Racist imperialist bully defeated at the UN as Another African war criminal is ensnared by the ICC
Of the Anglo-American racist, imperialist Bully being Socked in the face at the UN and hauling that Afrikan dictator who raised frankenstein of northern Uganda to the dock.
Sometimes, when things seem so daunting, and your spirits are in the doldrums, and you are ready to resign yourself to the notion of fate and impossibilities; suddenly, the gods smile on you and you wake up with elation to a dream-come-true reversal of fortunes in your favour.
We woke up at NUMP this morning, to two exhilarating pieces of news. The improbable kinds that cheers up the underdog; the downtrodden; the doormat of international justice; the kind of news that gives the scrawny little boy on the school playground a startling sigh of relief. The news that the strapping, fat, ugly, greedy brute ; the schoolyard bully that preys on other kids and their lunches by throwing his weight around, was socked in the face and floored by some courageous new kid who suffers no fool!
Our ecstatic ululations at NUMP, is for the double servings of the tasty fare of justice. The first is the defeat of Anglo-American racist imperialism on the floor of the UN Security Council. The British and American sponsored UN resolution for sanctions against comrade Robert Mugabe, ZANU-PF, Zimbabwe, Pan-Africans, and all anti-imperialists, was vetoed by China and Russia.
The second piece of news is the imminent indictment, by the International Criminal Court (ICC), of the president of Sudan, Omar Hassan al Bashir, for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur by Sudanese forces. We at NUMP applaud and support this new development on justice and ICC front.
NUMP has always been clear in our views on issues of justice. On Zimbabwe, we have been relentless in articulating the position that opportunistic electoral politics must not be used to obscure the fundamental questions of social and economic justice for black Africans in that country. We have no doubt that comrade Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF represent and articulate the yearnings and aspirations of landless, poor, hungry and dispossessed Zimbabweans, Namibians, Azanians (South Africans), and Africans at large.
We have previously expressed here in
http://northernugandapost.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-robert-mugabe-is-demon-but-mandela.html#links
the fundamental considerations for equitably resolving the Zimbabwe land question. We argued that, Morgan Tsivangirai, is a puppet who has opportunistically latched onto first-generation rights to detract and obfuscate the critical issue of social and distributive justice for Zimbabwean Africans, based on second and third-generation rights claims recognised by the UN rights declarations.
First-generation rights or negative rights, prohibiting the state from certain acts towards the individual civic citizen, have valid and pertinent historical origins and relations to European experiences under absolutist monarchs that were bitterly fought and defeated. Such instances as the 1688 Glorious Revolution in England; the 1776 American war and declaration of independence; and the 1779 French Revolution, all ended with legal and constitutional codifications asserting English, American, and French freedoms from arbitrary, despotic rule.
In the African context, Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF fought against the vestiges of the absolutism the English, Americans and the French overthrew in their own respective struggles. Unfortunately for Africa and Africans, Anglo-American imperialism today occupies the thrones and plays the roles vacated by 17th and 18th centuries European monarchies. While they profusely profess human solidarity in rhetoric infused with tear-jerking first-generation rights phraseologies, Anglo-American imperialism still speaks the language of cultural, political and racial domination and superiority. In our view therefore, comrade Robert Mugabe and the courageous people of Zimbabwe are on the right side of history, and all the oppressed peoples of Africa need to give them their support.
We by no means and pretences reject or deny the importance and relevance of first-generation rights as a common human heritage under Article 2-21 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is rather our intention to assert that the second and third-generation rights are more relevant to the phase and conditions of the African and former colonised people’s experiences and struggles. We do recognise the need and relevance of Article 2-21 of the UN Declaration, but we are of the view that Articles 22-28 of the second and third-generation rights; the claims to equality is first and prior, and where a choice and rank-ordering has to be made, it ought to take precedence.
We unequivocally reject the American and British, ideologically and politically motivated strategic use of the first -generation rights claims as tools to regularise unjust domestic, transnational, and international social orders. Faced with threats to public peace and national security of their own after 9/11, the American and British themselves deliberately chose to forgo first-generation rights through the Patriot Act, and Anti-Terror legislations that stripped even their own citizens of basic and fundamental rights guaranteed under first-generation rights the Americans and British harp about ad nauseam.
