More disconcerting news from the GLR. Rwandan journalist Jean-Leonard Rugambage has been shot dead in Kigali. See BBC coverage here.
This killing follows the shooting of Lt. Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa in South Africa last week, and came just one day before today’s reburial of genocide victims in Uganda.
The Committee to Protect Journalists discusses the exodus of East African journalists here.
This is serious. A sad day for many, and a great loss to a rich history and culture. I was just the other day thinking that the kingdom should capitalize more on their potential to share Ganda culture and history with the rest of the world. I feel the Kasubi tombs, and many other cultural landmarks around Kampala, are under-appreciated by many visitors to Uganda. Buganda is in an excellent position to share its history and traditions as a way to show the world one of many beautiful and unique sides of Uganda that are often missed, especially in the international media.
There is already much talk of how this tragedy could further fan the flames between the NRM government and the Buganda kingdom. The Buganda Post writes:
“Although there is no word yet on who set the sacred Baganda royal cemetery to fire a vast majority of Baganda lay the blame squarely on Uganda’s president Yoweri Museveni. Many point out that Mr. Museveni has laid siege on Buganda since 2009, putting travelling restrictions on Kabaka Mutebi, shooting dead over 30 Baganda who protested when the Kabaka was stopped from visiting Kayunga (Bugerere), closing Radio Buganda and persecuting many of the Kabaka’s officials. ”
The Daily Monitor writes that President Museveni will visit the site today.
to blogging that is. You can reach him for comments and questions at amwenda@independent.co.ug
Denise Grady explains how a woman who caught the Marburg virus in Uganda has become a medical celebrity. And Uganda tourism takes another blow. Damn.
“Michelle Barnes never imagined that her vacation to Uganda would make her a medical celebrity.
Ms. Barnes, 44, became ill in January 2008, a few days after returning home to Golden, Colo. At first, she seemed to have a typical case of traveler’s diarrhea, but she soon worsened. She broke out in a rash and developed abdominal pain, terrible fatigue, weakness and confusion. Blood tests found her white-cell count low and her liver and kidneys beginning to fail. She was hospitalized, still deteriorating. Her blood was taking too long to clot, and her pancreas and her muscles were inflamed…”
Not to mention, while demonstrating much concern for the doctors and staff in the US, there is zero discussion of the spread of the virus in Uganda from what I can tell.
In yesterday’s Sunday Monitor Angelo Izama wrote of widespread concern regarding the potential for electoral violence leading up to the 2011 Uganda national elections. He writes:
“In several interviews including with donor sources Sunday Monitor has confirmed that there are serious concerns about the militarisation of Ugandan society ahead of the next elections. In particular, are the military training course tailored for village level officials allied to the NRM and the issuing of military fatigues and guns to them.”
But exposing the campaign of militarisation of NRM supporters, or “election watchers”, clearly touched a raw nerve in Museveni who immediately phoned the Monitor protesting the article and spoke out publicly in Gulu, saying:
“These people of Monitor, I am going to deal with them if they don’t change their ways,” Mr Museveni later said yesterday afternoon in Gulu while officiating at the consecration of Rt. Rev. Johnson Gakumba as the seventh bishop of the Northern Uganda Anglican Diocese. “They want to scare away investors by such reporting,” Mr Museveni said.
Militarisation of the public + media crackdown = bumpy road ahead. Still, it’s not too late to prevent election violence. And it begins with exposing raw nerves.
