowing that the guy who owns it has to make a profit. Sometimes a few lucky people make some money but most of the time people lose.  So this time around I lost. A few of our opposition people did scrape through, but the casino is owned by the ruling party and President Museveni, and they will definitely be looking to make a profit.

Ann Garrison: Dr. Kizza Besigye held a press conference at the end of the day today in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, to say that this year’s election had been even more rigged than before and that he will hold another press conference tomorrow to announce his response. Both he and opposition presidential candidate Olara Otunnu, before the polls, urged Ugandans not to accept the results that they knew would be rigged.

When asked what he would do if people protested, Museveni said that was simple, that he would lock them up.

Dominique Diomi, a survivor of the ongoing Congo conflict which has cost millions of lives, said that Ugandans are far from the only ones concerned about Museveni retaining his hold on power.

Dominique Diomi:  It is a disgrace that Yoweri Museveni was even allowed to stand for the presidency again, after the UN Mapping Report which was released on October 1st last year, documented that his army perpetrated crimes against humanity and genocide and massacre of civilians in the Congo.

Ann Garrison:  For updates on the Ugandan situation, see AfrobeatRadio.net and the San Francisco Bay View Newspaper. For Pacific, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I’m Ann Garrison.

Museveni's Casino: Anne Mugisha on Uganda's 2011 election

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni 
celebrates his 26th year in office. 

Anne Mugisha

"We knew exactly what was going to happen in this election.  We complained about the registers, we complained about the inflated numbers of people on the registers, we complained about the use of state resources in the election, but we still agreed to go in and participate.  So that's like walking into a casino, knowing that the guy who owns it has to make a profit.  Sometimes a few lucky people make some money.  But most of the time people lose.  So this time around I lost.   A few of our opposition people did scrape through, but the casino is owned by the ruling party and President Museveni and they would definitely be looking to make a profit.  So that's how I see this election, like a trip to the casino."  

--Anne Mugisha, 2011 candidate for Women's Member of Parliament in Uganda's Mbarara District                       

That's one quote, from my conversation with Anne Mugisha, opposition candidate for Women's Member of Parliament in Uganda's Mbrara District, on 02.19.2011, the day after Uganda's 2011 presidential and parliamentary polls closed.  She also reported that one of her volunteers came close to being arrested for objecting to the ruling National Resistance Movement's reps openly buying votes in the center of a village, and she talked about the need to build a culture of nonviolent protest in Uganda, a process that she said would take years.  Here's the conversation:

Audio link: http://goo.gl/fVKtL.

Museveni's Casino: Anne Mugisha on Uganda's 2011 election

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni celebrates his 26th year in office. 

Anne Mugisha

"We knew exactly what was going to happen in this election.  We complained about the registers, we complained about the inflated numbers of people on the registers, we complained about the use of state resources in the election, but we still agreed to go in and participate.  So that's like walking into a casino, knowing that the guy who owns it has to make a profit.  Sometimes a few lucky people make some money.  But most of the time people lose.  So this time around I lost.   A few of our opposition people did scrape through, but the casino is owned by the ruling party and President Museveni and they would definitely be looking to make a profit.  So that's how I see this election, like a trip to the casino."  

--Anne Mugisha, 2011 candidate for Women's Member of Parliament in Uganda's Mbarara District                       

That's one quote, from my conversation with Anne Mugisha, opposition candidate for Women's Member of Parliament in Uganda's Mbrara District, on 02.19.2011, the day after Uganda's 2011 presidential and parliamentary polls closed.  She also reported that one of her volunteers came close to being arrested for objecting to the ruling National Resistance Movement's reps openly buying votes in the center of a village, and talked about the need to build a culture of nonviolent protest in Uganda, a process that she seems committed to but said would take years.  Here's the conversation, just one paragraph fits into my KPFA Weekend News on Uganda's polls: 

Besigye to Ugandans: Eat Money Used to Buy Votes, then Vote Against the Thieves

Yoweri Museveni, Uganda's President for the past 26 years,
and his rival presidential candidate, for the third time,
Dr. Kizza Besigye. 

Ugandans began voting on Friday, February 18th, with the country's Daily Monitor reporting that there are 140,000 dead people, 5000 people 110 years and older, and half a million foreigners on the rolls.

"The dead people might be so appalled," said Ugandan American Newspaper Editor Milton Allimadi, that they might vote for the opposition this time.

Dr. Kizza Besigye urged any Ugandans selling their votes to Museveni and the NRM to eat the money, get a good meal, because it's their money; not anybody else's money.

