Opinion: No one is financing the Bobi Wine Riots, Mr. President!

Well, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, your claiming the ones going to the street is financed to destroy the economy of the Republic. They don’t need to go to the street for doing so, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) and the ways your running the country. Your destroying the economy perfectly well, as the OTT Tax isn’t giving the added revenue as expected. Therefore, you should carry your words with a little more worry. Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine and his independents are not financing people to go the streets. They are already tired of you and your kind. The Bush-war entitlement. That is why I will show the connection with Gadaffi and how he used to sponsor you with guns and ammunition during the bush-war.

“Greetings again. Yesterday while talking about the Security forces and the Bobi Wine group, I made reference to financiers of rioters who hope to damage the economy of Uganda which is, finally, taking off by developing fast” (Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, 24.08.2018).

So, President Museveni might be forgetful, as he is blaming others for what he did himself. People like me doesn’t forget, but he does. Museveni wouldn’t been able to win a prolonged war on his empty stomach and empty words. He needed support, as he claimed to have little connections with others. But there are proof that he got massive support from Muamar Gaddafi.

“Idi Amin’s former Minister of Finance, Brig. Moses Ali, along with an economist, Dr. Suleiman Kiggundu, Ugandan Muslim clerics Shiekh Ali Kulumba and Shiekh Obeid Kamulegeya, and a businessman called Habib Hassan Kagimu are the men who introduced Yoweri Museveni, the leader of a news fighting group the National Resistance Army (NRA), to Gaddafi in 1981 and so started the Libyan sponsorship of the NRA guerrillas” (…)”Libya then started air dropping heavy field guns and rocket launchers into the NRA camps in Luwero Triangle in central Uganda in 1982, greatly boosting the NRA guerrillas and making possible their victory in Jan. 1986” (…)”Brig Ali was in jail in Kampala when Gaddafi first visited Uganda led by Museveni in 1987. Ali had to be taken out of jail after Gaddafi asked about his whereabouts” (…)”In the early days of the new NRM government, several officers and men of the new national army, the National Resistance Army (NRA) were sent to Libya for military training” (Dispatch, 2011).

With this in mind, maybe, just maybe, someone like Museveni should be more careful with his words. He remembers back when he got the supplies and the needed boost from Libya to able to gain power. Of late his army wouldn’t been supplied or even have the weapons they carry, if the United States didn’t boast him. Therefore, he should be a little more careful with his words. Musveni are claiming unfound and unproven words.

He is just putting up empty allegations on Bobi Wine and the rioters, the demonstrators and the people who are using their civic duty, as they are tired of Museveni and his tyranny. He should understand that, as his entitled ass, is thinking they all are his pawns. Like all the lackeys in the cabinet and such. Museveni, your rhetoric and use words are only using it words. As you have been putting and name-calling the supporters. Calling pseudo-intellectuals, fascists and terrorists. Therefore, now claiming they are sponsored is just mere spin.

I don’t know what is going through his mind. But someone who has sponsored all his life, who has been a donor-darling and gotten direct state aid to dwindle that all away without much results. Should be careful with his words. Instead, he is blaming the rioters for being paid and planning this to hurt the economy. However, the economy is destroyed by him and his henchmen. They don’t need help to do that. They do that without help of the peasants. Peasants are dwelling in the streets awaiting the next opportunity anyway. Not like the President is opening the door or creating a better state of affairs. He is just eating himself. Peace.

Reference:

Dispatch.co.ug – ‘Uganda’s long complicated relationship with Gaddafi’ (07.04.2011) Link: http://www.dispatch.ug/ugandas-long-complicated-relatioship-with-gaddafi/1745/

Only ignorant smucks are proposing a “Libyan Model” concerning transition of Power!

