Opinion: I been told with time things will be better, but does it?

Well, in troubling times, as things are moving both forward, backward and sideways. It seems that we can defer from enterprising the idea, that everything gets better with time. Surely, this doesn’t mean we as folk doesn’t change, broaden our minds and expand our patterns of thought. No, we might do this, but this doesn’t change the narrative nor the times we are seeing passing by.

We are not a single leaf in the wind. Neither are we a recycled raindrop, awaiting next part of its existence to become evaporated before becoming clouds and be rained down upon us, yet again. Even if life goes in cycle and we as human beings are repeating history, sometimes even without knowing.

The ignorance of out times, as we are silent to the death of immigrants, as we are deaf to the pleas of separated kids in camps in the United States. The silence and lack of outcry, as the US tried to start a war in Iran and tried to enforce an coup d’etat in Venezuela. This is all happening, but no worries. As well, as the European Union have favourable deals with the Libyan, Egyptian and Sudanese Governments to stop immigrants from coming to the shores of Italy, Spain and Greece. That is just we do to each other, instead of giving a helping hand in need, we let people drown with excuses of nationalism, border security and fear of the unknown.

We are living in a time, where there is no problem to silence the media, weaponize social media and misuse state resources to suppress dissidents. This is happening all over, not only in dictatorships, but also in the “free world”. Where leaders are using their means and using their techniques to sophisticated silence and letting the ones defying their stance suffer. There are plenty of journalists in the recent time died by poison, being arrested and tortured. Plenty of opposition leaders in exile and struggling to regain their vitality. That is all happening, but nothing contemplating on the reasons for this.

The weaponization of social media with bots and big media, where the hacking, leaks and misuse of information combined with blind narrow-minded followers, who doesn’t think of the consequences of the acts nor they think of what the message they are spreading. The parties, the leaders are letting their camps all go out into the battlefield. Build their borders filled with landmines, barbed-wire and trenches. In this field, everyone who disagrees is traitors, radicals or even stupid individuals who has no sense. While the bombs, the hypocrites and the vilified commentators should just be blocked or silenced. Because, they are just fake and frauds, while the almighty leader is the ones to listen too.

While this is happening, the wars are steady, they are not stopping. The trade-wars, the Brexit is pumping in its sketchy way. The troubles of Yemen, Syria and Ukraine continues, like wars of old. The slavery trade of Mauritania continues as well as possible slave-ships on the outside of Libya. While, the Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, appeal to the International Community, the Western Sahara is still a punchline for the Pan-African Political Parties, but the world is not caring about the plights of the people there, as long as the big-companies can fish outside the coast there.

The peacekeeping missions are lacking funding, as the missions are staying and lingering, also paying off dictators to send military forces to conflict zones in Sahel, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia and so on. The former colonial powers of France, Belgium, United Kingdom and others are still holding their grips of former colonies, as they have new units to treat the new leadership and “open markets” for their products. If they need, they will kiss the rings of dictators and others, to just get the needed resources for a dime.

We are living in fabulous times, we are living times of adventures of freedom, liberty and justice. Where labels of Fairtrade, trade-unions and others are continuing to pushing the envelope, but still not seeing thing true. As the illicit trade practices continues in many markets and by plenty companies, multi-national earning fortunes on their production units paying little or none to its contractors. This wouldn’t been acceptable in the industrialised world, but in the developing world it is dandy. Some in our time, even says these people should be grateful to even have a job. That is how dark our time is.

They says things are getting better with time, are they? There was a promising generation of leaders in the 80s and 90s, but they became alike the former dictators and militaristic regimes of the past. There are little resemblance of the past positive movement. While we are celebrating mediocrity and lacklustre approach to the future problems. We are supposed to be content and think this spoils of our times is good.

While we are not even able to solve the crimes of the 70s and 80s, while struggling with the aftermath of the politics done in the 90s and 00s. We are supposed to be all smiles, as the first decade of this millennium is here. The millennial’s can vote and we are supposed to promise them a greater future. When we are leaving behind the same old issues, with the same old greed and the lack of will to accept the mantle given to us.

Things was supposed to get better time, but apparently they are not. Maybe I am in a dark place today, but I do not see it. Because, we didn’t make it better, we didn’t push it to a greater place, we just let it be and watched a game of football. We didn’t care and didn’t sign up for a party, NGO or even go in a demonstration. We just looked and wonder, when is our turn?

Well, it isn’t given to us, just like the leaders of our day wasn’t given to them either. They fought and took it. If we want change, maybe we need to do the same. Because, things aren’t getting better. I see darkness, I see sinister acts going unpunished and the innocent dying for no fucking reason. Peace.

