Museveni: No Support for Al-Bashir

Uganda's President Y.K. Museveni says of the ICC's indictment of the Sudan's President:

“I do not condemn the International Criminal Court indictment against Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir”

Apparently Museveni is not worried at the present, however the conviction of senior Ugandan officials by the International Court of Justice has brought the potential for justice in the Great Lakes region a little closer to Museveni's door.

Meanwhile, the short arm of justice has already begun to catch Ugandans abusing international law abroad -- several government officials and advisors have recently been arrested for various crimes committed while using diplomatic passports.

President Museveni, who is the sitting Chairman of both the Commonwealth and East African Community, has not commented on the arrest of Ananias Tumukunde, Museveni's adviser on science and technology, who is on trial in London for money laundering and allegedly dealing in chemical and biological weapons. [See: "Museveni advisor has case to answer" Weekly Observer]


IWPR Reports on Museveni's Stance on the ICC's indictment of Al-Bashir:

"The Ugandan leader was speaking four days after cancelling a press conference that was supposed to follow his meeting with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, who has been urging African leaders to condemn the ICC’s move.

Mubarak’s visit to Uganda followed Moreno-Ocampo’s announcement that he was asking the ICC to indict al-Bashir.

The prosecutor’s request came three years after the United Nations Security Council asked him to investigate Darfur.

Moreno-Ocampo argues that al-Bashir masterminded and implemented a plan to destroy a substantial proportion of the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa peoples who populate Darfur.

These ethnic groups have been targeted in a campaign of violence and devastation waged by the Sudanese regular army and allied militia forces known as “janjaweed”, ostensibly to root out rebel guerrillas.

“His [al-Bashir’s] motives were largely political,” Moreno-Ocampo has said. “His alibi was a ‘counterinsurgency’. His intent was genocide.”

Although Museveni has spoken out against the West becoming too involved in African justice issues, his latest comments revealed his antipathy for the Sudanese leader.

The government in Khartoum was a major backer of the Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA, which fought a long war in northern Uganda from 1986 to 2006. "

> Read the Full Article / Source: Institute for War and Peace Reporting

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UPDF Spokesman: Ignore Human Rights Watch Report on UPDF

A UPDF Spokesperson has responded to claims that the ICC has been "compromised and biased" in failing to investigate crimes that the UPDF has committed.

Crimes Against Humanity in Congo
The list of UPDF's transgressions is long, starting with a guilty verdict by the International Court of Justice for crimes UPDF committed in the Congo and fined billions.

This Has Happened Before, UN Report Blocked in 2007
A report on Karamoja detailing UPDF's extensive human rights violations upon Ugandan citizens was prevented from being presented at the UN last year.

Apologists for Uganda are also protecting its army from serious allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

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ARTICLE EXCERPTS:

New Vision (Kampala) | OPINION |28 July 2008| By Chris Magezi, UPDF Spokesperson

"HUMAN Rights Watch, a human rights body based in the US, claimed in its latest report that the International Criminal Court (ICC) had been "compromised and biased" and deliberately omitted to investigate the UPDF for suspected atrocities committed in northern Uganda alongside the LRA.

It is belittling to the ICC to suggest that their independence, competence and impartiality can be compromised by mere provision of "armed escorts" for travel in the region. One of the constitutional mandates of the UPDF and other security agencies is to protect the lives of our people and their property. During the years of terror by the LRA, the UPDF escorted civilians and foreign aid workers operating in the region, including ICC staff.

The UPDF has in the past publicly executed some of its soldiers for capital offences. Many others are serving long jail sentences, while several others have been dismissed with disgrace.

The UPDF has carried out its constitutional duty of protecting Ugandan citizens and their property well."

Read the full article...

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Fact Sheet on Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni

What you need to know about President Museveni and Uganda under Museveni's rule

1. Crimes Against Humanity I

The Ugandan government failed to protect northern Ugandans when they needed it most. President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is responsible for orchestrating genocide in Northern Uganda, where he has incarcerated nearly two million people in concentration camps, euphemistically known as “protected villages.” Read a report by the Govt. of Uganda, WHO, UNICEF and others (pdf version).

At the height of the crisis, (circa 2005), more than 1,000 people per week were dying from preventable diseases in these modern day concentration camps. More people have died from conditions in the camps themselves than at the hands of the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army) or government forces, and over 20,000 children have been abducted.


