Microcare, Uganda’s biggest health insurance company, has been struck off the list of licensed insurance companies. The company, that covers 70,000 people in a network of 157 health facilities across the country, is facing a financial crisis, in which over a dozen health service providers are demanding over sh2bn in unpaid bills.
The health providers on Wednesday filed a case in the High Court, seeking to wind up the company.
In a public announcement on February 27, 2009, the Uganda Insurance Commission drew a list of authorised insurance companies and warned the public against dealing with unlicensed insurers, insurance brokers, agents, loss adjusters, assessors and insurance surveyors.
The commission listed five life insurance companies, 18 life insurance brokers as well as 19 non-life insurance companies, non-life insurance brokers. Microcare Insurance Limited never featured on any of the lists.
The Commission’s acting boss, Evelyn Nkalubo-Muwemba, said Microcare, incorporated in Uganda in June 2004, had failed to meet some licensing requirements. “But as soon as the company meets this, we will licence it,” she said.
For a company to be licensed, Nkalubo-Muwemba explained, it should have met criteria such as the sh1b security deposit with Bank of Uganda, sh2.5b in case of reinsurance business, approval by the insurance association, the COMESA yellow card requirement, authorised share capital and paid up share capital.
Microcare however insisted that they have complied with all the Commission’s requirements for the renewal of their license.
“The Uganda Insurance Commission has not revoked or stopped Microcare from transacting insurance business,” said the marketing manager, Clare Tumwesigye.
“It should be noted that it is normal for a company not to be advertised if the regulatory body is still pursing some administrative processes. We are in touch with the commission regarding our license of 2009 and would not like to divulge the details of our discussions but you are free to inquire from it (the commission) if we have been stopped from transacting insurance business,” she added.
Tumwesigye dismissed allegations that they owe health service providers billions of shillings.
She said: “Microcare handles volumes of data processed every day and this is bound to cause friction some times, which leads to reconciliation meetings of accounts, which is what we are doing with some clinics. We do not want to discuss our service providers’ business in the press.
Investigations by Saturday Vision however revealed that some of the health service providers have suspended their services to patients under the Microcare health insurance scheme. Some of the clinics have also either taken legal action or are planning to do so to recover the money the health insurance owes them.
The first client to drag Microcare to court was Kadic Hospital in Bukoto, for non payment of up to sh150m, allegedly accumulated over three years. Microcare has since paid sh60m, leaving a balance of sh90m. The company also owes Case Clinic, sh700m, Paragon Hospital, sh770m, Mulago Hospital private wing, sh180m and Kampala Family clinic sh60m.
Others are Gulu Independent Hospital, sh150m, Mbarara Community Hospital, sh67m, St. Catherine Clinic, sh108m, Byansi Clinic, Masaka, sh8m and Rubaga Hospital, sh30m. Gulu Independent Hospital is the latest on the list to serve the company with a notice to sue.
Also owed unspecified amounts are Nsambya hospital, Bugolobi nursing home, SAS clinic, Mayanja Memorial Hospital, Pan Dental Surgery, Victoria Medical Centre and Nakasero Hospital among others. The other service providers that have suspended their services with the company over unpaid bills include Abii Clinic and Laboratory Services, Victoria Medical Centre and Friecca Pharmacy in Wandegeya.
The Microcare financial crisis comes at a time when the Government is planning to introduce a Social Health Insurance Scheme.
Ten of the affected health service providers have engaged Kizito, Lumu and Company advocates of Kampala seeking protection from the Uganda Insurance Commission. The health service providers have also filed a case at the High Court seeking to wind up Microcare.
Five companies acting as one
Health service providers are complaining that there are five companies using the name Microcare and acting as one entity. A look through the letters sent or agreement signed between several companies and Microcare, spells different names. There is Microcare, Microcare Health, Microcare Health Ltd, Microcare Insurance and Microcare Insurance Ltd.
The health service providers now fear that the company could easily close shop without paying what is due to them. “The Uganda Insurance Commission should inform us and the general public which company is registered under the laws of this country with the Insurance Commission to offer insurance cover to the public so that the public and other companies are protected from becoming victims as our clients are, currently,” the lawyers demanded.
To compound their worry further, the service providers said they do not know whether it is a registered insurance company since its files went missing from the registrar of companies. Further complicating matters are clauses in the agreement signed between health service providers with Microcare, which prevents them from directly reaching to Microcare clients. It also stipulates that Microcare has the right to reject a bill if the drug provided for is not agreeable to them, if doctor exaggerates a bill and when a hospital treats congenital illness.
“In accordance with the agreements, our clients have fulfilled their part and to their dismay, the insurance company has consistently failed to honour their part,” the lawyers complained to the Commission.
They claimed that Microcare has placed the bills under quarantine, instead of paying them. This, they said, was a breach of contract.
However, Microcare blames the delay in settling bills on incorrect or exaggerated bills. The hospitals dismissed this accusation. They said the Microcare desk at hospitals and clinics verifies the bills before any treatment is provided.
Affecting Operations
Saturday Vision has learnt that a number of private health centres wallow in debt, some of them resulting from heavy borrowing forced on them after insurance firms delayed to settle medical bills. Some facilities have either scaled-down their operations, are contemplating shutting down, or are shopping for investors to re-capitalise and resuscitate the businesses.
The Microcare mess is just one of the troubles facing health service providers. Several botched medical insurance schemes and expensive bank loans have pushed a number of up market private hospitals into financial difficulties.
For instance, the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) recently almost closed down Kadic Hospital in Bukoto. The URA also raided the accounts of Paragon Hospital due to non-remittance of PAYE, exceeding sh79m.
“You send a bill of sh15m, they give you only sh8m. Each time you send them a bill, they retain a certain fee and eventually you find the bill accumulating,” said an executive director of a hospital.
Hospitals and clinics complained that these companies take several months, at times years, before settling their bills. The general contract with insurance companies is that they pay within 30 days of submitting an invoice, but many insurance companies take as long as 4-6 months before paying.
In turn, the hospitals borrow from banks at high interest rates to meet operational costs.
Weak health insurance sector
The scrapping of Microcare leaves only two companies, Medicare (under East African Underwriters) and Liberty (under Standard Bank Group of South Africa that trades here as Stanbic) licensed to provide medical insurance.
There are also Health Maintenance Organisations (HMOs) that operate in a way similar to health insurance companies – taking funds from individuals and companies to provide medical services in the long-term. Currently there are five HMOs in Uganda: Africa Air Rescue (AAR), International Health Network (IHN), International Air Ambulance (IAA), Kadic Health Foundation (KHF) and Case Medicare. However, their services are not regulated by any law.
Tuesday, 9 February 2010
IGG clears controversial internet project
THE Inspectorate of Government has cleared the controversial sh200b Government internet project. The project, which consists of three phases, involves building a 2,100km fibre optic cable network.
Ultimately, it is meant to link Uganda to the submarine cable on the East African coast and provide faster and cheaper internet access.
The Inspector General of Government (IGG), Raphael Baku, gave the go-ahead in a letter to ethics minister Nsaba Buturo earlier this month.
Last August, President Yoweri Museveni had tasked Buturo to oversee the investigations into complaints raised about the project.
Baku explained that the project was being implemented by the time the complaint was registered with his office. “The complaint which was raised was whether the second phase should go on,” said Baku.
“We saw no problem with it if the damages (on the first phase) could be repaired concurrently.”
The IGG argued that the Government would incur more costs if it cancelled the project.
Baku also said the ICT minister did not have the capacity to monitor the implementation of the project, which led to the shoddy work.
The IGG clearance comes after the parliamentary committee on ICT issued a directive to suspend the second phase of the rpoject.
The committee vice-chairperson, Paula Turyahikayo, said they had not seen the IGG report but would hold a joint meeting with the ICT ministry and the Auditor General on the way forward.
The Auditor General in a December report found several anomalies in the implementation of the project and questioned if there was value for money.
The national transmission backbone infrastructure and E-Government infrastructure is a $106m (sh201b) project, funded by a concessional loan from the export/import bank of China.
The first phase was meant to provide connectivity to Government ministries and departments at a total cost of $30m (sh57b).
The second and third phases were meant to connect all major towns, covering 1,900 kms at a cost of $61 million and $15 million respectively.
However, investigations found that the selection of the contractor, Huwaei Technologies, was done without competitive bidding and no price comparisons were done to ensure value for money.
“By not subjecting the proposal to proper evaluation, the ministry exposed itself to the risk of high pricing and unfavourable contract terms,” read the Auditor General’s report.
The audit found that the cost of the project was inflated. The 24 core optic cable was quoted by the contractor at $3,200 (sh6m) per kilometer.
However, in a technology brief to the board of the National Information Technology Authority of Uganda, the price of the cable was quoted as $1,400 (sh2.6m) per kilometer.
In addition, the audit found that the 24 core cable is of lower capacity than what private companies such as MTN and the Government of Rwanda laid at a much cheaper rate. It also questioned the capacity of 24 core cables to meet the under-water bury standards.
The audit further found that there was poor supervision of the project and that key implementation guidelines were not adhered to.
According to the report, the cables were placed too close to the road. Also, the depth was less that the recommended 1.5 metre and the distance from the middle of the road was found to be less than the 15 metres recommended.
There were also serious delays in the project, the Auditor General noted. Implementation of the three phases was supposed to be completed in 27 months, or by January 2009.
“However, 38 months later, the first phase, originally to be implemented in six months, has not been fully completed.” The delay is expected to lead to further administrative costs.
Already, the company has claimed $2.2m in additional costs for repairs on the first phase. The permanent secretary of the ICT ministry argued that the damages occurred after the hand-over of the network and could therefore not be covered by the insurance.
But the Auditor General observed that there was no independent assessment of the extent of the repairs, and there was no evidence that the contractor had actually obtained an insurance cover.
Former ICT minister Ham Mulira, under whose tenure the deal was sealed, has defended the huge cost of the project.
He said factors must be considered such as terrain, geographical coverage, fibre capacity to meet the potential demand based on the size of the population, and the cost of civil works.
On the size and capacity of the 24 core cable, as compared to that of MTN of 48 core and Rwanda of 90 core, Mulira argued that once the fibre is laid, the traffic capacity can be increased by changing the devices that send the traffic.
Ultimately, it is meant to link Uganda to the submarine cable on the East African coast and provide faster and cheaper internet access.
The Inspector General of Government (IGG), Raphael Baku, gave the go-ahead in a letter to ethics minister Nsaba Buturo earlier this month.
Last August, President Yoweri Museveni had tasked Buturo to oversee the investigations into complaints raised about the project.
Baku explained that the project was being implemented by the time the complaint was registered with his office. “The complaint which was raised was whether the second phase should go on,” said Baku.
“We saw no problem with it if the damages (on the first phase) could be repaired concurrently.”
The IGG argued that the Government would incur more costs if it cancelled the project.
Baku also said the ICT minister did not have the capacity to monitor the implementation of the project, which led to the shoddy work.
The IGG clearance comes after the parliamentary committee on ICT issued a directive to suspend the second phase of the rpoject.
The committee vice-chairperson, Paula Turyahikayo, said they had not seen the IGG report but would hold a joint meeting with the ICT ministry and the Auditor General on the way forward.
The Auditor General in a December report found several anomalies in the implementation of the project and questioned if there was value for money.
The national transmission backbone infrastructure and E-Government infrastructure is a $106m (sh201b) project, funded by a concessional loan from the export/import bank of China.
The first phase was meant to provide connectivity to Government ministries and departments at a total cost of $30m (sh57b).
