This is the kind of stuff Oloya Opio (The ESO agent in Canad?) should have been writing and doing instead of discouraging Ugandans from agitating against the Third term as he did recently!
Brother Ochan..thanks!
Gook
"You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom."- Malcom X
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Subject: ugnet_: QUEST FOR PEACE: LETTER TO PRESIDENT BUSH
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2003 21:58:50 -0400
Mr. President,
This is an exciting time in America for peace lovers and those who cherish justice. This is a Godsend time for those suffering under repressive dictators and governments. Your actions against international terrorism and dictatorial regimes have put hopes for peace and democracy in the hearts of all the oppressed of this world. We the members, board of directors, and the executives committee of Friends for Peace in Africa (FPA) have such hope and we, therefore, humbly ask you to answer our cry for peace in Northern Uganda.This is because President Museveni has been waging a vicious war against child soldiers in Northern Uganda for the past 17 years and forcing innocent citizens to live in camps under horrendous conditions.
Although President Museveni is sometimes portrayed as an African leader of the new breed, he has a dark side that most American people do not know. President Museveni has been fomenting war in the Great Lake Region of East and Central Africa long before he became President of Uganda. He overthrew the governments of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Zaire. In each of these countries, unprecedented levels of killing attended the overthrow governments, the best known of which was the Rwanda genocide of 1994. He tried, though without appreciable success, to do the same in Kenya through the Wakenya rebels, and in Sudan through the SPLA. In his own country, he has herded a whole Acholi nationality into concentration camps, ostensibly to protect them from the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels. He and his brother Gen. Salim Saleh now have plans to completely destroy the Acholi people and take away their land.
As you prepare to host President Museveni at the White House this week, we humbly bring up the following observations and request that you ask him for explanations during your discourse.
1. The government of Uganda herded up the Acoli people into 'protected villages' in 1996, supposedly to protect them against raids by the LRA. Yet the LRA raids these camps, kills, and abducts children unchallenged by the Uganda Peoples Defense Forces (UPDF). The Acoli people are starving in the Internally Displaced People's (IDP) camps. The UPDF won't allow them to go back home and plant food crops. The Uganda government, on the other hand, is not providing food aid, sanitation, water, medical services, or school for children. Since the UPDF has shown that it is neither able to defeat the LRA nor protect the camps, why can't the President allow the Acoli to return to their homesas they want to?
2. Several years ago, President Museveni boasted that he had the second most powerful military in the worldsecond only to that of the USA. How can the 'second most powerful military in the world' fail to defeat a ragtag guerilla army made up mostly of 8-13 year old children? Yet, he continues to ask for military assistance from donor countries to arm his troops against the abducted children turned rebel child soldiers.
3. The Uganda government claims that the UPDF went into Congo to protect its citizens and prevent another genocide at the scale of the 1994 Rwanda massacre. Why was this potential genocide more of an emergency than the actual one happening in northern Uganda? Why should President Museveni spend so much financial and military resources trying to 'prevent a genocide' in Congo but when he should stop the one that has been going on in his own count ry? Why has President Museveni who has negotiated settlements of disputes between Uganda and Rwanda, Uganda and Sudan, Burundi and its rebels and between the Uganda Government and it other rebel groups, steadfastly refused to end the war in Northern Uganda by negotiation.
4. The Uganda government goes to donor countries every year to ask for more money to fight the LRA, but the LRA grows stronger every year. Every year, the defense budget and other defense-related appropriations take up ever-bigger percentages of the national budget, a budget that is 50% subsidized by donor countries. Where is the money going, and why are corrupt UPDF officers and government officials not made to account for their actions? What and when does he plan to do with the UPDF officers and government officials implicated in the Congo looting and other acts of corruption?
5. The median age of the LRA rebels drops every year, and is now closer to 12. When the UPDF fights them, it actually kills children it had failed to prevent from being abducted by the LRA and turned into child solders in the first place. Does the President feel good when his soldiers kill children? When he talks of "wiping out Joseph Kony and his LRA," why doesn't he realize that he is talking about wiping out Acoli children? When his soldiers report many rebels killed, does he not realize they are talking about killing children? Mr. Museveni has proclaimed on numerous occasions since 1992 that the UPDF would "soon wipe out the LRA." Why hasn't it happened?
6. Many local, national, and international groups, foreign governments (including that of the US), and individuals (including the Pope) have called on President Museveni to seek a peaceful resolution of the northern conflict by negotiating peace with the LRA. On several occasions, the LRA has shown some willingness to negotiate, and made overtures to the government through the Acoli Parliamentary Group (APG), the Acoli Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI), The Rwodi (Acoli chiefs), pries ts, other groups, and individuals. While President Museveni agrees in words to negotiate, he has repeatedly refused to in fact negotiate, and pronounced a complete military victory on the battlefield as the only acceptable conclusion to the conflict. He always puts up preconditions on any proposed negotiation process that he knows the LRA officers could never acceptand they always don't. Why is the President so opposed to negotiation of any kind? Does he not realize that by steadfastly insisting on military victory against the LRA (a victory that has failed to materialize in 17 years), he is in essence committing himself and his army to creating a state of permanent war or totally wiping out the Acoli people? We see this as a serious crime against humanity.
President Museveni can end the war in northern Uganda; and he can do it easily. The war has been the reason to be president for Museveni for many years, and why he wants a third, fourth, fifth, .life term as president. It is therefore in his own best financial and career interests to perpetuate the war as long as it can keep him in the State House. Although Uganda does not yet harbor terrorists that can credibly threaten the US, Museveni is creating a condition in the Great Lake Region of Africa that is extremely favorable to the emergence of a terrorist culture and mentality. He must be stopped.
We believe that it is very important for your Administration to categorically state its position on the IDP camps which were forcefully created by the government and its inhabitants continue to be victimized by both government troops and the LRA rebels. We do not believe that your Administration and the American people whose tax money is used to arm President Museveni's soldiers directly or indirectly, would knowingly approve of his troops using such arms to kill child rebel soldiers who are victims of the war he refuses to end by negotiation.
The FPA and the people of the Lake region of Africa appeal to your Administration to join the Euro pean Union countries, international public and private agencies that operate in Uganda, and local bodies to demand that Museveni abandon the military approach and instead pursue a negotiated settlement of the conflict in northern Uganda.
Friends for Peace in Africa is a 501(c) 3 organization based in the US and Canada and headquartered in Los Angeles. Our mission is to facilitate and mediate through dialogue, advocacy, and empowerment, the implementation of conditions that enable every individual in all regions of Africa, to live and develop to his/her fullest potential in an atmosphere of peace.
Respectfully,
Ochan Otim, Ph.D.
President.
Friends for Peace in Africa, P. O. Box 412131, Los Angeles, CA 90041-2131.
Cc. Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Condoleeza Rice, National Security Advisor
Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
The Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"
Groupe de communication Mulindwas
"avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie"
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