2. Crimes Against Humanity II

In 2005, Museveni’s government was found guilty by the International Court of Justice for committing grave war crimes in the DRC, including: the invasion and plundering of the natural resources of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and of fomenting ethnic cleansing. Uganda was ordered to pay the DRC $6-$10 billion.


3. Rampant Corruption

Under Museveni, Uganda is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Yet, donor countries including the US, keep donating money to the regime without holding Museveni accountable for corruption.


4. Lawlessness I

President Museveni has no respect for international laws. He came to power using child soldiers and continues to coerce children into joining his armed forces to sustain his regime (See China Keitetsi’s story).

5. Lawlessness II: Locally, President Museveni does not respect the rule of law: he used soldiers to invade the nation’s High Court twice to intimidate judges, has exhibited complete disrespect for human rights, and bribed Ugandan Parliamentarians to amend the constitution to remove presidential term limits. The removal of term limits places Museveni as a de facto life president. Museveni has also been involved in land grabbing without the consent of the owners.

6. Militarism

President Museveni is a militarist who has no interest in dialogue to solve political problems. In 1985 he scuttled the Nairobi Peace Agreement mediated by President Moi of Kenya. Numerous attempts at peaceful negotiation between the LRA and the Government of Uganda were disrupted by Museveni’s actions, namely: 1994 and 2004 peace negotiation mediated by Betty Bigombe, the 1988 negotiation mediated by Acholi elders, and a 2003 initiative mediated by the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative. To date, Museveni has not shown much commitment to the current Juba Peace talks mediated by South Sudan--recently spearheading the creation of the Arusha agreement with the DRC, which stipulates the removal of the LRA from the DRC within 90 days.

7. Rampant Human Rights Violations

Recently, Uganda's ambassador to the UN blocked a report by the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights Louise Arbour, from being tabled in the UN's General Assembly. Arbour has been vocal about human rights violations by the UPDF in the past. The report detailed extensive human rights violations by the Ugandan national army in the Karamoja region of northeastern Uganda. Read the report (pdf version).

In March, demonstrators protesting the sale of a portion of the Mabira rainforest, one of Uganda's largest forests, were fired upon. Three people were killed in what began as a peaceful demonstration. Sign the Save Mabira petition.

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A Long History Between the United States and Museveni

President Museveni visited President Bush at the White House,
October 30, 2007. Bush thanked him for joining the US
in "fighting terror." (White House Photo)

20 Years Earlier... President Museveni and President Ronald Reagan

at the White House, October 1987. (Source: Wikipedia)

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CEGUN Documentary on Acholi Genocide

CEGUN (Campaign to End Genocide in Uganda Now), has released a mini-documentary about the ongoing genocide in Acholiland. The documentary focuses on the "protected villages" the Ugandan government set up as a method of "protecting" people from the LRA. Instead, the villagers became sitting targets in the camps, and the camps themselves became death traps, characterized by disease, hunger and death.

At one point over 1,000 people were dying weekly as a result of the conditions in the camps. Today, a hepatitis epidemic has begun to spread through camps in Kitgum District, as a result of similar conditions.

Featured in the film are Olara Otunnu, former UN Undersecretary General for Children in Armed Conflict, Milton Allimadi, Black Star News Publisher and CEGUN members Lucy Larom, Gloria Oloya, Kathy Smith and Tim Hardy.

WATCH VIDEO

Travel to Uganda, to see what the Ugandan government has successfully hidden from the world. Witness the suffering of innocent civilians caught between a brutal rebel army and equally lethal government troops.

Why have these Ugandans been denied a right to protection? Why does the world's superpowers continue to support a government which has failed its own citizens? Where is the world's concern for this ongoing, slow-motion genocide? What does the future hold for northern Uganda's children?

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Renaissance Leader Runs Out of Steam

By William Wallis, FINANCIAL TIMES
Published: November 20 2007 06:27 | Last updated: November 20 2007 06:27

Much hope for Africa’s emergence was invested until relatively recently in a new generation of leaders from Ethiopia, via Uganda to the Cape.

African countries, so the thinking went, had a better chance of emerging from poverty and conflict with tough visionaries, who believed in self-reliance, at their command. Uganda has been one example of how that thinking has, in less than a decade, been turning on its head.

