Friday, December 11, 2009

Key US lawmaker denounces Uganda anti-gay law

WASHINGTON, US - A key US lawmaker urged Ugandan authorities Wednesday to 'come to their senses' and reject a controversial proposed law that would punish homosexuality with life in prison.

'I am deeply saddened and troubled that such blatantly ignorant and hate-filled legislation would see the light of day anywhere in today's world. It needs to be stopped in its tracks immediately,' said Representative Ilean Ros-Lehtinen, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

'Ugandan leaders must come to their senses and reject this impending massive blow to human rights and decency in their country.'


Ros-Lehtinen, who has written to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton out of concern over the proposal, said she would seek an unspecified 'appropriate action' from Washington if it becomes law.

In her statement, the Florida lawmaker worried that 'such fear-mongering' in Uganda could hurt efforts to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS.

The Anti-Homosexuality Bill would impose the death penalty for 'aggravated homosexuality,' including by those who are HIV positive.

In one of its most curious provisions, the draft law calls on Uganda to nullify any international treaty or convention that is inconsistent with the spirit of anti-homosexuality.

Source:news.asiaone.com/

Find the best blogs at Blogs.com.

Uganda: President Pledges Support to Makerere Projects

President Museveni has pledged to fund three Makerere University projects running under its Faculty of Technology.

The President, who was touring Makerere University on Wednesday, promised funds to improve the first model of Vision 200, a four-passenger vehicle, designed by a team of 11 Makerere University engineering students, a sanitary pad project and solar power generation scheme.

Supporting the projects, Mr Museveni said these would increase production of affordable solar panels as an alternative source of energy and sanitary pads for primary school girls who drop out due to lack of the facilities.

"In the next budget, we shall make a slot for you. We even talked about it in the Cabinet because it's science and technology that propel development," he said.

The President said he missed the exhibition of the students' hybrid power vehicle last year after one of his aides, whom he refused to reveal, delayed to give him the invitation.

He said: "I am sorry I did not come for the exhibition because some character never forwarded the invitation to me. But it's good I have come and we will support you."

The vehicle, which is expected to be ready for commercial production next year, was also showcased in the World Design Capital, Torino in Italy.

The Dean of Faculty of Technology, Prof. Eriabu Lugujjo, said the government should allocate one per cent of its budget to science and technology to avoid reliance on donor funding.

"There is need for more direct state intervention in science technology and innovations. It is known that donors are not keen to fund our own plans," he said.

The Vice Chancellor, Prof. Venansius Baryamureeba, told the President that there is "a lot of untapped" potential at the faculty of technology, which he said if exploited, would transform Uganda's economy.

He said the university administration wants to make education more relevant to the demands of the job market.

"We want to make sure that our programmes are relevant," he said.

The President also held a meeting with academic staff from the departments of political science and history. He told the lecturers to teach patriotism.

"I have been wondering what you teach our children, so I decided to come here and interact with you. I am happy that you are speaking about integration (of East Africa) and patriotism. We must have these values," he said.

Source:allafrica.com/

Uganda inflation seen down to 7 pct by June 2010: central bank

LONDON (Reuters) - Uganda's annual inflation should fall to 7 percent by June 2010, while the Ugandan shilling is rising too quickly, the country's central bank governor said on Thursday.

"By the end of the financial year June 2010, inflation should be back to around 7 percent," Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile told Reuters in an interview following a presentation.

"The following year it should be below 5 percent."

Uganda's annual inflation rate slowed to 12 percent in November from 13.4 percent in October.

Uganda's inflation rate has spiked into double digits in the last 12 months due to rises in oil and food prices, Tumusiime-Mutebile told the presentation.

Uganda's economy will grow by 6.4 percent in 2010, and inflation will fall to 9.7 percent, according to a Reuters poll.

The Ugandan shilling has been rising sharply this year as foreign investment has returned to east Africa's third largest economy.

The shilling weakened on Thursday but is still trading close to one-year highs against the dollar.

