This is my response to Moses Byaruhanga on party Vision which appeared in today's monitor 26/10/03

  Read on.

  UPC has stood the taste of time.

  Morris Komakech

   

  I read the opinion of Moses Byaruhanga on Saturday, October 25, 2003 entitled "Reform Agenda has no vision". Apparently, his spout of opinion was revoked by the previous disposition of Anne Mugisha, the outspoken Reform Agenda activist.

   

  I have always found Moses Byaruhanga being very politically myopic in his writings especially when he tries to portray the opposition parties as the worst thing that have ever happened to Uganda. Moses and all the NRM followers continue to conduct their propaganda in a similar fashion even at this particular time where hate crimes, prejudice and sectarianism is falling out of favor with Ugandans and the world at large.

   

  Moses writes that Anne forgets UPC and DP have been around for along time and still they have no vision for Uganda. Moses should know that UPC has had a long and comprehensive plans and vision for Uganda, they have implemented successfully lots of programs, put in place lots of infrastructures, including some of those roads that Moses and many of his political compatriots tow, while returning to their birth places.

   

  UPC has had a solid vision, including their 1980 manifesto that remains the working paper of the Movement to date.

   

  The UPC is based on a sound ideology with actions founded upon the needs of youth, women, farmers and the unemployed, the corporate Uganda and the elitist groups in Uganda. It has attracted the disenfranchised and others who want freedom, justice and equality, and continues to increase its mandate as a voice for the oppressed. For this matters, UPC remains far above the Movement both in spirit and in action as pertains to the well-being of Ugandans at large.

   

  To the contrary, it is the movement which has no vision for Ugandans, the Movement have had their fill, they have consistently demonstrated that they have run out of ideas and plans for the people that they lead. The Opposition and especially UPC know very well that education is the key to ending poverty. When people get educated, their needs and choices for life becomes more elaborate, as such they may need a new form of lifestyle, which in itself can improve the power of economic activities, stimulate growth and development and at least, raise the level of self governance. That is why Reform went head-on to score a huge point in advocating for more admission of Ugandans to public Universities based on just means.

   

  For example Moses goes ahead to downplay the importance of the se programs such as revitalizing and facilitating cultural institutions, separation of powers, abolition of graduated tax, stopping state house scholarships and a revival of the cooperatives, which are the basic foundation for social cohesion.

   

  So why has the Movement implemented them? Unfortunately, they rushed to duplicate these ideas, and worst still, they have even rushed to implement them without shame for intellectual copyright. This shows that the Movement is without any vision. What do you call a vision, when all that you implement are duplicated manifestos of other parties that you now claim they have no idea? This kind of argument is only meant to stimulate parties and leaders of other parties to create more vision so the Movement can copy.

   

  The comedy in his writing, which truly reflects his little political minds, continues, to show that Moses is one of those who have truly blinded the President on matters of governance and politics. I am surprised that Moses cannot intellectually articulate the problems of postcolonial Africa.

   

  Moses totally disregards the effects of the cold war on postcolonial regimes; he blindly treads the path of argument that Africans are backward because of the programs that Reform Agenda advocated for. I am sick in the stomach!

   

  Moses should know that if at all Africa remains backwards after forty years, then it is because of bad politics like the one they are playing. Leaders rising to power claiming to be liberators of the people only to become dictators like Museveni, that he serves. They pry on the tax payers, loot state wealth, concentrate wealth to few individuals including their families, unfortunately, the lucrative lifestyle of leaders as exhibited by President Museveni is the reason why Africans remain backward. Moses should tell us, how much is being spent in Statehouse, on very trivial issues, such as affording luxury, picking bills for rebels in hotels and all the wasted funds that could be used to build institutions of good governance.

   

  Moses should also note that every decade has presented itself with its uniqueness, the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s all presented characteristic events that are peculiar to their times. We can not ignore these, for example, the advancement of machines, discovery of robots, the rise free trade zones, the rise of corporations, the collapse of the Berlin wall, the founding of the internet, full swing globalization, and the broader issues that have all disenfranchised Africa such as liberalization of economies. In it's recent report, the IMF accepted that their structural adjustment programs have really created more poverty and misery in third world Countries, and yet the Movement remains a strong disciple of these WB/IMF programs.

   

  UPE is not a Movement program. It is a world bank/IMF/UNICEF program that the Movement is only implementing. Globally One hundred and eighty-nine countries have committed themselves to eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aimed at eradicating extreme poverty and improving the welfare of their peoples by the year 2015. The second of the goals is: "Achieve universal primary education," with the specific target of ensuring that, by 2015, boys and girls everywhere will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling. So UPE is a Program of the millinium Development Goal of the WB/IMF, not a movement program.

   

  Moses goes further to ask; what stimulus can make people produce wealth? Who, indeed, can produce wealth? Can state agencies reliably produce wealth? Once again, economic policies of private sector development is neither a generation of the Movement, it is one of the operating conditions that the Movement regime has to adhere to. It is as old as the 70s when the global economic powers converged at Brenton Woods in the United States to discuss ways in which third world countries could pay back their ever-rising debts. One f the conditions put forth by Keyne on advise from US Treasury department is that governments should withdraw from social and private sectors so they can remit their tax revenues to service their debts, as such, governments have tended to reduce funding to health ! care and other social services, which have in effect raised poverty, death rates for expectant mothers, child mortality rates and so forth.

   

   If indeed it has been proved that private sector growth has groomed better private business management and managers, can Moses explain to us, why all former state parastatals in Uganda where run down the minute they were handed over to their private owners and why privatization remains a painful experience in Uganda to date?

  .

  Moses and NRM should know that the Movement is one of the most unfortunate happenings in Uganda's political history. No matter what the EU and the US has in place for trade and other fundamental relations with Uganda, Moses and all the other Presidential advisors should illustrate to us a comprehensive understanding of global affairs before embracing every filth that falls from "above". AGOA for example is not a venture to get excited over. You have just seen what happened to AGOA girls in Uganda. 

   

  Be advised that the world out there operates in a very scientific way that programs like AGOA and private sector management that NRM has prided over, are designed not for the benefits of Africa and other third world countries. They are designed to open up our markets to the advantage of European and US corporate and business conglomerations, in other word, trying to advance the interests of corporate America and corporate Europe - strings that the bespectacled Moses cannot see at the end of the ropes.

   

  In conclusion, the movement has never had any vision for Uganda; they have had their 10-point programs that have ever since increased to 15 points, which are all on the shelves. What are on display are EU/US/North Korea/Libya/WB/IMF/UPC/DP/RA programs that are being triplicated and implemented.

   

  I challenge you, Moses, to produce a list of programs of NRA/NRM that have been successfully implemented in Uganda from 1986. UPC shall rise and shine again.

   

  The writer is an International Lobbyist and advocate for Pacification and democratization of Uganda. A member of the International League of UPC Youths (ILUPCY). 

   

   






ILUPCY - International League of UPC Youths.

The "Third Liberation of Uganda; Common sense revolution"

"It is common sense that Museveni is a dictator, it is a coomon sense that humans righst records are so low in Uganda. Itis a common sense that Ugandans are eager for change, no matter what the means are. We shall commit our selves to holding the light. This is our commitments, our obligations". Neko-yat P'loreng'a.

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