President Museveni’s terse letter on World Bank

Friday, August 18, 2023
FILE - Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni attends the state funeral of Kenya's former president Daniel Arap Moi in Nairobi, Kenya on Feb. 11, 2020. The United Nations' human rights office in Uganda will close this weekend after the east African country decided not to renew an agreement allowing it to operate, the U.N.'s top human rights official said Friday, Aug. 4, 2023. (AP Photo/John Muchucha, File)
Busiinge Aggrey
39 Min Read

Ugandans and, especially the Bazukulu.

Further to my message of August 9, 2023, I would like to reiterate that foreign aid and loans are welcome and can be of some use if designed and executed by patriots (not neo-colonial agents), but are neither decisive nor indispensable elements for our desired social-economic transformation. On the contrary, those loans and aid packages, can be a source of distortion and stunted growth as you can see across Africa. If foreign aid and loans, are a source of social-economic transformation, why the present growing crisis of even security and stability in Africa? Look at Guinnea-Conakry, Mali, Burkina-Faso, Niger, Central African Republic, DR Congo, Boko Haram in Nigeria, Somalia, Mozambique, etc. Most of these countries, have been getting those grants and loans.

Many of the loans and aid packages, are either of no value addition to the country or are even anti-growth, all together. In the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, for instance, we discovered that a total of $800 million had been borrowed over a period of 10 years, but that ministry did not have zonal diagnostic labs and research centres, did not repair the mechanisation centres and did not buy the mechanisation equipment such as combine harvesters or even tractors, no irrigation equipment for farmers, no value addition equipment, etc. Much of that money was spent on seminars etc.; yet, those are the basic requirements of that ministry, if it is to assist in the struggle for social-economic transformation.

Therefore, most of the borrowing, has been having no value addition to our transformation journey. Besides, in some cases, the aid policies are directly against growth. Uganda has been manufacturing ARVs and other medical drugs at our Quality Chemicals factory in Kampala-Luzira. 

The aid givers from abroad, for a long time, were not allowing us to use their money to buy the Ugandan manufactured drugs. To qualify for aid, we had to forget our own industrialisation and jobs creation for our people and support, with our Kujanjabisa (getting treatment), the jobs creation for other people.

Who, then, permits the signing of such distortion-causing agreements to our economy? It is the neo-colonial lobby in the country behind my back. That is why, on the June 19, 2017, I wrote a directive forbidding the contracting of more loans without my express approval. The letter is quoted in full below:

June 19, 20 17

Hon . Matia Kasaija

Minister

Ministry of Finance, Planning and

Economic Development

KAMPALA

RE: PUBLIC DEBT POSITION AND STATUS OF LOANS UNDER VARIOUS STAGES OF CONSIDERATION

I write in connection with the letter written to me by Hon. Bahati on the May 24, 2017, listing the loans that are being considered. This is the correct procedure. Hereafter, no loan should be forwarded to Parliament without my express approval . This iS to avoid the overburdening of the State of Uganda with debts that, moreover, do not add any value to the GDP of the country .

To remind ourselves, it should be remembered that Uganda has been being developed by private sector-led growth ever since 1987 when our minimum recovery programme was launched . Wealth and jobs by the private sector are in four sectors: commercial agriculture , industry, services and ICT.

These wealth and job creation sectors cannot grow unless they benefit from the low costs of production. It is the low costs that will enable the wealth creators in the four sectors to make profits and expand. The cost pushers are mainly in infrastructure : roads, electricity, the railway, water transport, lCT, telephones, piped water and irrigation systems .

The efficiency of the Public Service Sector also , of course, impacts on the efficiency of the private sector. This, however, should be funded by our own resources . No need to borrow for this because the efficiency of the Public Service is needed continuously. Shall we borrow continuously?

This is an area that we should fund ourselves.

Human capital (education, skills and health) is, of course, a factor in all production. Here, again, we should fund education, skills development and health by ourselves because the demands here are continuous. The only aspect of human capital formation that can be gainfully funded by loans is, again , some elements of infrastructure eg hospitals, government skills and science educational centres. Again, these are one-time interventions that are not recurrent; but they create a durable capacity for health, education (academic) and skills (technical).

This, therefore, means that there should never be a loan contracted for Administration or for Social Sciences in Education . Coming back to our list of loans, it , therefore, means that any loan to be contracted should be for : some elements of the infrastructure, for science and technical education, equipment for value addition and funds for soft loans through Uganda Development Bank. Anything else , we should reject.