Source:af.reuters.com/

Uganda coffee volumes seen rising 11 pct in 09/10

KAMPALA (Reuters) - Uganda's coffee volumes will rise 11.5 percent in the 2009/10 season to 3.4 million bags versus last year on new trees coming into production and better weather, the Uganda Coffee Development Authority said on Thursday.

East Africa's third largest economy has become a key player in robusta production and is Africa's second biggest coffee grower after Ethiopia, which largely produces arabica beans.

"For this coffee year 2009/10, our projection is 3.4 million bags, hoping the weather will be favourable," the body's acting managing director, Fred Mukasa, told Reuters in an interview.

"We have a lot of young crop coming into production," he said. The figure includes carry-over stocks from the last year.

Uganda exported 3.05 million bags worth $291.3 million in the October-September season last year, down 5 percent and 25 percent from 3.21 million bags and $388.3 million in 2007/08.

Coffee accounts for around 60 percent of Uganda's cash crop earnings and is a key employer in its agriculture sector, which has mainly small-scale farmers.

Mukasa said he expected volumes to hit 4.5 million bags by 2015, and the body expected to plant around 20 million additional trees annually.

The coffee body estimates that Uganda has around 230 million coffee trees. In the late 1990s, coffee wilt disease decimated Uganda's trees, destroying around 50 percent.

Source:af.reuters.com

Uganda/Sudan: URA to Face Zanaco, Villa Take On El Khartoum in CAF Matches

Kampala — Uganda Super League champions URA and Kakungulu Cup winners SC Villa's coaches believe taking full home advantage will be key if they are to advance in continental football.

URA play Zambian league holders Zanaco in the Orange Caf Champions League first round while 16-time kings Villa face El Khartoum in the Confederations Cup according to fixtures released by Caf.

Should they progress, URA will meet Côte d'Ivoire kings Asec Mimosas. The champions have previously represented Uganda twice in 2007 and 2008, eliminated on both occasions in the preliminary round, the most recent at the hands of another Zambian side Zesco.

"Zambia qualifying for the African Cup shows Zanaco are a strong team. But they've also been eliminated from Cecafa. So, we can match them," said URA coach Moses Basena from Tanzania where his team is playing build-up games against giants Simba and Young Africans.

Although Villa have played Sudanese sides before, El Khartoum will be a new side altogether for the blues. "Sudanese are known for speed. We'll have to close down spaces at home if we're to progress," said Villa coach Sula Kato.

Source:allafrica.com/

Uganda MP Bahati Defends Homosexual-Sex 'Death Penalty' Bill


A Ugandan MP accused of calling for a "gay death penalty" says he has been misrepresented and is only trying to criminalise child abusers.

Gay Executions, Museveni, And Uganda Elections

Gay-bashing has reached unprecedented heights in the East African country of Uganda, eliciting a global outcry.


There, the country's dictator, General Yoweri K. Museveni, is promoting a Bill that would make "homosexual acts" punishable by death. After worldwide condemnation, there's now talk that the death sentence proposal may be toned down and replaced withlife imprisonment for "serial homosexual activity."

General Museveni's proposed pogrom against homosexuals --for that is what such a Bill amounts to-- is part of this U.S.-backed dictator's demonization strategy as he prepares for the 2011 presidential election campaign in Uganda.

General Museveni is one of the most divisive presidents in Africa. Yet his regime has been subsidized by the International community, including successive U.S. Administrations since Ronald Reagan's because he does the West's dirty job in Africa. Right now, he acts as policeman in Somalia, on behalf of the United States, stationing 5,000 Ugandan troops there. By arguing that he's a bulwark against the "dreaded Islamic terror," he's hoping that the Obama Administration --as have previous U.S. governments-- will extend his lease on tyranny in Uganda. His regime, based on one-man rule, is exactly the type of tyranny that President Obama decried in his Accra, Ghana, speech.

General Museveni has used campaigns of terror and demonization to survive for 23-years in power. Homosexuals just happen to be the latest "ogres" in Uganda. Museveni has elevated the art of divide-and-rule beyond Machiavellian heights.