"Eat it," he said, "and then go and vote against the thieves."

The Twitter hashtag for Uganda's election is #Ugandavotes.

Milton Allimadi on Uganda, Rwanda, and Uganda's 2011 Election

Milton Allimadi, Ugandan American
Editor of the New York City-based
Black Star News.

On Saturday, 02.14, I spoke to Ugandan American Black Star News Editor Milton Allimadi, about Uganda's February 18th election for KPFA News and Afrobeat Radio, about whether or not Ugandan might follow Egypt after the February 18th polls that no one expects to be free or fair.   That link is posted here on AfrobeatRadio.net, and this is a recording of our extended conversation, touching on:

- the European Union's election observers' mission,

- the Rwanda Genocide and the Acholi Genocide in Northern Uganda,

- the threat of war between Rwanda and Uganda, a backdrop to the Ugandan election, and, one possible explanation of the high level visit by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg and UnderSecretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson.

Allies of the U.S., enemies of each other.  There
is considerable unease that Rwandan President
Paul Kagame and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni,
will go to war after Uganda's February 18th 
election, assuming Museveni remains in office.

KPFA Weekend News: Uganda the next Egypt?

KPFA Weekend News, 02.12.2011:

KPFA Weekend News Anchor David Rosenberg:  One of Uganda's three leading opposition presidential candidates, and others, predict that Uganda could become the next Egypt or Tunisia after next Friday's presidential and parliamentary elections, which few expect to be free or fair.   Ann Garrison has more.

KPFA/Ann Garrison:  Last week the world watched Egyptians in the streets of Cairo, and heard voices of the Egyptian revolution on radio, TV, Facebook, Twitter, the blogosphere, and elsewhere on the Internet. They included the voice of this Egyptian street protestor, which nearly two million people have now heard on the Youtube alone:

Egyptian Street Protestor:  We will not be silenced.  Whether you are Christian, whether you are Muslim, or whether you are an atheist, you will demand your goddamn rights, and we will have our rights, one way or the other.  We will never be silenced.

KPFA:  Milton Allimadi, Ugandan American editor of the New York City-based Black Star News says that Egypt's uprising was really a global uprising, with scenes beamed all around the world, and both Egyptians and Mubarak well aware that the rest of the world was watching.   Allimadi also agrees with Dr. Kizza Besigye that Uganda could be next.

He spoke to KPFA from New York City:

Milton Allimadi:  This should be seen as a sequence of events now, so the world will see this as interconnected.  Egypt was seen as connected with Tunisia, so I see this as a possibility in Uganda as well.  Ugandans are very savy; they're very sophisticated consumers of news and they watched developments in both Tunisia and Egypt very carefully.

KPFA:  The majority of Ugandans are subsistence farmers.  Do you have an idea of what kind of media and Internet access they have?

Milton Allimadi:  The majority of Egyptians are subsistence farmers as well, but the people that are connected to Facebook, the Internet, and to Twitter, live in the large cities such as Cairo.  The same applies to Uganda.  The sophisticated Internet consumers of news live in cities such as Kampala, Entebbe, Jinja, Gulu, Mbarara, Masaka, and these are the ones that would likely show their protest in these urban areas and that's where it counts.

KPFA:  So you think that, if there is an uprising, it will take place in the cities?

Milton Allimadi:  Absolutely; these kinds of uprisings invariably take part in the cities.  That's where most international, as well as local, media, are focussed and concentrated.    And, in Uganda, I think there's a sense by international media that this is a ground changing election, because the BBC, which has traditionally been very apologetic and sympathetic to President Museveni, has now for the first time deployed a major contingent of reporters inside Uganda, so the coverage is going to be very different and very significant this time around.

KPFA:  Do you know of any effort to block the news and or the Internet?

Milton Allimadi:  Not yet, but there may be plans to do that come election time.  And I know there are many organizations inside and outside Uganda who are working on setting up alternative networks to be able to disseminate information.

KPFA:  U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and Under Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson flew into Kampala, Uganda last week to meet with Uganda's three leading opposition presidential candidates, Kizza Besigye, Norbert Mao, and Olara Otunnu, all of whom told them that Friday's elections will not be free and fair.  Steinberg and Carson then went on to meet with Ugandan President Yoweri Museven, who has been one of the U.S.A.'s closest allies and military collaborators since the end of the Cold War. Before leaving, Steinberg gave a speech at Kampala's Makerere University about the importance of free and fair elections, and protecting human rights for all, regardless of race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation.

