Democratisation in Africa: No Half Measures
Democracy: No Half Measures
By A. Milton Obote
"The credibility of the Commonwealth is on the Line with the policy to punish perceived violation of good governance in Zimbabwe while, at the same time ignoring the total and glaring banishment of good governance in Uganda," writes Milton Obote, the former Ugandan president (who died in exile in Zambia, on 10 October 2005)in a personal letter dated 22 March to the British prime minister, Tony Blair. It is a letter deserving to be framed and put up the wall of every African home. Below is the full text.
"Dear Prime Minister
Democracy -- no half measures
This letter deals with situations in Zimbabwe and Uganda but I take the opportunity to send to you much thanks for the great and esteemed interest you have in Africa and for your support of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD).
Colonialism and one-party rule in Africa during the Cold War are factors which are still making it difficult for some African states to rapidly transform to democracy and governance without corruption. Your interest and NEPAD could help greatly in the recalcitrant states.
I am a former president of Uganda and was elected in December 1980 in an election contested by four political parties which the Commonwealth Observer Group in their unanimous first report said: "We believe this has been a valid electoral exercise which should broadly reflect the freely expressed choice of the people of Uganda ."
In the second report, also unanimous, the Commonwealth Observer Group said: "Surmounting all obstacles, the people of Uganda , like some great tidal wave, carried the electoral process to a worthy and valid conclusion."
On Zimbabwe and Uganda , I draw attention that during the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Australia , you stated repeatedly that "there are no half measures about democracy."
I write therefore to enquire why, since you hold that "there are no half measures about democracy", the policy of the government of which you are the head is that the 16-year-old one-party dictatorship in Uganda must continue until the year 2006.
In Zimbabwe , now suspended from the councils of the Commonwealth for one year, political parties exist in the body politic of the country between elections and as exemplified in the recent presidential election, can contest public elections.
In Uganda , on the other hand, the military and the constitution have, for 16 years, made the opposition political parties to exist only at their respective national headquarters. Uganda 's opposition parties have also for 16 years been debarred by the dictatorship and the constitution from contesting public elections and prohibited from:
(i) Keeping their structural organs active with the consequence that
(a) The opposition parties are prohibited from recruiting new members and to receive membership fees from them or collect membership dues from existing members or maintain primary organs or offices which in Uganda are called branches.
(b) The opposition parties are prohibited from holding conferences of their apex organs to amend their constitutions or adopt internal policies or national policies on any matter or elect their national leaders.
(c) The opposition parties have been banned from being active in Uganda 's body politic in that the opposition parties are prohibited from convening and addressing public meetings or rallies.
On 12 January this year, for instance, my parry, the Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) under provisions of the constitution which permit public meetings, organised a rally in support of the coalition of nations against terrorism and dictatorship. You have visited several countries to assemble the coalition but in Uganda , any initiative to support the coalition by way of condemning terrorism at public meetings is not permitted.
The peaceful UPC rally was brutally suppressed by armed police and a para-military force, not even known in law.. A student-journalist covering the rally was shot dead, the de facto leader of the UPC was arrested and a female staff member was severely battered by the para-military which also arrested and beat up many citizens. The Uganda dictatorship is not with the coalition but with Al Qaeda.
In her very first visit to Uganda in 1997, Glare Short, your secretary of state for international development, said at a press conference that:
(i) Uganda had a government with which the New Labour government would do business happily, and
(ii) "The provisions of the UN Declaration of Universal Human Rights do not apply to Uganda ."
The two assertions showed that your government had accepted the gross suppressions by the Uganda dictatorship of the human rights and freedoms of the people of Uganda as a proper system of governance and the acceptance also removed the people of Uganda from the human race.
On account of what the secretary of state for international development had said in Uganda, I wrote to the foreign and Commonwealth secretary in 1998 to enquire about the position of your government on the referendum on the Uganda constitution. The reply I received was to the effect that it was the position of your government that the referendum be held a year after the lifting of restrictions (prohibitions) on the opposition political parties.