Museveni seized power in 1986, after he scuttled a power-sharing peace deal he had negotiated with the provisional junta of the day. His immediate target was Uganda's ethnic Acholis, whose ancestral homeland is in the northern part of Uganda; those areas have been in the news lately, not for the continued suffering of its populace, but for the rich oil finds.

Acholis had traditionally provided the bulk of the military establishment, dating back to British colonial rule. Museveni's first bogeymen were people from the north. This was Museveni's position:

Infamous dictator Idi Amin had come from the north, as had former president Milton Obote; since Acholis were also from the north, all of Uganda's woes, including economic collapse and recurrent massacres, could be blamed on the "northern scourge."

Notwithstanding the fact that Acholis had borne the brunt of Amin's massacres, in numerous declarations, Museveni and his officials demonized Acholis and other ethnic peoples from the northern part of Uganda as enemies of the state.

Officials of Museveni's then Maoist National Resistance Movement (NRM) regime even played on skin complexion, using racist ideology to depict Acholis, who tend to be darker hued, as inferior and vicious brutes. A Museveni official infamously declared that in Uganda there were human beings as well as "biological substances"; Acholis belonged in the latter category.

So effective was the demonization that even today, the suffering of millions of Acholis is marginalized by the International community as the "northern Uganda problem," thereby prolonging the calamity.


Later, the brutality of Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) provided Museveni with another bogeyman. The LRA had become notorious for kidnappings of children to boost its ranks; ironically, the United Nations reported that Museveni also boosted his army by recruiting child soldiers. Deserters from Museveni's army said they too mutilated civilians and blamed it on the discredited LRA. Yet the most macabre abuse against Acholis by Museveni's soldiers started in the late 1980s when reports started emerging that soldiers in his army, including those known to be HIV-positive started raping civilians, including men --which was then unheard of. (After Uganda's invasion and occupation of Congo, the abominable use of targeted rapes, including of men, as instrument of terror has spread there).

General Museveni has mastered the skill of using the LRA's crimes to shift attention away from his own genocide against Acholis and militarism elsewhere in Africa. He has used paid lobbyists such as the Whitaker Group in Washington, D.C., operated by Rosa Whitaker --the lobbyist now also has the services of Jendayi Frazer, former Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for Africa under George W. Bush-- as well as sinister "non governmental organizations" such as Resolve! as well as The Enough Project. Through these apologists, General Museveni has won sympathetic ears in the U.S. Congress.

Isn't it ironic that even as lawmakers from Museveni's NRM party seek to make homosexuality punishable by death in Uganda, two U.S. Senators --Russ Feingold and Sam Brownback-- persuaded by Whitaker, Resolve! and Enough Project, have sponsored a Bill (H.R. 2478) that would authorize the U.S. military to partner with Museveni's army to go after the LRA? Even if such a Bill were to pass it would run into problems: the Leahy Amendment bars such cooperation with countries whose army engages in torture. Human Rights Watch earlier this year released a scathing report against Uganda's military establishment.

www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/04/08/uganda-end-torture-anti-terror-unit

Kony in reality is the embodiment and manifestation of two decades of tyranny under General Museveni. Museveni preceded Kony; not the other way around. They are two sides of the same coin and Uganda would be better off with both Museveni and Kony before the International Criminal Court at the Hague.

Beginning in 1986, and reaching a zenith in 1996, General Museveni began herding two million Acholi civilians into concentration camps euphemistically referred to as "Internally Displaced People's Camps" (IDPs). The "displacement" was orchestrated by government order, with leaflets dropped from military helicopters, warning villagers who did not abandon their homes that they would be killed. Homes and granaries were destroyed, millions of live stocks looted by soldiers, and civilians who resisted the displacement to the camps were killed.

Acholis, who once provided food to much of the country and most of Southern Sudan, were reduced to dependency on handouts from the World Food Program; alcoholism, prostitution, and suicides, became widespread.