Using these criteria, my decisions are as follows in respect of the listed

loans:

(1) The following loans should be accepted:

(i) $14.4 million for navigation on Lake Victoria;

(ii) $9 .54 million for electricity inter-connection;

(iii) $50 million for refugees – already communicated to you; this should be the last time we borrow for refugees; support for refugees should be grants.

(iv) $125 .1 million for electricity inter-connection; nevertheless, send me details so that I know the bottlenecks that are being solved.

(v) $44 million for electricity transmission for Mbarara- Masaka.

(vi) $39 million for electricity for Mbarara-Masaka transmission .

(vii) $49.1 million for adding to the new Nile bridge in order to complete it .

(viii)  $88 million for Kapchorwa-Su am road  for tarmacking.

(ix) $45 million for Technical Education. The money , however, should be used strictly for building technical schools where they are not and equipping the old ones.

(x) $2 .9 billion for the Standard Gauge Railway subject to the resolving of the issues of the density of the steel, the efficiency of the signals and the cost per kilometre .

(xi) $212.7 million for extending electricity to the 287 sub-counties that do not yet have electricity .

(xii) $303 million for the Oil roads.

(xiii) $327 million for Kabale International Airport .

(xiv) $100 million for Kampala  roads.

(xv) €40 million for the Agago transmission line.

(xvi) $ 1 1.5 for cancer treatment .

(2) I do not accept the following loans:

(i) $13.79 million for the Islamic University in Uganda. This University is private . If we guarantee their loans, how about Mukono, Nkozi, Ndejje, Basajjabalaba , etc., etc?

(ii) $30 million from Korea for Agriculture . I do not accept the vague description of “commercialisation and enhanced productivity.” What do these mean?

(iii) $100 million Islamic Development Bank for “poverty reduction”, etc. What do these mean? If it is for technical schools, it should go to Education. If it is for industrial equipment and machine tools, it should be in State House or Ministry of Industry and we should have the freedom to buy equipment from the best sources.

(iv) I reject the loan of $200 million for “fiscal transfers and fiscal management”. Do we need a loan in order to learn how to transfer money?

(v) I reject the $40 million for the vague target of Gender based violence . How will you know which women fought with which husband? Let us get equipment for women groups to do maize milling, wine-making, etc. equipment for value-addition, not seminars. The survivors of violence, if confirmed, can be supported by our own budget.

(vi) I reject the $60 million for “nutrition , incomes, climate change” etc., for Eastern and Central Africa (No . 19 on Hon Bahati ‘s list). Th is is vague .

(vii) I reject the $60 million (No. 20 on Hon Bahati’s list) because it aims at vague elements such as “hunger, eradication of poverty, quality of education, clean water, health, well-being”, etc., etc. How can you meaningfully address all these elements? Let the money be used for irrigation.  I will support it, then.

(viii) I reject loan No. 22 of  $ lOl million because of the nebulous aims of “household in comes, food security, sustainable natural resources management”, etc.; if it is for agriculture, let us use it for irrigation .

(ix) Kampala-Jinja Expressway of $200 million and of $lOO million should not be guaranteed by the State. The money should be re covered through the road tolls. The loan is good but no guarantee .

(x) I reject the $60 million of farming on computers (leT). This is too much maridadi (fancy). The farmers need good farming practices, fertilisers, irrigation, bush -clearing, ploughing, etc. and not computers because, even without computers, we know how much we produce .

(xi) I reject loan No. 26 of $50 million for “enhancing value chain of agriculture” etc. What do these mean? They want a “consultant” for “country strategy paper”!! Really!! Do we need a strategy paper? Our manifesto is the strategy paper.

Yoweri  K. Museveni

PRESIDENT

Copy to: HE. the Vice President

Rt . Hon. Speaker of Parliament

Rt . Hon . Deputy Speaker of Parliament

Rt . Hon . Prime Minister

Rt. Hon . Deputy Prime Ministers

Hon. Ministers

Hon. Ministers of State

Permanent Secretaries

Ever since the victory of the NRM revolution in 1986, it has, therefore, been the struggle between the two lines Mao Tse-tung talked about – the struggle between the line of social-economic transformation and national independence and the line of perpetual dependence and neo-colonialism. Africans as a whole and even the African revolutionaries like ourselves, are forgiving people. In the case of Uganda, ever since our student days, we have been ready to forgive the past crimes against Africa by the imperialists and their local stooges – the slave trade, the colonialism, the massacres, the killing of Patrice Lumumba in Congo, the genocides in different African countries, the mass killings in Uganda by Idi Amin and other mistake makers, supported by imperialism, etc. Unlike the American Red- Indians, on account of their strong agricultural economy and culture, the Africans survived and defeated colonialism the last to be defeated being the South African White racists in 1994.

