I know I am born in 1985, but I am tired of the year of 1986 and the year National Resistance Army (NRA). The now National Resistance Movement (NRM) and President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. The liberation movement that has run the republic since 1986. This war lasted from 1981 to 1986, the NRA went out of the Milton Obote II government after the illegitimate election of 1980s. Which from then on has been used as the scapegoat and the ones to put to blame for ever since.
The 1986 is the magical year that Museveni entered into supremacy. The Supreme kingpin and mastermind of all it. Sowing the mustard seed and creating a newer safer Republic. The one time the peasants was supposed to have their say in government and make the republic a democracy. The Republic of Uganda was going from strong-men and big-men to run the Republic. Instead, it has been now three decades with manufactured democracy in-line with the vision of Museveni.
President Museveni have used all techniques to fix election results, paying villagers and making new government forms to fit his paradigm. Instead of releasing his promises he has built elite around him that is loyal to his brown envelopes or public fearing his security organizations. This is a special coming from the man promises all the possible governance and government structures needed, if he got into power. Instead, he has done the opposite.
It was supposed to get into a middle-Income Country instead of the Less Developed Country, which is the state is in now. The LDC that Uganda now is because of the state of government that President Museveni has created around him. That can be seen with amounts of debt, the massive overspending on the State House and the pledges around the President. Government of Uganda, GoU have been built around Museveni, instead of institutions and procedures. Therefore, the state are following the orders of the President and his Presidential Handshakes.
That is why, every-time in a speech at any sort of occasion the President will mention 1986 and how the state used to be. As of today 1 out of 5 in the Republic or 21% are between 15 to 24 year old. And by 2016 there we’re only 2% who are older than 65 years old. Which means that the President are part of a minority age bracket. President Museveni 30 years old rule are older than many of the youths in the Republic. They should also wonder what is so special about the years they never we’re living and about governments they never lived under. There are big proportions of the population who cannot remember or has been apart of the first years of the NRA or the civil-war during the 1980s.
They would be like me, they would feel the same fatigue of the NRA and Museveni rule, the extension of the liberation from Obote and Amin. The ones that Museveni mention whenever he needs someone or somebody to blame. Certainly mention 1986. The 1986 that are the most important year since independence, therefore, the NRM Day, the 26th January 1986, liberation day. Instead of the Independence Day 9th October 1962. That one is not so often mentioned by the President, since he didn’t get them out of the British Empire and not be a British Protectorate anymore.
Still, the 9th October 1962 doesn’t seem to be important for Museveni, the 26th January 1986 is the most vital one. The one that sets the standard, the day that changed everything and gave him total access. Therefore, the celebration of 1986 is so key and be levied at any occasion, and at any speech. President Museveni praises his overthrow of Amin, Obote, Okello and Biniasa.
They all just had to be overthrown, he had to make coup d’etat and make folklore out of it. So his name can ring out and be praised. Let it be clear, the President sings 1986… 1986… 1986… like a jingle never stopping. Peace.
Obote government did this infrastructure development (among others) in less than 5 years (1967-71):
1. Pakwach Bridge (West Nile)
2. Almost all the tarmac roads built in Uganda after independence, beyond the Entebbe-Kampala axis
• The New Entebbe International Airport
• Soroti Flying School
• Airfields and aerodromes in most of the original 18 districts of Uganda
• International Conference Centre and Nile Hotel (now Serena Hotel and Conference Centre)
• The dual carriage-way from Jinja to Kakira
• Iganga-Tirinyi Road
• The Pakwach-Arua Highway (West Nile)
• The Gulu-Pakwach road
* The Jinja-Kamuli highway
• The Kampala-Mbarara-Ntungamo Highway
• The Ntungamo-Kabale Highway
• The Kampala-Mityana Highway
• The Kampala-Gulu Highway
• Most of the feeder roads in the coffee-cotton-matooke areas of Butembe and Bugabula in Busoga
• First Class Murram roads in all the areas of the country growing cash crops (coffee, cotton, tobacco, sisal and pyrethrum), where there was a Cooperative Union, stretching from West Nile, Acholi, Lango, Teso, Bugisu, Bukedi, Busoga, Buganda, Bunyoro, Ankole, Toro and Kigezi
• The Arua-Koboko Road (West Nile)
• The Busia-Tororo-Mbale-Soroti-Lira-Gulu highway
• The railway from Busia to Gulu
• National Housing and Construction Corporation
• Kampala’s Crested Towers building
• Bugolobi Flats in Kampala
• Kampala’s Wandegeya Flats
• Kampala’s Bukoto Flats
• In virtually all district towns, the housing estates known as “Senior Quarters” and “Junior Quarters” built for new civil servants under the programme to Africanise Uganda’s Civil Service
• Dozens of Post Offices and telephone exchanges across the country and the extension of the national telephone system beyond Entebbe, Jinja and Kampala
• East African Airways
• Uganda Transport [Bus] Corporation, serving southern and western Uganda
• Peoples Transport [Bus] Company, serving northern and eastern Uganda
• East African Railways and Harbours Corporation
• The Port Bell railway link
• The Busoga railway loop (Iganga-Kamuli-Busembatia-Iganga)
• The Jinja pier (enabling cargo from Lake Victoria to be transferred to rail and road)
• The Kalangala ferry and ferries on Lake Kyoga and Lake Bisina in Teso
• Tarmac upgrade of the Kampala-Mukono highway and the highway from Mukono to Busia.
