Augustine Ruzindana
10 July 2009
opinion
In June, I was supposed to go to Mexico City for a two-day meeting but eventually I did not go. Had I gone I would have been in trouble with masked health officials I found at Entebbe Airport last Saturday handing out white forms to be filled by incoming passengers.
After the set of officials, there is a phalanx of other masked officials scrutinising the forms and passports to detect whether any passenger had been to places from where he/she could be carrying "swine flu". By the time I left, no passenger had been found suspicious but the seriousness with which the job is being handled is commendable. I have been to quite a few African airports recently and I have not seen such a serious exercise mounted going on there. The light side of it is that the health officials have not been generous enough to provide the immigration officials with masks as well.
Meanwhile the Honduras "kisanja" president saga still continues. Having recanted his desire for many bisanja he assumed that he could be welcomed back to serve his term to the end but alas his former friends think otherwise. They accuse him of "repeated violations of the constitution and the law" and that the Supreme Court's order to the army to arrest him was perfectly legal and that therefore there was no military coup as alleged. The lesson here is that those who tamper with constitutions cannot invoke the same constitution to protect them.
For sometime now there has been talk about a new "rebel" threat in Teso and the North. At first it was dismissed as the usual search for enemies to provide an excuse for massive misuse of the military during the next elections. Nevertheless people are already charged with serious crimes relating to activities of this rebel group and many others are said to be in danger of arrest. However, it has now turned out that this rebel group arises from an Internet generated document.
Those whose e-mail addresses are public get so many silly documents and opinions in their mail that for government to begin arresting people on the basis of such a computer generated document exposes paranoia gone beyond bounds. Apparently, the group's document found on Mao's memory stick has been sent to many other people who probably deleted it as junk mail. Whereas every piece of information should be followed up, effecting arrests on the basis of junk mail betrays how retention of power has blocked sound judgement as a consideration in dealing perceived opponents.
The issue, however, is not whether there is a real rebel group or not but why there should be significant groups of people who believe that major governance problems cannot be resolved within the existing parameters of the system of governance. After a promising start, Uganda is still half democratic and half free. When the 1995 Constitution came into force, the expectation was that over time democratic structures would be institutionalised and that the new sets of norms, laws and institutions arising from the constitution, for dealing with differences in society would be embedded in the political system. But instead there is no meaningful competition for political power, the system is corrupt, intolerant, discriminatory and uses violence and intimidation against political opponents. Therefore, many people feel excluded and opt out of a system in which they have no place. If therefore, rebel groups arise from time to time, the repressive and oppressive conduct of government is to blame.
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