In 1999, however, your government became aggressively in favour of holding the referendum with the restrictions still on, and your high commissioner in Uganda even took the initiative to form what became known as the Referendum Support Group (RSG), now known as the Post Referendum Support Group.
The referendum was a device to make the restrictions on the opposition parties a permanent system of governance and established in June 2000, after the referendum, a de jure terrorist, military one-party dictatorship.
The Referendum Support Group issued a statement in June 2000, published in the Uganda press which hinted that the claim by the Uganda dictatorship that Uganda was a "no party state" was, in fact, a disguise for "one-party rule", and also stated that the governments in the Referendum Support Group would assess their relationship with the Uganda dictatorship.
Since then, your government (former colonial power in Uganda ) has not taken initiative and has not published (perhaps on account of what the secretary of state for international development said in 1997) any assessment of relations with the Uganda dictatorship.
Instead, the policy of your government is to accept the suppression of the human rights and freedoms of the people of Uganda by the Uganda dictatorship while your government negotiates with the dictatorship to accept democracy voluntarily in the year 2006 when from 1998 to 2000, your government failed to get the dictatorship to lift the restrictions on the opposition political parties before the referendum.
Short of a Zimbabwe type of treatment or even mote your government has nothing on which to peg any hope that the Uganda dictatorship will voluntarily accept democracy in the year 2006.
The year 2006 itself, raises very serious issues. It does not in the first place fit into your principle that "there are no half measures about democracy". Second, President Mugabe was elected for a six-year term, meaning another presidential election in Zimbabwe in the year 2008, but the European Union and US sanctions and the Commonwealth suspension of Zimbabwe, have precluded negotiations with President Mugabe until the year 2008 to raise the question of why in Uganda and not in Zimbabwe the suppression of democracy is being tied to the date of the next presidential election? Third, in the case of Zimbabwe , the opposition parties are not prohibited from participating in the body politic of the country between elections nor debarred from contesting elections, whereas in Uganda they exist between elections only at their respective national headquarters and are debarred from contesting public elections.
Fourth, which is more serious, the alleged curbs or restraints on the freedoms of the opposition parties between and during elections in Zimbabwe on the one hand, and on the other hand, the actual removal, prohibition and debarment of the voice of the opposition parties in the body politic of the country between and during elections in Uganda?
Fifth, under the Uganda constitution, there should be presidential and parliamentary elections in the year 2006. It would follow therefore that if the 20 years bans on the political parties are to be lifted in the same year, their participation in the elections will be a sham which will give credibility to virtually a one-party election and to the easy victory of the party which, alone, has been active for 20 years. The bans should be lifted NOW.
It seems clear that the different yardsticks being used in Uganda and in Zimbabwe are not for the purposes of measuring or promoting democracy. Two factors have not been eliminated and intrude in the condemnations of the presidential election in Zimbabwe by your government, the European Union, America and the white Commonwealth governments to make the condemnations to appear to be a ploy which conceals some sinister objectives.
The first factor is the land redistribution policy of the ZANU-PF government which affects and hurts white Zimbabweans more than the citizens of African descent. This is a racist factor which I, personally, do not want to discuss or expound on. The factor has the potential of causing much bloodshed in Zimbabwe .
The second factor is that since Zimbabwe and Uganda are involved in the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo on opposite sides where Zimbabwe got involved on the invitation of the DRC government, endorsed by governments in SADC countries, and Uganda got involved as an invader, sanctions on and suspension of Zimbabwe which weaken the ZANU-PF come dangerously close to encouraging the Uganda dictatorship's invasion which has already caused the killing of three million citizens of the DRC [in fact 5 million according to a new OXFAM report] to continue with the heinous slaughter, occupation of DRC territory and even expansion of occupied territory.