For a longer version of this interview with Milton Allimadi and for ongoing updates on Uganda's election, see the websites of the San Francisco Bay View and AfrobeatRadio.net.

For Pacifica/KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.

Whither Uganda? Election 2011

Published in Uganda's Daily Monitor.

On February 6th, the day of my KPFA News report below, Uganda's Daily Monitor reported that US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, and Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson, were in Uganda to speak to the three opposition presidential candidates, Kizza Besigye of Inter-Party Cooperation, Olara Otunnu of the Uganda Peoples Congress, and Norbert Mao of the Democratic Party, and that the meeting "formed the basis of their engagement with President Museveni."  The Monitor also reported that "Uganda is a key strategic partner to the US in its role in maintaining regional stability."

                       Audio link:  http://goo.gl/IhDnW.

KPFA Weekend News Anchor Anthony Fest:  Uganda is approaching parliamentary and presidential elections on February 18th.   The current regime of Yoweri Museveni imprisoned one of the leading candidates, Dr. Kizza Besigye, when he ran against Museveni in 2005 and 2006, but all charges were dropped and Besigye is running again this year. Internationally known human rights advocate Olara Otunnu, former U.N. Under-Secretary General and Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict Zones returned from exile to run for president, and Norbert Mao, a Ugandan lawyer known for his negotiations to bring peace to Uganda's wartorn north, is running against Museveni as well. KPFA's Ann Garrison has the story.

KPFA/Ann Garrison:  Uganda, appears to be having a real presidential election, unlike Rwanda, where two of three viable presidential candidates had been arrested before the election year was over and both remain in maximum security prison. Uganda's leading presidential candidates are actively campaigning, as are parliamentary candidates, though election violence is feared and few expect the election to be free or fair. Dr. Kizza Besigye has said that he will conduct his own presidential exit polls, though Museveni has threatened to arrest him if he does.

The main campaign issues are poverty, government corruption, and segregated education, which leaves children of the majority peasant population being shuffled through poor public schools, without acquiring any skills, while children of the elite attend private school.

Olara Otunnu, leader of the Uganda People's
Congress party, arrives for his nomination as
presidential candidate in the capital Kampala.

Presidential candidate Olara Otunnu, who attended primary and secondary school in a mud hut in Uganda's indigenous Acholi region, went on to Uganda's Makerere University and from there to Oxford and Harvard Law School, but he says that his story is not possible in Uganda now

Olara Otunnu:  The education system, especially at the primary level and the elementary level, have completely collapsed.  The government has abandoned the public schools, the government schools.  And instead, with the corruption, the country has seen a mushrooming of top quality private schools for those who are very, very wealthy.  And then, this completely collapsed the system for the vast majority of children.   These schools are no longer able to lay the foundation for children who go on to secondary schools, who can become teachers, and doctors, and engineers, as it used to be in our school system.   

KPFA:  Melanie Nathan, Marin County Human Rights Commissioner, Editor/Contributor to LezGetReal, a Gay Girl's View of the World, and international LGBT activist says that damage to Uganda's public schools is a tragedy for Ugandans and for LGBT rights:

Melanie Nathan:  Destroying pubic education, as Museveni has in Uganda, is a great way to encourage the fearful religious fundamentalism manipulated by those trying to institute homicidal homophobia with this Anti-Homosexuality Act, also known as the Hang-the-Gays Bill.

N

Uganda's Democratic Party presidential
candidate Norbert Mao, listened
to this woman in Kazo, Kiruhuura district.

KPFA:  Many Congolese people, including Eric Kamba, of the Boston-based Congolese Development Center, would like to see Museveni voted out of office because of his army's war crimes in Congo, which have been documented in many UN reports. Kamba, a refugee from Congo's central Kasai Province, says that he would be assassinated if he went home because he has accused the Congolese President Joseph Kabila of corruption and collaboration with Museveni and Rwandan President Paul Kagame in the invasion and occupation of Congo.

Eric Kamba:  As an African, I would like to see Yoweri Museveni voted out of office because he caused the collapse of the most fundamental social institutions and high levels of poverty and corruption in his own country. As a Congolese refugee, I want to see his regime end because he invaded and occupied Congo, and is still plundering its natural resources. In 2008, the International Refugee Commission, estimated that there have been 5.4 million deaths due to the conflict in Congo, and there have been many more since 2008 that no one has counted.

KPFA:  And what would you expect from Uganda's other presidential candidates?