The second and third phases were meant to connect all major towns, covering 1,900 kms at a cost of $61 million and $15 million respectively.
However, investigations found that the selection of the contractor, Huwaei Technologies, was done without competitive bidding and no price comparisons were done to ensure value for money.
“By not subjecting the proposal to proper evaluation, the ministry exposed itself to the risk of high pricing and unfavourable contract terms,” read the Auditor General’s report.
The audit found that the cost of the project was inflated. The 24 core optic cable was quoted by the contractor at $3,200 (sh6m) per kilometer.
However, in a technology brief to the board of the National Information Technology Authority of Uganda, the price of the cable was quoted as $1,400 (sh2.6m) per kilometer.
In addition, the audit found that the 24 core cable is of lower capacity than what private companies such as MTN and the Government of Rwanda laid at a much cheaper rate. It also questioned the capacity of 24 core cables to meet the under-water bury standards.
The audit further found that there was poor supervision of the project and that key implementation guidelines were not adhered to.
According to the report, the cables were placed too close to the road. Also, the depth was less that the recommended 1.5 metre and the distance from the middle of the road was found to be less than the 15 metres recommended.
There were also serious delays in the project, the Auditor General noted. Implementation of the three phases was supposed to be completed in 27 months, or by January 2009.
“However, 38 months later, the first phase, originally to be implemented in six months, has not been fully completed.” The delay is expected to lead to further administrative costs.
Already, the company has claimed $2.2m in additional costs for repairs on the first phase. The permanent secretary of the ICT ministry argued that the damages occurred after the hand-over of the network and could therefore not be covered by the insurance.
But the Auditor General observed that there was no independent assessment of the extent of the repairs, and there was no evidence that the contractor had actually obtained an insurance cover.
Former ICT minister Ham Mulira, under whose tenure the deal was sealed, has defended the huge cost of the project.
He said factors must be considered such as terrain, geographical coverage, fibre capacity to meet the potential demand based on the size of the population, and the cost of civil works.
On the size and capacity of the 24 core cable, as compared to that of MTN of 48 core and Rwanda of 90 core, Mulira argued that once the fibre is laid, the traffic capacity can be increased by changing the devices that send the traffic.
Major Gen Mugisha Muntu
MAJOR Gen Mugisha Muntu yesterday launched his presidential bid for the 2011 election as his supporters danced.
The crowd was mainly composed of the youth, who described Muntu as “energetic, young and an honest leader for Uganda”.
Muntu is contesting against Col. Kizza Besigye, the head of the Forum for Democratic Change, for the chance to stand for president next year.
Muntu delivered his speech in his characteristic soft but tough tone.
The candidates have three months to woo delegates to their side. In 2008, he unsuccessfully contested for the party’s presidency against Besigye who is expected to launch his campaign today.
Present at Muntu’s rally was former East African Community secretary general and FDC vice-chairman Amanya Mushega, Maj. John Kazoora, opposition chief whip Kassiano Wadri and many MPs. Also present were youth leaders from the Democratic Party and the Uganda Peoples Congress.
The 300-capacity main hall of Pope Paul Memorial Hotel, where the meeting took place, was full.
Introducing Muntu, the master of ceremonies described Muntu as a selfless leader.
In his speech, Muntu portrayed himself as the fresh face of the political campaign and a candidate who would unite Ugandans.
If elected, Muntu promised “an honest and responsible leadership that reflects the aspiration of the people of Uganda”.
He decried what he called a dying health system, the poor standard of education and high level of poverty.
He also condemned corruption, saying it “has eaten to the core of our politics”.
“Enough is enough, nabikoowa (I am fed up); let all rise up and fight for our country,” he said, drawing applause.
He challenged Ugandans to come out and vote for a leader who would end the biting poverty, boost agriculture and fix the economy.
“This campaign is not about us, it is about our children, about their future, about the future of this country,” he said.
The retired army general promised to rid the country of military influence and to build public institutions.
Muntu avoided direct attack on Besigye. Saying that “Besigye has tremendously sacrificed for this country and we appreciate that,” Muntu added though that “we should not fear change and change is inevitable.”
Who is Muntu?
Muntu was born in October 1958 at Kitunga village, Ntungamo district, to the late Enock Ruzima Muntuyera and Aida Matama Muntuyera. He had an affluent childhood as his father was a strong UPC government functionary and close friend of former president Apollo Milton Obote.
He attended Mbarara Junior School, Kitunga Primary and Kitunga High School, later renamed Muntuyera High School. Muntu went on to graduate in political science from Makerere University.
Saturday, 26 September 2009
The price of Journalism
This is one of the holes from one of the bullets that killed Nigerian journalist Bayo Ohu at his Lagos resident in Lagos
Tuesday, 22 September 2009
"Mengo elements got foreign funds to further their aim-Museveni
Transcript of M7's speech to Buganda MPs on Kayunga visit
A Statement By
H.E. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni
President of the Republic of Uganda
During the Meeting with the Buganda Parliamentary Caucus
Entebbe State House
10th September 2009
Buganda Parliamentary Caucus
I greet you all.
I have come to address you about the sustained unconstitutional behaviour of His Highness Kabaka Mutebi, the Mengo Kingdom officials and the Kabaka’s Radio, CBS.
As you know, the kingdoms were abolished in 1966 by the UPC government. Even when Uganda got independence in 1962, I was old enough to follow the events. I was 18 years old and in senior two at Ntare. I was also a youth-winger of the Democratic Party (DP) although I did not vote in 1962 because the voting age was 21 years at that time. Therefore, the youths who say the NRM does not care about them should, first, remember that it was the NRM who lowered the voting age to 18 years to include the youths early enough. In the period preceding independence, there was debate and maneuvers among the players. The Mengo establishment formed a political party called Kabaka Yekka (KY), which used intimidation, especially against DP supporters in Buganda, to win all the seats in the Lukiiko except 3. DP took a principled stand and pointed out that it was dangerous to mix politics with traditional leadership. The Uganda People’s Congress (UPC), on the other hand, deceived Mengo that they would do whatever the Kabaka wanted even if it was not compatible with the principles of democracy. The consequence of all this was, for instance, the denial of Baganda from voting directly for their 21 Members of Parliament (MPs). While the rest of the country voted for the MPs directly, Buganda had to use the Electoral College system – the Lukiiko, which itself had been elected through disgusting intimidation, being the Electoral College. The intimidation included boycotts of businesses, cutting people’s crops, etc. It is amazing that CBS, working with the Nambozes, has revived this. It will not be allowed to continue, you can be sure of this.
Then, KY formed an alliance with UPC (omukago), this was ‘a marriage-of-convenience’, based on that dishonest formula where UPC believed they were using KY and vice-versa. The Federal and semi-federal (federo) arrangements they constructed amounted to having states within states in such a small country like Uganda. Uganda is only the size of the US state of Oregon. Moreover, the concept of a modern government was new. How could you have such a paralyzed system of government with numerous power centres manned by people that were only beginning to hear of an accountable government? You can see the problems we are having with the decentralization process we put in place. On account of the incredible corruption that had crept into the systems of Local Governments, we had to re-centralize the CAOs. You have been hearing that powers of taxation have been abused by town-clerks, Gombolola-chiefs, etc. They have been, for instance, overtaxing banana-sellers, muchomo-sellers, gonja-sellers, etc. What would happen if we had been constitutionally enfettered in such a way that we could not correct these anti-people mistakes? You remember the problems of Nigeria with their Federal Regions that caused the 1965 crisis in Nigeria.
It was the paralysis in the constitutional arrangements of the 1962 Ugandan Constitution plus UPC’s lack of straight forwardness and their double standards that, eventually, caused the 1966 crisis and all the subsequent tragic events. By 1986, about 800,000 Ugandans had died through the extra-judicial violence that followed those mistakes.
In 1966, I was a very active DP youth-winger, this time in senior six. Our group vigorously opposed Obote’s actions although we were aware of the flaws in the 1962 Constitution. The situation kept deteriorating until we took up arms against the dictatorship in 1971. When we triumphed in 1986, the subject of restoring the traditional leaders started coming up. Even in the bush, opportunists like the late Kayiira started bringing it up. In the bush, however, especially during the Kikunyu conference of 1982, the NRM openly rejected Kayiira’s position of talking about monarchies. We said that we were fighting for the freedom of Ugandans; once the Ugandans had got their freedom they would decide on what to do. That was our position. Our major points were captured in the 10-Points Programme. Therefore, those liars who say that we committed ourselves to monarchism in the bush should be disregarded. Many senior Baganda leaders, etc. – came to see me about this issue. I sought guarantees from them that the monarchies, when restored, will never meddle in politics again, as happened in the 1960s and before.
They all agreed and swore that they would never allow their monarchy to meddle in politics. That is how that principle was captured in article 246 (3 e). The same article (3 f) provides that cultural leaders will not ‘wield Legislative, Executive or Administrative powers’. Article 178 reiterates the same principles and goes into details.
While those discussions were going on and decisions were being taken, other old issues re-emerged. The Banyoro MPs, especially Hon. Kabakumba and even Muruli Mukasa, raised the issue of the Bunyoro lost counties: Buwekula (Mubende), Ssingo (Kiboga), Buruuli (Nakasongola) and even parts of Bulemezi (Ngoma, etc.). They wanted them to be returned to Bunyoro. I told them that ideologically, as a nationalist and Pan-Africanist, I did not believe in the concept of “lost counties” within Uganda. I gave the example of my family. Suppose, I said, for some reasons, one of my children grew up at Saleh’s place. It could be because I was sick or away. Are you going to say that he is “lost”? I did not think so, I told them. However, there was one proviso: he must be well treated; he must be treated like Saleh’s own children. If he is discriminated against, then the question of his real parentage comes up. We, therefore, constitutionally provided that all these areas should remain in Buganda as provided for under Article 5 of the 1995 Constitution. However, also, under 37, it is stipulated that:
“Every person has a right as applicable to belong to, enjoy, practice, profess, maintain and promote any culture, cultural institution, language, tradition, creed or religion in community with others.”
In this way we persuaded all the Banyoro MPs, including Muruli Mukasa, to vote for the whole package. It was a carefully arranged package, ensuring that everybody was a winner; a win-win formula with no losers.
Unfortunately, however, no sooner had we promulgated the Constitution of 1995, than I started hearing that Mengo was undermining the NRM. I could not believe this. Whenever I would hear such stories, I would ring His Highness Kabaka Mutebi and invite him for meetings. The trend, however, continued and it grew worse in the elections of 2001 and 2006. The Buganda Kingdom Radio spends most of their time demonizing NRM and Museveni, I hear. I never listen to such Radios. However, the wanainchi listen to them. I ignored all this.
As you all know, the NRM repaired the economy of Uganda. As the economy boomed, the price of land went up. The old colonial arrangement of mailo-land now came under strain. The old mailo-land system provided for a paralyzed system of land-holding. Since the 1928 busuulu and nvujo law, the bibanja-owners could not be evicted without the authority of the Governor and there was a ceiling on the busuulu to be paid. Apart from the Idi Amin land decree of 1975, these two have remained the main principles of the land law in Buganda. Our land Act of 1997 recaptured the same principles after the 1995 Constitution had repealed the Amin decree of 1975. On account of the rampant evictions, caused by the high demand for land, which, itself, is caused by the fast growing economy, there was outcry in the public, among the peasants. Even some of you MPs, like Hon. Sekikubo, complained about these evictions. As a consequence of this, I proposed an amendment to stop the evictions. The unprincipled, opportunistic opposition opposed that proposed amendment. On account of reasons I did not initially understand, His Highness Kabaka Mutebi also came out to publicly oppose the proposed Amendment. I think this was a violation of the Constitution.