According to a 2005 study by the World Health Organization (WHO) in conjunction with Uganda's own Ministry of Health, up to 1,000 civilians per week were dying of hunger, dehydration and treatable diseases in these camps; so, as many as 52,000 Acholis per year were dying in these government created and "protected" camps, from hunger and diseases. This translates into more than half a million civilians over a decade; and perhaps more than a million in the 23 years of that "conflict." The LRA's kill rates pale miserably when compared to the Museveni regime's.


http://www.who.int/hac/crises/uga/sitreps/Ugandamortsurvey.pdf

Nary a word of condemnation from the International community, the so-called "human rights" organizations, and major media, including The New York Times, a major Museveni apologist.


Yet Ugandans aren't buying Museveni's depiction of Acholis as "ogres" anymore. Serious threat to his tyranny now comes from "Southerners." In September this year, when General Museveni sought to curb the influence of Kabaka Ronald Mutebi, the powerful monarch whom the Baganda ethnic group revere, there were demonstrations in Kampala, the capital. Museveni's U.S.-trained and equipped forces violently suppressed the protests, killing dozens of civilians.

There was only tepid reaction by Washington.

The victims of General Museveni's untrammeled militarism aren't confined to Uganda. In 2005 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found Uganda liable for war crimes and pillage in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where five million people died during Uganda's occupation of parts of that country. The ICJ recommended $10 billion in compensation to Congo.

http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/116/10455.pdf


What's more, The Wall Street Journal reported in a front page story on June 8, 2006, that the International Criminal Court (ICC) had also opened its own investigation. Were it not for the fact that the ICC's prosecutor Moreno Ocampo, is professionally corrupt --his colleagues protested when he appeared at a joint news conference with Museveni to denounce Kony even though Museveni himself was a potential suspect according to The Wall Street Journal article-- the Ugandan president might have been indicted for crimes against humanity by now. He was indeed fearful--The Wall Street Journal reported that he pleaded with then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to block the ICC investigation.

As it is, the U.S. government, and major media outlets such as The New York Times and BBC, ignore Museveni's crimes in both Uganda and Congo, while condemning Sudan's Omar al Bashir and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe. How was he rewarded after the Congo genocide? In December the United State's supported Uganda's bid in the United Nations and the Museveni regime now occupies a seat on the UN Security Council--the very body that determines how to pursue the ICC investigation of the alleged crimes in Congo by Museveni's army. Just last week U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Johnnie Carson, sang Museveni's praises in an appearance on the Voice of America's "Straight Talk Africa," show. Meanwhile the U.N. had just released a report showing how Uganda's smuggling of gold from Congo fuels continued massacres there. The duplicity is revolting.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125963562452770749.html

Now just over one year away from the 2011 presidential elections in Uganda, General Museveni has found new bogeymen; homosexuals.

He knows that homophobia can be widely exploited in a relatively conservative country such as Uganda. Moreover, the timing of his vilification of homosexuals is no coincidence. During the 2001 elections, General Museveni vilified his opponent, Dr. Kizza Besigye, leader of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC). Notwithstanding that they were once allies in the NRM and that Dr. Besigye had been his personal physician, General Museveni denounced him as unfit to rule. Why? He claimed Dr. Besigye was HIV-positive and had Aids. The morally reprehensible accusations by a national president, who fraudulently markets himself to the International community as a champion of Aids victims, was ignored by major news outlets. Ultimately, General Museveni stole elections from Dr. Besigye in 2001 and again in 2006.

Gay demonization is the latest weapon in Museveni's election arsenal. In August this year, a top Ugandan statesman and diplomat who may also seek the presidency, Olara Otunnu, returned there after 23 years. When Otunnu, who in the past has been a Ugandan foreign affairs minister and more recently United Nations Under Secretary General for children in conflict areas, was greeted by thousands of Ugandans, the Museveni government backed off from threats that he would be arrested for sedition. Otunnu's alleged crime? During his 2005 Sydney Peace Prize acceptance lecture, he had decried the genocide against Acholis in the concentration camps.

http://www.sydneypeacefoundation.org.au/previousWinners.shtml

Soon after Otunnu's return, local Uganda media reported on a planned smear campaign by government agents. Otunnu, who at 57 is unmarried, would be cast as a homosexual by government agents, according to the media reports.

So there you have it.

General Museveni has been a favorite of successive U.S. Administrations, since Ronald Reagan's, doing America's dirty work in Africa. He believes that if history is a reliable guide, with impunity, he can extend his tyranny beyond 2011.

