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By Richard M. Kavuma
WEEKLY OBSERVER
Two Italian members of parliament want their government to cut aid to
Uganda and ban President Museveni and his ministers from entering that
country.
According to documents seen by The Weekly Observer, MP Stefano Boco of
the Green Party first tabled the interrogation in the Senate on June
29.
I wish to know if the Italian government has the intention to suspend
funding [the] Ugandan government, Boco said. [I wish to know] if the
Italian government wants to give this condition to President Museveni and
his ministers: you will not enter in Italy, if you do not respect human
rights.
However, Italys ambassador in Kampala, Mr. Maurizio Teucci,
this week ruled out such drastic action, saying Uganda still had good
relations with his country.
Boco had also asked Foreign Affairs minister Gianfranco Fini what steps
Italy had taken to stop the use of child soldiers in Uganda.
Another Green MP, Luana Zanella, then made a similar statement in the
lower Chamber of Deputies on July 18.
In the background to his
petition, Boco said Museveni had rigged the 2001 elections and was
bribing MPs to amend the Constitution so he could stand again in
2006.
The MPs that are opposed to this project are beaten, as happened
to three of them in October 2004, or arrested, as happened to Reagan Okumu
and Michael Ocula on 20th April 2005, he said.
Ugandan soldiers last year beat up MPs Ogenga Latigo (Agago), Odonga
Otto (Aruu), Reagan Okumu (Aswa) and Michael Ocula (Kilak). The MPs, all
opposed to a Museveni third term, were due to sensitise the people about
the Constitutional amendment exercise at Acholi Bur in Pader district.
Okumu and Ocula are on trial for alleged murder, charges widely
perceived as politically motivated. The soldiers, who allegedly beat up
the MPs, have since been sentenced to one years imprisonment by a UPDF
court martial.
Museveni risks travel ban
Citing reports of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the
American State Department, Boco told the Italian Senate that from October
2004 at least 60 opposition supporters have been charged with treason.
To strengthen his argument that Uganda lacked good governance, Boco
said Britain had cut Shs14 billion in aid to Uganda and Ireland was due
to cut 4 billion.
Boco also mentioned Ugandas invasion of the D.R. Congo and the alleged
plunder of Congolese resources by Ugandans, as well as accusations that
the UPDF was using child soldiers.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, in
his annual report to the Security Council about child soldiers, published
on February 16th 2005, accused the Uganda Government of using child
soldiers in their national army and recommended a proper intervention,
with prohibition of entry in Europe and America and freeze of bank
accounts for Uganda ministers, and arms embargo, if there are not
significant changes, Boco said.
Boco also told senators that the Ugandan army threatened to arrest Fr.
Carlos Rodriguez after the Spanish missionary working in northern Uganda,
wrote about the presence of child-soldiers in Uganda.
Not true picture
Sources in Rome told The Weekly Observer that concerned Italian MPs now
want to push for a substantial motion in parliament to impose travel
restrictions on Museveni and his ministers before the end of this
year.
But ambassador Teucci said his ministry of Foreign Affairs would simply
respond to MPs Boco and Zanella in writing.
From what Teucci knows,
however, there is no evidence that the UPDF deploys child soldiers in
battle.
He said European Union ambassadors had closely followed the claims
about child soldiers; but all they found was that the army temporarily
kept children it rescued from LRA rebels before releasing them to
rehabilitation centres.
Teucci, who has been in Uganda since 2001, said Italy would not stop
the about $ 20 million it gives Uganda annually nor bar Museveni or his
ministers from the country.
Our funding goes to the poor people of Uganda. We do not give
budget-support, he said, adding that he had seen no evidence of
systematic violation of human rights in Uganda.
The ambassador also
dismissed allegations that Ugandan MPs opposed to the lifting of term
limits had been beaten up and opposition supporters were being kept in
safe houses. He instead echoed the Ugandan government position that all
safe houses have since been closed.
The MPs will get a written response, but this is not a true
representation of the situation in Uganda, Teucci said.
Foreign
Affairs minister Sam Kutesa said he was not even aware of the petition in
the Italian parliament. He would not discuss the issue further as he had
just lost his mother.
Information minister James Nsaba Buturo invited the Italian MPs to
Uganda to assess the situation in the country, instead of relying on
sources that give them wrong information.
I would like to give an assurance that our government is committed to
democratisation, Buturo said, adding that the transition process was
progressing very well.
Isolation?
The move by Italys Green Party comes amidst concerns that Ugandas
image abroad is fast falling from beacon of good governance to that of a
failed transition to genuine democracy.
President Musevenis decision to amend the Constitution to remove term
limits appeared bad enough only to be outdone by Shs 5 million selectively
given to compliant MPs.
Government recently had to hire a London public
relations firm, Hill and Knowlton, to polish its image at Shs 1.2 billion.
The investment appears to have initially paid off, with Museveni suddenly
getting a lot of good international press.
However, Britain, Ireland and Norway still cut $4 million of aid over
the transition to democracy, which they wanted to be expedited and made
more transparent.
I am very concerned with the ongoing situation in Uganda and I believe
that by reducing our direct funding to the administration, in partnership
with other countries, it will send a very clear message about political
reform, Irish Foreign minister Dermot Ahern said in May.
Germany, the United States and the UK have also quietly denied entry
visas to Ugandan businesspeople and senior military officers deemed to
have benefited from official corruption, especially those cited in the
plunder of the D.R. Congo resources.
In recent months, key world dignitaries have visited the region and
skipped Uganda. Mr. Gordon Brown, British Chancellor and anointed heir to
Prime Minister Tony Blair was earlier this year in Kenya and Tanzania;
American first lady Laura Bush visited Tanzania and Rwanda; former U.S.
President Bill Clinton was in Mozambique, Rwanda and Zanzibar last month;
and Mr. Blair and U.S. Secretary of State and potential Republican
presidential candidate Condoleezza Rice were also recently in Sudan.
None of them came to Uganda, which would a few years ago have been an
almost automatic part of their respective itineraries.
Of course, as Nsaba Buturo noted, each of them had specific reasons for
going to the above countries and their not coming here is not necessarily
a sign of deteriorating relations.
Buturo argued that when Mr. and Mrs. Bush visited Uganda in 2003, they
did not go Kenya.
Yet, as Makerere University Political Science
lecturer Mohammed Kulumba noted recently, some political observers feel
that Uganda has been overtaken by the likes of Ghana and Tanzania as signs
of hope on a continent awash with corruption and autocratic leadership.
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