Additionally, the Kabaka’s Radio, CBS, launched a campaign against the amendment. His Highness the Kabaka commissioned a group of people led by Nambooze to travel around Buganda and incite people, with all sorts of incredible lies, against the proposed land bill amendment and the Government. Museveni ayagala kubba ettaka lyamwe – Museveni wants to steal your land, etc. CBS promoted sectarianism, at one time talking of people with long noses (ab’enyindo mpanvu). It is not our duty to measure people’s noses – long or short. My reaction was to ring His Highness the Kabaka to invite him for a meeting to sort out all this amicably as mature people. His Highness, however, could not pick my telephones or have the courtesy of returning my calls. I told my Principal Private Secretary, Amelia Kyambadde, to keep calling him to no avail. His Highness the Kabaka could not take the calls of the President of Uganda; moreover, the President that led the struggle for democracy and the monarchies. I hear that the Baganda have two proverbs: ‘gwowonya eggere yalikusambya’ (if you help a person to treat a wound on his leg, he will use that particular leg you treated to kick you). Another one says: ‘oguggwa tegubamuka (a forgetful person will not recall that the old beer he drunk, is sweeter than the new beer he is currently drinking).’ Anyway, given my work methods, I did not give up. Whenever any controversy came up involving Mengo, I would telephone His Highness the Kabaka; he would, however, not answer my telephones as usual. When the controversy over Buruuli came up, I telephoned him; but he refused to answer my telephone. I referred the matter to the National Security Council which contacted the Katikkiro and advised him to have a dialogue with the Baruuli cultural leaders or postpone the visit. They treated our advice with contempt. The National Security Council, with my full support, this time, said enough is enough; they stopped the Kabaka from visiting certain parts of Buruuli although he was allowed to visit Migyera where there were some CBS activities.
When the issue of Bugerere came up, I have been trying to talk to His Highness the Kabaka, since May 2009. Again, he persistently refused to answer my calls; I kept trying. At one time I was told that he was abroad. That should not be a problem. There are telephones abroad. My Principal Private Secretary and I failed totally to access him. When the Bugerere issues were building up, after failing to get the Kabaka, I referred the matter to the National Security Council who wrote to the Katikkiro. Rt. Hon. Kivejinja even met the Katikkiro and advised him to talk to the Banyala cultural leaders as well as the Local Government elected leaders and Administrators. Mengo made it clear that they treat all those with contempt. Given that unacceptable arrogance, the National Security Council, with my full support, through informal channels, told Mengo, most firmly, that the function will not take place. That was the position by yesterday evening.
Meanwhile, I have been consulting some of the influential Baganda about this. I told them that we can no longer tolerate this unconstitutional behaviour of Mengo with the apparent connivance of the Kabaka. The progressive forces will definitely take decisive actions soon. During those consultations it transpired that the Lukiiko is now dominated by opposition political activists especially the ones that lost elections. Most of the balanced voices have been removed from the Lukiiko.
Anyway, last evening, about 8.00 p.m., I, again, asked Amelia to try and ring the Kabaka one more time. This time the Kabaka responded; he rung Amelia who also rung me in our gazebo where I was having dinner with some friends. She rung me at 9.15 p.m. but I told her that I was having dinner and I could not have the privacy to talk. We arranged to talk at 10.30 p.m. Indeed, we talked at 10.30 p.m. I asked him: “Your Highness, why have you been refusing to answer my telephone calls for the last 2 years?” He answered that he was not “aware” that I had been ringing. I asked him: Why does your CBS abuse and demonize us?” He answered: “I do not believe that is true.” Anyway, we went into the immediate matter of Kayunga’s function. I told him that because of the sustained unconstitutional behaviours by your Kingdom, that meeting will only be permitted to take place only under certain conditions which Hon. Kivejinja will communicate to the Katikkiro today (Thursday, 10th of September 2009). I had actually wanted to meet the Kabaka himself today (Thursday, 10th of September 2009) but he suggested a later date. I have no problem with that.
On the issue of the Land bill we had to launch our own counter-campaign of sensitization and forming the bibanja associations. These associations have empowered and emboldened the bibanja-owners. Now that the bibanja members are empowered, some of them have started taking the law into their own hands, if we take the recent examples of lynching landlords in some areas of Kayunga. I blame Mengo and also the opportunists among us who delayed the land bill and created this vacuum.
I also got information that Mengo elements got foreign funds to further their aims of fighting the NRM and undermining the Constitution. We are following these reports very closely and we shall defeat all those elements involved. I encourage my friend His Highness Kabaka Mutebi to distance himself from the Judases. The NRM fought many battles; we shall win this one also.
The conditions for the Kayunga meetings are that:
Rt. Hon. Kevejinja and Mengo’s representatives together with their Katikkiro should meet with the representatives of the Banyala cultural groups as well as the Kayunga political and administrative leaders to agree on the way forward.
CBS stops forthwith their campaign against NRM, including what they have been doing recently, inciting the public to storm the Police who are peacefully carrying out their duties.
If the above conditions are fulfilled, the meeting will take place; if they are not, it will not. Besides I am looking forward to meeting His Highness the Kabaka soon to resolve all the outstanding issues. In my talk with the Kabaka last night, he referred to the difference between political and cultural matters. That is a good point. That is what we have been telling Mengo all along. Then, in that case we should not discuss with the Katikkiro because he is not political; instead we should discuss with the hundreds of the elected leaders in Buganda: MPs, LCV-Chairmen, LCIII-Chairmen, etc. Anyway, I will discuss all this with His Highness the Kabaka, when we meet soon, now that he has answered my telephones after two years.
There is more I would like to say about this. However, let me reserve it for another time. There are a number of issues on which we had agreed with Mengo on which they made about-turn and start misinforming the public. These include the Regional tier, the status of Kampala, etc. Mengo’s Radio CBS also coordinated a boycott campaign recently. This is bad politics and practices and should stop henceforth. I rarely speak publicly about such issues. My method of work is to work confidentially with the Kings or other stakeholders. However, in the case of Buganda, Kabaka Mutebi has denied me this quiet method; hence, the escalation of essentially simple issues.
On the specific issues of Buruuli and the Banyala (Kayunga), the applicable Constitutional provisions are articles 37 and Article 246 already quoted above.
In terms of implementation, we normally insist on District Council Resolutions to find out if the community wishes to have a cultural leader; this is in conformity with Article 246. Both Nakasongola and Kayunga passed the respective Resolutions to that effect. This is the method we used every where, including Buganda. In Ankole, where District Councils did not pass the requisite Resolutions, we did not allow the cultural leaders to be installed. Can more than one cultural leader exist in one kingdom? Yes, because that is what the Constitution says. They need to work out their relationship. This is what we have been telling Mengo to do in respect of Buruuli and Kayunga. In any case, this is not new. The Kamuswaga of Kooki, even under the British, co-existed with the Kabaka. In Busoga there are 11 hereditary chiefs in addition to the Kyabazinga. The bad behaviour of Mengo is being copied by other Kingdoms. Recently, in Bunyoro, there were elements calling for terrorism against Bafuruki, etc. We had to act against them. Therefore, Mengo’s impunity must stop.
I appeal to His Highness the Kabaka to prevail on his groups and stop keeping Uganda permanently on tenterhooks (kubunkeke). We need total calmness to consolidate the gains of the people. If there is anything unresolved it should be discussed quietly, not on the Radios. Decisive action will be taken on any media house that continues the practice of incitement.
I would like to conclude by condemning the criminals, hired by Mengo, that caused damage in Kampala and the suburbs. Initially, the Police acted slowly. Now, however, the Police has been re-enforced by elements of the UPDF. All areas where the hooligans are will be covered and, stern action will be taken against them according to the Police procedures. Looters will be shot on sight as will those who attack other civilians. Those who threaten the lives of security personnel will be dealt with according to the standing procedure of the Police. Shop-owners and everybody should continue with their daily activities. The security forces will protect them. The ring leaders are being hunted for (rounded off) and some have been arrested.
I extend my condolences to the families who lost their loved ones.
I thank all of you for listening to me.
A Statement By
H.E. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni
President of the Republic of Uganda
During the Meeting with the Buganda Parliamentary Caucus
Entebbe State House
10th September 2009
Buganda Parliamentary Caucus
I greet you all.
I have come to address you about the sustained unconstitutional behaviour of His Highness Kabaka Mutebi, the Mengo Kingdom officials and the Kabaka’s Radio, CBS.
As you know, the kingdoms were abolished in 1966 by the UPC government. Even when Uganda got independence in 1962, I was old enough to follow the events. I was 18 years old and in senior two at Ntare. I was also a youth-winger of the Democratic Party (DP) although I did not vote in 1962 because the voting age was 21 years at that time. Therefore, the youths who say the NRM does not care about them should, first, remember that it was the NRM who lowered the voting age to 18 years to include the youths early enough. In the period preceding independence, there was debate and maneuvers among the players. The Mengo establishment formed a political party called Kabaka Yekka (KY), which used intimidation, especially against DP supporters in Buganda, to win all the seats in the Lukiiko except 3. DP took a principled stand and pointed out that it was dangerous to mix politics with traditional leadership. The Uganda People’s Congress (UPC), on the other hand, deceived Mengo that they would do whatever the Kabaka wanted even if it was not compatible with the principles of democracy. The consequence of all this was, for instance, the denial of Baganda from voting directly for their 21 Members of Parliament (MPs). While the rest of the country voted for the MPs directly, Buganda had to use the Electoral College system – the Lukiiko, which itself had been elected through disgusting intimidation, being the Electoral College. The intimidation included boycotts of businesses, cutting people’s crops, etc. It is amazing that CBS, working with the Nambozes, has revived this. It will not be allowed to continue, you can be sure of this.
Then, KY formed an alliance with UPC (omukago), this was ‘a marriage-of-convenience’, based on that dishonest formula where UPC believed they were using KY and vice-versa. The Federal and semi-federal (federo) arrangements they constructed amounted to having states within states in such a small country like Uganda. Uganda is only the size of the US state of Oregon. Moreover, the concept of a modern government was new. How could you have such a paralyzed system of government with numerous power centres manned by people that were only beginning to hear of an accountable government? You can see the problems we are having with the decentralization process we put in place. On account of the incredible corruption that had crept into the systems of Local Governments, we had to re-centralize the CAOs. You have been hearing that powers of taxation have been abused by town-clerks, Gombolola-chiefs, etc. They have been, for instance, overtaxing banana-sellers, muchomo-sellers, gonja-sellers, etc. What would happen if we had been constitutionally enfettered in such a way that we could not correct these anti-people mistakes? You remember the problems of Nigeria with their Federal Regions that caused the 1965 crisis in Nigeria.
It was the paralysis in the constitutional arrangements of the 1962 Ugandan Constitution plus UPC’s lack of straight forwardness and their double standards that, eventually, caused the 1966 crisis and all the subsequent tragic events. By 1986, about 800,000 Ugandans had died through the extra-judicial violence that followed those mistakes.
