Washington, DC — Uganda has amended its constitution and moved from a no-party political setup to a multi-party political arrangement, abolished presidential term limits, with a presidential election slated for 2006. The country is one of the few HIV/Aids success stories in the world, with the prevalence rate falling from around 30 percent in the early 1990s to less than 7 percent today.
The war on HIV/Aids is being won, but the Ugandan government has been engaged in another battle with the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) for the past eighteen years in a war that has created almost two million internally displaced persons. Measures ranging from military action to a general amnesty are being considered so that peace can return to northern Uganda. Meanwhile, the country's media have come under intense government pressure over coverage of "security" matters. Uganda is one of the United States' allies in Africa and was visited by President Bush in July 2003. The country's foreign minister, Sam Kutesa, was in Washington, D.C., en route to New York for the United Nations Summit. In an interview with AllAfrica, he talked about government policies and measures and explained certain issues and actions in Uganda.
What is the purpose of your visit to Washington at this time?
We regularly visit Washington, D.C., to brief the government of the United States, to visit institutions like the World Bank, IMF and IFC to talk about our economic relations and also to talk about development and relations between Uganda and the United States. That is part of the reason why I am here.
We have been briefing the government of the United States on progress with the transitional process in Uganda, leading to the constitutional review and the constitutional amendments that we have had in Uganda, and informing them of our opening up of the political space and starting the multiparty system, establishing regional tiers in the provincial administrations, lifting of term limits, and a host of other amendments in the constitution, and the subsidiary legislations that we will be passing to be able to put in place the new dispensation for political pluralism.
What is your assessment of the peace and security situation in east Africa, and specifically the peace prospects for Sudan and for the conflict in northern Uganda?
There have been two important moves in the region. One is the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the Khartoum government and the SPLA in Sudan. The other is the Burundi Peace Agreement, which was done through a local initiative chaired by President Museveni [with] former Vice President Zuma of South Africa as the facilitator. Burundi has had peaceful elections. The president was inaugurated only about a few weeks ago, and the country seems to be back on a proper footing and is running. We congratulate both the leaders of the region and the people of Burundi for these successful negotiations and for returning the country to peace. We will continue to appeal to the group -- I think it is called the FNLA -- which hasn't joined the peace process to do so, so that the people of Burundi can go back to have peace and stability and embark on development.
The other important initiative has been the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the SPLA and the Khartoum government, which was negotiated under the auspices of IGAD (Intergovernmental Authority on Development, comprised of six Horn of Africa nations). Kenya played an important role, as did other members of IGAD. The United States, the European Union, all of them played a very important role. That too was a great triumph, I think, for the region.
We are encouraging the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between north and south Sudan. Of course, the death of John Garang was a setback, but we have watched with appreciation and satisfaction the new leadership that has emerged and they seem to be on the same course and as committed to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement as was John Garang.
Talking about what effect that may have on the LRA. The LRA, as you know, is a group of terrorists that have been kidnapping, maiming and killing our citizens in northern Uganda, particularly in the districts of Kitgum, Pader and Gulu and running to the Sudan. Originally they were sponsored, equipped and harbored by the Khartoum government. But over the past two years or so, this support has ended and we know that officially the government of Sudan does not support the LRA.. In fact we are going to agree with them so that we can operate within Sudanese territory to be able to hunt down the LRA and make sure that our people go back to a normal life and back to their homes and begin to embark on development.
The LRA is also very much weakened. At one time they had a force of 5,000 people, but we don't think that now they are more than 400 armed people. They are broken up into several small groups, and they continue to sometimes look for soft targets and terrorize the people of northern Uganda in those districts. We have developed a three-pronged approach. The first one is to continue to apply military pressure on them. The second one is to force them to keep a window open for negotiations through the initiative of Betty Bigombe, and the third one is to invoke the international arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court. All these are going on simultaneously, while we keep the amnesty law in place for those who wish to surrender and come and live peacefully with other Ugandans. We are optimistic that the war with the LRA will end, one way or another.