However, the only appropriate English adjective I can remember from my 14 years study of the English language (1952-1966), is: “insufferable”, that can describe some of these actors. Some of these imperialist actors, are insufferable. You have to work hard, to restrain yourself from exploding with anger. They are so shallow, they do not know when and where to stop. It is this shallowness in philosophy, ideology and strategy, that interferes with the global efforts to generate consensus for the good and even for the salvation of mankind from possible environmental and other man-made catastrophes. Hence, the recent provocation and arrogance by the World Bank Group on a subject of the homosexuals that we have so patiently discussed with so many of those elements. To dare think that the Ugandans, the brothers, the sisters and grandchildren of the Christian religious Martyrs of 1884 against our own tyrannical kings, the martyrs of the Luweero war (the 9th of June-Heroes), can be intimidated by the threat of withdrawal of loans and aid, that are, moreover, peripheral to our transformation efforts, is the epitome of mistake-making, to say the least.

It is, therefore, important for the Ugandans to know the state of the transformation journey and what elements are crucial for it. There are five strategic factors that are crucial for our unstoppable journey of social-economic transformation. These are:

i. The patriotic Ugandans rallied around the four principles of the NRM patriotism, pan-Africanism, social-economic transformation and democracy, that have been giving the NRM win on the first round ever since 1989, when indirect and direct elections, were re-introduced in Uganda;

ii. A powerful people’s army, that led the armed resistance from 1971-1986 and has guaranteed peace in Uganda against all and sundry, ever since;

iii. The private sector of the Ugandan farmers, the manufacturers (indegenous and expatriate), the investors in the services sector, the investors in the ICT – all now reinforced by our scientists that are bursting with innovations in all areas e-mobility, ICT, pathogen economy, etc;

iv. The core infrastructure such as some of the roads, the electricity, the railway, the piped water, the ICT backbone, the social infrastructure – education and health- that develops the capacity of the human resource and also lowers the costs of doing business in the economy to improve the profitability of the private and public sector enterprises, involved in money making;

v. The market to buy the goods and services produced in the economy by the private sector and also the profit-oriented parastatals, that includes the internal market of 46 million Ugandans, the 300 million EAC members, the 643 million COMESA citizens  and the 1.5 billion Africans; we also have the market arrangements with the USA (AGOA), with the EU(EBA), with China, the Middle East, India, Russia, Japan, etc.

These are the five factors that have enabled the economy of Uganda to grow from $1.5b to $55b by the end of this financial year, or 156.954 by the PPP method. It is these factors, that we are using through aggressive value-addition, full monetisation of the economy, expanding the services sector and building the knowledge economy, to qualitatively catapult our economy to the size of $550b, in the next few years.

Most of these factors, have been independently worked on by the Ugandan revolution in the last 63 years- ever since 1960 – the student movement, the armed resistance (1971-86) and causing the recovery of the Ugandan economy ever since.

You can audit each factor and see who did what: the unity politics Vs the sectarianism of the reactionaries; a strong Army; the growth of the private sector-liberalisation, privatisation, the return of the Indians, the support to our scientists, etc; the building of the infrastructure – the roads, the railway, electricity, social infrastructure, etc; and market integration in Africa.

It is in the area of some elements of infrastructure- roads and social infrastructure (schools and health centres), that the World Bank and some of the Western partners, contribute with a lot of conditionalities, frivolity, erraticness and paternalism, as if they are dealing with kindergarten goers. One time, one group said they were going to reconstruct Masaka-Mbarara etc., road, but not the Kampala-Masaka-portion!! When I was told, my reaction was: “Etajugirwe nyoko, kwobona ekireengye, oti nariire”-(A cow that is not part of your mother’s bride price, even if they give you its hoof, you congratulate yourself as having had a good meal.”

Continued from Page 3

We used Uganda government money, to do that portion – Shs.440 billion. Another actor, abandoned doing Kampala-Mityana portion at the last minute  (kokonyo, kunegura), an act that is very offensive among the communities of this area. We did it with Uganda government money. Some group was funding Kamwengye – Fort-Portal road and the work was being done by a Chinese company and a Chinese man slept with a local girl in some circumstances. The project was stopped !! We funded it and the road was finished. If you really want the country to under-go transformation, you must support the lowering of the costs of electricity, transport (the railway and water transport) and the cost of money in banks for the private sector and commercial operators to have good profits.

