How Museveni could yet survive Washington and Uganda Opposition in 2011
President Yoweri Museveni’s once bright star- visible throughout Africa and the West-is dimmed. How could someone, once revered by the West, be suddenly down on his luck?
The answer to this question is long and complicated. For Museveni, it is a combination of indictable misadventures in Rwanda, Congo, and northern Uganda; corruption, electoral theft, and heavy-handedness in dealing with political opponents at home.
Simply put, 23 years in power is a long time. One is bound to make as many enemies as friends- at home and abroad -along the way. Consequently, incumbency reaches deleterious point of diminishing return; when it has nothing more to offer but personal insecurities and corresponding obsession with retaining power, defending ill-gotten wealth, and protecting cronies.
Despite his dwindling political, diplomatic fortunes, Museveni could yet rescue himself from being discarded-like all utility men before him-for becoming a liability, rather than continued asset to his Western benefactors.
Unfortunately for Museveni, nothing as earth-shaking as ( 1) the fall of the Berlin Wall; (2) the end of history and the last man; (3) September 11 and the Global War On Terror (GWOT), are likely to occur in the immediate future for him to exploit to re-invent himself.
When the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Empire crumbled, bringing down socialist, left progressive politics with it, Museveni discarded his olive combat fatigues for expensive, Saville- Row, tailored, pinstripe suits. Even the jackboots, gave way to fancy brogues, standard issue for the corridors, boardrooms of the IMF and the World Bank. From Deep inside the sanctums of these capitalist midwives, he exchanged dog-eared copies of the Ten Point Programme and the Communist Manifesto, for the Structural Adjustment Programmes(SAP).
Henceforth, the people were damned. Our “liberators” embarked on a war path of creating a middle class. A middle class was necessary for capitalist street credibility and bona fides. Life within city limits of the end of history and the last man, required cultural conformity forged through deep, irreparable structural damages to our national economy, oracled by the Washington Consensus. The operational credo of neo-liberal globalism, entailed thorough and complete economic liberalisation, privatisation, state divestiture from the economy, and the introduction of cost-sharing aimed at letting the market alone be the rational, equitable, fair allocator of values, and distributor of goods and services.
The impact of such radical about-face- from aspirations for an independent, integrated, self-sustaining and self-sufficient economy- on the ordinary citizen, in whose names Uganda had been gang-raped over and over, was immediate. Sights of premature babies skewering on Charcoal stoves, in place of incubators, in the hospitals of eastern Uganda, were tips of the iceberg signalling remarkable failures of the experiments in market-led development strategies to benefit ordinary people in peripheral capitalist economies.
Just when we thought their luck had run out and national disaffection was coalescing against neo-liberalism to force the” liberators” to account for the lack of social and economic dividends to the ordinary Ugandans, Osama bin Laden and Al Qaida struck the nerve centres of global capitalist imperialism in New York and Washington. Aware of the opportunity and lifeline 9/11 portended, Museveni hung onto every word US President George W. Bush uttered outlining US plans against global terror following the attacks. Immediately, Museveni re-baptised the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) from “backward”, “primitive”, and “common criminals”, to “terrorists”. Washington instantaneously included the LRA as a global terrorist organisation, gifting Museveni invaluable political, diplomatic lease of life.
Returning the favours, our “liberator” joined the Coalition of the Willing (COW), to attack an innocent country, effect regime- change, depose a dictator, and search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq.
The man from Kisozi Ranch, likely mistook the acronym COW, to mean an association of cattlemen, through which America was distributing free cattle from Bush’s ranch at Crawford, Texas! The herdsman that he is, Museveni was first in line, even as intermediate global powers- France, Germany, and Canada- rejected to be stampeded into regime-change folly. But opportunistically, Museveni wanted to, and milked, the GWOT cow as much as he could. The GWOT cow, which he now zero-grazes and milks in Somalia, has guaranteed milk and continued access to hay in Washington. However, Somalia and GWOT will not sufficiently provide regime sustenance and maintenance from depreciation for much longer. Why?