If we learnt anything at all from 17th and 18th century western experiences, it is that they did not get to the elaborately developed social, political, and economic and moral values they have adopted, in one fell swoop. It took time, efforts, and radical, revolutionary actions and direction to break with the past.
This is not to say Africans must retrace the western footsteps from European barbarity and absolutism to liberalism. What we are saying is that, first-generation rights must remain part of the African long-term goal; but it cannot be achieved meaningfully without fundamental economic, social and ideological transformations through deliberate, calibrated, and directed political and policy actions as is the case in Zimbabwe. This is why we are immensely gratified by the courage displayed by Russia, China, Vietnam, and South Africa. As for Bukina Faso, not only have they defamed the revolutionary and Pan-African spirits of Thomas Sankara, but they have betrayed Africa and Africans.
LRA benefactor snared by the selective long arm of international justice
The other piece of news that has brightened our morning is the impending charging of Omar al Bashir with war crimes and crimes against humanity. We previously spoke on this issue here in
http://northernugandapost.blogspot.com/2008/01/icc-charge-bashir-or-let-taylor-go.html#links
in our unrelenting quest for equitable justice. Our arguments then and now remain the same. It is the position that charging Charles Taylor of Liberia for supporting rebels who committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone, the ICC must shake off labels of political expediency and hatchet man by also charging leaders like Omar al Bashir, for supporting, arming and hosting Joseph Kony and the LRA, as a counterweight against the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) wielded by Yoweri Museveni against Sudan. It is our firm belief that Omar al Bashir must be equally accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity levelled against his protégé, the LRA and Joseph Kony, in northern Uganda.
When we at NUMP, through our articles, expressed this view directly with the ICC through their media and information office, we have always been disappointed with curt, form reply and acknowledgements that did not express any views on the issues and questions we raised with them. Consequently, we feared that there was bureaucratic stonewalling, as they have successfully done on the partial indictments of the LRA alone, and not also Museveni and his NRA generals.
The news today that the ICC is considering laying charges against Omar al Bashir, gives us welcome glimmer of hope in the slow wheels of justice. While cheer and look forward to the ICC charges against al Bashir, we however hold our breath; hoping that the charge sheet will be comprehensive and complete enough to include his role as LRA benefactor and accountable for their behaviour and actions; as well as his other more high profile role in Dafur region of western Sudan. The case against al Bashir for his relations and dealings with the LRA is stronger than that against Taylor and the Sierra Leonean rebellion and atrocities. Al Bashir used the LRA as a tool; a Frankenstein of sorts, against the Uganda dictatorship and the SPLA. Therefore, the LRA insurgency in northern Uganda was more or less al Bashir’s war; and the atrocities and crimes in the northern Uganda genocide the LRA are culpable for, is as much al Bashir’s responsibility as it is Joseph Kony’s and the LRA’s.
We are therefore at the edges of our seats; waiting and looking forward to the ICC making its case Monday. We wholeheartedly hope that Moreno de Ocampo will do the right thing and acquit the ICC and himself well by charging al Bashir also with culpability for war crimes and crimes against humanity in northern Uganda.
Might the head that wears the crown in Uganda rest uneasily?
The news of al Bashir’s forthcoming indictment must cause reasonable uneasiness for the head that wears the crown in Uganda. By and by, the circle is narrowing. Sooner rather than later, the son of Kaguta will have fully served his utility to Anglo-American imperialism. They will soon be casting for new characters to take his place. Museveni must and will sooner, rather than later, be indicted. But this will only become a reality if Acholi victims and their sympathisers ceased being passive and work on making sure the long arm of international justice catches up with Museveni and his NRA generals.
The Acholi have borne their suffering with remarkable resignation, and without as much as a murmur of dissatisfaction. It is a wonder how they always seem to undervalue themselves, settling for second-best, taking the imperfect, accepting half-measures and mediocrity.