Baroness Lynda Chalker helped me with Nalubaale and I saluted her. The Chinese have helped us with Isimba, Karuma and they had offered to help with the Standard Gauge Railway. It is these areas that can quickly help to transform the economy. We salute the World Bank and some other actors for supporting the social infrastructure (health and education), inspite of the erraticness and frivolity. However, there is  a fundamental disequilibrium here. If you support the social sectors, but you do not support the railway, the electricity and the cost of borrowing, how will money making enterprises grow? If the money-making enterprises (factories, hotels, etc.), do not grow, who will employ the school leavers? Hence, the problem of unemployed graduates. That is why the Uganda government, creates funds such as the Youth Fund, the Women Fund, the Emyooga, the PDM, funding UDB, the Innovation Fund etc.

Therefore, all along, we move with some partners even when we are not fully aligned on the basis of: “Entajugirwe nyoko, kwobona ekirengye, oti nariire” – “a hoof of a cow that is not your mother’s bride price  is good enough.” In any case, it is us to develop our country and that is why most of the  five factors have been put in place by us. “Enyongyeserezo, teba mbi” – “Any addition to what you have, is not bad.”

Therefore, the World Bank and other external actors, have no capacity to interrupt our transformation journey. It is actually the internal weaknesses, that delay our forward march and that must and will be crushed. The internal weaknesses are two: the neo-colonial misplanners that have been historically manning the civil service and also present in the political class on account of the neo-colonial social sciences taught in the educational system; and the corrupt parasites in the same groups that delay the operations of the private sector or demand bribes from them. The mis-planners who see no problem with Africa, Uganda included, only producing raw materials. Yet, in Economics, we used to learn about the concept of Opportunity Cost – meaning what you lose by not doing or doing something. What is the opportunity cost of Africa only producing raw-materials? This is why the performance of Africa economies is miserable.

Here below, are the economies of some of the countries compared to that of the massive continent of ours:

USA –  $26.9 trillion

China – $19.4 trillion

Japan – $4.4   trillion

Germany – $4.3 trillion

India – 3.7 trillion

Africa –  2.9 trillion                             

(source IMF 2023)

This is big shame and the cause of the chaos in Africa: wars, hunger, African children dying in the Mediterranean Sea, our children going for kyeyo jobs etc. In the case of Uganda, we rejected this formula from the student days of our movement, but we have been having the internal opposition from the two groups and we also started from a very low base.  Nevertheless, using a realistic approach, we have been co-operating with the neo-colonial actors within our public service while, at the same time, using the growing capacity of Uganda’s economy in promoting our own  patriotic agenda and we have succeeded in the following sectors:

i. Fisheries  – 12 factories, they  had  gone up to 22 but  bad fishing undermined some;

ii. The maize sector – 5 million tonnes from 500,000 in 1986;

iii. Cotton – 2 factories, processing  20 million metres  of fabric per annum.

iv. Milk – 5.4 billion litres per annum from 200 million  in 1986  and 145 factories.  v.  Tea  – 23 factories  processing 82 million kgs of tea per annum;

vi. Coffee – 8 million, 60kgs from 2 million;

vii. Cement – 6  factories,  processing  4.6 million tonnes;

viii. Steel 19 factories processing MT510,700tonnes  per year from scrap -now going for  vertical integration with our iron ore  (obutare) to produce fresh steel;

ix. Ceramics factories – 2 factories;

x. Commercial explosive factories;

xi. Wood products factories  – furniture, ceiling boards, etc.;

xii. Military industries;

xiii. Pharmaceutical industries;

xiv. Gold refinery; etc, etc.

Then, food production supported by our research institutions for seeds development and development of breeding materials. That is why our inflation is now 3.9 percent inspite of the global turbulence. If you now scrutinise carefully, you will find that these success areas and the ones I have not listed, are, mainly, on account of the other five factors of growth and transformation promotion, that I have mentioned above that are, mainly, endogenous and not exogenous. Therefore, the illusion that external aid can cause or prevent social economic transformation, is, indeed an illusion.