Why has this conflict continued for so long? Why has your government not been able to defeat Joseph Kony and the LRA?
One of the major factors is the support by the Sudan government. Support in the sense that the LRA could come and make attacks in northern Uganda and run back to safety in the Sudan. Secondly, the fact that they have been equipped and armed as if they were also a government. But more importantly, I think there are also some local sympathizers who support them. But it is coming to an end.
On the whole, the population of northern Uganda does not support Kony, and that is why they run away from him, because he is maiming them, abducting them, killing them, and they run to the government side, and that is why we have these internally displaced people in the camps, above a million. It is not that we have been unable to defeat him, it is because they have been armed, harbored and sometimes ran back to the Sudan so we couldn't cross over. But as I said, since our new relationship with Sudan, that is why the Kony group is almost finished.
How could a leader like Kony attract local sympathizers?
It is a very strange phenomenon, because as I said, he does actually kill his own people. First of all, he abducts all his soldiers. He has never had voluntary recruitment. On the other hand, you have groups who are opposed to government and so will support anything that appears to be against government. That is how he attracts some sympathizers, but they are not many and we know them. The long arm of the law will get them.
Could you comment on the status of Uganda's fight against HIV/Aids? What is the truth of the reports of a condom shortage in your country and why did the Global Fund to Fight HIV/Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria suspend funding for Uganda?
As you know, Uganda has been a leader in combating HIV/Aids, from the '90s until now, because of the leadership and the straightforwardness with which we have dealt with this epidemic. We have reduced the HIV prevalence from 30 percent to 7 percent. We have adopted a system of 'ABC', which is abstinence, being faithful and use of condoms.
It is not true that there is a shortage of condoms in Uganda. There are condoms there. We import a hundred and forty million condoms every year. And must I say that we finish them, but that is what is imported.
With regard to the Global Fund, there is no dispute. There has been some misappropriation of funds by the implementation unit. The government has acted very strongly when this was found out. We have dismissed those people who were in the unit. We have recruited Ernst and Young now to manage the implementation of that program. We have crown agents as the procurement agents, and we have set up a commission of inquiry led by a judge of the High Court to look into what happened. The Global Fund was in Uganda last week [and] they met with officials of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Finance, and they have all agreed on the steps that need to be taken. Now it has been agreed also that by the end of September, the suspension will be lifted, and the program will continue as it was before.
How seriously can the Ugandan government tackle the issue of corruption? You were yourself accused of corruption in the late nineties.
Let me start with my own case in 1998-1999. There was no impropriety at all. I was accused of having started a business which I started before I became a minister. It was political in my opinion and in the opinion of many. The same groups that were behind the action are the same people who have now come out openly to be in opposition to government. So it was a political move to undermine not only me but also the government.
Clearly, the people in my constituency have shown that they have confidence in me as I was returned unopposed because they knew the censure was baseless. We are dealing with corruption in pretty much the same way as other governments are dealing with it, whether it is Ghana, whether it is Tanzania, whether it is Kenya, whether it is Uganda. We have institutions like the IGG - inspector general of government. We have the ministry of ethics and integrity. We are strengthening the capacity of these institutions.
What has been the problem at the moment has been mainly at the level of investigation and prosecution, and we are now spending money in these areas, strengthening the capacity of our people to deal with prosecution and investigation. Where we have not been able to prosecute people we have taken administrative action, particularly when we have had commissions of inquiry. For example, there was a commission of inquiry in the police force. Many people have been sacked, new people have been brought in, and the police force is now performing much better than it was before.
A similar inquiry was undertaken with the Internal Revenue Authority and many people have also been dismissed. Administrative action has been taken. As a result, we are now collecting about 70 billion (Uganda shillings) more in revenue than was the case last year. So you can see the areas where there has been improvement. We want to take administrative action on all other reports by commissions of inquiry that we have set up. I have sometimes heard accusations that there is no political will. That is not correct. There is political will. What we need to do is enhance capacity in the areas of investigation and prosecution, and we are doing that.