Source:blackstarnews.com/

Uganda: Microsoft Unveils New Windows Software

Kampala — Companies, which will embrace Microsoft's new software will enjoy fast, cheap and increased productivity that comes with the latest operating system for efficiency.

Speaking at the launch, Microsoft general manager for East and South Africa Louis Otieno said unlike Vista and XP, Windows 7 can be used on small hardware even by starters without any technicalities involved.

Windows 7, which was launched in Kampala on Tuesday, comes about three years after the launch of Vista, whose complexity frustrated many home users and turned off business customers. "Windows 7 represents years of in-depth listening to our customers and partners around the globe and it is the most well-researched and well-planned Window released ever," said Mr Otieno.

Windows XP, which accounts for more than half of Microsoft's profits, has been on the market for more than a decade. "Windows 7 will not only make the PC more interesting but just simpler and faster for many," Otieno said. "The new software is faster than XP, stable, fast to resume from hibernation, has quicker boot times and better support than XP for USB devices."

Other software products launched included Microsoft Exchange server 2010 for easy and secure internal and external communications and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 that reduces the IT workload enabling innovativeness in companies.

Information and Communication Technology Minister Aggrey Awori said the software will provide the efficiency to foster economic growth in the country. "The software meets the demand of the 21st century and will synchronise government departments and the private sector to do business," he said.

Source:allafrica.com/

What fate of Uganda’s troops in Somalia reveals about our politics

A week ago a terrorist bomb exacted a heavy toll on the struggling Somalia government, when an explosion blasted a Mogadishu graduation ceremony, killing 19 civilians, including three ministers. A few weeks earlier, there had been another deadly attack, this time on the African Union peacekeepers, where several members of the Ugandan contingent of the AMISOM force in Somalia were killed.

That attack forced AMISOM to reveal, for the first time, that it had lost 80 of its soldiers in explosions and clashes with Somali militants since the force deployed there in March 2007.

The 5,000 AU troops are mostly from Uganda and Burundi. Of the 80 soldiers killed, 37 of them are Ugandan.

The anniversary of the Somalia mission usually passes without comment, and Ugandan casualties there get one or two days in the media, and are then quickly forgotten.

One reason for this is that the public has grown cynical of UPDF missions abroad, and the interests the army serves at home. The defining experience was the nearly 10 years that the UPDF spent in the Democratic Republic of Congo, during which time it came to be viewed as nothing less than a bandit force used by rogue officers and NRM big wigs and their cronies in Kampala to plunder minerals, timber, coffee, and even wild game.

In Somalia, many reasoned that the UPDF role in the mission was part of a scheme by President Museveni to buy favour from the West, and shield him the pressure over his push to amend the Constitution in 2005, which opened the door for him to be president for life.

Even if that were true, on close scrutiny, the UPDF peacekeeping in Somalia is different from the disastrous one to the DRC in major ways. Unlike the DRC, the group of militants who eventually take power in Somalia can have far-reaching implications for East African security. Right now, the radical Islamist group Al-Shabaab that controls most of Somalia has governments in the region and the West running scared. They believe that an Al-Shabaab take over will be the equivalent of having Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda ruling Somalia.

My own view is that Somalis are among Africa’s most pragmatic people (which is why they succeed where they have been scattered by the crisis back home) and that the risk of an Al-Shabaab takeover is overstated, but it is understandable why others might be alarmed.

So unlike DRC, the UPDF in Somalia have nothing to loot. In fact, don’t expect them to return with local women in tow and chicken dangling from their backs, as happened with the troops in Congo.

That said, even if Museveni has his own private agenda, for once the UPDF mission in Somalia – its most dangerous and thankless such task -- is part of something big.

If you look closely at the kind of officers in Somalia, you begin to see something else. Quite a few of them belong to the old National Resistance Army idealistic tradition, which believed that they would take over power and bring about a fair, law-abiding, corruption free political order in Uganda.

This school lost out years ago, and the power-hungry and blood-sucking wolves have taken over and are calling the shots. Indeed, they are growing stronger.

