ugnet_: MWAAMI SSEMAKULA

[Mulindwa Edward]

From: Mulindwa Edward To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2002 4:55 PM Subject: MWAAMI SSEMAKULA Mwaami Ssemakula   What you are posting below is nothing new but a usual playing of words around in the politics of our nation. First of all you are telling us that Uganda today is in the same position as it was way back when that Federal system was negotiated. That is wrong for things have changed very much to reach us here where we are.   I have on numerous times stated that we must make a clear distinction between Federalism in Uganda and feudalism. When we talk in these forums and we talk about Federalism in Uganda, some of us talk about a system to be used in the entire nation and I have seen no body out there against it, whether in Karamoja or Lake Katwe. Most of the people you talk to have no problems what so ever, and I think that any body with a clear cut out federalism in Uganda can take it into a referendum and it will pass on a free and fair vote.   But here is where no body has come out to publicly address this difference. The difference is that Uganda has cultural institutions which we must recognise. Some areas have them and some do not. As a person looking for a long term solution for Uganda's problems, Uganda as a Nation. I have no time what so ever to spend on cultural institutions or organisations. A national leader that Uganda is looking for is a leader who will put a structure in Uganda which respects human rights and safe guards all institutions we have in the nation. Look here some tribes in Uganda had strong kingdoms which perished long ago, some become weaker and weaker, some become stronger by taking over others. Kingdoms are not a sure deal, so you can not guarantee to me that Toro Kingdom for example will be powerful or absent in 2080, for you just do not know. The dynamics controlling these institutions are not in the hands of Uganda as a State. Yet we know that Uganda as a nation will be present in 2080. So we move to leave those problems to Monarchists who know how they run and trust me they do a decent job if left alone.   The danger you have as any body selling Federalism in Uganda especially in Buganda, is that after you explain all the reasons you have given below, a Muganda will give you his vote for Federalism. But after he accepts to give you the vote, a Muganda will as well tell you that he is not expecting anything from Federalism than his king being a president of Uganda. But that is not what he states, he states that his leader will be the King. Now here I must ask, a leader in what form? Now when you reach here is the unknown ground. True Federalists start to give out half answers, for they do not want to make non Baganda un happy and they do not want to loose the Buganda vote. It becomes a discussion of watching the toes. That is the state when a national discussion becomes private and insults like you are not a Muganda or where were you born, you all are against Buganda, start to be thrown out, for the discussion has reached a stage of no return.   Is Uganda as a state supposed to discuss Feudalism? Hell no for Buganda's having a Monarch is God given, it is like starting to discuss whether you as a Ugandan leader will allow Mulindwa to be a man. You can not do that for it is a given, given any circumstances. Any Ugandan leader who sells his government on we will allow Buganda to keep its kingdom and we will respect it, is not a national leader for you have absolutely nothing to do with the Kingdom of Buganda. But you as a leader must promise to defend Uganda's constitution which ensures freedom of all Ugandan's rights, to associate with anything any organisation they want as far as it is done by the law. If you as a leader are going to start by assuring Baganda to have their kingdom, then you must as well allow a referendum in Buganda its self to know whether all Baganda want a king as their leader, but Kingdoms are not voted on they are a given so you better leave it where it is.   The leader of Uganda must and will always be a number one, heading the entire government of Uganda, a country which has small and big cultural entities, including Buganda. Buganda as a cultural institution runs that line, they decide who will be the next king and who will not, it is not a Uganda's problem.   I gave an example way back of how Iddi Amin named the provinces, we can have those same provinces as they were but go a next step that Amin missed. Let us give them an economical independence, let those provinces generate and invest their own money, but let them be able to be accountable to the central government. What this means is that you can be in Mukono province as by Uganda's Federalism, and I can be in Masaka province as well. Those are two separate provinces, but both of us will be under one cultural kingdom, Buganda. We are culturally  under the same king in Mengo, or wherever the leadership of this kingdom is decided to be built. Sell that kind of federalism in Uganda and every body will follow where you are going, but when you start to tell people that you want all Buganda under one banner but you want karamoja in ten little pieces. No. Uganda's are much smarter to look through that silly joke and it will never sell.   But lastly there is a piece you have posted that I can not let go unchallenged, " Would an Acholi have held fellow Acholi in concentration camps or so-called “protected villages” for over a decade as Museveni has done?   