Amuru Land Grab – Apaa Village Evictions: A long process of failure from the state!

That the Northern Uganda have been in deep end of the stick in many eyes is evident, by how lax the state has been to take care of their needs and their rights. That can now be proven by the forceful evictions from land in Apaa Village in Amuru District/Adjumani District. Where the previously have been attempts to make a giant farm for an investor called Bruce Martin and also become sugar cane plantations and factory for Kakira Sugar Factory owned by the Madhvani Group, this goes all the way back to 2006. Therefore, the plans to evict these people has been slow process from the state.

Now in 2018, the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) have evicted dozens upon dozens of the local residents from their lands. As the purge on the village and the area continues, this has been in the making, but the ones losing their lands get nothing, but lose their homes and their livelihoods at the same time. The government authorities have torched the houses and left nothing behind, as they are continuing to evict people. Their lives are no meaningless, as they have to flee their land and are living on the United Nations Compound in Gulu, while awaiting their future, as the state, UWA and the Uganda People’s Defence Force have been evicting them over the last two months. Surely, the hurt is felt and real.

Who can wonder if the state is finalizing the agreement with Madhvani Group to deliver his second sugar factory and also sugar plantation in the area or they are making a game drive from Bruce Martin. However, this is still grabbing the land without any forewarning and also taking their livelihoods without any compensation for the hurt.

The District Land Board and Area Land Board cannot been informed or care to inform the people, as the army and UWA have been busy evicting people with force. They are just pawns on the chess-set, and the authorities in Kampala let it happen. The leadership from afar are accepting it and have gazetted the land and taken the land. Therefore, the people who has settled in Apaa have to flee or be evicted from the land, without any justice or law helping them out. No compensation and nothing left for them.

This sort of play has to stop; I am sure the State House is fully aware and let it happen, as they are getting their cut of the transaction of the land for whatever purposes it has. Its been planned for years, but doesn’t make it better, when they could have had solutions back-in-the-day as the government knew this would come. They were already in talks with both Kakira and with Martin. They knew perfectly well, what was up. There is even a third scenario where the land is sold to someone else named Linton Brimblecombe.

Clearly someone forgot the memo and left it stranded. They just evicting people in the favour of one lucky bastard who capture all lands, without paying the needed ones who was actually living their and done so for generations. This is a violation of the trust between the citizens and the government. Because someone accepted the trade of the land people where living on and had rights too.

The Apaa village and Apaa community deserves better, all of the Acholi deserves better. They are being misused and taken for granted by the government. They are just pawns on the chess-set. No value, the first one in the battle-line to take out so the ones of value can be put into play. That is how it looks from the outside.

This have been planned for decades and now it happens.

Amuru Land Grab: What is ours, is OURS; What is their’s, is OURS; and Whatever is your’s, is still OURS. Peace.

A spiteful chant: Where did humanity go?

Where did humanity go in our time? When did we cease to care about other people’s struggle and their causes? When did that cease to matter? Because in our time, the rich and wealthy are securing more and more resources, while the poor is having no ways to get out of it. The states are closing their borders, stricter rules for refugees and asylum-seekers. While in dictatorships, the harassments and the internally displaced numbers are rising. The rich countries are investing in warfare, but not taking charge for the fleeing refugees from the crisis. They are trying to pay the states in regions and close the borders in migration routes. There is no heart, just cash-money. The heart has left, and the ignorance is rising.

The deaths of civil wars, the displacements of draconian laws and of dictators doesn’t matter. The lack of dialogue and of political freedoms, that doesn’t matter either. The lack of compassion and of political will change is also okay. As long as the troubles from afar doesn’t touch us. However, we will seal of the borders and make sure the innocent victims of internal disputes and skirmishes hopefully can cross the border to the closest country and not seek refugees in Europe or in the United States. Because, we cannot mange to show some humanity and heart.

The blood in your veins should boil, but for most. We don’t give a damn, they don’t give a fig. If their villages are burned to the ground by the military. If the Police is detaining people without any justification. If the state is securing the demise and death on fake imports. All of that doesn’t matter, as long as it doesn’t happen where we are.

This is the despicable. This is the reality. Our time, our reality, what our representatives put forward and make sure to build big invisible walls and mechanisms to close borders. To make it less achievable and costly to cross. Even more dangerous, as the perils of death and destruction at home isn’t better. But to leave can also cost your life, either by crook or by the book. Secondly, there will be nobody to even care to look.