We at NUMP reject the notion the Acholi have become inured to; the practice of accepting to have to do with half-measures, imperfections, and mediocrity. The Acholi have justified and rationalised ineptitude and naivety with reasoning along the lines that it is better than nothing; that they can work with it despite the glaring shortcomings; or that they can make adjustments to either the square poles or the round holes. This is nothing short of accepting and glorifying mediocrity. It is the equivalent of taking satisfactions
from efforts that fell short of the required capability and diligence to achieve particular goals. Instead of pulling those responsible aside as they should, and letting them know however they look at it, they fell short of the goals, and therefore they should give way to fresh ideas and fresh faces with renewed energies and clearer vision, the Acholi instead are coy and would rather substitute mediocre efforts for the ends and elevate and lionise failures. For their part, those who assume positions of leadership in Acholi, have fragile egos and very convoluted sense of accountability.
They are hopelessly passive. They put too much faith in prayers and hoping that some benevolent spirits would crack their kola nuts for them. For sure, they will all be grateful or fearful if the ICC charge Bashir for his role in northern Uganda genocide. How doubly sweet it would have been, were the Acholi victims on the forefront of the efforts to bring perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity to justice, and their efforts had resulted into forcing the ICC hands on Bashir!
Well, as Acholi, we did not do as much as we should have. We confined ourselves inside the LRA box, but nothing lateral. We let Museveni –a suspected war criminal himself-and the Uganda government define our needs and aspirations. Hoping that Bashir’s charge sheet will include genocide in northern Uganda, the Acholi have better than a good chance to move forward with suing Bashir, the government and state of Sudan for tens of billions of dollars for abetting genocide; physical, moral, social, and economic destruction in Acholi through the their support of the LRA insurgency.
This brings us to the last, but by no means least of the challenges facing Acholi today. It is the unilaterally conceived Peace, Resettlement, and Development Programme (PRDP) that the Acholi-again-seem to accept with resignation and without any circumspection.
It cannot be overstated that the PRDP as it is, is useless and unequipped with tools necessary to respond to social, economic, ecological, and civic breakdowns in northern Uganda as a result of 22 years of brutal and destructive war. It is simply unconscionable that some wiseacre in Kampala or Gulu, Amuru, Pader or Kitgum should think and believe that ordinary budgetary subventions and normal budgetary cycles of capital and recurrent expenditures would be the best means to respond to the need for resettlement, reconstruction and development; and uplift two million people from abject poverty, homelessness and food insecurity, and bring them to a reasonable and comparable national level enough to sustain their social responsibilities and civic duties. In practical, comparative and realistic terms, what the government proposes in its PRDP schemes for insurgency affected greater northern Uganda, can barely fund a comprehensive scoping, mapping and assessments of the host of differing and complex categories and levels of needs and necessary assistance in the four Acholi districts alone.
Rather than timidly accept and work with it as the Acholi are wont to do-because it is better than nothing-we at NUMP think the Acholi in particular should tear up this useless document and enter into fresh and serious conversations with the Ugandan government and state, for the way forward on this and other critical issues that we seem to be waiting to deal with one by one and only after they will have become crises. What needs to be done in order to tear up the government PRDP, is for all Acholi district councils and their MPs as ex-officio members of the respective district planning committees, to carry out needs assessments in their districts and come up with estimates that can then be synthesised into a more realistic PRDP with local inputs and reflecting real needs of real people. Priority must shift away from strengthening state infrastructure-as it is in the current PRDP-to immediate issues of resettlement and livelihood, housing, heath and sanitation, clean drinking water, education, and other subordinate infrastructures.
There is therefore, an urgent need to build the capacity of the districts by assembling a team of experts and professionals form the diaspora and at home, to work on new PRDP proposals based on data from all the districts. Who knows, with hard work and the unexpected good luck, we may sooner rather than later, wake up to another morning of double good news as we at NUMP certainly did this weekend. We can even grudgingly admit that there is some truth in “No Pains; No Gains” motto of Lira Town College, in northern Uganda. However, coming from across on the hill at Dr Obote College, Boroboro, as we at NUMP did, we have no doubt that given the characteristic Acholi indolence that has made a mockery of the abundance of talents and skills among its intelligentsia but scarcely anything stupefying for their ordinary people to sing hallelujah about, it may just be more pains but no gains, unless we commit to “Be at the right place, at the right time; doing the right thing at the right time”.
