Tag Archives: Uganda

High level U.S. Delegation carries requests to Museveni on fair elections and Iran sanctions

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Ambassador Johnnie Carson, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, was joined by the acting Assistant Secretary of State for International Security Affairs and Non-proliferation, and by General “Kip” Ward, AFRICOM Commander, in meeting Wednesday with Ugandan President Museveni. According to the Daily Monitor the U.S. was requesting that Museveni agree to reconstitute the Ugandan Electoral Commission ahead of next year’s election and support a U.S. draft resolution on Iran sanctions with Uganda’s current vote on the UN Security Council.

Museveni rejected the request regarding the Electoral Commission. Inter-Party Cooperation (“IPC”), the grouping of four opposition parties, has said that it will boycott next year’s elections if the composition of the Electoral Commission is not reconfigured. No word on the answer on the U.N. sanctions vote but it doesn’t sound positive.

On the electoral issues, The New Vision reports:

Museveni advised the delegation and other foreigners, who are approached by the “opportunistic” opposition members about Uganda’s problems to always, offer them a cup of coffee and send them back because Uganda has structures that can solve its problems.

On international issues:

Museveni challenged Americans to give him concrete evidence that the Iranians are developing nuclear weapons and that they have refused to comply with the regulations.

On Somalia, the President said there was need to take tougher action against the terrorists and ensure a roadmap towards elections so that the Somali people recover their sovereignty from the gunmen.

Discussing the Sudan issue, the Americans assured Museveni of their commitment to full implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Carson said they were preparing for the eventual outcome of the referendum expected to take place in April next year.

Carson’s immediate predecessor at the Africa Bureau, Jendayi Frazer, is with the Whitaker Group, the lobbyists for the Museveni government in Washington.

Trade and Aid [Update]

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A Good African Tale: an African entrepreneur struggles for recognition in rich county markets from the Economist.

Update: “Rwanda Coffee Success Story” from William Easterly’s AidWatch (HT Texas in Africa)

Nick Wadham’s latest in Time: Bad Charity (All I got was this lousy t-shirt) — and his related blog post, Top-Down Aid for Africa.

Texas in Africa has a great related multi-part series of discussion questions May 4-7 about the Western approach to aid and development in Africa:

This week I’ve been trying to sketch an outline of how Westerners tend to develop and characterize our relationship with Africa and the people who live there, specifically with reference to the international aid and development system. I’ve argued that the savior mentality is misguided, that Africa is not rightfully ours to save, and that a better way to assist would be through a paradigm of empowerment. . . .
Today I want to conclude this series by thinking about what is probably the biggest barrier to moving into an empowerment paradigm: the governments that give and receive aid. . . .
Why? Because aid – for donor governments and the governments which receive the bulk of aid – is inherently political. Except in cases involving natural disasters or epidemic disease, donors don’t typically give freely to everyone out of the goodness of their intentions. Aid projects are funded at least in part (and sometimes entirely) on the basis of donor priorities. When aid projects take into account the real, expressed needs of recipients (which is, I’m glad to say, increasingly real for most project), they are often structured in such a way as to advantage suppliers or producers in the donor state, or to reward good governance or provide support to an ally.
As we might expect, there is often a contrast between donor goals and what is actually needed in order to improve the material situations of the recipients. . . .


UPDATE
NYTimes: “At Front Lines, AIDs War is Falling Apart”; “Paper Cuts: How Obama’s Father Came to Hawaii”; “Letters: From Kenya to America”

Reuters: Donors to slash Tanzania budget aid.

Nick Wadhams at NPR:“Somali Pirates Take the Money and Run, to Kenya”

The Times (London): Book review–“War Games: The Story of Aid and War in Modern Times by Linda Polman
Humanitarian aid prolongs conflict and misery because the bad guys learn how to exploit it”;
“Easy Money: the great aid scam”

Odinga and Museveni, ICC

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Raila moves to marshall support in EAC region from The Standard

This is interesting–I’ve previously noted the recent interaction between Museveni and Moi and the PNU, as well as Kalonzo’s Uganda trip. Museveni was the only world leader to congratulate Kibaki on “winning” the 2007 election (after the US withdrew it initial statement).

Museveni is also the client of immediate past Asst. Sec. of State-turned lobbyist Jendayi Frazer and is a key player in the AMISOM mission to support the TFG in Somalia and in other regional military training and exercises. He is also coming up for yet another re-election with new oil revenues to come. Would Raila see “getting right” with Museveni as a way to head off potential U.S.-based opposition to his 2012 candidacy? Likewise, Museveni has a lot on his plate, will want Kenyan cooperation on a number of fronts, and can read the polls showing Odinga as to date the only prospective presidential candidate with strong national numbers.

“Kenya and the International Court: Will Justice Be Done at Last” from The Economist

Kyrgyzstan–lessons for the U.S. in East Africa?

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Certainly the stature and image–and influence–of the United States in Kyrgyzstan seems to be badly damaged by the degree to which the U.S. got itself intertwined with the corrupt Bakiev regime. Bakiev played his leverage from granting the U.S. continued use of the Manas airbase at the Bishkek airport–increasingly important to the U.S. as the war on Afghanistan ramped up.

The needs of warfighting trump support for democracy, anti-corruption efforts and such. That’s reality. Thus, the question: in a war of choice for nation building in one country, what is the collateral damage to good governance and democracy elsewhere?