This should be disgusting. Knowing that people are dying fleeing civil-wars and dictatorship, than when they are entering our safe havens; there is no one caring for their ills and troubles. They will just shrug it off like dirt on their shoulders and move on. There is lack of solidarity and heart. I hope in my time, that the Republic’s and Nation’s that close their borders never start warfare with themselves. As the ones who saw what we did. Might also give us no helping hand. They might say, we saw what your parents did to us. Why should we save the kids to such despicable people? Why do you deserve safe haven, when you couldn’t help our kind in need?

That is what I worry about, because we never know when the tide change, when society start to deteriorate or self-destruct. That is within us and we never know. We could be next, right now it is our brothers from afar, next time it could our closest neighbor or even ourselves. Than, they will remember our cold hearts and lack of compassion in the times of need. Peace.

African Union Open-Ended Committee of Ministers of Foreign Affairs on the International Criminal Court Convened its 6th Meeting on the Sidelines of the 32nd Ordinary Session of the Executive Council of the African Union (27.01.2018)

Readout of the Secretary-General’s meeting with H.E. Mr. Hassan Ali Khayre, Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Somalia (25.09.2017)

The Secretary-General reaffirmed the United Nations’ full support in the humanitarian, security and the human rights areas.

NEW YORK, United States of America, September 25, 2017 – The Secretary-General met with H.E. Mr. Hassan Ali Khayre, Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Somalia.

The Secretary-General commended Somalia for the progress made in advancing state-building. The Secretary-General and the Prime Minister also discussed efforts related to security sector reform and revenue generation.

The Secretary-General reaffirmed the United Nations’ full support in the humanitarian, security and the human rights areas, as well as in the implementation of Somalia’s development plans. The Secretary-General also reiterated support to AMISOM and to the creation of Somali institutions.

Somalia: South West State of Somalia Position in the rift within the Gulf States (17.09.2017)

The World needs Rambo right now!

John Rambo: “[alternate line from Director’s Cut] You’re not going anywhere. And there isn’t one of us that doesn’t want to be someplace else. But this is what we do, who we are. Live for nothing, or die for something. Your call” (John Ramo, 2008).

The world is spinning in circle and things are continuing sometimes without any change. But the situations are still uncertain. There are fleeing civilians from the Democratic Republic of Congo, continues civil-war inside South Sudan, oppression in Burundi and Rwanda. Grand issues in regions of Somalia as AMISOM fiercely goes after Al-Shabaab. The continued civil-war infused with control from Saudi Arabia and United States in Yemen. The war inside Syria with the fleeing refugees from there. The international complications this all assess. The massive amounts of people who are inflicted in this conflicts.

This is also the issues created by and their national alliances, like Syria are also in hot-bed with Russia, United States, Turkey and Iran. The same can be said with the international implications to the stalemate between Qatar and the rest of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). That the Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Bahrain and so on are all blocking, so many nations has cut their diplomatic ties with Qatar.

With all the conflicts and bigger diplomatic spats, the world needs Rambo’s. Especially considering that the deaths where it doesn’t counts is showed when it comes to mud-slides in Sierra Leone. The importance of Hurricane Harry, which is credible storm in Texas, but the world should have cared of the 500 deaths in Western Africa.

That the world is significant fragile is with the President Trump and the nuclear codes, the vicious attacks of both representatives and international leaders like Merkel and President Kim Jung-Un. The threats between North Korea and United States are clearly flaring up the tensions in South-East Asia, as the rockets keep shooting-up and testing.

Therefore, with this we need Rambo, someone to come in with confidence. Rambo needs to come into the problems and sort them out. So that the diplomatic disputes gets sorted out, as his spring fears into the ones who are in the same room. If Rambo came with his weapons and his rhetoric, maybe Trump wouldn’t such and ass. Maybe Putin would try out other tricks, than actually using methods of deception. As so many other world leaders would seek peace instead of wars and refugees. Rambo could come in and make a change.

The nice talk of Bono, the ethical codes of United Nations has not worked. The non-peaceful atmosphere is steady in too many places, to many deaths should be examined and not die without any consideration. Rambo could have helped, made sure the council and the world forums would actually not talk, but act. The crisis in South Sudan, DRC, Burundi, Syria, Yemen, Middle East and so on.

The world needs Rambo, the world needs a hero who can actually give a damn, not just make the world a place for multi-national companies who rob the resources and would not care for kids working for militias, so the world can cobalt for the smart-phones production. Rambo needs to come and make change, he might not be perfect. But something has to change. Someone has step-in, Rambo needs to come and significantly change in the world. Times change, but Rambo might sort it out!

“Murdock: Rambo, you can feel totally safe because we have the most advanced weapons in the world available to us.

Rambo: I’ve always believed that the mind is the best weapon.