In 1966, I was a very active DP youth-winger, this time in senior six. Our group vigorously opposed Obote’s actions although we were aware of the flaws in the 1962 Constitution. The situation kept deteriorating until we took up arms against the dictatorship in 1971. When we triumphed in 1986, the subject of restoring the traditional leaders started coming up. Even in the bush, opportunists like the late Kayiira started bringing it up. In the bush, however, especially during the Kikunyu conference of 1982, the NRM openly rejected Kayiira’s position of talking about monarchies. We said that we were fighting for the freedom of Ugandans; once the Ugandans had got their freedom they would decide on what to do. That was our position. Our major points were captured in the 10-Points Programme. Therefore, those liars who say that we committed ourselves to monarchism in the bush should be disregarded. Many senior Baganda leaders, etc. – came to see me about this issue. I sought guarantees from them that the monarchies, when restored, will never meddle in politics again, as happened in the 1960s and before.
They all agreed and swore that they would never allow their monarchy to meddle in politics. That is how that principle was captured in article 246 (3 e). The same article (3 f) provides that cultural leaders will not ‘wield Legislative, Executive or Administrative powers’. Article 178 reiterates the same principles and goes into details.
While those discussions were going on and decisions were being taken, other old issues re-emerged. The Banyoro MPs, especially Hon. Kabakumba and even Muruli Mukasa, raised the issue of the Bunyoro lost counties: Buwekula (Mubende), Ssingo (Kiboga), Buruuli (Nakasongola) and even parts of Bulemezi (Ngoma, etc.). They wanted them to be returned to Bunyoro. I told them that ideologically, as a nationalist and Pan-Africanist, I did not believe in the concept of “lost counties” within Uganda. I gave the example of my family. Suppose, I said, for some reasons, one of my children grew up at Saleh’s place. It could be because I was sick or away. Are you going to say that he is “lost”? I did not think so, I told them. However, there was one proviso: he must be well treated; he must be treated like Saleh’s own children. If he is discriminated against, then the question of his real parentage comes up. We, therefore, constitutionally provided that all these areas should remain in Buganda as provided for under Article 5 of the 1995 Constitution. However, also, under 37, it is stipulated that:
“Every person has a right as applicable to belong to, enjoy, practice, profess, maintain and promote any culture, cultural institution, language, tradition, creed or religion in community with others.”
In this way we persuaded all the Banyoro MPs, including Muruli Mukasa, to vote for the whole package. It was a carefully arranged package, ensuring that everybody was a winner; a win-win formula with no losers.
Unfortunately, however, no sooner had we promulgated the Constitution of 1995, than I started hearing that Mengo was undermining the NRM. I could not believe this. Whenever I would hear such stories, I would ring His Highness Kabaka Mutebi and invite him for meetings. The trend, however, continued and it grew worse in the elections of 2001 and 2006. The Buganda Kingdom Radio spends most of their time demonizing NRM and Museveni, I hear. I never listen to such Radios. However, the wanainchi listen to them. I ignored all this.
As you all know, the NRM repaired the economy of Uganda. As the economy boomed, the price of land went up. The old colonial arrangement of mailo-land now came under strain. The old mailo-land system provided for a paralyzed system of land-holding. Since the 1928 busuulu and nvujo law, the bibanja-owners could not be evicted without the authority of the Governor and there was a ceiling on the busuulu to be paid. Apart from the Idi Amin land decree of 1975, these two have remained the main principles of the land law in Buganda. Our land Act of 1997 recaptured the same principles after the 1995 Constitution had repealed the Amin decree of 1975. On account of the rampant evictions, caused by the high demand for land, which, itself, is caused by the fast growing economy, there was outcry in the public, among the peasants. Even some of you MPs, like Hon. Sekikubo, complained about these evictions. As a consequence of this, I proposed an amendment to stop the evictions. The unprincipled, opportunistic opposition opposed that proposed amendment. On account of reasons I did not initially understand, His Highness Kabaka Mutebi also came out to publicly oppose the proposed Amendment. I think this was a violation of the Constitution.
Additionally, the Kabaka’s Radio, CBS, launched a campaign against the amendment. His Highness the Kabaka commissioned a group of people led by Nambooze to travel around Buganda and incite people, with all sorts of incredible lies, against the proposed land bill amendment and the Government. Museveni ayagala kubba ettaka lyamwe – Museveni wants to steal your land, etc. CBS promoted sectarianism, at one time talking of people with long noses (ab’enyindo mpanvu). It is not our duty to measure people’s noses – long or short. My reaction was to ring His Highness the Kabaka to invite him for a meeting to sort out all this amicably as mature people. His Highness, however, could not pick my telephones or have the courtesy of returning my calls. I told my Principal Private Secretary, Amelia Kyambadde, to keep calling him to no avail. His Highness the Kabaka could not take the calls of the President of Uganda; moreover, the President that led the struggle for democracy and the monarchies. I hear that the Baganda have two proverbs: ‘gwowonya eggere yalikusambya’ (if you help a person to treat a wound on his leg, he will use that particular leg you treated to kick you). Another one says: ‘oguggwa tegubamuka (a forgetful person will not recall that the old beer he drunk, is sweeter than the new beer he is currently drinking).’ Anyway, given my work methods, I did not give up. Whenever any controversy came up involving Mengo, I would telephone His Highness the Kabaka; he would, however, not answer my telephones as usual. When the controversy over Buruuli came up, I telephoned him; but he refused to answer my telephone. I referred the matter to the National Security Council which contacted the Katikkiro and advised him to have a dialogue with the Baruuli cultural leaders or postpone the visit. They treated our advice with contempt. The National Security Council, with my full support, this time, said enough is enough; they stopped the Kabaka from visiting certain parts of Buruuli although he was allowed to visit Migyera where there were some CBS activities.
When the issue of Bugerere came up, I have been trying to talk to His Highness the Kabaka, since May 2009. Again, he persistently refused to answer my calls; I kept trying. At one time I was told that he was abroad. That should not be a problem. There are telephones abroad. My Principal Private Secretary and I failed totally to access him. When the Bugerere issues were building up, after failing to get the Kabaka, I referred the matter to the National Security Council who wrote to the Katikkiro. Rt. Hon. Kivejinja even met the Katikkiro and advised him to talk to the Banyala cultural leaders as well as the Local Government elected leaders and Administrators. Mengo made it clear that they treat all those with contempt. Given that unacceptable arrogance, the National Security Council, with my full support, through informal channels, told Mengo, most firmly, that the function will not take place. That was the position by yesterday evening.
Meanwhile, I have been consulting some of the influential Baganda about this. I told them that we can no longer tolerate this unconstitutional behaviour of Mengo with the apparent connivance of the Kabaka. The progressive forces will definitely take decisive actions soon. During those consultations it transpired that the Lukiiko is now dominated by opposition political activists especially the ones that lost elections. Most of the balanced voices have been removed from the Lukiiko.
Anyway, last evening, about 8.00 p.m., I, again, asked Amelia to try and ring the Kabaka one more time. This time the Kabaka responded; he rung Amelia who also rung me in our gazebo where I was having dinner with some friends. She rung me at 9.15 p.m. but I told her that I was having dinner and I could not have the privacy to talk. We arranged to talk at 10.30 p.m. Indeed, we talked at 10.30 p.m. I asked him: “Your Highness, why have you been refusing to answer my telephone calls for the last 2 years?” He answered that he was not “aware” that I had been ringing. I asked him: Why does your CBS abuse and demonize us?” He answered: “I do not believe that is true.” Anyway, we went into the immediate matter of Kayunga’s function. I told him that because of the sustained unconstitutional behaviours by your Kingdom, that meeting will only be permitted to take place only under certain conditions which Hon. Kivejinja will communicate to the Katikkiro today (Thursday, 10th of September 2009). I had actually wanted to meet the Kabaka himself today (Thursday, 10th of September 2009) but he suggested a later date. I have no problem with that.
On the issue of the Land bill we had to launch our own counter-campaign of sensitization and forming the bibanja associations. These associations have empowered and emboldened the bibanja-owners. Now that the bibanja members are empowered, some of them have started taking the law into their own hands, if we take the recent examples of lynching landlords in some areas of Kayunga. I blame Mengo and also the opportunists among us who delayed the land bill and created this vacuum.
I also got information that Mengo elements got foreign funds to further their aims of fighting the NRM and undermining the Constitution. We are following these reports very closely and we shall defeat all those elements involved. I encourage my friend His Highness Kabaka Mutebi to distance himself from the Judases. The NRM fought many battles; we shall win this one also.
The conditions for the Kayunga meetings are that:
Rt. Hon. Kevejinja and Mengo’s representatives together with their Katikkiro should meet with the representatives of the Banyala cultural groups as well as the Kayunga political and administrative leaders to agree on the way forward.
CBS stops forthwith their campaign against NRM, including what they have been doing recently, inciting the public to storm the Police who are peacefully carrying out their duties.
If the above conditions are fulfilled, the meeting will take place; if they are not, it will not. Besides I am looking forward to meeting His Highness the Kabaka soon to resolve all the outstanding issues. In my talk with the Kabaka last night, he referred to the difference between political and cultural matters. That is a good point. That is what we have been telling Mengo all along. Then, in that case we should not discuss with the Katikkiro because he is not political; instead we should discuss with the hundreds of the elected leaders in Buganda: MPs, LCV-Chairmen, LCIII-Chairmen, etc. Anyway, I will discuss all this with His Highness the Kabaka, when we meet soon, now that he has answered my telephones after two years.
There is more I would like to say about this. However, let me reserve it for another time. There are a number of issues on which we had agreed with Mengo on which they made about-turn and start misinforming the public. These include the Regional tier, the status of Kampala, etc. Mengo’s Radio CBS also coordinated a boycott campaign recently. This is bad politics and practices and should stop henceforth. I rarely speak publicly about such issues. My method of work is to work confidentially with the Kings or other stakeholders. However, in the case of Buganda, Kabaka Mutebi has denied me this quiet method; hence, the escalation of essentially simple issues.
On the specific issues of Buruuli and the Banyala (Kayunga), the applicable Constitutional provisions are articles 37 and Article 246 already quoted above.
In terms of implementation, we normally insist on District Council Resolutions to find out if the community wishes to have a cultural leader; this is in conformity with Article 246. Both Nakasongola and Kayunga passed the respective Resolutions to that effect. This is the method we used every where, including Buganda. In Ankole, where District Councils did not pass the requisite Resolutions, we did not allow the cultural leaders to be installed. Can more than one cultural leader exist in one kingdom? Yes, because that is what the Constitution says. They need to work out their relationship. This is what we have been telling Mengo to do in respect of Buruuli and Kayunga. In any case, this is not new. The Kamuswaga of Kooki, even under the British, co-existed with the Kabaka. In Busoga there are 11 hereditary chiefs in addition to the Kyabazinga. The bad behaviour of Mengo is being copied by other Kingdoms. Recently, in Bunyoro, there were elements calling for terrorism against Bafuruki, etc. We had to act against them. Therefore, Mengo’s impunity must stop.
I appeal to His Highness the Kabaka to prevail on his groups and stop keeping Uganda permanently on tenterhooks (kubunkeke). We need total calmness to consolidate the gains of the people. If there is anything unresolved it should be discussed quietly, not on the Radios. Decisive action will be taken on any media house that continues the practice of incitement.
I would like to conclude by condemning the criminals, hired by Mengo, that caused damage in Kampala and the suburbs. Initially, the Police acted slowly. Now, however, the Police has been re-enforced by elements of the UPDF. All areas where the hooligans are will be covered and, stern action will be taken against them according to the Police procedures. Looters will be shot on sight as will those who attack other civilians. Those who threaten the lives of security personnel will be dealt with according to the standing procedure of the Police. Shop-owners and everybody should continue with their daily activities. The security forces will protect them. The ring leaders are being hunted for (rounded off) and some have been arrested.