In the mid-1990s Yoweri Museveni, the president, was at the heart of a group of leaders lauded in Washington, the UK and parts of Africa itself, as the vanguard of an “African renaissance.” If there is talk this week of another African dawn, when 54 heads of state descend on Kampala for the Commonwealth’s biennial summit, it will be for different reasons.

Hopes for Uganda today – as for other parts of the continent – are less bound up in its leadership. Instead they are inspired by technocrats keeping a tight rein, against considerable odds, at the central bank; by graduates emerging, politically conscious and connected to each other by mobile phones; and by dynamic businesses thriving – relative to the past – alongside steady inflows of foreign investment. He still has many supporters. But Mr Museveni is now viewed increasingly by diplomats, donors, and a good number of Ugandans themselves, as an impediment to the country’s prospects. To his reported irritation, an increasing number tell him that, to protect his legacy, he should go.

It is revealing that of the handful of “renaissance leaders” in whom so much hope once rested, four have taken their countries to war. None has yet relinquished power or prepared a smooth succession, and most have become more autocratic with time. Mr. Museveni, now in his 21st year in power, has been no exception.

Like other liberation movement leaders he has resisted the transition from military to democratic rule. In the past decade, he has led Uganda into two wars in neighbouring Congo in which his army’s reputation was damaged by complicity in plunder and abuse. Until a lull last year, the army also fought a brutal rebellion at home, to the enduring bitterness of Ugandans in the affected north who felt peace could and should have been made sooner.

Nor has the state shown much sign of becoming more tolerant. In some respects, human rights groups say, the opposite has been the case, especially since 2005 when the constitution was altered to allow Mr Museveni to stand for a third elected term at the same time as political parties were legalised. The main challenger in elections last year has been in and out of courts. A number of Uganda’s more strident journalists have been too.

Yet, Mr Museveni is also a victim of his own success. The economic recovery he has been instrumental in engineering has put strains on infrastructure that threaten future growth. Having opened the books to more scrutiny than many of his peers, more evidence has emerged of nepotism and corruption. In new property developments sprawling over Kampala’s seven hills, in shopping malls and grinding traffic, there are signs of a re-emerging middle class, bringing yet more demands.

“Underneath, structural change is taking place in society. The number of people with secondary school education is rising and so is their demand for jobs. This in turn is creating a civil conscience in society,” says Andrew Mwenda, an outspoken Ugandan commentator. Members of a new generation, such as Mr Mwenda, tend to view the ruling class as corrupt and anachronistic, and value less the stability Mr Museveni represents to more conservative Ugandans who lived through darker periods in the past.

When he took power in 1986 after a five-year guerrilla war, Uganda’s economy was on its knees. Society had been traumatised by the manic rule of Idi Amin, followed by the murderous regime of Milton Obote. It was hard to argue with Mr Museveni’s vision of how democracy in Africa should evolve – around a single movement in which different groups could be represented but without political parties around which divisive ethnic interests could coalesce.

Uganda was a “sick patient” he said, persuading much of the world that he was the right man to heal it. Overcoming initially Marxist leanings he went to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to bankroll his recovery programme. In the ensuing years Uganda threw open markets, privatised state industries, and floated its currency. It also restored properties and businesses seized when Idi Amin expelled a whole mercantile and professional class of Asians from Uganda in 1972. Setting a precedent for the sanctity of property rights, this helped encourage an influx of foreign investment from other quarters too.

“Museveni did one thing that will forever be his saving grace,” says Andrew Rugasira, whose “Good African Coffee” company supplies UK and South African supermarkets. “He liberalised the economy so everyone from petty traders to big industrialists can do their thing.”In the past 20 years growth in gross domestic product has averaged 6 per cent – a record unparalleled over such a span in Africa. With assistance from foreign donors, poverty has been reduced from 56 to 31 per cent, Aids infection rates among the sexually active have declined from 18 per cent to more like 7, although there are signs of a recent climb, and universal primary and now secondary education have been introduced.

Yet Uganda is still among the world’s poorest countries, dependent for 40 per cent of its national budget on foreign aid. It was only in 2000 that it regained the per capita GDP levels at independence in 1962. With a population of 28m growing at 3 per cent, overwhelmingly rural and with a majority under the age of 15, the strains are visible.

“On the macroeconomic level Uganda is still doing very well. But they need to get to the next frontier. Health performance is stagnating. In education there is a quality quagmire. On infrastructure – you can’t keep building new roads if you don’t maintain them,” says a senior donor official.“Underlying all of this, the main architecture of success is no longer working – the government machinery,” the offical adds. “We no longer have a critical mass of well-educated, effective bureaucrats who have the interests of the people at heart.”