Here is what Museveni has done since 1986 until now in 2014!
If this doesn’t make your mind wonder and also how come? Its not more built since 1986..
That is something we all should ask ourself and the NRM government. But, I don’t think they will answer in a proper way which the truth isn’t massaged into a perfect message that fit their view and make everything into a golden goose. Where they will tell that in just a few years it have a economy that is of a middelclass county and be without corruption. Trust me, you will hear that in the near future. An so many times that your ears hurt!
On the 29th of January 1986 Yoweri Museveni was inaugurated as president, who in the last week battled for the capitol city Kampala and overthrow of Tito Okello. Museveni himself on the matter: “Mere Change of Guards” (…)”Nobody is to think that what is happening today, what has been happening in the last few days is a mere change of guards” (…)”This is not a mere change of guards. I think this is a fundamental change in the politics of our government” (…)”Any individual, any group or person who threatens the security of our people must be smashed without mercy” (…)”The people of Uganda should only die from natural causes which are not under our control” (Rule, 1986). Museveni’s thoughts on democracy: “the right of the people of Africa” and about government: “the masters but the servers of the population”. He continued: “The solution is to have enough strength to ship the whole garbage and put it where it belongs, on the garbage heap of history” (Rule, 1986).
Libyan support for NRA/NRM:
“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. Gaddafi also helped supply the Rwandan guerrillas, the RPF, with weapons in 1990 in the early stages of their invasion of Rwanda. The Libyan weapons were airlifted into Uganda and then the Museveni government passed them on to the RPF rebels” (…)”When Uganda failed to repay money she owed Libya, the debt was swapped for Libyan shares in the Uganda Telecom phone company, the Crested Towers and National Housing and Construction Corporation housing estates in Kampala and the Windsor Lake Victoria Hotel in Entebbe” (Dispatch, 2011).
In the 1986 – Creating an oil company:
Libyan has sent a trade delegation (both medical and financial teams). President Museveni has discussed to have a Joint Holding Company with Doctor Mukhtar. Both Government of Uganda and Government of Libya announced that their examining opportunities to set up an Oil Company. Since 1979 war against Amin the Libyan Peoples Bureau had 6 six employees, the staff has now a higher profile in Kampala. Ugandan government is naïve about it, but the largeness of Libyan interference in the oil company, Uganda can still control it through. Government of Uganda is in to secure oil supply and also setting up a company, because of NRMs distrust in the operations of the multinational capitalism. This company is to secure the supply of oil, in that they also would like to be a part of the Mombasa Refinery from the Government of Kenya (WikiLeaks, 1986).
Suits Museveni well:
The Libyan style of leadership where it’s all centered on the president. If Museveni need to be accommodated in any manner, he can just pick up a phone and call the Cornel Gaddaffi. The Americans describes the Libyans as radicals and calls Museveni’s action towards them as a risk, for him and also the interest of USA (WikiLeaks, 1986).
Relation between Uganda and Libya in 2007:
Libyan Africa Portfolio (LAP) bought shares of 51% of the Uganda Telecom Limited (UTL). The shares were bought from UCOM a German, Swiss and Egyptian consortium. LAP has also bought other assets in Uganda. They gotten 60 % of the textile company Tri-Star and also was awarded with the tender to build the oil-pipe that goes from Uganda to Kenya. Museveni has promised Coronel Gaddaffi that he will not sell the unrefined oil. He has also praised Gaddaffi for his collaborated effort to support Uganda (WikiLeaks, 2007).
Relation between Uganda and Libya in 2008:
President Museveni said Libyan president Gaddaffi: “is a problem” and for his wish of making the “United states of Africa”. He also commented on Gaddaffi’s “imitations” towards smaller and tinier African nations with bribes and pressure. This has led to that these nations haven’t participated as strongly or corporative in international forums, organizations like United Nation and international meetings. Because of the tension between Gaddaffi and Museveni, this has led to him having radar on his plane when he flies international airspace to get additional information of the airspace (WikiLeaks, 2008).
Relation between Uganda and Libya in 2009:
TamOil the Libyan owned company who is run by director Habib Kagimu. The company hopes that it gets the contract to build the pipeline between from El Doret, Kenya to Jinja, Uganda (WikiLeaks, 2009).
Museveni on Gaddaffi in 2011:
In his own words said Gaddaffi was wrong to support Idi Amin with weapons and arms. This he could use during the battles of the 70s (Museveni, 2011).
Mistakes:
He knows that Gaddaffi supported him because he was seen as Muslim country oppressed by Christians. The second mistake Gaddaffi did after Museveni’s reckoning: he was not polite in AU and respected the regional collaborations in Africa. If he could he would ‘Overrule’ it. The third mistake by the Cornell was to interfere in internal matters of others. Like his actions towards the kings in Uganda. Fourth mistake is that he was like other Arab leaders and did not support the cause of South Sudan. Also not a direct mistake but he commented that as a radical Gaddaffi didn’t distant himself enough from terrorism (Museveni, 2011).
Positives:
First is that Gaddaffi always has had an independent approach to foreign affairs. Not being an Western countries, where he also did an effort to get rid of British and American Military bases. Second positive was how we able to use and rig the oil-prices, from the meager 50 cents a barrel to 40 dollars a barrel. Fourth is the economic progress of Libya. With that was the current time Museveni wrote in the value of GDP of $89, 03 Billion, which is the same size of South Africa in 1994 and the same time Spain (Museveni, 2011).
MinBane 