I extend my condolences to the families who lost their loved ones.
I thank all of you for listening to me.
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
Don’t like the reflection- Smash the mirror: Part II
The riot is over, a bigger section of Kampala is back to work and its business as usual. The epicenter of the violence however remains quiet but tense.
However, to the media, the war continues. As usual the guns have turned on them and those who don’t like their reflection in the mirror have decided to smash it.
A number of journalist were beaten and harassed during the two days of riot, four radio stations (can’t vouch my defence for CBS) were switched off, three journalist suspended and one arrested.
In Part I, (May, 2008) I posted on the decision by the government to amend the existing media laws and introduce new ones, It is disheartening to say the least, but should not be unexpected.
And as I had said before, in the modern world, you have freedom of expression but after expression, you are striped off that freedom.
The media fraternity in Uganda is young but like an orphan child, the have been forced to become adults at a tender age, hence the gamble and mistakes through life, especially the FM radio stations.
In the last one year, the government has come down hard on the media, at least a dozen journalists in the country are facing prosecution over stories that the State deems either seditious or defamatory.
Besides, the formation of a Cabinet sub-committee to propose a way of reining-in the media and the proposed Information Communication and Technology (ICT) Bill, 2008, commonly known as phone tapping bill, which is before Parliament for consideration are some of the plans the government is seeking to use to clamp down on independent media.
While President Yoweri Museveni always emphasises the importance of free speech, he has at the same time consistently attacked the media for allegedly “misleading and misinforming” the public.
Museveni has repeatedly promised to tame the media, accusing the media of bias and sabotaging national development.
However what makes me post today is not to decry the kind of treatment we have received from government. I don’t expect it to improve any time soon but to worsen as we head towards election.
Robert Kalundi Serumaga, the Radio One journalist was arrested on Friday night. According to panelist Bernard Tabaire and Peter Kibazo, Serumaga was arrested as soon as he stepped out of the studios of WBS TV station where they had conducted a live telecast debate on unrest in Central Uganda.
I watched the WBS program and was impressed by Serumaga's courage but scared for him. As a journalist, who has come under attack and tested the dose of both government and Buganda harassment, I could not help but worry for him.
Robert was arrested by security operatives and bundle into the boot of a Toyota car and taken to an unknown destination. He was then transferred to Central Police Station on Sunday and Today (two days) later charged with six counts sedition.
According to the Lango Association of UK, who transcribed the program, this could be the reason why he was arrested:
-he gave a genesis of the NRMO, and said the first rebel core committee was composed of about 8 members: 4 Baganda and 4 westerners, but by the time of coming out of the bush, all Baganda, apart from Lule were six feet under, giving example of one Seguya who was alledgedly poisoned! He posed the question why is it that one side came out alive and the other side were all finished? he argued that instead of Museveni saying he assisted Baganda, it was instead Buganda that assisted NRA war-effort, so the proverb of removing thorns from one's leg could only mean sense if Buganda removed thorns from Museveni's NRA feet, not the other way round.
-then he said the fracas seen on the streets was a reflection of the leadership style, remarking that he could only explain it as Museveni was a badly-brought up person, for even the ordinary Mukopi were of two types: one who was polished in mannerisms and could be accepted in community of well-behaved, and the other of a badly behaved person who will be around to spoil things for people, which he thought Museveni belongs to.
-Kalungi dropped the bombshell saying he saw it like Uganda was under colonial occupation, and UPDF and army of occupation, asking why the Bunyoro oil fields were guarded by Presidential Guard soldiers and Saracen security Guards of Salim Saleh? He allerted Banyoro that while they were venting their anger over Bafuruki, the oil-sale agreement was being concluded with British firms with total disregard of the Banyoro who have not asked what would belong to them when mining proper begins.
-He went full blast and listed occasions when the Uganda constitution was intentionally violated by the NRMo Government, and this one of preventing Kabaka to go wherever he deemed necessary was one such occasion of NRM violating the constitution.
When asked to summarise the good things of the week according to him, Serumaga said he was amused by the involvement of Kabakumba Matsiko (information), Matia Kasaija (Internal Affair), Kale Kaihura (Police Chief), sarcastically portraying that it was leaders from Western Uganda tormenting Kabaka and Buganda...
Could it be some of these....that has caused him some trouble. In present day world, Freedom of speech/press exists before you express it but ends when you express it.
... and Serumaga is experiencing this.
However, to the media, the war continues. As usual the guns have turned on them and those who don’t like their reflection in the mirror have decided to smash it.
A number of journalist were beaten and harassed during the two days of riot, four radio stations (can’t vouch my defence for CBS) were switched off, three journalist suspended and one arrested.
In Part I, (May, 2008) I posted on the decision by the government to amend the existing media laws and introduce new ones, It is disheartening to say the least, but should not be unexpected.
And as I had said before, in the modern world, you have freedom of expression but after expression, you are striped off that freedom.
The media fraternity in Uganda is young but like an orphan child, the have been forced to become adults at a tender age, hence the gamble and mistakes through life, especially the FM radio stations.
In the last one year, the government has come down hard on the media, at least a dozen journalists in the country are facing prosecution over stories that the State deems either seditious or defamatory.
Besides, the formation of a Cabinet sub-committee to propose a way of reining-in the media and the proposed Information Communication and Technology (ICT) Bill, 2008, commonly known as phone tapping bill, which is before Parliament for consideration are some of the plans the government is seeking to use to clamp down on independent media.
While President Yoweri Museveni always emphasises the importance of free speech, he has at the same time consistently attacked the media for allegedly “misleading and misinforming” the public.
Museveni has repeatedly promised to tame the media, accusing the media of bias and sabotaging national development.
However what makes me post today is not to decry the kind of treatment we have received from government. I don’t expect it to improve any time soon but to worsen as we head towards election.
Robert Kalundi Serumaga, the Radio One journalist was arrested on Friday night. According to panelist Bernard Tabaire and Peter Kibazo, Serumaga was arrested as soon as he stepped out of the studios of WBS TV station where they had conducted a live telecast debate on unrest in Central Uganda.
I watched the WBS program and was impressed by Serumaga's courage but scared for him. As a journalist, who has come under attack and tested the dose of both government and Buganda harassment, I could not help but worry for him.
Robert was arrested by security operatives and bundle into the boot of a Toyota car and taken to an unknown destination. He was then transferred to Central Police Station on Sunday and Today (two days) later charged with six counts sedition.
According to the Lango Association of UK, who transcribed the program, this could be the reason why he was arrested:
-he gave a genesis of the NRMO, and said the first rebel core committee was composed of about 8 members: 4 Baganda and 4 westerners, but by the time of coming out of the bush, all Baganda, apart from Lule were six feet under, giving example of one Seguya who was alledgedly poisoned! He posed the question why is it that one side came out alive and the other side were all finished? he argued that instead of Museveni saying he assisted Baganda, it was instead Buganda that assisted NRA war-effort, so the proverb of removing thorns from one's leg could only mean sense if Buganda removed thorns from Museveni's NRA feet, not the other way round.
-then he said the fracas seen on the streets was a reflection of the leadership style, remarking that he could only explain it as Museveni was a badly-brought up person, for even the ordinary Mukopi were of two types: one who was polished in mannerisms and could be accepted in community of well-behaved, and the other of a badly behaved person who will be around to spoil things for people, which he thought Museveni belongs to.
-Kalungi dropped the bombshell saying he saw it like Uganda was under colonial occupation, and UPDF and army of occupation, asking why the Bunyoro oil fields were guarded by Presidential Guard soldiers and Saracen security Guards of Salim Saleh? He allerted Banyoro that while they were venting their anger over Bafuruki, the oil-sale agreement was being concluded with British firms with total disregard of the Banyoro who have not asked what would belong to them when mining proper begins.
-He went full blast and listed occasions when the Uganda constitution was intentionally violated by the NRMo Government, and this one of preventing Kabaka to go wherever he deemed necessary was one such occasion of NRM violating the constitution.
When asked to summarise the good things of the week according to him, Serumaga said he was amused by the involvement of Kabakumba Matsiko (information), Matia Kasaija (Internal Affair), Kale Kaihura (Police Chief), sarcastically portraying that it was leaders from Western Uganda tormenting Kabaka and Buganda...
Could it be some of these....that has caused him some trouble. In present day world, Freedom of speech/press exists before you express it but ends when you express it.
... and Serumaga is experiencing this.
Thursday, 21 May 2009
Hard Target:The hunt for Africa's last warlord
Shortly after dawn last Dec. 14, four Ugandan Mi-24 helicopters banked low over the thick forest canopy of Congo's Garamba National Park. A dense fog had rolled in overnight, and the weather had turned nasty. Earlier that morning at a forward staging area in Uganda, a team of American military advisers equipped with large-scale U.S. government maps and Google Earth technology had shown the helicopter pilots what to look for—four distinct "fishhook shape" camps spread out in cleared areas of the park. In one of these camps, they believed, was Joseph Kony, the professed mystic who leads Africa's longest-lived insurgent group, the Lord's Resistance Army. Find Kony, the pilots' commander had said, and kill him.
Descending through the fog bank and hovering just above the tree line, the pilots spotted what looked like a rebel council meeting in the largest cluster of shelters, code-named Camp K. The gunships immediately unleashed a barrage of rockets and chain-gun fire. Reports from the helicopter crews later stated that several dozen people, including women and children, had been caught in the open. "I saw the helicopters come—they were black, and they were bombing us," recalls George Komagun, 16, one of the hundreds of child soldiers in the Lord's Resistance Army. "I ran. We tried to fight the helicopters, but could not."
Two days after Operation Lightning Thunder began, Ugandan commandos finally reached Camp K. They found bloody trails heading into the jungle in all directions. Hastily dug graves dotted the site's periphery. Kony had been on the run for more than two decades, but this place had the look of a settled homestead. Acres had been cultivated with sorghum, cassava and maize. Stashes of sugar, rice and water in large plastic containers were buried all around.
Washington would love to get a look at the trove of evidence, which Ugandan investigators are still studying, including Thuraya satellite and cell phones, walkie-talkies and three Acer laptops. Soldiers even found a printer, a CD-ROM drive and an English-language dictionary. What they didn't find was Joseph Kony. "We have some hints where he might be now, but nothing like we had before the strike," says a senior U.S. military-intelligence official who was intimately involved with the operation's planning and execution, but is not authorized to speak on the record about it. "Kony has virtually disappeared from the face of the earth."
Kony is arguably the most-wanted man in Africa. Uganda's government has been chasing him for 23 years, ever since he donned a woman's dress, claimed to be channeling the spirit world and vowed to topple the country's president, Yoweri Museveni. Kony is a law unto himself. He claims to run the LRA according to the Ten Commandments, but he and the hundreds of forcibly conscripted children who serve as his killing squads are feared throughout the region for their horrific levels of brutality and the butchery of tens of thousands of defenseless civilians. Their swath of destruction has displaced well over 2 million people. Kony has forced new male recruits to rape their mothers and kill their parents. Former LRA members say the rebels sometimes cook and eat their victims.
Years of peace talks have consistently failed to deliver Kony. Dictators have fallen in many countries, and war criminals in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ivory Coast have been brought to justice. Even Kony's longtime patron, Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir, has been charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court for his policy of ethnic cleansing in Darfur. But Kony remains free to raid, plunder and kidnap.