Mr Museveni, who visited US president George W. Bush in Washington this month, is an experienced tactician. He has maintained strong support abroad partly by collaborating in the US war on terror, and most recently by sending the only peacekeeping troops to Somalia, where the west fears a resurgence of al-Qaeda-linked Islamists. He has also tried to make peace in Uganda’s war-torn north – something his supporters hope will deliver him votes if, as anticipated, he stands for a fourth elected term in 2011. But friends as well as critics say his style of government has become less inclusive and more dependent on patronage than the persuasive power of his ideas.

“The very institutions he spent years building, he is now weakening,” says a senior donor official. The danger is that maintaining power has become more of a priority than putting it to good effect, argues Mr Mwenda. That formula for political and economic stalemate is one that has cost many countries, not only in Africa, dearly.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

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Pakistani, Ugandan leaders both ruthless and autocratic

Mike Blanchfield

CanWest News Service

Thursday, November 22, 2007

CREDIT: REUTERS/Euan Denholm Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni addresses participants during the opening of the Commonwealth Business Forum, ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Kampala, November 20, 2007. Museveni urged Commonwealth members on Tuesday to break down trade barriers preventing poor countries from exporting processed, value-added exports instead of raw materials.

KAMPALA - Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, may be the pariah of the Commonwealth over his continued imposition of emergency rule.

But he shares one significant anti-democratic characteristic with the Ugandan leader, who is playing host to Queen Elizabeth, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and four dozen fellow Commonwealth leaders at a summit to open here today: A disregard of his country's courts and judges.

Like Musharraf, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni believes his country's judiciary should never challenge his ultimate authority. This raises a stark incongruity as Commonwealth leaders meet to extol the virtues of human rights, democracy and good governance: Museveni gets to bask in the spotlight as the host of this posh gathering, while Musharraf was a no-show.

Both leaders hold the office of president, but both revel in their military backgrounds.

Musharraf, as Pakistan's military chief, came to power in 1999 in a bloodless coup. Museveni was a guerrilla commander, who led a bloody uprising that brought him to power in 1986.

Neither leader allows any meaningful political opposition to thrive in his country. Neither has any tolerance for an independent judiciary providing any sort of serious counterbalance to the president's executive authority.

Adam O'Brien, the Ugandan analyst for the International Crisis Group, says Commonwealth countries here - many of which supply the aid dollars that make up 40 per cent of Uganda's national budget - should be using the summit to spotlight human rights abuses by its host. Saying nothing, said O'Brien, amounts to "just giving money to the Ugandan government and seeing that money go to the military, and that military will be used to arrest journalists, hound courts."

The current crisis in Pakistan was precipitated when Musharraf disbanded his country's Supreme Court just as it was poised to rule that he could not run for re-election as president while still being a military leader. Musharraf jailed thousands political opponents, including judges and lawyers. He also created a new court stacked with sympathizers that, not surprisingly, has paved the way for his continued rule.

Musharraf's run-ins with the previous court date back to March, when he suspended its chief justice, setting off waves of protest across Pakistan. Coincidentally, that was when the latest round in Museveni's fight with his high court flared yet again here.

While Musharraf has been under pressure to take off his military uniform and stand down as the leader of his country's armed forces, Museveni wears his past history as a guerrilla commander and revolutionary as a badge of honour. He sees himself as inherently superior to any judge or court.

Museveni made that crystal clear in a letter to the head of a large Indian sugar company. What would happen, the Indian business executive had asked, if Uganda's courts struck down a controversial deal approved by Museveni to turn over a large swath of land to his company?

"As to the courts, the judges are not the ones who liberated Uganda. Their vision cannot be superior to the one of the freedom fighters," Museveni replied in the Oct. 30, 2006, letter, reprinted earlier this year by the Ugandan newspaper, The Daily Monitor.

Richard Dicker, director of international justice programs at Human Rights Watch in New York, said Museveni has a track record of displaying "authoritarian tendencies" towards his judiciary.

Dicker was in Kampala last March when Ugandan security forces stormed the high court after judges released on bail five men who had been in custody for 15 months on treason charges.

Days later, Ugandan judges went on strike to protest the intervention. When demonstrators turned out in support, they were beaten back by police firing tear gas.