Sometimes, when things seem so daunting, and your spirits are in the doldrums, and you are ready to resign yourself to the notion of fate and impossibilities; suddenly, the gods smile on you and you wake up with elation to a dream-come-true reversal of fortunes in your favour.
We woke up at NUMP this morning, to two exhilarating pieces of news. The improbable kinds that cheers up the underdog; the downtrodden; the doormat of international justice; the kind of news that gives the scrawny little boy on the school playground a startling sigh of relief. The news that the strapping, fat, ugly, greedy brute ; the schoolyard bully that preys on other kids and their lunches by throwing his weight around, was socked in the face and floored by some courageous new kid who suffers no fool!
Our ecstatic ululations at NUMP, is for the double servings of the tasty fare of justice. The first is the defeat of Anglo-American racist imperialism on the floor of the UN Security Council. The British and American sponsored UN resolution for sanctions against comrade Robert Mugabe, ZANU-PF, Zimbabwe, Pan-Africans, and all anti-imperialists, was vetoed by China and Russia.
The second piece of news is the imminent indictment, by the International Criminal Court (ICC), of the president of Sudan, Omar Hassan al Bashir, for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur by Sudanese forces. We at NUMP applaud and support this new development on justice and ICC front.
NUMP has always been clear in our views on issues of justice. On Zimbabwe, we have been relentless in articulating the position that opportunistic electoral politics must not be used to obscure the fundamental questions of social and economic justice for black Africans in that country. We have no doubt that comrade Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF represent and articulate the yearnings and aspirations of landless, poor, hungry and dispossessed Zimbabweans, Namibians, Azanians (South Africans), and Africans at large.
We have previously expressed here in
http://northernugandapost.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-robert-mugabe-is-demon-but-mandela.html#links
the fundamental considerations for equitably resolving the Zimbabwe land question. We argued that, Morgan Tsivangirai, is a puppet who has opportunistically latched onto first-generation rights to detract and obfuscate the critical issue of social and distributive justice for Zimbabwean Africans, based on second and third-generation rights claims recognised by the UN rights declarations.
First-generation rights or negative rights, prohibiting the state from certain acts towards the individual civic citizen, have valid and pertinent historical origins and relations to European experiences under absolutist monarchs that were bitterly fought and defeated. Such instances as the 1688 Glorious Revolution in England; the 1776 American war and declaration of independence; and the 1779 French Revolution, all ended with legal and constitutional codifications asserting English, American, and French freedoms from arbitrary, despotic rule.
In the African context, Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF fought against the vestiges of the absolutism the English, Americans and the French overthrew in their own respective struggles. Unfortunately for Africa and Africans, Anglo-American imperialism today occupies the thrones and plays the roles vacated by 17th and 18th centuries European monarchies. While they profusely profess human solidarity in rhetoric infused with tear-jerking first-generation rights phraseologies, Anglo-American imperialism still speaks the language of cultural, political and racial domination and superiority. In our view therefore, comrade Robert Mugabe and the courageous people of Zimbabwe are on the right side of history, and all the oppressed peoples of Africa need to give them their support.
We by no means and pretences reject or deny the importance and relevance of first-generation rights as a common human heritage under Article 2-21 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is rather our intention to assert that the second and third-generation rights are more relevant to the phase and conditions of the African and former colonised people’s experiences and struggles. We do recognise the need and relevance of Article 2-21 of the UN Declaration, but we are of the view that Articles 22-28 of the second and third-generation rights; the claims to equality is first and prior, and where a choice and rank-ordering has to be made, it ought to take precedence.
We unequivocally reject the American and British, ideologically and politically motivated strategic use of the first -generation rights claims as tools to regularise unjust domestic, transnational, and international social orders. Faced with threats to public peace and national security of their own after 9/11, the American and British themselves deliberately chose to forgo first-generation rights through the Patriot Act, and Anti-Terror legislations that stripped even their own citizens of basic and fundamental rights guaranteed under first-generation rights the Americans and British harp about ad nauseam.