Foreign financial (official) aid will now probably not be given to Zimbabwe but will continue to be given to Uganda where, unlike in Zimbabwe, the opposition parties have no voice in the deployment and usage of such aid and which therefore makes the aid subventions to enable the Uganda dictatorship to divert huge local resources to enrich itself, to occupy and plunder the resources of the DRC and to strengthen corruption as a sub-system of governance in Uganda.
Since over 50% of the annual recurrent budget and over 80% of the development budget of the Uganda dictatorship is financed by foreign aid, a British initiative to suspend that source of its entrenchment may, by itself, be combined with the opprobrium it will carry most probably make the dictatorship to accept democracy. The people of Uganda will not starve to death because they do not depend on foreign aid for their food and have always provided their own food.
The executive committee of my party, the Uganda People's Congress (UPC), wrote a memorandum to you in November last year. An acknowledgement with the information that the memorandum had been sent to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was received but no formal reply has been forthcoming.
No more excuses for dictators?
There are two matters each of which is not true and also runs counter to your declaration at last year's Labour Conference that there are to be no more excuses for dictators.
The first matter was also the basic consideration upon which the previous Conservative government built their policy on Uganda , and it is that party government and multi-party politics failed the people of Uganda .
Upon that false consideration, successive British governments since 1986, have lumped together atrocities committed under the Idi Amin military dictatorship (1971-1979) and atrocities committed by Museveni's insurgent army (1981-1984) and credited them as acceptable factors for the demonisation and removal of Uganda's political parties from the body politic and from public elections by the Ugandan dictatorship with the support of successive British governments since 1986.
There can be no other explanation for the acceptance of a military one-party dictatorship for 16 years by successive British governments.
Amin governed the whole country for nine years and three months, but Museveni's insurgency of three years and four months was, though very violent, only in one province and one district, out of the five districts in the province.
Multiparty politics and the policy for the rehabilitation of the economy and social services produced by an elected government and parliament deterred the insurgency from expanding into either the other four districts in the province or into the other three provinces. This achievement is missing from the policy of successive British governments which actually proclaims that crime does pay, which has enabled the military one-party dictatorship to entrench itself year after year for 16 years.
The second matter is the apparent immutable legitimisation of the Uganda dictatorship's policy of your government which ignores its gross suppressions of the human rights and freedoms of the people of Uganda and ignores its crimes against humanity, including the massacres of the people of Uganda, invasion and massacres of the people of the DRC, and giving succour to the two men who have since been tried for the Lockerbie bombing (as recounted in the memorandum which the executive of my party wrote to you); on the grounds that the Uganda dictatorship deserves much diplomatic support and much subventions because the dictatorship has a credible and good economic policy.
More donor money
From January 1986 to 1987, the basic economic policy of the dictatorship was barter trade and severely restricted internal trade. To get the dictatorship to abandon that policy, the previous Conservative government's other donor partners did what appears in the cause of good governance to be a taboo to your government: they suspended aid to Uganda .
The suspension of aid made the dictatorship to plagiarise the economic policy and programmes which my government had published in 1982; revised in 1984 and were due to, again, be revised in September 1985 which caused the resumption of aid to Uganda .
It is that plagiarised policy and programmes which your government bas been praising since 1997, while also at the same time siding with the Uganda dictatorship in its suppressions of multi-party politics and the enjoyment and exercise by the citizen of hislher inalienable human rights and freedoms.
The sanctions and suspension of Zimbabwe , have now opened the door wide for a definitive policy on Uganda which does not accommodate the Uganda dictatorship until the year 2006.
I appeal to you to define the policy so that the positions of the EU, the US government and the Commonwealth show dearly that there are no half measures to democracy whether in Zimbabwe or Uganda .
The credibility of the Commonwealth is on the line with the policy to punish perceived violation of good governance in Zimbabwe while, at the same time ignoring the total and glaring banishment of good governance in Uganda .
Yours sincerely
A. Milton Obote
President
Uganda Peoples Congress.