The ICC issued arrest warrants for Kony and three of his top commanders in 2005, but the papers sit untouched in a dusty office in Kampala, useless until Kony is captured. "Normally these kinds of conflicts in Africa are various shades of gray," says Julia Spiegel, a California native who documents the LRA's atrocities for the Enough Project, an independent group formed to stop crimes against humanity in Africa. "But this is very clear-cut. Going after Kony is just not disputable."
George w. bush set his sights on Kony almost as soon as he was sworn in as president. Early on in his first term, Bush told his new assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Jendayi Frazer, that he wanted to "do something" about southern Sudan, a breakaway Christian and animist region of the Muslim-dominated country. Bush's interest gave Ugandan President Museveni the opening he craved. Museveni had transformed his country into a relatively peaceful and prosperous place since fighting his way to power 15 years earlier, and he believed it would be a model nation if not for Kony, whose murderous raids extended into southern Sudan. In a 2001 meeting with Bush, Museveni appealed for help. "Can you give us some helicopters?" Frazer recalls the Ugandan leader asking. "We've got this terrorist." Bush lobbied hard for the military aid and got Kony placed on a "terror exclusion list" that gave the United States much broader powers to intervene. "Museveni was happy," says Frazer. "We did it partly because we felt it was appropriate, but also to give ourselves some leverage on how to deal with [Kony]."
Two new helicopters were delivered to Museveni, and within 18 months the United States had deployed a three-man intelligence cell to the jungles of northern Uganda specifically to monitor the situation. Their reports were sent up the chain of command in Washington, where they landed on the desk of Stephen Hadley, then the deputy national-security adviser. Bush was watching closely, too. "He'd go off very passionately about the LRA," says Frazer. "How can this guy call himself a soldier of the Lord?" Bush would rage. "He's just a murderer."
Kony was certainly no ordinary rebel. Born in 1962 in a small village called Odek, he was by all accounts a quiet boy, more partial to dancing than sports. His deepset eyes earned him the nickname "Black Monkey." According to a recent biography, Matthew Green's The Wizard of the Nile, Kony didn't enjoy boxing like other kids his age. "I just don't see the point of fighting," he told a friend. His father was a catechist in the Roman Catholic Church.
But the quiet young man came of age in tumultuous times. The end of Idi Amin's notorious dictatorship in 1979 quickly gave way to more years of chaos and violence under the equally ruthless, but less colorful, leader Milton Obote. Deep in the countryside, Museveni gathered a band of guerrillas—many of them children. Uganda was swarming with orphans by then, and every militia filled its armed ranks with kids. Unlike other underage combatants, Museveni's forces at least had a reputation for discipline; looting, rape and other abuses against civilians were forbidden. Many people cheered Museveni's child soldiers as liberators when they fought their way to Kampala in late 1985. But Museveni was a southerner, and after taking power he set about systematically weeding out enemies who hailed from the northern Acholi tribe. Some fled the country, while others, like Kony, took to the bush.
Kony wasn't the only member of the tribe to mount an uprising against Museveni. Several other self-proclaimed spiritual healers and mystics had vowed to oust the new president. The most famous was Alice Lakwena, a wildly popular healer who established the Holy Spirit Movement and rallied thousands of Acholis against Museveni. Lakwena told her followers that enemy bullets would turn to water. Museveni eventually crushed Lakwena's movement and sent her into exile in Kenya. But Kony took on her mantle. In April 1987, after three days of nonstop praying on a grassy spot called Awere Hill, he advised his followers to bring him a dove, some white plates and a Muslim robe. From there, he led his people into the hills. The Lord's Resistance Army was born.
Like Lakwena, Kony claimed a personal connection to the spirit world, using water as a medium. He declared himself a prophet and a seer. But he also got considerable worldly (but covert) assistance from men who bore grudges against Museveni. The Acholi tribe was once the core of Uganda's military, and Acholi generals who had been sacked by Museveni gladly helped Kony with technical advice and military strategy. Sudan's Muslim leaders also wanted to punish Museveni for supporting Christian-led rebels in southern Sudan, and in 1994 they began helping Kony build a full-blown insurgency.
Over drinks in Gulu, a town in northern Uganda that has endured some of the LRA's worst depredations, Patrick Makassa recalled his years as Kony's director of operations. A short, weathered man who finally quit the LRA in 2007, Makassa has a long, quiet stare born of years in the bush. "Between '94 and '98 Khartoum gave us a lot of ammunition and we buried it all around," he told me. "Even now, they're using it." In later years, Makassa said, Khartoum also provided "intelligence training," and injured
LRA fighters were flown to Khartoum for treatment "in big Russian planes."
Some people say Sudan's support for Kony dried up around 2003, when the Bush administration focused on his atrocities, but the leaders of Uganda and southern Sudan insist the covert support has continued. Either way, Bashir's recent indictment at the ICC places him in the same legal predicament as his former proxy warrior. As a result, says Steven Browning, the American ambassador in Kampala, "this whole region is going to get a lot more unstable."
The hunt for joseph kony has been marked by one spectacular failure after another. In 2006, in an unprecedented move, the United Nations mounted a covert operation to capture or kill him. A squad of U.S.-trained Guatemalan Special Ops soldiers set out into Congo's Garamba National Park, a longtime LRA refuge and the scene of last year's Operation Lightning Thunder. Trained in jungle warfare and accustomed to surviving in the bush for long stretches, the Guatemalans were equipped with M-16s and the latest special-operations technology. But they were no match for Kony and his child warriors. Makassa recalls the day the Guatemalans appeared. He had left Garamba park briefly to pick up food and supplies in southern Sudan, just across the border. On his way back he got a call: "The situation is bad. Unknown soldiers came to fight us. Hurry up and help us." The caller described the unknown soldiers as muzungu—a Swahili word meaning "white man."
By the time Makassa reached the scene, the battle was over. Five LRA soldiers had been killed. But not one of the Guatemalans had survived. The LRA fighters slaughtered them all and, according to one account, beheaded the commander. Some reports put the U.N. dead at eight; others say as many as 40 counterinsurgency troops may have died that morning. The LRA left the corpses in the jungle but took the weapons—including heavy machine guns and grenade launchers.
Kony was in southern Sudan at the time, far from the battle. Makassa called him with the news. "Kony was very happy," Makassa recalls. "Kony likes fighting, he likes war." The episode is remembered in Kampala as "the Guatemalan disaster." "They got their asses whipped," says a senior U.S. official who declined to go on the record discussing the event. "It was a huge shock," remembers U.S. Ambassador Browning. "It was demoralizing to the United Nations, and it was a tremendous boost to the aura of Joseph Kony."
Kony is an enigma even to the throngs of children and young adults who grew up at his side, butchering, kidnapping and plundering together. Former soldiers say they're not sure whether he's a psychopath or a true seer. Kony keeps everyone guessing, taking a decision and completely reversing it minutes later. Among his followers he often holds a drinking gourd up against the sun, so the light filters through the water inside. "Look," he once whispered to David Opige, a 35-year-old former soldier who spent six years in the bush with the LRA before escaping, "Look inside and I'll tell you what is happening in Uganda right now." Makassa says Kony often disappeared into the jungle for long stretches, accompanied only by his 10-man security detail. Upon his return, Kony would make a prediction—and as often as not, Makassa recalls, it would come true. "I don't know what he is or who he is, but he has something special about him, that's for sure."
Just three months after the massacre of the Guatemalans, Kony agreed to join international peace talks. It wasn't the first time. Previous negotiations—in 1994, and again in 2002—ended in failure, and the LRA resumed its campaign of wanton violence in the heart of Africa. Over the years the group is estimated to have killed upward of 65,000 civilians; abducted as many as 40,000 children; and destroyed hundreds of villages in Uganda and southern Sudan and, most recently, across a swath of eastern Congo.
The 2006 talks opened in a climate of abject terror. Years of relentless LRA raids led by Kony against his own tribes people had turned northern Uganda into a vast area of fetid camps where hundreds of thousands of refugees had sought safety. Rampant HIV, malaria, hunger and violence were worsened by occasional night visits from LRA marauders out to kill or abduct new victims. At one point, thousands of children began making nightly trips to nearby towns to seek shelter; relief workers called them "the night commuters." By 2004 nearly every aid organization in the world had set up an office in the downtrodden northern refugee town of Gulu. "It was just an absolute hell here," Spiegel told me as we toured the site of a former camp that once held nearly a quarter of a million Ugandans, all driven from their homes by the LRA's war against the government.
The talks were beset with problems from the start. Kony's chief negotiator was a man named David Matsanga, a Ugandan exile who had also done public-relations work for Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe. According to several people who worked with him, Matsanga was more "conflict entrepreneur" than credible negotiator. Insiders say he was paranoid and unstable, too. They say he tested his food with a "poison detector" before meals, and if he happened to look away while eating he would demand a fresh plate of food, which also had to be tested before he resumed his meal.
But Kony seemed eager for the talks. He and his fighters showed up for repeated meetings in the southern Sudanese capital of Juba and on the border between Congo and Sudan. Kony's interest rose visibly when the Bush administration sent a young American, Tim Shortley, to push for a comprehensive agreement. Frazer—who says she never thought Kony was serious about peace, especially not after the ICC issued its arrest warrant for him in 2005—nevertheless urged Shortley to "go out there and do more, do everything you can to get this guy to sign." The United States contributed more than $10 million to underwrite the process. The United Nations had passed a resolution conveying "deep concern" about the LRA, and was pushing hard for an end to the conflict.
Museveni even sent Kony's own mother to meet with her son in the bush and beg him to surrender. But behind the scenes, Frazer was getting frustrated. At one point she quietly asked Museveni, "Why don't you just ambush Kony when he's in one of these meetings?" "We don't ambush people," Museveni told her. "If we're in the bush and somebody's back is turned, before we strike, we'll cough."
Still, it became clear that Kony had no intention of signing any agreement that didn't guarantee his immunity from prosecution. (The international community now faces similar difficulties with Sudan's Bashir.) Before every meeting, Kony would insist on receiving a shipment of food for his "5,000 fighters"—although he's believed to have no more than 800 at any given time. Makassa says the LRA stashed the provisions for future operations.
Meanwhile, Kony's chief negotiator was going to pieces. Unable to convince the Americans that he had any real sway, Matsanga often drank himself into a stupor or burst into tears on the shoulders of other negotiators. "Going through a process like that is very emotional," says Matsanga. "The thousands of people who have died in these 23 years, it is something that gives you grief, it doesn't give you joy, but we have to push forward to find a settlement … It was very, very frightening to go meet him. [But] we had to." A Western official who was deeply involved in the talks takes a skeptical view. "When you met with him secretly, he was always interested in letting you understand that he was in contact with Kony," says the official, who is not authorized to speak publicly about the negotiations. "In the end, none of that seemed to be true. Kony played everyone, and everyone played everyone else."
From 2006 through late 2008, the LRA continued its raids unabated while the talks went nowhere. "Kony just kept putting it off," recalls Ambassador Browning. "There was one excuse after another, a new translator, a new lawyer, more food—it was clearly a delaying tactic." Kony would often agree to a time and place for a meeting, and then not show up. Matsanga still insists that Kony genuinely wants peace. But while the negotiators tried to keep the talks alive, the militaries of Uganda, southern Sudan and Congo began planning another military operation to stop him once and for all.