The bail suspects were rearrested and brought before judges in another part of the country and arraigned on murder.

The same thing happened in November 2005 when Uganda's high court tried to release the same men in what has become known as the "Black Mamba" raid, named after the Ugandan anti-terrorism squad that stormed the courthouse.

The men were part of a movement led by Kizza Besigye, who happened to be the only candidate who opposed Museveni in the 2005 presidential election and who will meet the international press today to voice his concerns.

Human Rights Watch condemned the raid in 2005, saying that the "Museveni government's attempt to intimidate the courts shows its profound lack of respect for the law."

The organization pointed out something else that is relevant, now that Museveni is basking in the international spotlight: Uganda signed a declaration at the 1991 Commonwealth summit that renewed its commitment to "the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary."

Ottawa Citizen

© CanWest News Service 2007

http://www.canada.com/story.html?id=179e7f7e-3f80-4604-ba5d-dbe19ee0956c&k=22009

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Kerry to Bush: Urge Museveni to Reaffirm Commitment to Rule of Law

Kerry Urges Bush to Advance Democracy Agenda in Today’s Meeting with Ugandan President

WASHINGTON D.C. – Senator John Kerry sent a letter to President Bush today in advance of his meeting with President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda. Kerry asked Bush to raise certain issues related to President Museveni’s 2006 reelection given the strong U.S. interest in promoting democracy and the rule of law in Uganda.

The text of Kerry’s letter is below:

October 29, 2007

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

I understand you will be discussing a number of important subjects with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni during tomorrow’s meeting, including the escalating conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. I also urge you to take this opportunity to raise certain issues related to President Museveni’s 2006 reelection.

Specifically, the first multi-party election in over twenty-five years, held in February 2006, was reportedly marred by intimidation, various voting irregularities, and a show of force by the government. The main opposition candidate was harassed and put on trial. Regrettably, these events came on the heels of President Museveni pressuring the Ugandan parliament to lift the Constitution’s two-term limit on the presidency. Breaking his express promise to abide by the terms of the Constitution allowed President Museveni to seek reelection for a third time in 2006.

Given our strong interest in promoting democracy in Uganda and elsewhere around the world, I hope you take this opportunity both to ask President Museveni to reaffirm his commitment to the rule of law and to understand the steps he has taken since 2006 towards this end.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. I look forward to your response.


Sincerely,

John F. Kerry
United States Senator

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What the US Govt. Would Like You to Believe

President Bush To Host Ugandan President for White House Talks

Leaders will discuss conflict resolution, HIV/AIDS, development in Africa

10/29/07
By Charles W. Corey USINFO Staff Writer

Washington -- President Bush will welcome Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to the White House October 30 for talks that will salute Museveni’s leadership in promoting peace and reconciliation in Somalia and Africa's Great Lakes region, in battling the HIV/AIDS pandemic and in promoting economic growth and development in Uganda and throughout the continent.

James C. Swan, deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs, told USINFO on the eve of the White House talks that Museveni’s visit is important because it allows the United States government to recognize his leadership not just in the Great Lakes region, but in other areas as well.

“Ugandans were the first contingent to deploy to AMISOM [African Union Mission to Somalia] -- an important African Union initiative to try to stabilize Somalia and return it to peace after more than 20 years,” Swan said. “For reasons of Uganda’s own national interest, it has contributed to this mission,” he added, “but it has a very important role in terms of regional stability in East Africa” as well.

Swan also praised Museveni for being “very active” in consulting with other key leaders within the Great Lakes region, “most recently at a summit meeting with President Joseph Kabila in Tanzania in September,” during which the leaders discussed a number of issues, including a peaceful resolution of some disputed border areas, as well as the need to consult on how to address the problem of disruptive forces that continue to operate in Eastern Congo.

Swan noted that the United States wants to use the White House visit as an opportunity to encourage Ugandan efforts to resolve the long-standing challenge posed by the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA.

The LRA is a rebel guerrilla army operating mainly in northern Uganda and parts of Sudan. The group is waging an armed rebellion against the Ugandan government in what is now one of Africa's longest-running conflicts. It is led by Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself a spirit medium and apparently wishes to establish a state based on the Ten Commandments and local Acholi tradition. The LRA is accused of widespread human rights violations, including mutilation, torture, rape, the abduction of civilians, the use of child soldiers and a number of massacres.