Ugh. Bukenya’s son is lost to yet another fatal car crash, Gen. Kazini is allegedly killed by his mistress (“reckless living” according to M7), another bus overturns killing seven people (including two who could not even be identified), a Uganda-bound plane crashes into the Kigali airport, all amongst a number of more personal losses. I am sad, but mostly angry. Almost all of the deaths and tragedies I have witnessed in the past few weeks were far from inevitable. Rosebell started a conversation that mirrors my frustration and anger. The deaths of Uganda’s elite are no less tragic than the deaths of those who perish on a bus, or plane, or languish in the country’s understaffed and undersupplied clinics and hospitals, but I wouldn’t mind so much who got more news coverage if only something was done to prevent these needless deaths in the future! Arg! How long must we mourn and suffer and cry out before something gets done? What would it take to get a high quality hospital so that we don’t have to fly abroad when we need serious medical attention? What would it take to properly police roads and public transportation? The buses will not stop overturning and cars will not stop crashing on their own. It is only people who can prevent these tragedies. They need not happen. This is madness.
I love knowledge for the sake of knowledge, but as I embark on this five-year journey otherwise known as grad school, one thing I don’t want to do is get stuck inside, both literally and figuratively. Literally, I don’t want to see the sky for only 20 minutes a day on the walk to and from the car, and figuratively (and more importantly), I don’t want to get stuck in a world where only other academics or econ-y types find my work interesting/palatable/intelligible. This has been on my mind a lot recently as I have been trying to home in on a specific research question for my first major research project/paper (which I will hereafter refer to as a field paper). I can think of lots of research questions, but certainly not all of equal pertinence to the lives of ordinary people. Which got me thinking, what would be of most pertinence? I am not a doctor, I am not a teacher (yet, anyway), I am not a civil engineer…there are many things I can’t do to improve people’s lives. So what can I do? Well, hopefully (and this is the goal anyway, I think), I will be able to provide some small insight or suggestion to help solve problems people care about. So what do people care about?
Since Uganda is mostly on my mind, I remembered a recent Afrobarometer survey asked exactly this question. Ok, not exactly. The exact question was, “What are the most important problems facing this country that the government should address?” The answers? (according to % of people who listed this concern first)
Poverty/Destitution: 43%
Unemployment: 28%
Health: 27%
Food shortage: 20%
Infrastructure/Roads: 20%
Seems pretty obvious in retrospect. But what wasn’t in the top 5? Democracy/Political Rights (3%), Orphans (2%), Political Instability/Ethnic Tensions (2%), International War (0%), AIDS (5%), and Inequality (2%), among others. Less obvious now, right? This is not to say that no one cares about these things, just that they are not the most important things for most people. Of course these things are also related to the above “most important problems”, and it could be that democracy (or something else) will solve all of these problems (I am skeptical though). Still, I think it’s always good to keep in mind what people are struggling with on a daily basis even while trying to figure out what’s up with democratic peace (for example).
Now, back to that field paper…
Dr. Olara Otunnu, former UN Under-Secretary General and Special Representative for
Children and Armed Conflict, will be on his way back to his native Uganda soon. This is causing quite a stir in political circles, especially with talk of Dr. Otunnu, a northerner with longstanding ties to UPC, making a bid for the presidency in the 2011 elections. Below is an interview with Dr. Otunnu by Angelo Izama from yesterday’s Sunday Monitor:
Are you planning to come back?
It is indeed my intention to come home sometime soon.
What has motivated you to return?
Uganda is my home. One does not need any special motivation to return to one’s home. I will come back as a citizen, a son of the soil returning home. I must stress that my homecoming will bear no political labels or affiliation. It will be a completely non-partisan event, simply a much-longed-for homecoming. Continue reading “Olara Otunnu on the way”
First of all, Happy Africa Day (yes, it is today, however underpublicised it may be). It was a good day for Afrobarometer to launch their Round 4 Results for surveys they have been conducting in 19 countries across the continent. I attended the Kampala release event today at the Serena Hotel, where Robert Sentamu of Wilksen Agencies delivered a presentation of the main findings, covering such topics as: democracy and regime consolidation, poverty reduction, globalization and cosmopolitanism, and the emergence of democratic citizens. Afrobarometer is a fantastic resource for scholars, journalists, civil society, political parties, and anyone else interested in public opinion, advocacy, policymaking, etc.