The UPDF in Somalia, therefore, is what the national army would have looked like if it hadn’t been turned into a fiefdom of a largely tribal officer corps, serving dishonourable interests of the NRM political elite – like stealing elections, tormenting the opposition, and serving as a palace guard. The contrast of the UPDF in Mogadishu with that at home, where it is has been deployed to guard land which influential people have bought out of the speculative calculation that they will make a killing from the oil in it, could not be more stark.

Compare again, the kind of officers who were deployed to hunt down the Lords Resistance Army and its leader Joseph Kony at their Sudan-DRC border bases earlier in the year. With the help of the US, the hopes were high that Kony would be killed, or at least captured. Therefore politically favoured, but inexperienced, officers who are part of the Museveni grand succession project were given the command, in the hope that their success against Kony would catapult them to national stardom. It didn’t happen.

By contrast, there will be national stardom for the Ugandan officers in Somalia, however successful they are, in part because they are part of a multinational effort. Secondly, success in Somalia will not come dramatically from a battlefield victory. In that sense, the UPDF mission is driven by old school but honourable values of service, not personal glory.

If you are a student of Ugandan, or more specifically NRM politics, pay attention to the mission in Mogadishu. Pay attention because it represents ideals that are dying in the army back home, and this might be the last time you will see them. The only thing the boys in Somalia have with those back home, is that they both have not been paid their salaries for some months now.

Source:monitor.co.ug/

Uganda shatter Kenya’s cup dreams again


Kenya’s Harambee Stars forward Allan Wanga (left) challenges Hamza Muwonge, the Uganda Cranes goalkeeeper, during their Orange Cecafa Challenge Cup quarter-final match at the Nyayo National Stadium on Monday. Uganda won 1-0. Photos/MOHAMMED AMIN

By ODINDO AYIEKOPosted Monday, December 7 2009 at 22:00

Woeful. That’s what describes Harambee Stars campaign in the 33rdOrange Cecafa Senior Challenge which ended yesterday with defeat to Uganda.

Image Gallery


A season that started so brightly with the Kenya team qualifying to the second round of the qualifiers to the 2010 World Cup/Africa Cup of Nations ended with nothing to celebrate.

It’s the story Kenyan football, failure, failure, failure!

In Monday’s “Battle for Migingo” the Harambee Stars once again failed to shine and were deservedly eliminated from the regional tournament by defending champions Uganda.

The result confirmed why while Kenya continues to plummet in the World rankings, their neighbours Uganda Cranes who have won the regional title 10 times have been on the rise.

The about 5,000 fans who were at the Nyayo National Stadium left crest fallen, but there was no shedding tears - they are used to seeing their team fail to perform when it matters.

Coach Twahir Muhiddin’s excuse for the performance was that he has had the team for a short time and did not get enough time to build a strong team.

According to him, Kenya has performed beyond his expectations.

“I did not expect us to reach this far. I have had this team for a short time and I have done the best I could with the available resources,” he told reporters after the game.

Kenya paid the price for a lethargic attack but Muhidin attributed the poor show to a string injuries that saw five team players failing to start, a situation that was compounded by the injuries to Joakins Atudo and Christopher Wekesa who were both stretched off.

The Harambee Stars missed two clear chances, one by Allan Wanga in the 17th minute and another by Patrick Oboya in the 50th. Uganda got one chance, scored and defended well.

Uganda coach Bob Williamson said later his strategy worked and added he still has a secret weapon as the tournament continues.

“Where we have now reached I am enjoying. My strategy worked and I am now looking ahead,” he said.

Williamson sent in Robert Sentogo in the 61st minute and within two minutes the pint-sized striker sent the Uganda Cranes into celebrations with a goal that emanated from a move in the midfield after Jerry Santos, Julius Owino and Pascal Ochieng failed to hold on to the ball.

Kenya started brightly with Allan Wanga’s shot being blocked by goalkeeper Hamza Muwonge in the 17thminute. George Odhiambo “Blackberry then rounded two Uganda defenders but there was nobody to tap in his cross.

Source:nation.co.ke/