Why or why not?" That has nothing to do with federalism, and that is the kind of very childish reasoning I have in with federalists who yell out doom and groom for everything. Are you saying that today there is no single Mutuusi in Uganda jails? Are you saying that during Amin's government, people from Alur were not thrown into jails? Then what you mean is that Luzira did not have any Mugaanda during Binayisa and Muwanga's time? That is really childish.   What we need is to put stability in our nation, based on rights and not based on tribes in leadership. That is total baloney. Look here okay so now the Banyankole's get their kind of federalism you are pleading for, who will not be put in a concentration camp a Muhima or a Mutusi how do you split that? Will the state ensure that Ankole gets a kingdom from both parties and they switch over and over? That is why it is very dangerous for any national thinking man like you to think that you can plead for a democratic system in Uganda with one side of your mouth and the other pleading for kingdoms. One is a leadership achieved through a free and fair election and the other by birth, how do you compare those two?   Buganda tried long ago to move from a cultural institution to a national institution by getting Sir Edward Muteesa, a King who was not even voted into power to lead Uganda, the results of that action are the ones which are still suffocating Buganda, it is very interesting that Baganda are still pushing for the same. But what else is new? Be well Em            The Mulindwas communication group "With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"       ----- Original Message ----- From: J Ssemakula To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, December 13, 2002 12:02 PM  Netters, What is federalism or in Kiganda parlance “federo”?  My last exchange with Mr. Kipenji on Ugandanet (Dec 6, 2002) on the subject of  ”Go slow on federo says Kabaka Mutebi-Monitor 25/11/2002” contains a common use definition of federalism. We were discussing whether federalism and monarchism are mutually exclusive.  At the bottom of this note, I reproduce the relevant portions of that exchange, slightly edited for readability. I have slightly expanded the quotation from UPC’s document. The added text is colored red.  Here, I merely elaborate on federo as understood by the Baganda as a fulfillment of my promise last week to do so.  Most everyone knows or has heard that per Uganda’s 1962 Independence Constitution, Uganda had (semi?) federal governance and that Kingdom of Buganda was a federal entity within Uganda. While there is nothing out of place with this arrangement, the devilish Obote in his sinister and opportunistic power grab (albeit, stage-managed behind the scenes by Ghana’s megalomaniac the Osagyefo, Kwame Nkrumah), chose to mislead the entire country with his alarmist nonsensical  “state within a state” sound bite. This became the battle cry that was uncritically adopted  (or more appropriately, swallowed hook, line and sinker) by his unsuspecting sycophants.  Had they instead paused long enough to consider it, they would have quickly realized that by conscious design, the very essence of federalism and its raison d’etre, involves ‘a state within a (federal) state’. They would also have found out that this arrangement was painstakingly negotiated and agreed to by all the stakeholders of the time, including the very same power-hungry Obote who’d later betray it.  They would probably also have found out that the concept of federalism has a long human history dating back all the way to Cocceius (1603-1669) and his federal (covenant) theology, based on the idea of two covenants between God and man. Hence, there is absolutely nothing untoward or diabolical about federo.  If Obote’s sycophants had engaged in even rudimentary thought process, they would not have failed to see the advantages of federalism and demanded the same status for their respective home areas, much as the representatives of the Kingdom Buganda had done during the negotiations that led to the 1962 Constitution. Certainly, this would have been much better and sensible than plunging the country, wholesale, into the chaos from which it has never recovered. Why are the Baganda so insistent and adamant about federo?  To us federalism is as natural as breathing.  Consider a child born into a homestead. After a period of dependence on the parents lasting up to 20 years, the child matures and sets up his/her own independent homestead in which the young wo/man is the supreme head.  This, as we all know, does not in any way mean that the child no longer recognizes his/her parents. It only means the young wo/man now takes responsibility for his/her own upkeep, makes decision as to what to eat for dinner, when or if to come back home from an event, etc, etc.  Consider the cultural organization of the Baganda. We each belong to one of some fifty or so exogamous and patrilineal clans. These clans vary in size. Each clan is has a (often) hereditary clan head or leader (Omutaka, Omukulu w’Ekika) and various officials (Bataka). The head of each clan adjudicates matters arising within the clan that he has consensual authority to adjudicate.  The head of a large clan, e.g. Mmamba (Lungfish), cannot interfere, even in the most minute way, in the affairs of another clan, however small        The Mulindwas communication group "With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"