By A. Milton Obote
"The credibility of the Commonwealth is on the Line with the policy to punish perceived violation of good governance in Zimbabwe while, at the same time ignoring the total and glaring banishment of good governance in Uganda," writes Milton Obote, the former Ugandan president (who died in exile in Zambia, on 10 October 2005)in a personal letter dated 22 March to the British prime minister, Tony Blair. It is a letter deserving to be framed and put up the wall of every African home. Below is the full text.
"Dear Prime Minister
Democracy -- no half measures
This letter deals with situations in Zimbabwe and Uganda but I take the opportunity to send to you much thanks for the great and esteemed interest you have in Africa and for your support of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD).
Colonialism and one-party rule in Africa during the Cold War are factors which are still making it difficult for some African states to rapidly transform to democracy and governance without corruption. Your interest and NEPAD could help greatly in the recalcitrant states.
I am a former president of Uganda and was elected in December 1980 in an election contested by four political parties which the Commonwealth Observer Group in their unanimous first report said: "We believe this has been a valid electoral exercise which should broadly reflect the freely expressed choice of the people of Uganda ."
In the second report, also unanimous, the Commonwealth Observer Group said: "Surmounting all obstacles, the people of Uganda , like some great tidal wave, carried the electoral process to a worthy and valid conclusion."
On Zimbabwe and Uganda , I draw attention that during the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Australia , you stated repeatedly that "there are no half measures about democracy."
I write therefore to enquire why, since you hold that "there are no half measures about democracy", the policy of the government of which you are the head is that the 16-year-old one-party dictatorship in Uganda must continue until the year 2006.
In Zimbabwe , now suspended from the councils of the Commonwealth for one year, political parties exist in the body politic of the country between elections and as exemplified in the recent presidential election, can contest public elections.
In Uganda , on the other hand, the military and the constitution have, for 16 years, made the opposition political parties to exist only at their respective national headquarters. Uganda 's opposition parties have also for 16 years been debarred by the dictatorship and the constitution from contesting public elections and prohibited from:
(i) Keeping their structural organs active with the consequence that
(a) The opposition parties are prohibited from recruiting new members and to receive membership fees from them or collect membership dues from existing members or maintain primary organs or offices which in Uganda are called branches.
(b) The opposition parties are prohibited from holding conferences of their apex organs to amend their constitutions or adopt internal policies or national policies on any matter or elect their national leaders.
(c) The opposition parties have been banned from being active in Uganda 's body politic in that the opposition parties are prohibited from convening and addressing public meetings or rallies.
On 12 January this year, for instance, my parry, the Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) under provisions of the constitution which permit public meetings, organised a rally in support of the coalition of nations against terrorism and dictatorship. You have visited several countries to assemble the coalition but in Uganda , any initiative to support the coalition by way of condemning terrorism at public meetings is not permitted.
The peaceful UPC rally was brutally suppressed by armed police and a para-military force, not even known in law.. A student-journalist covering the rally was shot dead, the de facto leader of the UPC was arrested and a female staff member was severely battered by the para-military which also arrested and beat up many citizens. The Uganda dictatorship is not with the coalition but with Al Qaeda.
In her very first visit to Uganda in 1997, Glare Short, your secretary of state for international development, said at a press conference that:
(i) Uganda had a government with which the New Labour government would do business happily, and
(ii) "The provisions of the UN Declaration of Universal Human Rights do not apply to Uganda ."
The two assertions showed that your government had accepted the gross suppressions by the Uganda dictatorship of the human rights and freedoms of the people of Uganda as a proper system of governance and the acceptance also removed the people of Uganda from the human race.
On account of what the secretary of state for international development had said in Uganda, I wrote to the foreign and Commonwealth secretary in 1998 to enquire about the position of your government on the referendum on the Uganda constitution. The reply I received was to the effect that it was the position of your government that the referendum be held a year after the lifting of restrictions (prohibitions) on the opposition political parties.