“The Lord’s Resistance Army,” Swan explained, “has been operating brutally in Northern Uganda and elsewhere in the region for more than 20 years. There is an active, African-led peace process mediated by the government of southern Sudan and supported by a U.N. special envoy, former Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano,” he added.

The United States, Swan stressed, “is very supportive of these talks” and has worked quietly behind the scenes toward a positive outcome of this effort. “We have also made it very clear that in our view, these talks should not be open-ended,” he said, noting that “the LRA should not be permitted to be comfortable in Eastern Congo, where it is currently based,” and that “it is important to try to resolve this issue soon.”

To that end, he added, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer has recently appointed a senior adviser for conflict resolution, Timothy Shortley, who is focusing additional diplomatic attention on the LRA and other negative forces, in addition to the regional approach the United States is pursuing.

There is already a “very active” U.S. humanitarian assistance program in Northern Uganda alone, he said, which provided about $106 million in aid during the most recent fiscal year.

Swan said the United States also wants to continue to signal its “strong encouragement” for President Museveni’s leadership role in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

“Uganda is in many ways a model of how to combat this pandemic. Indeed, President Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief [PEPFAR] is in many respects modeled on the Ugandan program,” Swan said. “We want to continue to signal our enthusiastic support of President Museveni and his government, of these efforts in this regard.”

Finally, Swan said, the United States wants to discuss at the White House talks Uganda’s continued requirements to move ahead with its active economic development plan.

Uganda has enjoyed “significant economic growth since the mid-1980s” he said, and is the recent beneficiary of a Millennium Challenge Corporation Threshold Program of slightly more than $10 million,” aimed at reducing corruption and improving governance.

“We hope that the Ugandans will move ahead quickly with the implementation of this program and other efforts to combat corruption so that they can proceed quickly to become eligible for a full Millennium Challenge Corporation Compact,” Swan said.

(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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Kerry: Uganda's 2006 Elections "Marred"

By Milton Allimadi
October 30, 2007

Uganda’s 2006 Presidential election was marred with violence and intimidation, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry said in a letter to George Bush on the eve of his meeting with Ugandan President Yoweri K. Museveni in the White House today.

The United States policy is to support democracy globally and the Senator asked President Bush in his letter dated October 29, to raise “certain issues related to President Museveni’s 2006 reelection.” Senator Kerry, a past Presidential candidate, narrowly lost to Bush in the last US election.

“I understand you will be discussing a number of important subjects with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni during tomorrow’s meeting, including the escalating conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo,” Kerry’s letter says. “I also urge you to take this opportunity to raise certain issues related to President Museveni’s 2006 reelection.”

“Specifically, the first multi-party election in over twenty-five years, held in February 2006, was reportedly marred by intimidation, various voting irregularities, and a show of force by the government,” The Kerry letters adds. “The main opposition candidate was harassed and put on trial. Regrettably, these events came on the heels of President Museveni pressuring the Ugandan parliament to lift the Constitution’s two-term limit on the presidency. Breaking his express promise to abide by the terms of the Constitution allowed President Museveni to seek reelection for a third time in 2006.”

Uganda's leading opposition Presidential candidate, Dr. Kizza Besigye, who heads the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), was arrested shortly before the election and charged with treason, on what many believe were trumped up charges. He was released shortly before the vote but was repeatedly harassed, followed by government agents and required to repeatedly report to court. He is now out on bail and his passport has been confiscated by the Uganda government.

Kerry’s letter concludes: “Given our strong interest in promoting democracy in Uganda and elsewhere around the world, I hope you take this opportunity both to ask President Museveni to reaffirm his commitment to the rule of law and to understand the steps he has taken since 2006 towards this end.”

A call to Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi E. Frazer, was referred by a spokesperson to the press office which declined comment and in turn referred the call to The White House. A spokesperson at Uganda's embassy in Washington, D.C., did not return a call by press time.

Speaking from Uganda in a telephone interview with The Black Star News today Dr. Bisegye welcomed Senator Kerry’s letter to Bush. He noted that Uganda’s Constitution and the presidential term limit had been unanimously approved by a Constituent Assembly and that citizens from all over the East African country had provided their opinion during its writing.

He called on the Bush Administration not to trade democratic principles for “short term gains,” such as Uganda’s participation in a Somali stabilization force. Uganda was the only African country to respond to US requests to African countries to send troops to Somalia after Ethiopia with U.S. assistance deposed the Islamic Courts government in Mogadishu. Major African powers such as Nigeria and South Africa, wary of being seen as U.S. proxies have declined participation.

