----- Original Message ----- 
From: Vovi Uganda e.V. 
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Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2004 5:04 PM
Subject: West Tries to Bail Out of Ugandan Meltdown


Opinion  
Monday, March 8, 2004  
CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO  
  
West Tries to Bail Out of Ugandan Meltdown
The passionate 17-year-old affair between the Kampala government and Western donors has run into troubled waters. 
The past two weeks have witnessed bitter exchanges, with donors pressing the government to end the bloody rebellion in the north by the rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army through political negotiations. 

The government has in turn accused donors of abetting the war by bringing pressure on it not to increase defence expenditure. And ministers and army officers have rounded on the head of the EU delegation in Uganda, Sigurd Illing, telling him to keep his nose out of the country's affairs, and to stop commenting on the war. 

This is a strange flap, because if Uganda were a company, it would have filed for bankruptcy long ago. Donors, who pick up the bills for nearly 90 per cent of development expenditure, also fork out over 50 per cent of the government's recurrent expenditure. 

Technically, Uganda doesn't have the means to fund the war in the north from its own resources. If it chose to do so, and didn't have donor money, virtually the whole budget would go to defence, and other governments would be closed and civil servants sent home to grow yams and raise goats.  

However, to see this as just another case of an African leader who's turning into a despot falling out with Western donors urging him to remain on a civilised path, is to miss the point. 

The row in Kampala is ultimately about the terms of disengagement between the donors and the Museveni government.  

For many years, the position that the donors are now taking on the conflict was pushed by many voices. The donors took the view that the Museveni's government's push for a military solution was the best option, because the LRA was nothing more than a terrorist organisation, and it had no clear political agenda.  

The second view was that, while the LRA didn't have a political agenda and used terrorist methods, it was not too high a price to pay to talk to them to see what would be their terms for ending their rebellion.  

A third, more sophisticated view held that the LRA war was only a symptom of dysfunctional politics. That the one-party state of the Movement, and the government's hostility to the north, created an undercurrent of resentment for the Kampala regime which the LRA, like other rebel groups before it, exploited. It held that opening up the political space in the country would allow northern grievances to be channelled into constitutional politics. 

The bulk of the donor community wasn't impressed. Most took the position that with Uganda's chaotic past, there was a case to be made for keeping a lid on democracy, in order to avoid a relapse into ethnic strife. With its impressive economic growth, the country soon became a "success story" for the donors. 

Some accordingly developed a vested interest in an illiberal political system. They believed that a more open and quarrelsome political order would reduce Museveni's power to continue carrying out unpopular economic reforms. 

Today, years of repression have radicalised sections of the opposition. A government long used to uncritical support has allowed corruption to become so entrenched, it can't uproot the vice. The war in the north has gone on for so long, it has taken on a life of its own.  

As a strategy for re-legitimisation, Kampala now backs a return to multiparty politics. As a tactic for the personal security of its top leaders, it wants to lift term limits so that they can continue in power. Having supported the actions of the regime all these years, recent criticism by donors of the war, defence expenditure, and the bid to scrap term limits are seen by the hardliners in the Movement as an attempt to bail out and hang the government out to dry, hence the deep resentment. 

If the donors thought they could just turn their backs on all this and walk away, they are dead wrong. 

Charles Onyango-Obbo is managing editor in charge of media convergence at the Nation Media Group.  

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