There are these gentlemen of the world, who are just modeling the world under a paradigm as long as you get rid of dictators and totalitarian leaders. Everything will be fine and dandy, they think killing a leader and suddenly his reign will fall. They think that the idea of going in with military and militias are the solution to cross over to a democratic models. However, this sort of activity is only risky and usually opens up a can of worms, that no-one can predict, as the civil service and the power-vacuum created isn’t filled. While the militias, the weapons and the new war-lords can create new conflict and pro-longed civil wars to get their party to control the new government. Therefore, when people like John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence and Donald J. Trump are saying they want a Libyan model. They are not considering the implications.

They are saying it is fine to support militias to kill a leader, to destroy his political and military party, to destroy the nation building project around that person and try to force someone else through a military solution. That is a proxy war with support and help from allies. This meaning NATO and other bombing from air, while militias are supported with arms and ammunition. That is all to conquer and take down a dictator. Instead of trying to get a peaceful takeover with a transitional period and also dialogue, that takes time and build trust between all stakeholders. They are anticipating that the final nail in the coffin and the killings of a leader is the key moment, that will create a brave new world.

In October 2012, the Human Rights Watch published a report called ‘Death of a Dictator – Bloody Vengeance in Sirte’ which stated: “Video clips filmed by mobile phone cameras at the time of Gaddafi’s capture and posted on social media sites offer visual evidence for at least one such execution. In one video clip showing Gaddafi in the custody of militia fighters at the drainage pipes just moment after his capture, a dazed but alive young man with his right leg in a cast can be seen sitting down on the ground behind Muammar Gaddafi and his captors, appearing virtually unharmed, with his hands raised in a gesture of surrender. As the phone camera pans away from the young man and focuses on Gaddafi and his captors, several short bursts of machine gun fire can be heard in the background. In a second video clip apparently filmed just moments later, a group of men captured from the convoy are filmed on the main road above the culvert with the drainage pipes being brutally beaten by militiamen, and the phone camera then pans down to show the same young man with the cast on his leg lying lifelessly among the bodies of several dead Gaddafi loyalists, with blood still flowing from his wounds. While the actual moment of his killing was not caught on camera, the two video clips taken together strongly suggest that he was shot dead by militia fighters in the moments immediately after his capture, as there do not appear to be any exchanges of gunfire taking place at the time the videos were recorded. A Human Rights Watch inspection of his body the day after the killing found that he had been shot in the chest and the upper right leg” (Human Rights Watch, P: 30-31, 2012).

So, when this is the ending of someone who ruled Libya for decades on end and had total control. When you say you want this model, that must mean you want militias to come in and get rid of his body in a demeaning way. What else can it mean? Because the Libyan model is supporting militias to get rid of Gaddafi, but not having support or plans of succession. Neither what sort of government and legitimate ruler there was supposed to come after. The reports from Libya ever since is chaos and continued fighting, a pro-longed civil war that has lasted for 7 years from 2011 to 2018. That was supported by Western Allies and has ended in countless tragedies.

Therefore, I am amazed when the likes of the Trump Administration proposes a ‘Libyan model’, do they want to promote civil wars and destruction of nations, just so they can have a puppet and they can control the resources? Is that the norm and values of the United States?

Because, it is seemingly as long as there is no peaceful transition and no sort of temporary impasse for all stakeholders within a conflict. There will be more blood shed and less of evolution to a peaceful and legitimate government. It has been changes from dictators without bloodshed, when the dictators has stepped down and gotten ‘untouchable’ and put in exile. While the state could have figure out new maneuvers within a transitional time, so that the parties and stakeholders could get their slice of the newfound peace. Not just figure out ways to eat and control, but actually fill the vacuum left after the fall. But that is all a pipe-dream as the super-powers want to bomb places to oblivion, kill the leader and loot the nations, while leaving the people dry and hoping that the empty pockets and plates doesn’t retaliate towards the puppets installed. It is like we never learn and that our leaders never want to learn. Peace.

Opinion: EU Envoy Schmidt are speaking like an NRM apologist similar to Ofwono Opondo over Besigye’s 2016 Election defiance!