We want to ask a couple of questions about U.S. programs. First, the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) - your country has not yet qualified for funds, in part, because of the governance issue.
I don't think that is a correct position. We have made submissions, and there are issues relating to governance but in terms of corruption and those ones we are ironing out and we are making the final submissions. Don't forget that the MCA has been accessed by, I think, only four countries so far in Africa. It is not an easy system. It is not an easy process to access the MCA. Others are still trying but I want to tell you that Uganda has already passed the threshold, which is the last stage towards accessing the MCA. So we are on our way, and we are working at it.
Regarding the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), there have been reports that a new labor law could disqualify Uganda.
It is true that we had an antiquated law which required that you must have a thousand people and/or 51 percent of the workforce to be able to form a union, although actually the law does guarantee the right to form unions. Particularly, I think it was the clothing and garment allied workers. So what is government doing about it? We are amending the law to bring it in line with the constitution and that should solve the problem. The law is before parliament right now.
Now that Uganda no longer limits a president to serving two terms, there is a widely held view that President Museveni will seek a third term and that this will reduce political space in the country.
I don't see why there should be such a fear. First of all, these are popular moves made and supported by the people of Uganda. If we wanted to just perpetuate the rule of one man by giving him a third term, we could have amended the constitution to say that any person can run for three terms. What we are doing is opening up so that anybody - not necessarily the incumbent - can run. As long as there is a level playing field, the people of Uganda should be able to choose their leaders through regular free and fair elections.
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It is not true that there is anything sacrosanct about term limits as being an indicator for democracy. There are old democracies such as Britain, such as Germany, such as Spain, such Italy, which all do not have term limits, and that does not derogate from their being democratic. Why do you think that the people of Uganda cannot choose the leaders that they want, or get rid of leaders that they do not want through free and fair elections? The important thing is for us to make sure that elections are transparent and that everybody has got equal opportunity to canvass for support. The government of Uganda is committed to that. We believe that the results will be that the people of Uganda will choose the leaders they want.
About opening up political space, the leadership believes that the country has healed from the wounds of the past where parties were based on sectarian lines, religion, tribe and what have you. We think now that parties that are being formed will largely be issue-based parties and that will give the people of Uganda a chance to choose which party they want to lead them. That is why we are opening up the political space, but concomitant with that, what is most important is a level playing field and having free and fair elections. The government is committed to that. We have been calling on the international community to assist in making sure that we have all these things in place.
There have been recent tensions between your government and the media. Why is that?
I think if you look around the continent, Uganda has one of the most vibrant media. We have more than a hundred radio stations. We have more that 30 daily publications and newspapers. What I think we need to note is that every right imposes a duty. We need to get responsible press.
The recent statements about closing some stations was because there were statements that threatened regional security, particularly after the death of Vice President Garang, speculations that could have caused problems within the region. Don't forget that we are neighbors of a country like Rwanda, and we know what the role of the press was during the genocide. Radio Mille Colline itself exacerbated the problems in Rwanda. It was preaching genocide.
One has to draw a line between what is responsible and what is freedom of expression. I totally believe in the freedom of expression, but that must be exercised responsibly. Papers here in this country [United States], they may be against the involvement of the Unites States in Iraq. Many papers do, but they don't go saying that American soldiers have reached Basra or they have reached this point. This is responsibility. There are national and security [issues] that everybody must approach responsibly.
Yes, freedom of expression, yes human rights, yes a vibrant press, but responsibility is also necessary. I am sure it is exercised everywhere in the world. I was surprised recently when a whole article in Newsweek was withdrawn about a report on Guatanamo Bay. Clearly, I think Newsweek had overstepped the line. I think the message went round that responsibility is necessary. And that is what we are doing, but I have no intentions of clamping down on the freedom of expression.