How far are we willing to go to support the TFG in Somalia? What compromises will we face in dealing with the leaders of Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia and Burundi?

One immediate issue is whether and how the U.S. will use its influence with the Kenyan military in regard to cooperation with the International Criminal Court in its current investigations.

I was an IRI election observer in Kyrgyzstan when Bakiev was elected to a full term in July 2005 following the March 2005 Tulip Revolution. I observed voting in small cities and towns in the Ferghana Valley region in the southwest. This was near the site of the Andijan massacre across the border in Uzbekistan and the region was tense–nonetheless, the atmosphere was hopeful with the new government. Voting was anti-climactic in that Bakiev cut a deal with his most prominent opponent shortly before the election, so the outcome was not really in doubt.

In that heavily Islamic part of the country the economy had been in decline since the fall of the Soviet Union. No one had taken down the statues of Lenin, or even a large portrait of Marx in the auditorium of one of the schools where we observed voting. The Soviet Union, I was told locally, had simply ended without much warning. Since then the roads were gradually crumbling, the machinery was wearing out, the stores had closed–and locals with a profession had gone to Russia for work. The country was much in need of the rent the U.S. was paying for use of Manas, but a main reason for getting rid of Akiev was the perception that he was running the government to the benefit of his family rather than the people as a whole. Apparently Bakiev was not the change in the this respect.

“Fuel Sales to US at Issue in Kyrgyzstan” NY Times

“How Not to Run an Empire” FP

“Blood in the Streets of Bishkek” FP

“When Patience Runs Out”–IHT, Paul Quinn-Judge of International Crisis Group

“Offbeat”

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“Sudan’s capital sways to hip hop”

On Safari in Chanute, Kansas

Ethiopia’s Zenawi says he will authorize jamming of Voice of America Amharic broadcasts, comparing VOA to Radio Mille Collines

Dysfunctional governance in Kampala–“‘The Bastard Child of Nobody?’–Anti-Planning and the Institutional Crisis in Contemporary Kampala”

Feingold’s Strong Statement on Uganda getting international coverage

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Senator Russ Feingold, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Africa Subcommittee issued a statement last week expressing concern about the fragile state of democracy in a number of African countries, with strong words about the state of affairs in Uganda looking ahead to the February 2011 presidential elections.

On Sunday, The Observer in Kampala ran the statement in full, under the headline “Uganda remains a one-party state, U.S. Senator tells Obama”. Yesterday, The Guardian covered it in Uganda news.

From the statement:

Uganda, like Rwanda, is a close friend of the United States, and we have worked together on many joint initiatives over recent years. President Museveni deserves credit for his leadership on many issues both within the country and the wider region. However, at the same time, Museveni’s legacy has been tainted by his failure to allow democracy to take hold in Uganda. Uganda’s most recent elections have been hurt by reports of fraud, intimidation and politically motivated prosecutions of opposition candidates. The Director of National Intelligence stated in his testimony that Uganda remains essentially a “one-party state” and said the government “is not undertaking democratic reforms in advance of the elections scheduled for 2011.”

Uganda’s elections next year could be a defining moment for the country and will have ramifications for the country’s long-term stability. The riots in Buganda last September showed that regional and ethnic tensions remain strong in many parts of the country. Therefore, it is important that the United States and other friends of Uganda work with that country’s leaders to ensure critical electoral reforms are enacted. In the consolidated appropriations act that passed in December, Congress provided significant assistance for Uganda, but also specifically directed the Secretary of State “to closely monitor preparations for the 2011 elections in Uganda and to actively promote…the independence of the election commission; the need for an accurate and verifiable voter registry; the announcement and posting of results at the polling stations; the freedom of movement and assembly and a process free of intimidation; freedom of the media; and the security and protection of candidates.”

Uganda: “Angry Donors Threaten Aid Cut”

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From The Observer in Kampala: “Angry Donors Threaten Aid Cut”.

The World Bank Country Director, speaking “on behalf of the donors” funding 30 percent of Uganda’s budget, spoke to key government ministers at an event at which Museveni was expected to attend, after the media was asked to leave. While praising economic progress, she said that the donor group was upset by the failure to make serious progress against corruption to the point of evaluating punitive measures. She also noted the threat posed by high population growth, at 3.2% leading to propulation projections of 100 million by 2050.

Related story at The Standard from Nairobi and The Guardian.

In 2005 The New Vision reported on a confidential World Bank report coauthored by Dr. Joel Barkan, Senior African Governance Advisor.

The reports adds, “Since the Bank cannot weight in explicitly on Uganda’s political process, this is the only mechanism at its disposal [lowering aid levels] to signal its concern. Conversely, the continued provision of high levels of budget support, especially when such support can be diverted into classified budgets and used for political purposes, indirectly involves the Bank in the political process”.

“To continue budgetary support at present levels risks embarrassment to the Bank, especially after it has been warned, not only by this report, but in what is common knowledge and discourse among leading members of the diplomatic community in Kampala,” the report says.

Sec. Clinton Keynote at National Prayer Breakfast and Museveni

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I like the speech.  Interesting that she has gotten to know Museveni through this event. I hope that this somehow means she could be a positive influence, rather than meaning that he is more likely to get away with more in Uganda. Certainly having Moi campaigning for him is not encouraging.

The deteriorating situation in Somalia will likely give him that much more standing with those in Washington who value his troops in AMISOM to the point that they are willing to overlook other issues.