I feel sorry for European Union Envoy Kristian Schmidt who are now sounding like a National Resistance Movement (NRM) apologist, instead of an independent spirit and understanding of the short-falls of the NRM Regime. He seems to been misunderstanding what happen during the General Election 2016. Surely, he wants the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) and Dr. Kizza Besigye, to say it just water under bridge and let it go. Since the Supreme Court followed the orders of the 31 Years and counting President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. First introduce some of the beautiful words of Ofwono Opondo, before the Kristian Schmidt’s foolish interview with Daily Monitor, before enlightening fellow European of his ignorance or forgetting the blatant impunity towards Besigye and FDC in and around the General Election 2016. Since he has forgotten while drinking Nile Brew in the Embassy and going on Safaries with his dignitaries. Surely, Schmidt must feel good about himself!

““In this election, Besigye gained 1.5 million votes compared to two million votes he got in 2011 while Museveni’s gain was a paltry 500,000. To the NRM strategists, this is the most shocking, indeed worrying trend, and having located the cause as being our messaging, strategy, campaign style, internal laxity, occasioned fraud and widespread bickering. We shall not blame anybody else except ourselves. Actually, to be frank, we were almost swept away by our collective failure to robustly respond to the Opposition demagoguery on issues of youth unemployment, despair among the urban population, poor and yet expensive public service delivery and bad public relations, especially to distribution of soft campaign cash that often got stolen along the way among other issues. This, to the Besigye camp, should give hope that with better strategic organisation, not only falsehoods, they can in the future topple NRM through the ballot instead of being bad losers” (…) ““The claims of rigging, especially at the last minute through alleged intimidation of candidates’ agents, ballot stuffing, falsification or alteration of results on tally and declaration sheets and at announcements are perturbing and incredibly unbelievable. These could pass as truth if the peddlers could at least adduce some verifiable evidence from eyewitnesses and documents in their possession that differ from those of the EC, which ought to be available from the multiple sources, including the media that observed these elections” (Opondo, 2016).

So when a NRM spokesperson and Uganda Media Centre director had to come in defense of his master. In the aftermath and with the current illegitimate government. Who has no problems in misusing the government funds and had no problem rigging the election in their favor. As the FDC had massive scores of leaders behind bars, had people with Declarations Forms from Polling Stations at Gun-Point, had their Headquarter barricaded and sealed off, Besigye was under house-arrest and the story goes on. Not an adventure, but a true theft a nation. Still Schmidt says this to the FDC and former Presidential Candidate:

“He added: “That is of course an issue that is dividing but I think it would have been good to come together and discuss. It has not happened and election reforms seem to be not going forward.” (…) “The law of Uganda is what it is: the conditions of petitions are what they are, and for a petition to be successful you have to do a lot of homework. Under your Constitution I believe you have little time, 10 days. I know one of the recommendations of the Supreme Court is to extend that time which I believe makes sense.” (…) “ He said “I think if Dr Besigye was convinced before elections that he would not be happy with the outcomes and the process, he should have been the one to petition. He should have prepared for that but he decided before that he was not going to and under the rule of law.” (Musisi, 2017).

EU Envoy to Uganda Kristian Schmidt, I know you visited him while on undetermined house-arrest. Since the Police Force had been stationed in Kasangati, Wakiso for so long days before the election and until May 2016. When he was able to escape and have his own swearing-in ceremony, before air-lifted to Moroto, where the state charged him with Treason charges. Which he still carries today, he is an arch-criminal and seen as an enemy of the state. Than after all of this, you talk about rule of law, justice and courts. Like Dr. Kizza Besigye haven’t had his time in court, haven’t been detained on more occasions than ordinary thief, even more than average murderers in the Republic.