“There is no way you can fight and win a war on terror, which the Americans are now focused on, without attending to the fundamentals of democratic governance,” Dr. Besigye said. “Corrupt and undemocratic regimes like ours are safe havens for terrorists.”

The FDC chief spoke about lawlessness in the country and said many of his colleagues remain under detention and that the judicial system remains under attack. “The armed forces have directly attacked the courts,” he said. “The High Court was attacked in March of this year—this led to a nationwide strike of all the judicial officers, which was unprecedented in our nation’s history.”

“Detention of political opponents is on the rise—many of our colleagues are still languishing in prison. I cannot travel because my passport is being held by the court,” he added.

It was sad that Uganda's presidents have come to power "following bombs" and have left "following bombs," he said, adding that last year's election would have presented the first opportunity for an orderly and peaceful transfer of power.

Other critics of the Ugandan ruler have argued that he never should have been accorded a White House visit because of Uganda’s abysmal human rights, and the fact that its army and allied militias are being investigated by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged crimes against humanity during its occupation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ituri region from 1998-2005.

These critics contend that since Charles Taylor was indicted by the ICC for similar atrocities in Sierra Leone and is now being tried at the Hague, Ugandan officers, including Museveni, who is a Lt. General, could be indicted.

“Given the record of human rights abuse, the upcoming meeting should be focused on ending the long-standing genocide and disregard for human rights within Uganda,” an organization called Xpose Ugandas Genocide comprised of Ugandans and American citizens says on its blogpage, www.exposeugandasgenocide.blogspot.com.

The group’s statement also reads: “Pres. Museveni claims to be committed to democracy and human rights. Throughout his regime, he has instead engaged in directed hate-campaigns against certain ethnic groups, the forced displacement of Ugandan citizens into miserable camps and the failure to provide needed assistance for their resettlement. The U.S. continues to provide large amounts of financial assistance to Uganda, without insisting on full accountability for the use of funds. Adherence to human rights principles and full accountability for the use of funds should be minimum requirements for any future foreign aid from the U.S.”

BlackStarNews.com

http://blackstarnews.com/?c=135&a=3853

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President Museveni of Uganda to Visit the White House on Oct. 30, 2007

Bush to Meet Museveni Over Somalia
The Monitor (Kampala) NEWS
16 October 2007

By Peter Nyanzi

US President George Bush has invited President Yoweri Museveni for a meeting at the end of this month. An October 12 press release from Mr. Bush's Press Secretary Dana Perino said Mr. Museveni is expected at the White House on October 30 to "discuss" a number of issues including the Uganda-led peace mission to Somalia.

"President Bush will welcome President Yoweri Museveni of the Republic of Uganda to the White House on October 30," Mr. Perino said. "[Mr. Bush] and President Museveni will discuss Uganda's leadership in Somalia, the LRA, and Mr. Museveni's development plan for northern Uganda, as well as their strong partnership to combat malaria and HIV/AIDS in Uganda." Uganda has set up a comprehensive three-year Peace, Recovery and Development Plan (PRDP 2007-2009) for the war-torn region for which Mr. Museveni is expected to seek financial support. The three-year programme requires $180 million per year to implement.

On the Somalia mission where Uganda is the only country that has sent as the vanguard of a planned 8,000-strong African Union force, Mr. Museveni will probably tell his host that despite the reluctance of other countries to send troops, Uganda plans to send an additional 250 soldiers in the next few months.

On the LRA, Mr. Museveni will brief the US government about the progress of the peace talks that have been ongoing in Juba for over a year. He is expected to give an update on the government's stand on the ICC indictments on LRA leader Joseph Kony and his three top commanders, which still remain in force.

On the HIV/Aids campaign in Uganda to which Mr. Bush's President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) contributes more than 80 per cent. Uganda has been credited as a model in the fight against HIV/Aids over the past 20 years, but scientists suggest that the HIV prevalence rate, which had stagnated at about 6 per cent for several years, is beginning to rise again. According to Pepfar's FY 2007 Country Operational Plan for Uganda, approximately 940,000 people (6.7 per cent) are currently HIV positive.

Earlier, Mr. Bush will meet DRC President Joseph Kabila over bilateral issues.

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