FDC and Museveni’s myth of invincibility

How false accusations have undermined the opposition and why Muntu is the best leader to resolve this dilemma

As the opposition Forum for Democratic Change searches for a successor to Dr. Kizza Besigye,  its biggest challenge might be how to overcome a couple of myths about the man its choice has to beat; President Yoweri Museveni.

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Uganda’s state building in Somalia

Why UPDF’s superior ideology has succeeded where America’s superior force failed
 

Over the last four years, I have had numerous debates with my friend Mohamed Ahmed Yahya aka Mo, a Briton of Somali descent about UPDF involvement in his motherland. My view is that state consolidation is primarily an endogenous process. External agents can help; but that assistance can only be successful if its role is secondary, aimed at improving the capacity of already existing strong and committed local actors.

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Dr Suruma and the IGG have opened a Pandora's Box

This morning, September 7^th, 2012, newspapers reported that the PPDA has cancelled the tender to construct a 700MW electricity dam at Karuma. For a country that has been experiencing electricity shortages for the last 25 years, this is a major setback. However, the story of cancelling the Karuma tender is not isolated. The article below was published in my column in Sunday Monitor, Without Mincing Words, on February 6^th 2006.

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Rwanda’s Congo PR failure

By responding to allegations about its involvement in DRC, Rwanda has allowed its detractors to define the debate

 

Over the last two months, there has been a barrage of attacks against Rwanda accusing it of involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo by supporting rebels hostile to the regime in Kinshasa. The nature of these accusations is shocking but not surprising. However, what has been frustrating is the response of Kigali. They have allowed themselves to be drawn into the wrong debate i.e. on whether they are aiding rebels fighting Kinshasa. In the process, Rwanda has handed its critics a public relations coup.

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Museveni’s mission to Somalia

Why the Western powers may keep financing Museveni even when some think he has passed his sale-by date
 

My recent visit to Mogadishu and seeing what our troops have done there made me proud. Yet perhaps the greatest lesson from Somalia was not necessarily the good that our army is capable of doing in foreign lands but how smart President Yoweri Museveni is at geo-strategic positioning. Museveni has cultivated a very good understanding of the dynamics of regime survival in Africa, a factor that explains his decades of rule.

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Kagame victim of own success

The world tends to hold him to very high, sometimes unrealistic standards 
 

Over the last one month, a rebellion has been ragging in eastern DRC against the government of President Joseph Kabila in Kinshasa. As I write this article, over 40 armed groups, some of them former members of the Congolese army, have taken up arms against his government. However, international diplomatic activity, media coverage and human rights campaigns have been focused on one rebel group, M23 and one country, Rwanda and its president, Paul Kagame, for allegedly sponsoring the rebellion.  Even an interested observer may easily think the rebellion is taking place in Rwanda, not DRC. Why is Kabila against whom mutineers and rebels are battling for control of the DRC missing in the news?

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Uganda’s anti-corruption rituals

To understand how theft of public resources flourishes, one has to observe how it is fought

Last week, court dismissed as “no case to answer” charges of abuse of office and causing financial loss against Maj. Gen. Jim Muhwezi in the Gavi trial. Muhwezi had been taken to court on flimsy evidence that even state witnesses – the Accountant General and the former Permanent Secretary in the ministry of health – said he had not authorised any payments. A similar situation attains to the charges brought against former Vice President Gilbert Bukenya and the current charges against ministers Sam Kutesa, Mwesigwa Rukutana and John Nasasira.

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