My one qualm with the findings of this release is that they paint a rather biased view of democracy and related issues in Africa. Why? Because Afrobarometer does not carry out surveys in countries where they have reason to suspect citizens will give “politically correct” answers for fear of repercussions by the state (i.e. Rwanda). This obviously leads to selection bias — the countries where citizens are/feel “more free” to say what they really think are also probably more likely to be more democratic. Excluding those countries where citizens are not free probably paints an overly optimistic picture of democracy in Africa as a whole. Nevertheless, the findings of the release are very useful (particularly for each individual country) and quite intriguing.
So what are the key findings?
On Democracy:
The 20 African countries included in the Afrobarometer include many of the most politically liberal countries on the continent, including 7 countries ranked by Freedom House in 2008 as “Free.” However, when we assess the quality of these regimes based on popular attitudes and perceptions, we do not find any consolidated democracies among them (although Botswana comes close). In fact, we find some consolidating as autocracies, but most countries are best understood as unconsolidated, hybrid regimes. They exhibit some key elements of democracy, such as regular elections and protection of core individual freedoms. But either the popular demand for democracy, or the perceived supply of democracy, or, in most cases, both, fall short of the standards of full democracy. But the trajectories of individual countries are extremely diverse, with some exhibiting sharp declines away from democratic consolidation, while others are steadily advancing.
On Poverty
Even with the significant growth that sub-Saharan Africa has experienced over the past decade, as of 2008 lived poverty (or the extent to which people regularly go without basic necessities) is still extensive. It has declined in nine of the Afrobarometer countries for which we have over-time data during this period, but it has increased in another six. Cross-national differences in economic growth help explain differing country trajectories in lived poverty. But a more complete picture must also take political freedom into consideration. Lived poverty is strongly related to country-level measures of political freedom, and changes in poverty are related to changes in freedom. This finding supports Sen’s (1999) argument about the crucial importance of freedom for development. Using our alternative measures of both development and democracy, we corroborate the findings of others that there is a “democracy advantage” for well being and prosperity.
See more findings and related articles/papers from the Afrobarometer website here.
Following the main presentation, Managing Editor of the Daily Monitor, Daniel Kalinaki, made a thoughtful and eloquent presentation on the Ugandan context (excerpt follows):
As we head towards the next election in 2011, we find ourselves at a crossroads. We can choose to continue the personality-driven winner-takes-it-all political model where we have an election and petition every five years and then let our MPs and other politicians sleep on the job as long as they wake up and vote for their parties. Alternatively, we can choose a bi-partisan approach that puts Uganda first, that allows free and open debate about our burning priorities and how to achieve them, and which puts power back in the hands of the people.
Asking the politicians to decide which model to adopt is, like an African saying goes, asking the monkey to decide whether the forest should be cut down. It is up to the people to demand this right to be heard and served. The Afrobarometer survey and others like it help provide a reality check for our countries and provide useful information that can be used by the media, civil society, and progressive political groups to empower the public.
At the end of the day, however, the responsibility falls on every individual to inform themselves and others, in order to build political awareness and a critical mass of interested and involved publics who can mobilise, organise, demand and receive what is fairly due to them.
You can read the complete version on Kalinaki’s own blog.
Look out in the daily papers for more articles on the Afrobarometer surveys in the coming days…
So my parents visit in one week and, as luck would have it, the first NYT Uganda travel article in four years (I think the last was in 2005?) was published Sunday. What timing! (and good looking out Mom!) Unfortunately the whole thing was about rafting, which my beloved mother and father are not particularly keen to do. Not to mention, rafting was the only activity of consequence in Uganda, Gettleman? I think we deserve better than that (ok, fine, you mention other activities in the fifth paragraph but that hardly counts). At least the commentary is pretty amusing.
My favorite line? “The whole experience was like riding a bouncy castle through a tsunami.” Hahaha. Not inaccurate at all.
Melina Raquel Platas 