So, the FDC was unable to counter with a petition, Amama Mbabazi was the only one able to fill in a form or petition. Because FDC has done so after General Election 2011. So it is like the EU Envoy for Uganda Schmidt is not in concern anymore of all the breaches that happen to Besigye. Like the whole House-Arrest period, the whole part of the general assault on the rule of law considering the elections and polls. The self sufficient pre-ticket ballots and Badru Kiggundu’s own special math-class. The statistics and the vicious attempt of forging the whole election in favor of President Museveni.

It like he wants the one on Treason Charges since May 2016, since the coup d’etat in February 20^th 2016, when the Electoral Commission announced the result. That as the whole NRM and state organization was behind the whole ordeal. Even the European Election Observation Mission and the Commonwealth Election Observation Mission was explaining the massive flaws of the General Election. Still, the EU Envoy want Besigye just to let it go.

Let’s take his first reasoning, since it is shows his true passion, the Danish dignitary: “Now if this was in any other democracy, like in some European countries, it would be unacceptable that the Opposition party does not then recognise the winner of the elections” (Musisi, 2017). If this was an election in Europe, all of these ploys of the NRM wouldn’t have happen. Not normally, that the army is used to intimidate, that local leaders are paid-off with new cars, that ballot are pre-ticket ballots and all powers to be to silence the FDC. Together with the obvious rigging and mismatch of acts in favor of Museveni. If this would not have happen in a European elections and EU Envoy to Uganda knows this. That why it is remarkable that he says about Besigye.

Besigye knows better and the Ugandan people knows so. They are not fools, even if Schmidt is sounding like Ofwono Opondo and has taken lectures from Andrew Mwenda. He surely has hanged in the same bars in Kampala as these two. To sound so blatant ignorant and so forgetful. Peace.

Reference:

Opondo, Ofwono – ‘The media shouldn’t parrot Opposition false claims’ (28.03.2016) link: http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/Commentary/Media-parrot-Opposition-false-claims/-/689364/3135890/-/2m2g7v/-/index.html

Musisi, Fredric – ‘Besigye refusal to recognise government not helpful – EU envoy’ (09.07.2017) link: http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Besigye-refusal-recognise-government-not-helpful-EU-envoy/688334-4006606-er8gyr/index.html

Hon. Evelyn Anite clearly doesn’t know the fair market regulation in the Communication Act of 2000!

 

“Speaking at the launch, the State Minister of Finance for Investment and Privatization, Hon Evelyn Anite praised UTL for taking the lead in spearheading such initiatives” (Uganda Telecom, 19.06.2017)

Honourable Evelyn Anite, the State Minister for Investment and Privatization, the one who was speaking on the 19^th June 2017 at the Constitutional Square in Kampala. This is where she uttered words of special disgrace. Especially in a free-market ideology that the National Resistance Movement (NRM) has bought into with the Structural Adjustment Plan (SAP). Together with the privatization of all sort of markets. Uganda Telecom isn’t the only Cellphone provider or the ones delivering telephone services in Uganda. There are dozens owned by local and by foreign investors. These are all from MTN to Airtel, even Smile Telecom and others. These are in competition and is one of the most profitable industries in Uganda.

Therefore, just look into what the Privatization Minister said yesterday, which is interesting.

“Once the managerial problems at Uganda Telecom have been fixed, Ugandans will be compelled to own a UTL Simcard just like having the national identity (ID) card Evelyn Anite, the outspoken State minister for Investment and Privatization has revealed” (…) “”It did not take us to get somebody from another country to come and fix what is [problems] in UTL. We’re not yet done but we are close by…I want to tell you something; that once we fix the problems in Utl, it is going to be compulsory for Ugandans to hold a UTL line just as it is for you to have a national ID, you must have a Ugandan line. That is the spirit of patriotism”, she said” (URN, 2017).