In major speeches in Cairo and Accra, US President Barack Obama let it be known that Washington will no longer turn a blind eye to brutal dictators simply because they are America’s own strategic instruments. Henceforth, free and fair elections will be critical measure of democracy and good governance. Elections will no longer be perfunctory events the kinds Ugandans witnessed in 1996, 2001, and 2006. There have to be universal standards met:
• Independent electoral commission;
• Prohibition of security forces from interfering with electoral processes;
• Complete freedom for people , political parties, groups, to organise and campaign freely throughout the country;
• Independent verification, update, and public display of voter’s register at polling centres long before election dates;
• Level playing field for all political parties and candidates;
• Restraining incumbents, ruling parties, from unfairly using state resources for own campaigns.
Therefore, GWOT and Somalia alone may no longer be enough to ingratiate Museveni to the West, or save his dictatorship. The changing mood in Washington and rising doubts in the West about the utility of the Nyampala in Kampala, coincides with Ugandan citizens’ resolve to cause change through opposition unity, robust national campaigns for democracy and justice.
Undoubtedly, Museveni’s star is merely a twinkle on the global horizon. But he could yet regain luminescence and save his regime by intervening to personally remove global logjams on some particularly Western pet peeves:
1. Somalia-Fights like never before; completely defeats , uproots the Islamic insurgents opposing the interim government;
2. Darfur-Fires junior minister Henry Oryem Okello to lure Omar el Bashir to Uganda; arrests and hands Bashir over to the ICC for trial for genocide in Darfur;
3. Zimbabwe-As in Operations Lightning Thunder, infiltrates UPDF Special Forces into Zimbabwe, topples, arrests and hands over Robert Mugabe to the West;
4. North Korea-UPDF special forces knock out Kim Jong Il and obliterate his nuclear facilities;
5. Iran-UPDF Special Forces assassinate Mahmmoud Ahmedinajjad, pulverise Iranian nuclear facilities;
6. Al Qaida-An experienced guerrilla foxhound, Museveni single-handedly hunts down Osama Bin Laden, hangs him at City Square, and mounts Laden’s corpse on a marble plinth and invites himself to the White House bearing this macabre gift-Operations Sane "Jaruos."
Failing all these by September 2010:
7. Uganda 2011-Museveni assembles the press and announces he has quit. That, Kaguta family sacrifices for ungrateful Ugandans, particularly Buganda, is over. In full battle fatigues, and on foot, he leads the UPDF, PGB, ESO, ISO, JATTF, CMI, NRM, his wife, brother, son, daughters and sons-in-law out of Kampala to unknown destination....in a last march past mounted for the citizens of Uganda.
The answer to this question is long and complicated. For Museveni, it is a combination of indictable misadventures in Rwanda, Congo, and northern Uganda; corruption, electoral theft, and heavy-handedness in dealing with political opponents at home.
Simply put, 23 years in power is a long time. One is bound to make as many enemies as friends- at home and abroad -along the way. Consequently, incumbency reaches deleterious point of diminishing return; when it has nothing more to offer but personal insecurities and corresponding obsession with retaining power, defending ill-gotten wealth, and protecting cronies.
Despite his dwindling political, diplomatic fortunes, Museveni could yet rescue himself from being discarded-like all utility men before him-for becoming a liability, rather than continued asset to his Western benefactors.
Unfortunately for Museveni, nothing as earth-shaking as ( 1) the fall of the Berlin Wall; (2) the end of history and the last man; (3) September 11 and the Global War On Terror (GWOT), are likely to occur in the immediate future for him to exploit to re-invent himself.
When the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Empire crumbled, bringing down socialist, left progressive politics with it, Museveni discarded his olive combat fatigues for expensive, Saville- Row, tailored, pinstripe suits. Even the jackboots, gave way to fancy brogues, standard issue for the corridors, boardrooms of the IMF and the World Bank. From Deep inside the sanctums of these capitalist midwives, he exchanged dog-eared copies of the Ten Point Programme and the Communist Manifesto, for the Structural Adjustment Programmes(SAP).
Henceforth, the people were damned. Our “liberators” embarked on a war path of creating a middle class. A middle class was necessary for capitalist street credibility and bona fides. Life within city limits of the end of history and the last man, required cultural conformity forged through deep, irreparable structural damages to our national economy, oracled by the Washington Consensus. The operational credo of neo-liberal globalism, entailed thorough and complete economic liberalisation, privatisation, state divestiture from the economy, and the introduction of cost-sharing aimed at letting the market alone be the rational, equitable, fair allocator of values, and distributor of goods and services.