Eric Kamba:  Dr Kizza Besigye has spoken out against Uganda's invasion of Congo for years and the other leading presidential candidates oppose it as well; any of them would be a big improvement for Uganda, Congo, and Africa.  Museveni has been clinging to power and terrorizing the whole Great Lakes Region for the past 25 years.

KPFA: For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.

Museveni Regime Denies Kato's Murder was Homophobic

R.I.P. David Kato Kisule, Ugandan LGBT activist, and advocacy officer for 

Sexual Minorities Uganda.  Murdered by hammer blows to the head, by an 

assailant who broke into his home in Kampala, Uganda, January 26, 2011, 

weeks after he won a lawsuit against Uganda's Rolling Stone tabloid for 

publishing his picture and those of other LGBT Ugandans and 

urging "Hang them."

Ugandan Deputy Police Spokesperson Vincent Sekate

"I would like to make it very clear.  It is not linked to him being an activist of the sexual minorities.  It was based in unrelated crime, which we are taking. . . we are taking it very serious and we are going to investigate up to the logical conclusion."  -Ugandan Deputy Police Spokesperson Vincent Sekate

How can Ugandan Deputy Police Spokesperson Vincent Sekate, before doing an investigation, be so very sure that David Kato's murder had nothing to do with his being openly gay, or with his work as advocacy officer for Sexual Minorities Uganda? And why does the US keep throwing money and weaponry behind the regime that Sekate speaks for, that of Yoweri Museveni, the President of Uganda for the past 25 years? Why did my California Senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, co-sponsor a bill to further arm and empower the Museveni regime?

Why did all the most liberal Senators in the country, including Minnesota's Al Franken and even Vermont's Bernie Sanders, co-sponsor this bill, the so-called LRA Disarmament Act? Why does the bill bear fallen liberal icon Russ Feingold's name?  I think the answer is the U.S. deployment of Ugandan mercenary troops in Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, and as needed otherwise on the African continent, but LGBT rights organizations in the U.S. need to answer that question for themselves and decide what it means to them.

Note the headline, in the Rolling Stone tabloid, just beneath "100 Pictures of Uganda's Top Homos Leak": "UPDF Prepares for Sudan War."  Black Star News Editor Milton Allimadi and others have identified that potential war as a war for Southern Sudanese oil, supported by Ugandan soldiers funded by the so-called LRA Disarmament Act.  I called Milton Allimadi about the mobilization on the Ugandan/Sudanese border, and in the eastern Central African Republic for my KPFA Radio News Report: "Oil, African Genocide, and the USA's LRA Excuse."

Uganda's Rolling Stone tabloid included pictures of LGBT activist David Kato and Bishop Christopher Senyonjo, the heterosexual Ugandan Anglican Bishop dedicated to the defense of LGBT rights.  Note headline beneath, "UPDF [Ugandan People's Defense Force] prepares for Sudan War."

Human Rights Campaign already has a fundraising letter out regarding David Kato's death, asking for contributions to counter the proudly plutocratic, aggressively homophobic organization known as The Fellowship, or The Family, but has not yet called on America's best known liberals, or on President and Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama, to explain their ongoing military, financial, and diplomatic for the Museveni regime yet.

There are plenty of votes to be won, political points to be made, even funds to be raised by political candidates as well as Human Rights Campaign, by issuing statements  condemning David Kato's murder.   Barbara Boxer and Barack Obama have both issued statements, but how much does this really mean when President and Commander-in-Chief Obama, and our most liberal legislators, including Boxer, continue to arm, and empower the president and military strongman who now denies, via his police spokesperson, that David Kato's murder was homophobic?

California Senator Barbara Boxer, co-sponsor of the
LRA Disarmament Act

And, if President Obama and Senator Boxer were serious about wanting to end homicidal homophobia, wouldn't they be funding education in Uganda rather than a major military mobilization to secure Southern Sudanese oil?  All accounts are that Uganda's public education system is in shambles, that students are being shuffled from one grade to another without learning anything, and that only children of the wealthy get a real education---in private school.  

Olara Otunnu, presidential candidate of the Ugandan People's Congress, told me that he himself went to school in a mud hut, in a village in Acholiland, where he got such a good foundation that he was able to go on to Makerere University in Kampala, then on to Oxford and Harvard Law School.  But, he says, his story is no longer possible, not in Uganda as it is now.

Most people abandon the hellfire-and-brimstone fundamentalism that includes homicidal homophobia with education, literacy, and critical thinking, not with bullets, bombs, and mercenary troop deployments.