What does Uganda mean to most people? They probably remember the dictatorship of Idi Amin. They might think stunning Forest Whitaker’s stunning portrayal of Amin in The Last King of Scotland. And people associate Uganda with child soldiers, killings and human sacrifices. The country hardly gets a good press at the best of times.
But Uganda is changing, even though its image has yet to catch up with reality. More importantly Ugandan politicians are keen to change themselves and throw off the image of dictatorship that marred their country’s early years.
This was the reason, at Uganda’s request, that the British branch of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association – a body that attracts attention for all the wrong reasons in the present hysterical atmosphere over MPs’ expenses and junketing – ran a three-day seminar in conjunction with others last month tackling the problems that any country changing from dictatorship to democracy would encounter.
The sessions attracted more than 100 MPs, including ministers – more than a third of the Ugandan parliament – and dozens of print and broadcast journalists arguing over accountability, corruption, the power of the press and the role of the opposition – all bread-and-butter issues in the United Kingdom.
The seminar was just one step in a four-year programme – that will end up being run by the Ugandans themselves – which, if it works, will help to turn Uganda from a fledgling to a fully-fledged democracy. It is helped as English is still the national language and is taught in all the country’s primary schools.
The man responsible for these positive developments is Yoweri Museveni, who became president in 1986 and has moved Uganda from a one party state towards a multi-party democracy with a vibrant, if occasionally flawed, free press.
In 2006, Uganda held its first multi-party general election, returning Yoweri’s National Resistance Movement with a huge majority – 211 out of 309 seats in the Ugandan parliament. His only serious opposition was the Forum for Democratic Change led by Kiiza Besigye, which won 39 seats. The remaining parties have about 10 seats between them
During one three-hour session on the relationship between the government and the media, it was striking how passionate politicians and journalists are about issues. Despite huge differences between them, all are united in wanting Uganda to succeed. There is a patriotic fervour in not wanting the country to descend into another civil war or dictatorship. This was shown by a parliamentary by-election in which the opposition took the seat from the government. Within 24 hours, the result was accepted by all parties and, while press headlines concerned gunfire in the constituency, the shooting was aimed into the air, not at each other.
Politics in Uganda seem to be somewhere between “new” Labour and the Tories under David Cameron. The government is pro enterprise, while the opposition is more likely to want state intervention. But many of the issues would be familiar to people in Britain
Princess Kabakumba Labwoni Masiko, with the grand title of minister for information and national guidance, described how the Ugandan government is trying to tackle providing healthcare and pensions for those working in the private sector. The favoured solution appears to some sort of insurance part paid by the employers. Unsurprisingly, the Ugandan equivalent of the CBI doesn’t want to pay and the government is trying to get them to do so. Sound familiar? It could be the stakeholder pensions dispute that faced Gordon Brown.
Similar problems also face women in Ugandan society, who feel they are treated as second-class citizens. Women are lucky to get a direct constituency rather than a regional seat. But all-women shortlists are commonplace. Parliament reserves a proportion of seats for women, who are elected regionally. There is also an all-young people’s shortlist for some seats and some seats reserved for disabled candidates. Not surprisingly in a country that has known coups, there are
all-army short lists in some seats.
Bizarrely, Labour and Tories in Britain have no direct relationship with the main parties in Uganda, even though they would be familiar with their politics. Labour is wedded to support the one seat Social Democratic Party – surely a leftover from Tony Blair – while the Tories gravitate to the one member Conservative Party. Ironically, the leader of that party has had to stand down for failing to disclose details of his parliamentary expenses.
What also is striking is the vibrancy of the media. There are both government and opposition newspapers, local and national radio and television. Surprisingly, there is even a Ugandan equivalent of Private Eye, called Red Pepper. Its contents are not as accurate as Ian Hislop’s venerable organ and would make Hilary Wainwright, editor of Britain’s serious left magazine of that name, blush.
Just like Private Eye in this country, its revelations provoked fury among Uganda’s erring politicians, who claim most of it is -merely scurrilous.
But the mainstream papers are impressive. The discovery of oil in Uganda by a British company was the subject of serious scrutiny and debate in the government paper. A news report covered the grilling of the permanent secretary of the energy department by an MPs’ committee on oil deals, particularly as the government had kept details confidential. Elsewhere, the managing director of Tullow Oil had a comment piece to reply to a debate attacking his company by Platform, a UK campaigning group, on lack of benefits for local people and environmental dangers from oil exploration.
Where there are problems in the media, it is because reporters are not properly paid, so can be susceptible to bribes from politicians to publish stories. And they have been known to demand cash from politicians before they attend press conferences. A decent trade union might be the answer to this. Perhaps Jeremy Dear, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, should visit the country.
It would be wrong to suggest that everything is rosy in Uganda. The president has just got the law changed so he can contest in next year’s election and will not be limited to an eight-year term. The country has an extremely repressive attitude to homosexuals and the situation could get worse with people facing prosecution for letting property to gays. The only gay porn movie showing in Uganda is in a church – put on by a preacher to show people in detail how disgusting, he believes, a sexual act between two men is.
But what is clear is that in this relatively small African country there is a genuine desire to create a fairer, freer society with a free media and a parliament that will try to make ministers accountable. And that must be better than rule by Idi Amin
