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.

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.