In 1999, however, your government became aggressively in favour of holding the referendum with the restrictions still on, and your high commissioner in Uganda even took the initiative to form what became known as the Referendum Support Group (RSG), now known as the Post Referendum Support Group.
The referendum was a device to make the restrictions on the opposition parties a permanent system of governance and established in June 2000, after the referendum, a de jure terrorist, military one-party dictatorship.
The Referendum Support Group issued a statement in June 2000, published in the Uganda press which hinted that the claim by the Uganda dictatorship that Uganda was a "no party state" was, in fact, a disguise for "one-party rule", and also stated that the governments in the Referendum Support Group would assess their relationship with the Uganda dictatorship.
Since then, your government (former colonial power in Uganda ) has not taken initiative and has not published (perhaps on account of what the secretary of state for international development said in 1997) any assessment of relations with the Uganda dictatorship.
Instead, the policy of your government is to accept the suppression of the human rights and freedoms of the people of Uganda by the Uganda dictatorship while your government negotiates with the dictatorship to accept democracy voluntarily in the year 2006 when from 1998 to 2000, your government failed to get the dictatorship to lift the restrictions on the opposition political parties before the referendum.
Short of a Zimbabwe type of treatment or even mote your government has nothing on which to peg any hope that the Uganda dictatorship will voluntarily accept democracy in the year 2006.
The year 2006 itself, raises very serious issues. It does not in the first place fit into your principle that "there are no half measures about democracy". Second, President Mugabe was elected for a six-year term, meaning another presidential election in Zimbabwe in the year 2008, but the European Union and US sanctions and the Commonwealth suspension of Zimbabwe, have precluded negotiations with President Mugabe until the year 2008 to raise the question of why in Uganda and not in Zimbabwe the suppression of democracy is being tied to the date of the next presidential election? Third, in the case of Zimbabwe , the opposition parties are not prohibited from participating in the body politic of the country between elections nor debarred from contesting elections, whereas in Uganda they exist between elections only at their respective national headquarters and are debarred from contesting public elections.
Fourth, which is more serious, the alleged curbs or restraints on the freedoms of the opposition parties between and during elections in Zimbabwe on the one hand, and on the other hand, the actual removal, prohibition and debarment of the voice of the opposition parties in the body politic of the country between and during elections in Uganda?
Fifth, under the Uganda constitution, there should be presidential and parliamentary elections in the year 2006. It would follow therefore that if the 20 years bans on the political parties are to be lifted in the same year, their participation in the elections will be a sham which will give credibility to virtually a one-party election and to the easy victory of the party which, alone, has been active for 20 years. The bans should be lifted NOW.
It seems clear that the different yardsticks being used in Uganda and in Zimbabwe are not for the purposes of measuring or promoting democracy. Two factors have not been eliminated and intrude in the condemnations of the presidential election in Zimbabwe by your government, the European Union, America and the white Commonwealth governments to make the condemnations to appear to be a ploy which conceals some sinister objectives.
The first factor is the land redistribution policy of the ZANU-PF government which affects and hurts white Zimbabweans more than the citizens of African descent. This is a racist factor which I, personally, do not want to discuss or expound on. The factor has the potential of causing much bloodshed in Zimbabwe .
The second factor is that since Zimbabwe and Uganda are involved in the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo on opposite sides where Zimbabwe got involved on the invitation of the DRC government, endorsed by governments in SADC countries, and Uganda got involved as an invader, sanctions on and suspension of Zimbabwe which weaken the ZANU-PF come dangerously close to encouraging the Uganda dictatorship's invasion which has already caused the killing of three million citizens of the DRC [in fact 5 million according to a new OXFAM report] to continue with the heinous slaughter, occupation of DRC territory and even expansion of occupied territory.
