Northern Uganda Messenger Post

Déjà Vu? Since the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between Khartoum and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement/ Army (SPLM/A) that established the Government of South Sudan at Juba, border and land disputes have characterised relations between South Sudan and Uganda. These disputes between border communities and the two countries underscore the need to revisit the notion of nation-statehood based on arbitrary colonial boundaries. In its issue of 25 October 2011, the Sudan Tribune reported South Sudan accusing Uganda of tampering with international boundary markers between the two countries that extended Uganda’s northern frontiers by tens of miles into South Sudan. This is the border area between Magwi County in Eastern Equatoria State of South Sudan and Lamwo District in northern Uganda. According to the report, a meeting called to discuss the concerns agreed a joint resolution to investigate the matter, but Lamwo Resident District Commissioner (RDC...

Dear friends and readers, Sorry I have not been able to write for the last couple of years. However, I am happy to announce that I am back and can once again make the time to write and comment on global and African issues of interest, particularly democratization in Uganda. Interestingly, I was away in Uganda, trying to do my bit about changing the world....putting to test and good use all that Professors Rodger Schwass, Peter Penz, Bill Found, Roger Keil, David Morley, Gene Desfore, Jennifer Clapp, Jack Craig and the good people at York University based their lectures, talks, conversations, workshops, debates and those ever useful brownbag lectures on sustainability. And not forgetting the Summer Practicum with Greg Albo and Vandan Shiva. Yes, Uganda has been one of the bright spots for the last several years as far as neoliberal indicators for development are concerned. However, in terms of sustainability as I learnt at York University, and as propounded by Vandana Shiva and...

The UPC President, Olara A. Otunnu addressed a rally, held consultation meeting and was hosted on Voice of Lango yesterday 12 April 2010. The central government authorities in Lira, led by the RDC, tried to stop the consultative meetins from taking place at Lira Technical. Lira Technical is a public facility. The UPC and other Ugandans have rights to access and use them when available. That is what we did in the end; hold the meeting at Lira Technical. When the UPC President went on air on Voice of Lango in the evening, attempts were made to interfere with the programme. Again, the programme was aired without interruptions. Today, 13 April 2010, we understand State House has done the following: 1. Ordered Col. Ochora, RDC Gulu, to appear on the same programme tonight, to rebutt what the UPC president said in Lango yesterday; 2. Col. Ochora is under order and cued to allege the following: -That the UPC President, Olara A. Otunnu, worked closely with Joseph Kony and the LRA in northern...

Otunnu Welcomes US Congressional Directive on 2011 Ugandan Elections Jan.13, 2010 Kampala, Washington, Mr. Olara A. Otunnu, former United Nations Under Secretary General and an opposition leader in Uganda, today welcomed the directive by the United States Congress to the US Secretary of State to closely monitor preparations for the 2011 Elections in Uganda. Mr. Otunnu said, “I am delighted and applaud the US Congress for taking this decisive action in favour of free and fair elections in Uganda. This is a most welcome development.” Speaking in Washington, Mr. Otunnu said that the U.S. Congress has directed the US Secretary of State to work with other countries, including the European Union and Canada, to ensure free and fair elections in Uganda in 2011. Mr. Otunnu stated, “The Congressional directive is of particular importance given the extensive and well documented rigging and fraud witnessed in recent elections in Uganda.” The Congressional directive calls for close monitoring of t...

Last Monday, 21 December 2009, former UN Undersecretary General for Children and Armed Conflict, Olara Otunnu, survived a spectacularly “unusual” road “accident” that only a Hollywood action flick could conjure. Everything about the accident, as Otunnu characterised it in a press conference later that afternoon, was “unusual.” At the press conference, Otunnu and the team traveling with him narrated that about 0930 hours or thereabout, they came upon a convoy of military vehicles at Minakulu. A couple or so civilian vehicles ahead of them signaled and were given the go-ahead to overtake the stationary or slow moving Phalanx of military wares. As they approached, Otunnu’s party too signaled to be let by, and they were accordingly given the sign to drive past. No sooner had they gone by two of the seven vehicles, when the third military truck suddenly pulled out of the formation to block their way. Otunnu’s driver attempted a manoeuvre to avoid high impact collision, but was-as if on cue-...

I have been wondering what in military parlance and war tradition, it would mean for a private to single-handedly slay a general on the battlefield. Would one be promoted from private, to say Captain; Major; Lieutenant Colonel; or a Brigadier? Surely, those in the know of military customs and practices would know. I confess complete ignorance. Even more puzzling for me, and I am sure, for military historians and scholars alike, is the decoration that an untrained civilian, and a woman who looks as fit as a sack of potato, deserves, when she outmanoeuvres a Major General and former commander of a national army. It is intriguing what people on the streets are saying. Some have already promoted Lydia Draru to the rank of a Field Marshal for her improbable feat of felling with a fly-swat, an experienced, well trained, war-hardened and heftily built General in a “domestic” squabble. The death of Gen. Kazini last week in a Kampala suburb was shocking, bizarre, and a tragic spectacle that ca...

The press in Uganda this week is awash with homophobic hysteria against Gays, Lesbians, Bi-Sexual and Transgender (GLBT) Ugandans. This overt and shameless discrimination against a minority population of our citizens flows from the fact homosexuality is criminalised in Uganda. As if this was not enough suppression of personal freedom and civil rights, Ndorwa West Member of Parliament (MP), David Bahatia, has tabled a private member’s bill proposing a series of measures to control and punish GLBT activities in the country, including the death penalty for gays and lesbians caught living and expressing their sexuality. This is not only cavalier violations of human rights, but a dangerous hate campaign and incitement to harm or kill members of the GLBT in Uganda. The people of Uganda, and all people of good will, must not sit and watch while this happens. The sponsors of the bill, their supporters and political leaders- inside and outside parliament- must be identified, isolated and ostrac...