The Bretton Woods aligned Ugandans (Mutebile, Muhakanizi, etc.), somehow contributed to our recovery by emphasising the use of market forces such as liberalising the foreign exchange rate to find its own level instead of the mistake of the Bank of Uganda arbitrarily fixing the rate, allowing prices for consumer and producer goods to rise and fall according to the laws of demand and supply instead of the government fixing prices or using subsidies, etc.

These free market stimuli, brought discipline and realism to the small enclave colonial economy of the 3Cs and 3Ts (Coffee, Cotton, Copper and Tourism, Tea, Tobacco) of 1962 that, moreover, Idi Amin had destroyed. These free-market stimuli, help those who are already in the money economy to act realistically. It does not, however, address the three big strategic bottlenecks that confront under- developed economies. These are: confining one selves to producing only raw materials and being import agents of foreign products; neglecting the crucial economic infrastructure that could lower costs in the economy by not building the railway and electricity and only partially and with a lot of frivolity working on  the social infrastructure (health and education); and ignoring the huge populations that were in the non-money economy (68 percent by 2013) that are not aware and cannot respond to the market forces stimuli. When I was commercialising the fish sector, I had no support from the system. When I was mobilising the traditional pastoralists in the Cattle Corridor into the Commercial dairy industry, the system was either indifferent or even hostile to my efforts.

The Hon Victoria Ssekitoleko helped me with the maize, with the banana flour, the vaccines, etc., I am always in fights with the neo-colonial system. I first saw Prof Muranga’s banana innovation at Lugogo Show Ground in 1997. It is only recently that I have been able to force the powers that –be, to fully and, finally, fund that project. How about my battle for the value addition for coffee? See my letter to Hon Mayanja Nkangi on the value addition to our produce dated November 12, 1997 on this issue.

PO/10

November 1997

Hon. Joash Mayanja-Nkangi

Minister of Finance

Ministry of Finance, KAMPALA

VALUE ADDITION TO OUR PRODUCE

Reference is made to our Cabinet meeting of November 3, 1997, held in Masaka.

In that Meeting, I brought to Cabinet, three containers of instant coffee;

1. A plastic container with a capacity of 100 grammes of blended coffee (Robusta/Arabica) originating from Uganda but processed abroad and costing $14;  

2. A glass container of 100 grammes of coffee from Colombia and worth $7 in UK;

3. A paper container with a capacity of 250 grammes of Uganda Robusta coffee, but ground in France and sold at $7.

Let me remind you, again, that 100 grammes is 10 percent of a kilogramme of soluble coffee and to get 1kg of soluble instant coffee, one needs 2.5 kilogrammes of coffee beans. How much would a kilo of soluble coffee earn if 100 grammes earn $7 in London? By multiplying $7 ten times we come up with $70.

During our meeting, we found out that 2.5 kilogrammes of coffee beans is needed to process one kilogramme of soluble coffee. However, according to the current rates, a kilogramme of soluble coffee only gives $1.3 to the Ugandan exporter.

It is, indeed, infuriating to note that a lot of time is spent on drafting and discussing a multiplicity of papers like the ‘‘Position Paper’’ and and many other documents, without putting enough emphasis on the massive robbery, alluded to earlier It is true that some of the so called structural adjustment measures help in ‘‘creating an environment’’ that is healthy for investment if utilised for investment rather than for convenient evacuation of unprocessed raw-materials (liberalisation) and earnings of foreign based companies (convertibility of currency) I must admit that the above measures do ease the work of farmers through prompt purchase of their crops and the exporters through liberalisation as well as 100 per cent forex retention but they do not address the historical question of massive loss of value by Africa to Europe as demonstrated above.

What I said about coffee, is true of cotton, fruits, beef and other produce, with the difference that many of them like Uganda beef, never get exported at all – not even at the slave prices quoted above.

Therefore, the so called Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are characterised by two major factors among many:

1) Massive loss of value to the G-7s and,

2)Massive under-diversification of its export potential (narrow and incomplete diversification) like in the case of Uganda.

What is amazing is that our planning and financial machinery has never addressed this strategic disadvantage.

When we were still in the bush, the National Resistance Movement [NRM] enunciated the Ten-Point Programme. Point Number five of this programme tasked us with “Building an Independent, integrated and self-Sustaining national economy”.

Inspite of the clear guidance, Uganda, eleven years after the NRM government came into power, is still exporting raw materials in a narrow range of areas. This is what is responsible for problems in (i) and (ii), above.