Foreign financial (official) aid will now probably not be given to Zimbabwe but will continue to be given to Uganda where, unlike in Zimbabwe, the opposition parties have no voice in the deployment and usage of such aid and which therefore makes the aid subventions to enable the Uganda dictatorship to divert huge local resources to enrich itself, to occupy and plunder the resources of the DRC and to strengthen corruption as a sub-system of governance in Uganda.
Since over 50% of the annual recurrent budget and over 80% of the development budget of the Uganda dictatorship is financed by foreign aid, a British initiative to suspend that source of its entrenchment may, by itself, be combined with the opprobrium it will carry most probably make the dictatorship to accept democracy. The people of Uganda will not starve to death because they do not depend on foreign aid for their food and have always provided their own food.
The executive committee of my party, the Uganda People's Congress (UPC), wrote a memorandum to you in November last year. An acknowledgement with the information that the memorandum had been sent to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was received but no formal reply has been forthcoming.
No more excuses for dictators?
There are two matters each of which is not true and also runs counter to your declaration at last year's Labour Conference that there are to be no more excuses for dictators.
The first matter was also the basic consideration upon which the previous Conservative government built their policy on Uganda , and it is that party government and multi-party politics failed the people of Uganda .
Upon that false consideration, successive British governments since 1986, have lumped together atrocities committed under the Idi Amin military dictatorship (1971-1979) and atrocities committed by Museveni's insurgent army (1981-1984) and credited them as acceptable factors for the demonisation and removal of Uganda's political parties from the body politic and from public elections by the Ugandan dictatorship with the support of successive British governments since 1986.
There can be no other explanation for the acceptance of a military one-party dictatorship for 16 years by successive British governments.
Amin governed the whole country for nine years and three months, but Museveni's insurgency of three years and four months was, though very violent, only in one province and one district, out of the five districts in the province.
Multiparty politics and the policy for the rehabilitation of the economy and social services produced by an elected government and parliament deterred the insurgency from expanding into either the other four districts in the province or into the other three provinces. This achievement is missing from the policy of successive British governments which actually proclaims that crime does pay, which has enabled the military one-party dictatorship to entrench itself year after year for 16 years.
The second matter is the apparent immutable legitimisation of the Uganda dictatorship's policy of your government which ignores its gross suppressions of the human rights and freedoms of the people of Uganda and ignores its crimes against humanity, including the massacres of the people of Uganda, invasion and massacres of the people of the DRC, and giving succour to the two men who have since been tried for the Lockerbie bombing (as recounted in the memorandum which the executive of my party wrote to you); on the grounds that the Uganda dictatorship deserves much diplomatic support and much subventions because the dictatorship has a credible and good economic policy.
More donor money
From January 1986 to 1987, the basic economic policy of the dictatorship was barter trade and severely restricted internal trade. To get the dictatorship to abandon that policy, the previous Conservative government's other donor partners did what appears in the cause of good governance to be a taboo to your government: they suspended aid to Uganda .
The suspension of aid made the dictatorship to plagiarise the economic policy and programmes which my government had published in 1982; revised in 1984 and were due to, again, be revised in September 1985 which caused the resumption of aid to Uganda .
It is that plagiarised policy and programmes which your government bas been praising since 1997, while also at the same time siding with the Uganda dictatorship in its suppressions of multi-party politics and the enjoyment and exercise by the citizen of hislher inalienable human rights and freedoms.
The sanctions and suspension of Zimbabwe , have now opened the door wide for a definitive policy on Uganda which does not accommodate the Uganda dictatorship until the year 2006.
I appeal to you to define the policy so that the positions of the EU, the US government and the Commonwealth show dearly that there are no half measures to democracy whether in Zimbabwe or Uganda .
The credibility of the Commonwealth is on the line with the policy to punish perceived violation of good governance in Zimbabwe while, at the same time ignoring the total and glaring banishment of good governance in Uganda .
Yours sincerely
A. Milton Obote
President
Uganda Peoples Congress.
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