If we learnt anything at all from 17th and 18th century western experiences, it is that they did not get to the elaborately developed social, political, and economic and moral values they have adopted, in one fell swoop. It took time, efforts, and radical, revolutionary actions and direction to break with the past.
This is not to say Africans must retrace the western footsteps from European barbarity and absolutism to liberalism. What we are saying is that, first-generation rights must remain part of the African long-term goal; but it cannot be achieved meaningfully without fundamental economic, social and ideological transformations through deliberate, calibrated, and directed political and policy actions as is the case in Zimbabwe. This is why we are immensely gratified by the courage displayed by Russia, China, Vietnam, and South Africa. As for Bukina Faso, not only have they defamed the revolutionary and Pan-African spirits of Thomas Sankara, but they have betrayed Africa and Africans.
LRA benefactor snared by the selective long arm of international justice
The other piece of news that has brightened our morning is the impending charging of Omar al Bashir with war crimes and crimes against humanity. We previously spoke on this issue here in
http://northernugandapost.blogspot.com/2008/01/icc-charge-bashir-or-let-taylor-go.html#links
in our unrelenting quest for equitable justice. Our arguments then and now remain the same. It is the position that charging Charles Taylor of Liberia for supporting rebels who committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone, the ICC must shake off labels of political expediency and hatchet man by also charging leaders like Omar al Bashir, for supporting, arming and hosting Joseph Kony and the LRA, as a counterweight against the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) wielded by Yoweri Museveni against Sudan. It is our firm belief that Omar al Bashir must be equally accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity levelled against his protégé, the LRA and Joseph Kony, in northern Uganda.
When we at NUMP, through our articles, expressed this view directly with the ICC through their media and information office, we have always been disappointed with curt, form reply and acknowledgements that did not express any views on the issues and questions we raised with them. Consequently, we feared that there was bureaucratic stonewalling, as they have successfully done on the partial indictments of the LRA alone, and not also Museveni and his NRA generals.
The news today that the ICC is considering laying charges against Omar al Bashir, gives us welcome glimmer of hope in the slow wheels of justice. While cheer and look forward to the ICC charges against al Bashir, we however hold our breath; hoping that the charge sheet will be comprehensive and complete enough to include his role as LRA benefactor and accountable for their behaviour and actions; as well as his other more high profile role in Dafur region of western Sudan. The case against al Bashir for his relations and dealings with the LRA is stronger than that against Taylor and the Sierra Leonean rebellion and atrocities. Al Bashir used the LRA as a tool; a Frankenstein of sorts, against the Uganda dictatorship and the SPLA. Therefore, the LRA insurgency in northern Uganda was more or less al Bashir’s war; and the atrocities and crimes in the northern Uganda genocide the LRA are culpable for, is as much al Bashir’s responsibility as it is Joseph Kony’s and the LRA’s.
We are therefore at the edges of our seats; waiting and looking forward to the ICC making its case Monday. We wholeheartedly hope that Moreno de Ocampo will do the right thing and acquit the ICC and himself well by charging al Bashir also with culpability for war crimes and crimes against humanity in northern Uganda.
Might the head that wears the crown in Uganda rest uneasily?
The news of al Bashir’s forthcoming indictment must cause reasonable uneasiness for the head that wears the crown in Uganda. By and by, the circle is narrowing. Sooner rather than later, the son of Kaguta will have fully served his utility to Anglo-American imperialism. They will soon be casting for new characters to take his place. Museveni must and will sooner, rather than later, be indicted. But this will only become a reality if Acholi victims and their sympathisers ceased being passive and work on making sure the long arm of international justice catches up with Museveni and his NRA generals.
The Acholi have borne their suffering with remarkable resignation, and without as much as a murmur of dissatisfaction. It is a wonder how they always seem to undervalue themselves, settling for second-best, taking the imperfect, accepting half-measures and mediocrity.