Sometimes, there should be given some public ethics and governance practices to fellow ministers, as their reach and their possible outreach of laws and proposals. Even the State Minister Anite should learn some parts of the Uganda Communications Act of 2000, which says: “56. Commission to encourage fair competition. The commission shall, in the performance of its functions under this Act, promote, develop and enforce fair competition and equality of treatment among all operators in any business or service relating to communication“ (Uganda Communication Act, 2000). So the laws abiding by the state itself, says it is supposed to be fair, but what is even more neat.

The Second section in Part X, which is worth looking at, since this is the exact part that the operators and the Minister totally forgotten or overlooked, if ever have read: “57. Prohibition of acts exhibiting unfair competition. An operator shall not engage in any activities, whether by act or omission, which have, or are intended to or likely to have, the effect of unfairly preventing, restricting or distorting competition in relation to any business activity relating to communications services. Without limiting the generality of subsection (1), an act or omission referred to under that subsection shall include— any abuse by an operator, either independently or with others, of a dominant position which unfairly excludes or limits competition between the operator and any other party; entering any agreement or engaging in any concerted practice with any other party, which unfairly prevents, restricts or distorts. competition; or (c) the effectuation of anticompetitive changes in the market structure and, in particular, anticompetitive mergers and acquisitions in the communications sector. Neither the Uganda Telecom Limited nor any of its affiliates shall hold or acquire an ownership interest in the second national operator or its affiliates. Neither the second national operator nor its affiliates shall hold or acquire an ownership interest in the Uganda Telecom Limited or any of its affiliates” (Uganda Communication Act, 2000).

So the idea of the State Minister of Privatization are actually thinking of making provisions for the failing state-owned company Uganda Telecom, to get all citizens to have sim-cards and making them costumers in the midst of free-market and also in the midst of all competitions. This is clearly a massive breach of the law and these pieces of legislation. You don’t need to be a scholar or a man of wisdom to understand the possible problems of UTL. This clearly can be seen as limiting the competition and the other companies, as the state only in this way looks into UTL and not helping the other companies. Because she didn’t say all citizens should have MTN and Airtel too, only mentioned UTL.

This is not enforcing free and fair competition and equality of treatment between them. The words of State Minister Evelyn Anite isn’t enacted or become law, even a motion to Parliament. But shows the disregard for functioning law by the own Parliamentarians. That is clearly needed and Speaker Rebecca Kadaga should get the functioning staff to teach their fellow MPs. So they know their laws and provisions within their departments. This so they don’t create these sort of embarrassment, which Anite has done yesterday and revealed today. If not maybe a NRM Caucus at Kyankwanzi could be a learning seminar instead of bashing in the glory of the President and his controlling ways. Peace.

Reference:

URN – ‘Uganda: UTL Simcards to Become Mandatory for Ugandans – Anite’ (20.06.2017) link: http://allafrica.com/stories/201706200332.html

URSB: Press Statement on Provisional Administration of Uganda Telecom Limited (28.04.2017)

Libya: Regarding recent development concerning UTL (03.03.2017)

Government Takeover of Management and Affairs of Uganda Telecom Limited (UTL) – (01.03.2017)

UCC letter: “Termination of Interconnection Agreement with Uganda Telecom” (30.01.2017)

Uganda Telecom Press Statement on the Economic Situation of the Company (25.11.2016)

Press Statement: Uganda Telecom – False Sale Rumours (19.10.2016)

Uganda Telecom Limited wishes to address the false and misleading stories that have been published in sections of the media, particularly in online publications, regarding the sale of the company. Uganda Telecom has not been sold nor is in the process of being sold.

Our two shareholders are working closely to ensure that the company strategy and business plan are implemented. Uganda Telecom continues to broaden its portfolio of services and remains dedicated to innovation and offering our customers the highest possible service levels.

For more information, please contact;

Tonny Achidria

Public Relations Officer|

Telephone House

Plot 2A-4A Speke Road | P O Box 7171 | Kampala – Uganda

Ext: +256 414 333781 | Mob: +256715968897 |

Tonny.Achidria@utl.co.ug |