The impact of such radical about-face- from aspirations for an independent, integrated, self-sustaining and self-sufficient economy- on the ordinary citizen, in whose names Uganda had been gang-raped over and over, was immediate. Sights of premature babies skewering on Charcoal stoves, in place of incubators, in the hospitals of eastern Uganda, were tips of the iceberg signalling remarkable failures of the experiments in market-led development strategies to benefit ordinary people in peripheral capitalist economies.
Just when we thought their luck had run out and national disaffection was coalescing against neo-liberalism to force the” liberators” to account for the lack of social and economic dividends to the ordinary Ugandans, Osama bin Laden and Al Qaida struck the nerve centres of global capitalist imperialism in New York and Washington. Aware of the opportunity and lifeline 9/11 portended, Museveni hung onto every word US President George W. Bush uttered outlining US plans against global terror following the attacks. Immediately, Museveni re-baptised the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) from “backward”, “primitive”, and “common criminals”, to “terrorists”. Washington instantaneously included the LRA as a global terrorist organisation, gifting Museveni invaluable political, diplomatic lease of life.
Returning the favours, our “liberator” joined the Coalition of the Willing (COW), to attack an innocent country, effect regime- change, depose a dictator, and search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq.
The man from Kisozi Ranch, likely mistook the acronym COW, to mean an association of cattlemen, through which America was distributing free cattle from Bush’s ranch at Crawford, Texas! The herdsman that he is, Museveni was first in line, even as intermediate global powers- France, Germany, and Canada- rejected to be stampeded into regime-change folly. But opportunistically, Museveni wanted to, and milked, the GWOT cow as much as he could. The GWOT cow, which he now zero-grazes and milks in Somalia, has guaranteed milk and continued access to hay in Washington. However, Somalia and GWOT will not sufficiently provide regime sustenance and maintenance from depreciation for much longer. Why?
In major speeches in Cairo and Accra, US President Barack Obama let it be known that Washington will no longer turn a blind eye to brutal dictators simply because they are America’s own strategic instruments. Henceforth, free and fair elections will be critical measure of democracy and good governance. Elections will no longer be perfunctory events the kinds Ugandans witnessed in 1996, 2001, and 2006. There have to be universal standards met:
• Independent electoral commission;
• Prohibition of security forces from interfering with electoral processes;
• Complete freedom for people , political parties, groups, to organise and campaign freely throughout the country;
• Independent verification, update, and public display of voter’s register at polling centres long before election dates;
• Level playing field for all political parties and candidates;
• Restraining incumbents, ruling parties, from unfairly using state resources for own campaigns.
Therefore, GWOT and Somalia alone may no longer be enough to ingratiate Museveni to the West, or save his dictatorship. The changing mood in Washington and rising doubts in the West about the utility of the Nyampala in Kampala, coincides with Ugandan citizens’ resolve to cause change through opposition unity, robust national campaigns for democracy and justice.
Undoubtedly, Museveni’s star is merely a twinkle on the global horizon. But he could yet regain luminescence and save his regime by intervening to personally remove global logjams on some particularly Western pet peeves:
1. Somalia-Fights like never before; completely defeats , uproots the Islamic insurgents opposing the interim government;
2. Darfur-Fires junior minister Henry Oryem Okello to lure Omar el Bashir to Uganda; arrests and hands Bashir over to the ICC for trial for genocide in Darfur;
3. Zimbabwe-As in Operations Lightning Thunder, infiltrates UPDF Special Forces into Zimbabwe, topples, arrests and hands over Robert Mugabe to the West;
4. North Korea-UPDF special forces knock out Kim Jong Il and obliterate his nuclear facilities;
5. Iran-UPDF Special Forces assassinate Mahmmoud Ahmedinajjad, pulverise Iranian nuclear facilities;
6. Al Qaida-An experienced guerrilla foxhound, Museveni single-handedly hunts down Osama Bin Laden, hangs him at City Square, and mounts Laden’s corpse on a marble plinth and invites himself to the White House bearing this macabre gift-Operations Sane "Jaruos."
Failing all these by September 2010:
7. Uganda 2011-Museveni assembles the press and announces he has quit. That, Kaguta family sacrifices for ungrateful Ugandans, particularly Buganda, is over. In full battle fatigues, and on foot, he leads the UPDF, PGB, ESO, ISO, JATTF, CMI, NRM, his wife, brother, son, daughters and sons-in-law out of Kampala to unknown destination....in a last march past mounted for the citizens of Uganda.
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