I, supported by a few colleagues, but not the system, have personally made efforts to monetise a few sectors and several of them have joined the Export sector.  In 1986, fish had a zero export capacity but now it is $100 million; milk; horticulture; soap; tea and beer have also been monetised. However, there are so many other areas that have not been tapped like beef, fruits, forest products, minerals and others.

What does our financial and planning machinery spend time on? Apart from the macro-economic stabilisation measures, they spend all their time and efforts on getting “import-support funds”, “debt forgiveness”, and less time on infrastructure (you remember my quarrel with them on roads).

I am aware that the macro-economic stabilisation creates a conducive “environment” by controlling inflation. However, if the environment is not used to plant, there will be no harvest. Some crops may grow by themselves (private enterprise, market forces), but without deliberate planting, there will be no bountiful harvest.

Therefore, this slavery role of Uganda will have to end! Ugandan products, processed into finished goods, must be linked with the consumers through the super-markets in Europe, America, North Africa, the Middle East and through bi-lateral arrangements with countries such as India, China, Russia and Japan. To speed up this process, we should try to work with the multi-nationals such as Nestle, etc. However, using our Ugandan Asians, we should be ready to move by ourselves if the multi-nationals try to obstruct us although I do not believe that myself. Most likely, it is our officials who have been obstructing the multi- nationals.

Finally, we cannot content ourselves by smearing our faces with nice creams and waiting to be noticed by the foreign investors, who currently, have got a lot of other opportunities in the world to choose from. The Ugandan state, using tax revenue money, but in partnership with private companies, should start these deliberate investments in priority sectors. Within a few years, if we implement these measures, Uganda will not need “import support”, “debt-forgiveness”, etc. The value we lose far exceeds these petty sums being talked about. We have doubled the amount of coffee we export from 2million bags to 4.5 million bags, making Uganda the Number One exporter of coffee in Africa. Our export earnings, however, have remained around $400 million.

If, however, we process coffee to a soluble stage, our earnings will more than quadruple. If we repeat this in respect of cotton and other crops, Uganda will no longer be a borrower country.

Yoweri K. Museveni,

President

cc: H.E. Vice President

cc: Rt. Hon. Prime Minister

cc: Honourable Ministers

cc: Honourable Ministers of State

Our innovation and wealth creation funds, have been from our money. I do not remember any external funding for them. The market stimuli our Bretton Woods group rely on so much and erroneously, are known as “macro-economic stabilisation”. They also exaggerate and refer to that formula as “structural adjustment”. There is nothing automatically “structural”  in that macro – economic stabilisation. You can actually become stagnant and, eventually, decline and collapse as so many clients of this formula have done in Africa. This is where the NRM firm philosophical, ideological and strategic position, saved Uganda. We said: “yes, macro – economic stabilisation is useful provided you also work on the qualitative leap from raw – materials to finished goods and you also use mobilisation to get the by – standers of the traditional, non – money economy, into the money economy.”

That is why Uganda under the NRM is an unsinkable ship in the stormy global sea of the world economy.  It may be useful to remember the words of Dr Mutharika, himself a former worker of some of those international bodies, when he became President of Malawi.

He said that he wanted “a Malawi economic plan supported by the World Bank” and not “a World Bank programme for Malawi”. The Ugandans should not waste time on it. Instead, we should launch a merciless war on the two internal inhibitors of our own: the corrupt and the neo-colonial planners. It is high time,  the two got off the scene completely. They have delayed us enough.

Finally, the provocations by the World Bank and the thoughtless homosexual lobby, should not provoke us into being, automatically, anti-Western. Even in the colonial times, we had supporters in the West in our anti-colonial struggle: Sir Dingle Foot,  Lord Fenner Brockway, Olof Palme, etc. Even today, there are many friendly forces in the West, but they are intimidated by these  disoriented lobbies. Our firm resistance to the wrong doers, assists them. Our Western partners, however, should also know that the reckless actions by some of these elements, could interfere with the fundamental interests of the citizens of the World in, for instance, fighting against terrorism and chauvinisms of different types (religious,etc.). We have been co-operating in fighting terrorists in Somalia, Eastern Congo, on the Sudan border in the past, etc.

This arrogance of some actors, creates unnecessary contradictions among partners in that cause. The very intolerance of different views by these homo-sexual lobbies is, in itself, a bad example. How, then, are you different from the religious fundamentalists who are intolerant of other faiths? If you have a certain view-point about homosexuality, we have a different one. Your attempt to coerce us, puts you together with the chauvinists. Our stable partners in the Western countries need to be aware of this.

Yoweri  K. Museveni,

 President

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