Murdock: Times change.

Rambo: For some people” (Rambo: First Blood Part II, 1985).

Inspiring words from Tom Mboya at the ‘Symposium on Industrial Development in Africa’ (27. January 1966)

I know that Thomas Joseph Odhiambo (Tom) Mboya was a vital politician in the first part of the independent Kenya. He was a charismatic person, who even got himself on the front-page of the Time Magazine in 1960. His assassination in 1969 are still unanswered, like so many other extra-judicial killings. But that should not overshadow the impact and the wisdom of the man, who helped to form Kenya after Independence. He was part of the Kenya African National Union (KANU) and worked together with Jomo Kenyatta.

His words in this speech, should not be a fading memory, but something that the leaders of the continent should have worked upon. Since some of it has already been proven to be right. I myself wished it was different, since the trade-imbalanced with the former colonial states and the other developed countries. Therefore, the knowledge he had should be enforced now. As there are to many generations who has been lost and hasn’t gotten what they deserved. Here is the pieces of the speech that should be taken to heart.

“Meanwhile, we in the poorer. countries are faced with a rapid growth in population and’ with the standards of life demanded by the. Masses. It has been calculated that a 1% increase in the per capita income of an industrialised country increases the demand for. food and raw materials by only 0.6%, but that the same increase in per capita income in a country importing manufactured articles will lead to an increase of 1.8% in the demand for imports. Super imposed on this has been a tendency for the terms of trade to move against the less developed countries. Unless we in Africa build up quickly our domestic services of supply for enough of the industrial products which are required for the modernization of our countries, we will either become increasingly” indebted’ to and “hence” politically dependent on foreign countries, or have our. progress undermined by balance of payments difficulties” (Tom Mboya, 1966).

“Whatever industry we attempt to build the same sort of problems, arise an accurate knowledge, of natural resources is required. Although there is much more to be learned we already know that we have in Africa the natural resources to feed a vast range of industries. Cheap energy has to be obtained. While Africa is rich in energy resource only a fraction of them have been harnessed. Industry cannot grow without efficient transport, but we can get ourselves out of’ the vicious circle since new transport links can themselves be justified in strictly commercial terms by the specific development possibilities now opened up, These three subjects natural resources, energy and transport are Vitally important, but they are not on the agenda, of this Conference” (Tom Mboya, 1966).

These words from Mboya, should be cherished and remembered, as the powerful statement it was. That the will of development on own terms was key and that they could not continue with a trade deficit with the developed countries. This has happen since because the loans, the grants and direct aid from the developed countries to the African continent. That has been a paradigm to control and assess the situation in terms of donors, not on the governments who got the funds. Therefore, the circle of aid and donor aid prospered instead of industrial development and other shifts of supply.

There been many other factors as the leadership and the cronyism has eaten budgets and donor aid. We could have hoped the past had listened to Mboya, that the states and republic’s could have followed this. To build nations on dependent on donors, that in the end will work for their own benefit and not for the African development. They will use the aid and donor aid for their own gain and personal benefit for their constituents, not for the African republic. In an ideal world it would be different, but looking through history and you can say otherwise. Since the development aid and the slums are still there, where Tom Mboya left them. The poverty Mboya saw and discussed are there, the names of the streets and nations might be different, but the troubles are the same.

Tom Mboya spoke wisdom and that should be recollected and not forgotten, not only his vital role in Kenya, but beyond. Mboya’s words here should be discussed and used to change political and trade imbalances to benefit own republic’s, federations and kingdoms of Africa. The states deserves to stop the deficit and also develop themselves on their own terms. That is something they have deserved all along, but the International organizations, Multi-National Financial Organizations and Development Banks has stifled this with their creeds, their protocols and their agreements with the state. To get needed funds they have to open economy and stop government subsidizes to support local production in agriculture and industry. So, the history of the neo-colonial Africa, had deserved to follow the paradigm shift Mboya spoke of in 1966. Peace.

Reference:

United Nations – ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR AFRICA AND CENTRE FOR INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT – Symposium on Industrial Development in Africa, Cairo, 27 January – 10 February 1966 – SPEECH BY TEE CHAIRMAN OF THE ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOE AFRICA THE HONOURABLE TOM MBOYA MINISTER OP ECONOMIC-PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT, KMYA, AT THE OPENING OF THE INDUSTRIAL SYMPOSIUM, CAIRO, 27 JANUARY, 1966

IGAD Executive Secretary Calls for Restraint at Djibouti-Eritrea Border (19.06.2017)

Ethiopia calls for Restaint on the ‘border conflict between Djibouti-Eritrea’ (18.06.2017)