We at NUMP reject the notion the Acholi have become inured to; the practice of accepting to have to do with half-measures, imperfections, and mediocrity. The Acholi have justified and rationalised ineptitude and naivety with reasoning along the lines that it is better than nothing; that they can work with it despite the glaring shortcomings; or that they can make adjustments to either the square poles or the round holes. This is nothing short of accepting and glorifying mediocrity. It is the equivalent of taking satisfactions
from efforts that fell short of the required capability and diligence to achieve particular goals. Instead of pulling those responsible aside as they should, and letting them know however they look at it, they fell short of the goals, and therefore they should give way to fresh ideas and fresh faces with renewed energies and clearer vision, the Acholi instead are coy and would rather substitute mediocre efforts for the ends and elevate and lionise failures. For their part, those who assume positions of leadership in Acholi, have fragile egos and very convoluted sense of accountability.
They are hopelessly passive. They put too much faith in prayers and hoping that some benevolent spirits would crack their kola nuts for them. For sure, they will all be grateful or fearful if the ICC charge Bashir for his role in northern Uganda genocide. How doubly sweet it would have been, were the Acholi victims on the forefront of the efforts to bring perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity to justice, and their efforts had resulted into forcing the ICC hands on Bashir!
Well, as Acholi, we did not do as much as we should have. We confined ourselves inside the LRA box, but nothing lateral. We let Museveni –a suspected war criminal himself-and the Uganda government define our needs and aspirations. Hoping that Bashir’s charge sheet will include genocide in northern Uganda, the Acholi have better than a good chance to move forward with suing Bashir, the government and state of Sudan for tens of billions of dollars for abetting genocide; physical, moral, social, and economic destruction in Acholi through the their support of the LRA insurgency.
This brings us to the last, but by no means least of the challenges facing Acholi today. It is the unilaterally conceived Peace, Resettlement, and Development Programme (PRDP) that the Acholi-again-seem to accept with resignation and without any circumspection.
It cannot be overstated that the PRDP as it is, is useless and unequipped with tools necessary to respond to social, economic, ecological, and civic breakdowns in northern Uganda as a result of 22 years of brutal and destructive war. It is simply unconscionable that some wiseacre in Kampala or Gulu, Amuru, Pader or Kitgum should think and believe that ordinary budgetary subventions and normal budgetary cycles of capital and recurrent expenditures would be the best means to respond to the need for resettlement, reconstruction and development; and uplift two million people from abject poverty, homelessness and food insecurity, and bring them to a reasonable and comparable national level enough to sustain their social responsibilities and civic duties. In practical, comparative and realistic terms, what the government proposes in its PRDP schemes for insurgency affected greater northern Uganda, can barely fund a comprehensive scoping, mapping and assessments of the host of differing and complex categories and levels of needs and necessary assistance in the four Acholi districts alone.
Rather than timidly accept and work with it as the Acholi are wont to do-because it is better than nothing-we at NUMP think the Acholi in particular should tear up this useless document and enter into fresh and serious conversations with the Ugandan government and state, for the way forward on this and other critical issues that we seem to be waiting to deal with one by one and only after they will have become crises. What needs to be done in order to tear up the government PRDP, is for all Acholi district councils and their MPs as ex-officio members of the respective district planning committees, to carry out needs assessments in their districts and come up with estimates that can then be synthesised into a more realistic PRDP with local inputs and reflecting real needs of real people. Priority must shift away from strengthening state infrastructure-as it is in the current PRDP-to immediate issues of resettlement and livelihood, housing, heath and sanitation, clean drinking water, education, and other subordinate infrastructures.
There is therefore, an urgent need to build the capacity of the districts by assembling a team of experts and professionals form the diaspora and at home, to work on new PRDP proposals based on data from all the districts. Who knows, with hard work and the unexpected good luck, we may sooner rather than later, wake up to another morning of double good news as we at NUMP certainly did this weekend. We can even grudgingly admit that there is some truth in “No Pains; No Gains” motto of Lira Town College, in northern Uganda. However, coming from across on the hill at Dr Obote College, Boroboro, as we at NUMP did, we have no doubt that given the characteristic Acholi indolence that has made a mockery of the abundance of talents and skills among its intelligentsia but scarcely anything stupefying for their ordinary people to sing hallelujah about, it may just be more pains but no gains, unless we commit to “Be at the right place, at the right time; doing the right thing at the right time”.
Comments