By July 2008 Congolese troops had begun forming an L-shaped perimeter south of Kony's largest camps in Garamba National Park. Late that year a delegation of religious and Acholi leaders made an arduous two-day journey into Garamba in a final effort to persuade Kony to surrender. Archbishop John Odama, the ranking Anglican cleric in Gulu, had spent most of his professional life struggling to lure Kony out of the bush, meeting with the rebel leader seven times over the years. Entering Garamba on Nov. 28, he realized this might be his last chance. The next morning, in a small jungle clearing, Kony emerged from behind a throng of bodyguards and faced the archbishop. Kony was tall and slender, fit from his years in the jungle. He wore a crisp uniform adorned with red epaulets, and he was cleanshaven.
Kony said he was angry. "You see," he told the archbishop, "I have a spear in my hand and I'm chasing an animal called peace. I want to spear peace so people can eat it. But as I chase peace, there is a lion called the ICC chasing me. So I'm caught between these two. Should I fight the lion, or go on chasing the peace animal?" Then Kony walked away. Later that evening the archbishop was about to give up and leave when several LRA fighters rushed up and grabbed his arm. "Please continue this peace process," they whispered. "Don't give up! Don't give up!"
Even as the rebels begged Odama to keep trying, Ugandan military officers and U.S. military-intelligence advisers were finalizing plans for Operation Lightning Thunder, just two weeks away. The details had been kept secret even from the No. 2 officer in the Ugandan Army. Museveni, a military man and former bush leader himself, occasionally went to great lengths to showcase his martial prowess. (He once convened Parliament and dressed everyone in fatigues for a 4 a.m. calisthenics class.) He was going to direct the operation personally from his office at the presidential State House, and his son-in-law would lead the team of Ugandan commandos who were to find and kill Kony.
It was the first military operation on the continent for AfriCom, the fledgling U.S. military command for Africa. The Americans—16 men and one woman, all specialists in intelligence and logistical support—did their best to make Lightning Thunder a success, even bringing in Makassa, the former LRA operations director, to advise them on where Kony might be hiding and how he might react.
But like the peace talks, the operation went badly from the start. The plan had called for helicopters and MiG fighters to attack Kony's camp simultaneously, followed immediately by a commando assault. But the Ugandans, worried by the rapidly worsening weather, jumped the gun. "They struck early and they didn't get their troops on the ground fast enough," says a senior U.S. official who followed the operation closely.
"By the time [the commandos] got there, the LRA had already disappeared." The Americans still aren't sure how Kony escaped. One of his concubines later told investigators that he took off just minutes before the attack, saying he was going hunting. U.S. and Ugandan military officials believe he had a shortwave radio and had picked up pilot chatter from the incoming Mi-24 helicopters. "I just know he was there," says the senior U.S. official. "That's probably the closest anyone has ever gotten to killing him."
Eight days later Kony retaliated, as usual by attacking helpless civilians. Within a few days, LRA fighters had slaughtered more than 1,000 Congolese villagers, beating them to death with clubs, rifle butts and machetes, and burning entire villages to the ground.
Hundreds of children were kidnapped, and roughly a quarter of a million people fled their homes in Congo and south Sudan. Somehow Kony managed to maintain at least some operational control over a now atomized force, scattered into small groups and largely on the run. "They whacked the hornets' nest, and now they were angry," says Spiegel of Project Enough. Acholi opposition politician chairman Norbert Mao, a tough critic of Museveni's handling of Kony, put it more harshly: "We had the intel, and if the U.S. had been better involved, it would have been a pinpoint operation. I suspect that sometimes the incompetent management of the military may be deliberate."
Kony has been lying low since then, but U.S. officials believe he's preparing his next move. Ugandan forces have mostly pulled back from their forward operating bases in Congo, leaving their pathetically underequipped, ill-trained Congolese colleagues to continue the hunt. "I'm sure Kony is seeing an opportunity to pull his operation back together," says one AfriCom official who can't speak on the record about the ongoing military situation.
Sometimes a conscript manages to escape Kony's clutches. George Komagun, the 16-year-old who witnessed Operation Lightning Thunder, fled to freedom a few weeks ago. He cried for two days, says the social worker who is treating him for malaria, diarrhea and posttraumatic stress. The boy was 11 when the LRA swarmed into his village, killed his parents and hauled him away. At a run-down shelter for war refugees in downtown Juba, he told me of some of his life in the bush with Kony. "If you kill someone, Kony would say, 'Now you killed them, you must drink their blood and eat their liver.' I ate the livers. Maybe 20 times."
Komagun has trouble sleeping, despite heavy doses of medication. At night he dreams of the people he has killed: "They come to me crying, saying, 'Don't kill me, don't kill me'." He slurped a bowl of pea soup as he spoke. "People should eat Kony," he said tiredly. "He killed so many people."
NEWSWEEK: From the magazine issue, May 25, 2009
One of the best pieces have ever read about the Garamba Operation Lightening Thunder.
Descending through the fog bank and hovering just above the tree line, the pilots spotted what looked like a rebel council meeting in the largest cluster of shelters, code-named Camp K. The gunships immediately unleashed a barrage of rockets and chain-gun fire. Reports from the helicopter crews later stated that several dozen people, including women and children, had been caught in the open. "I saw the helicopters come—they were black, and they were bombing us," recalls George Komagun, 16, one of the hundreds of child soldiers in the Lord's Resistance Army. "I ran. We tried to fight the helicopters, but could not."
Two days after Operation Lightning Thunder began, Ugandan commandos finally reached Camp K. They found bloody trails heading into the jungle in all directions. Hastily dug graves dotted the site's periphery. Kony had been on the run for more than two decades, but this place had the look of a settled homestead. Acres had been cultivated with sorghum, cassava and maize. Stashes of sugar, rice and water in large plastic containers were buried all around.
Washington would love to get a look at the trove of evidence, which Ugandan investigators are still studying, including Thuraya satellite and cell phones, walkie-talkies and three Acer laptops. Soldiers even found a printer, a CD-ROM drive and an English-language dictionary. What they didn't find was Joseph Kony. "We have some hints where he might be now, but nothing like we had before the strike," says a senior U.S. military-intelligence official who was intimately involved with the operation's planning and execution, but is not authorized to speak on the record about it. "Kony has virtually disappeared from the face of the earth."
Kony is arguably the most-wanted man in Africa. Uganda's government has been chasing him for 23 years, ever since he donned a woman's dress, claimed to be channeling the spirit world and vowed to topple the country's president, Yoweri Museveni. Kony is a law unto himself. He claims to run the LRA according to the Ten Commandments, but he and the hundreds of forcibly conscripted children who serve as his killing squads are feared throughout the region for their horrific levels of brutality and the butchery of tens of thousands of defenseless civilians. Their swath of destruction has displaced well over 2 million people. Kony has forced new male recruits to rape their mothers and kill their parents. Former LRA members say the rebels sometimes cook and eat their victims.
Years of peace talks have consistently failed to deliver Kony. Dictators have fallen in many countries, and war criminals in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ivory Coast have been brought to justice. Even Kony's longtime patron, Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir, has been charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court for his policy of ethnic cleansing in Darfur. But Kony remains free to raid, plunder and kidnap.
The ICC issued arrest warrants for Kony and three of his top commanders in 2005, but the papers sit untouched in a dusty office in Kampala, useless until Kony is captured. "Normally these kinds of conflicts in Africa are various shades of gray," says Julia Spiegel, a California native who documents the LRA's atrocities for the Enough Project, an independent group formed to stop crimes against humanity in Africa. "But this is very clear-cut. Going after Kony is just not disputable."
George w. bush set his sights on Kony almost as soon as he was sworn in as president. Early on in his first term, Bush told his new assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Jendayi Frazer, that he wanted to "do something" about southern Sudan, a breakaway Christian and animist region of the Muslim-dominated country. Bush's interest gave Ugandan President Museveni the opening he craved. Museveni had transformed his country into a relatively peaceful and prosperous place since fighting his way to power 15 years earlier, and he believed it would be a model nation if not for Kony, whose murderous raids extended into southern Sudan. In a 2001 meeting with Bush, Museveni appealed for help. "Can you give us some helicopters?" Frazer recalls the Ugandan leader asking. "We've got this terrorist." Bush lobbied hard for the military aid and got Kony placed on a "terror exclusion list" that gave the United States much broader powers to intervene. "Museveni was happy," says Frazer. "We did it partly because we felt it was appropriate, but also to give ourselves some leverage on how to deal with [Kony]."
Two new helicopters were delivered to Museveni, and within 18 months the United States had deployed a three-man intelligence cell to the jungles of northern Uganda specifically to monitor the situation. Their reports were sent up the chain of command in Washington, where they landed on the desk of Stephen Hadley, then the deputy national-security adviser. Bush was watching closely, too. "He'd go off very passionately about the LRA," says Frazer. "How can this guy call himself a soldier of the Lord?" Bush would rage. "He's just a murderer."
Kony was certainly no ordinary rebel. Born in 1962 in a small village called Odek, he was by all accounts a quiet boy, more partial to dancing than sports. His deepset eyes earned him the nickname "Black Monkey." According to a recent biography, Matthew Green's The Wizard of the Nile, Kony didn't enjoy boxing like other kids his age. "I just don't see the point of fighting," he told a friend. His father was a catechist in the Roman Catholic Church.
But the quiet young man came of age in tumultuous times. The end of Idi Amin's notorious dictatorship in 1979 quickly gave way to more years of chaos and violence under the equally ruthless, but less colorful, leader Milton Obote. Deep in the countryside, Museveni gathered a band of guerrillas—many of them children. Uganda was swarming with orphans by then, and every militia filled its armed ranks with kids. Unlike other underage combatants, Museveni's forces at least had a reputation for discipline; looting, rape and other abuses against civilians were forbidden. Many people cheered Museveni's child soldiers as liberators when they fought their way to Kampala in late 1985. But Museveni was a southerner, and after taking power he set about systematically weeding out enemies who hailed from the northern Acholi tribe. Some fled the country, while others, like Kony, took to the bush.
Kony wasn't the only member of the tribe to mount an uprising against Museveni. Several other self-proclaimed spiritual healers and mystics had vowed to oust the new president. The most famous was Alice Lakwena, a wildly popular healer who established the Holy Spirit Movement and rallied thousands of Acholis against Museveni. Lakwena told her followers that enemy bullets would turn to water. Museveni eventually crushed Lakwena's movement and sent her into exile in Kenya. But Kony took on her mantle. In April 1987, after three days of nonstop praying on a grassy spot called Awere Hill, he advised his followers to bring him a dove, some white plates and a Muslim robe. From there, he led his people into the hills. The Lord's Resistance Army was born.
Like Lakwena, Kony claimed a personal connection to the spirit world, using water as a medium. He declared himself a prophet and a seer. But he also got considerable worldly (but covert) assistance from men who bore grudges against Museveni. The Acholi tribe was once the core of Uganda's military, and Acholi generals who had been sacked by Museveni gladly helped Kony with technical advice and military strategy. Sudan's Muslim leaders also wanted to punish Museveni for supporting Christian-led rebels in southern Sudan, and in 1994 they began helping Kony build a full-blown insurgency.
Over drinks in Gulu, a town in northern Uganda that has endured some of the LRA's worst depredations, Patrick Makassa recalled his years as Kony's director of operations. A short, weathered man who finally quit the LRA in 2007, Makassa has a long, quiet stare born of years in the bush. "Between '94 and '98 Khartoum gave us a lot of ammunition and we buried it all around," he told me. "Even now, they're using it." In later years, Makassa said, Khartoum also provided "intelligence training," and injured
LRA fighters were flown to Khartoum for treatment "in big Russian planes."
Some people say Sudan's support for Kony dried up around 2003, when the Bush administration focused on his atrocities, but the leaders of Uganda and southern Sudan insist the covert support has continued. Either way, Bashir's recent indictment at the ICC places him in the same legal predicament as his former proxy warrior. As a result, says Steven Browning, the American ambassador in Kampala, "this whole region is going to get a lot more unstable."
The hunt for joseph kony has been marked by one spectacular failure after another. In 2006, in an unprecedented move, the United Nations mounted a covert operation to capture or kill him. A squad of U.S.-trained Guatemalan Special Ops soldiers set out into Congo's Garamba National Park, a longtime LRA refuge and the scene of last year's Operation Lightning Thunder. Trained in jungle warfare and accustomed to surviving in the bush for long stretches, the Guatemalans were equipped with M-16s and the latest special-operations technology. But they were no match for Kony and his child warriors. Makassa recalls the day the Guatemalans appeared. He had left Garamba park briefly to pick up food and supplies in southern Sudan, just across the border. On his way back he got a call: "The situation is bad. Unknown soldiers came to fight us. Hurry up and help us." The caller described the unknown soldiers as muzungu—a Swahili word meaning "white man."
By the time Makassa reached the scene, the battle was over. Five LRA soldiers had been killed. But not one of the Guatemalans had survived. The LRA fighters slaughtered them all and, according to one account, beheaded the commander. Some reports put the U.N. dead at eight; others say as many as 40 counterinsurgency troops may have died that morning. The LRA left the corpses in the jungle but took the weapons—including heavy machine guns and grenade launchers.
Kony was in southern Sudan at the time, far from the battle. Makassa called him with the news. "Kony was very happy," Makassa recalls. "Kony likes fighting, he likes war." The episode is remembered in Kampala as "the Guatemalan disaster." "They got their asses whipped," says a senior U.S. official who declined to go on the record discussing the event. "It was a huge shock," remembers U.S. Ambassador Browning. "It was demoralizing to the United Nations, and it was a tremendous boost to the aura of Joseph Kony."
Kony is an enigma even to the throngs of children and young adults who grew up at his side, butchering, kidnapping and plundering together. Former soldiers say they're not sure whether he's a psychopath or a true seer. Kony keeps everyone guessing, taking a decision and completely reversing it minutes later. Among his followers he often holds a drinking gourd up against the sun, so the light filters through the water inside. "Look," he once whispered to David Opige, a 35-year-old former soldier who spent six years in the bush with the LRA before escaping, "Look inside and I'll tell you what is happening in Uganda right now." Makassa says Kony often disappeared into the jungle for long stretches, accompanied only by his 10-man security detail. Upon his return, Kony would make a prediction—and as often as not, Makassa recalls, it would come true. "I don't know what he is or who he is, but he has something special about him, that's for sure."
Just three months after the massacre of the Guatemalans, Kony agreed to join international peace talks. It wasn't the first time. Previous negotiations—in 1994, and again in 2002—ended in failure, and the LRA resumed its campaign of wanton violence in the heart of Africa. Over the years the group is estimated to have killed upward of 65,000 civilians; abducted as many as 40,000 children; and destroyed hundreds of villages in Uganda and southern Sudan and, most recently, across a swath of eastern Congo.
The 2006 talks opened in a climate of abject terror. Years of relentless LRA raids led by Kony against his own tribes people had turned northern Uganda into a vast area of fetid camps where hundreds of thousands of refugees had sought safety. Rampant HIV, malaria, hunger and violence were worsened by occasional night visits from LRA marauders out to kill or abduct new victims. At one point, thousands of children began making nightly trips to nearby towns to seek shelter; relief workers called them "the night commuters." By 2004 nearly every aid organization in the world had set up an office in the downtrodden northern refugee town of Gulu. "It was just an absolute hell here," Spiegel told me as we toured the site of a former camp that once held nearly a quarter of a million Ugandans, all driven from their homes by the LRA's war against the government.
The talks were beset with problems from the start. Kony's chief negotiator was a man named David Matsanga, a Ugandan exile who had also done public-relations work for Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe. According to several people who worked with him, Matsanga was more "conflict entrepreneur" than credible negotiator. Insiders say he was paranoid and unstable, too. They say he tested his food with a "poison detector" before meals, and if he happened to look away while eating he would demand a fresh plate of food, which also had to be tested before he resumed his meal.
But Kony seemed eager for the talks. He and his fighters showed up for repeated meetings in the southern Sudanese capital of Juba and on the border between Congo and Sudan. Kony's interest rose visibly when the Bush administration sent a young American, Tim Shortley, to push for a comprehensive agreement. Frazer—who says she never thought Kony was serious about peace, especially not after the ICC issued its arrest warrant for him in 2005—nevertheless urged Shortley to "go out there and do more, do everything you can to get this guy to sign." The United States contributed more than $10 million to underwrite the process. The United Nations had passed a resolution conveying "deep concern" about the LRA, and was pushing hard for an end to the conflict.
Museveni even sent Kony's own mother to meet with her son in the bush and beg him to surrender. But behind the scenes, Frazer was getting frustrated. At one point she quietly asked Museveni, "Why don't you just ambush Kony when he's in one of these meetings?" "We don't ambush people," Museveni told her. "If we're in the bush and somebody's back is turned, before we strike, we'll cough."
Still, it became clear that Kony had no intention of signing any agreement that didn't guarantee his immunity from prosecution. (The international community now faces similar difficulties with Sudan's Bashir.) Before every meeting, Kony would insist on receiving a shipment of food for his "5,000 fighters"—although he's believed to have no more than 800 at any given time. Makassa says the LRA stashed the provisions for future operations.
Meanwhile, Kony's chief negotiator was going to pieces. Unable to convince the Americans that he had any real sway, Matsanga often drank himself into a stupor or burst into tears on the shoulders of other negotiators. "Going through a process like that is very emotional," says Matsanga. "The thousands of people who have died in these 23 years, it is something that gives you grief, it doesn't give you joy, but we have to push forward to find a settlement … It was very, very frightening to go meet him. [But] we had to." A Western official who was deeply involved in the talks takes a skeptical view. "When you met with him secretly, he was always interested in letting you understand that he was in contact with Kony," says the official, who is not authorized to speak publicly about the negotiations. "In the end, none of that seemed to be true. Kony played everyone, and everyone played everyone else."
From 2006 through late 2008, the LRA continued its raids unabated while the talks went nowhere. "Kony just kept putting it off," recalls Ambassador Browning. "There was one excuse after another, a new translator, a new lawyer, more food—it was clearly a delaying tactic." Kony would often agree to a time and place for a meeting, and then not show up. Matsanga still insists that Kony genuinely wants peace. But while the negotiators tried to keep the talks alive, the militaries of Uganda, southern Sudan and Congo began planning another military operation to stop him once and for all.
By July 2008 Congolese troops had begun forming an L-shaped perimeter south of Kony's largest camps in Garamba National Park. Late that year a delegation of religious and Acholi leaders made an arduous two-day journey into Garamba in a final effort to persuade Kony to surrender. Archbishop John Odama, the ranking Anglican cleric in Gulu, had spent most of his professional life struggling to lure Kony out of the bush, meeting with the rebel leader seven times over the years. Entering Garamba on Nov. 28, he realized this might be his last chance. The next morning, in a small jungle clearing, Kony emerged from behind a throng of bodyguards and faced the archbishop. Kony was tall and slender, fit from his years in the jungle. He wore a crisp uniform adorned with red epaulets, and he was cleanshaven.
Kony said he was angry. "You see," he told the archbishop, "I have a spear in my hand and I'm chasing an animal called peace. I want to spear peace so people can eat it. But as I chase peace, there is a lion called the ICC chasing me. So I'm caught between these two. Should I fight the lion, or go on chasing the peace animal?" Then Kony walked away. Later that evening the archbishop was about to give up and leave when several LRA fighters rushed up and grabbed his arm. "Please continue this peace process," they whispered. "Don't give up! Don't give up!"
Even as the rebels begged Odama to keep trying, Ugandan military officers and U.S. military-intelligence advisers were finalizing plans for Operation Lightning Thunder, just two weeks away. The details had been kept secret even from the No. 2 officer in the Ugandan Army. Museveni, a military man and former bush leader himself, occasionally went to great lengths to showcase his martial prowess. (He once convened Parliament and dressed everyone in fatigues for a 4 a.m. calisthenics class.) He was going to direct the operation personally from his office at the presidential State House, and his son-in-law would lead the team of Ugandan commandos who were to find and kill Kony.
It was the first military operation on the continent for AfriCom, the fledgling U.S. military command for Africa. The Americans—16 men and one woman, all specialists in intelligence and logistical support—did their best to make Lightning Thunder a success, even bringing in Makassa, the former LRA operations director, to advise them on where Kony might be hiding and how he might react.
But like the peace talks, the operation went badly from the start. The plan had called for helicopters and MiG fighters to attack Kony's camp simultaneously, followed immediately by a commando assault. But the Ugandans, worried by the rapidly worsening weather, jumped the gun. "They struck early and they didn't get their troops on the ground fast enough," says a senior U.S. official who followed the operation closely.
"By the time [the commandos] got there, the LRA had already disappeared." The Americans still aren't sure how Kony escaped. One of his concubines later told investigators that he took off just minutes before the attack, saying he was going hunting. U.S. and Ugandan military officials believe he had a shortwave radio and had picked up pilot chatter from the incoming Mi-24 helicopters. "I just know he was there," says the senior U.S. official. "That's probably the closest anyone has ever gotten to killing him."
Eight days later Kony retaliated, as usual by attacking helpless civilians. Within a few days, LRA fighters had slaughtered more than 1,000 Congolese villagers, beating them to death with clubs, rifle butts and machetes, and burning entire villages to the ground.
Hundreds of children were kidnapped, and roughly a quarter of a million people fled their homes in Congo and south Sudan. Somehow Kony managed to maintain at least some operational control over a now atomized force, scattered into small groups and largely on the run. "They whacked the hornets' nest, and now they were angry," says Spiegel of Project Enough. Acholi opposition politician chairman Norbert Mao, a tough critic of Museveni's handling of Kony, put it more harshly: "We had the intel, and if the U.S. had been better involved, it would have been a pinpoint operation. I suspect that sometimes the incompetent management of the military may be deliberate."
Kony has been lying low since then, but U.S. officials believe he's preparing his next move. Ugandan forces have mostly pulled back from their forward operating bases in Congo, leaving their pathetically underequipped, ill-trained Congolese colleagues to continue the hunt. "I'm sure Kony is seeing an opportunity to pull his operation back together," says one AfriCom official who can't speak on the record about the ongoing military situation.
Sometimes a conscript manages to escape Kony's clutches. George Komagun, the 16-year-old who witnessed Operation Lightning Thunder, fled to freedom a few weeks ago. He cried for two days, says the social worker who is treating him for malaria, diarrhea and posttraumatic stress. The boy was 11 when the LRA swarmed into his village, killed his parents and hauled him away. At a run-down shelter for war refugees in downtown Juba, he told me of some of his life in the bush with Kony. "If you kill someone, Kony would say, 'Now you killed them, you must drink their blood and eat their liver.' I ate the livers. Maybe 20 times."
Komagun has trouble sleeping, despite heavy doses of medication. At night he dreams of the people he has killed: "They come to me crying, saying, 'Don't kill me, don't kill me'." He slurped a bowl of pea soup as he spoke. "People should eat Kony," he said tiredly. "He killed so many people."
NEWSWEEK: From the magazine issue, May 25, 2009
One of the best pieces have ever read about the Garamba Operation Lightening Thunder.
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