Rampant global wars are resurgence of neo-imperialism

 Neo-IMPERIALISM

Last week, the New York Times Newspaper published in its Global Business section an interesting report on the visit of Portuguese President, Mr António Cunha Vaz to Angola. In that article titled "Portugal turns to former colony for growth", it was reported that the Portuguese leader was bold enough to shop for foreign investors from Angola to invest in its receding economy. This story is of great essence to many of us who have had to empathize with Europe through this economic meltdown. The world is indeed facing serious economic crisis, but above all, Portugal's bold move to reach out to its former colony, as a trading partner, has challenged the destructive patterns of capitalism we are witnessing with the world's so-called major democracies – US, Britain and France.

The persistence of colonialism and imperialism seems to have returned to haunt mankind. The wars being fought in the world have had specific traits; targeting resources from these countries. First, it was Iraq, then Libya and we have witnessed destructive bombings of infrastructure in these countries in the pretext of freeing the people.

This article will argue that, most of the wars and upheavals that have pre-occupied most of the Arab world are not about freeing the people. It is neo-imperialism and neo-colonialism being executed with the greatest impunity for the sole purposes of galvanizing, reclaiming and exploiting resources in these countries under the guise of creating a false free world.

Iraq has gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and all his murderous sons, but Iraq is not a free country. Iraq has some of the world's largest number of destitutes and orphaned children, nearly five million head counted orphans, live in that country. Most of them become child households heads or have been reduced to street dwellers - Something unheard of in Iraq before.

Today, there are 1.5million widows living in Iraq and nearly 2 million people living with various forms of disabilities as direct consequences of the instability there. The story is not any further from the fragile Afghanistan. If the wars being launched by the big democracies were to expunged dictatorship and bad governance, how come these tragedies are a constant storyline in most of the so-called liberated countries?

The wars being fought anywhere, let it be in Asia or in Africa, are intended to promote neo-colonial interests. In Sub-Sahara Africa, they tried and succeeded, mostly through the forced liberalization policies imposed by IMF/WB financial institutions. Through the liberalization of the fragile economies, most of the countries that blindly bought into that mantra have actually regressed in its economic growth index. Most of them have resorted to high level corruption because the mechanisms for equitable resource distribution were destroyed. Private foreign investors took over government functions and rendered regimes and indigenous businesses useless.

The new lexicon of neo-imperialism is Peacebuilding. Through the wars and bombings, they demolish the economic, social and political structures of the targeted resource country. Once the war is over, they hand pick and impose a puppet or stooge into power. They then rapidly introduce neo-liberal ideologies of fast tracking democracy (elections), forcing that fragile market to open up for integration into the global market and taking full control of the country's resources through the deception of employing peacekeeping forces  and humanitarian aid in these countries. In resource limited countries, they never intervene until countries melt down into absolute chaos like in Somalia or Darfur.

No matter how much Libya has to pay for the numerous NATO bombs, the message that the big democracies have taught us is that without Africa and Asia, there is no natural wealth. They also know that they cannot live with a fully developed Africa because the struggle against raw materials will heighten. The spiralling oil price in the global market is an example because many more people in the so-called underdeveloped worlds are using more automobiles since China made access easier.

So, while President Cunha decided to humble himself and seek the support of its resource rich former colony as partner in trade, the so-called democracies have opted to sell bombs and promote destructive capitalism. This is the world's tragic moment that threatens the future of the free world.

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Renationalization of UMEME is inevitable

Power Outages in Uganda 

I was impressed by Gen Salim Saleh’s observation that Umeme should be renationalized  Umeme – the power generation company in Uganda (See DM Nov 9, 2011: Gen. Saleh wants Umeme renationalized). I do not understand Uganda’s economists but I know that the NRM ideology of transforming society has stalled. This dearth of ideas has manifested in failed infrastructure; perennial potholes, almost daily power outages and a gamut of other degenerative conditions in health and education sectors. The challenge of power outage is overwhelming, though. What Ugandans painfully do relate with and know quite well is power outage (Romaticisized, socialized and normalized as “load-shedding”). 

Uganda has a lot of potential to industrialize and to claim international reputation as great tourist destination. Lack of steady flow of electricity has locked these enormous potentials. Industrialization cannot be achieved with charcoal stove and firewood. Electricity supply must be adequate, constant and reliable for us to realize this dream. Uganda is a backward country because of persisted poor service delivery. The potential of consumers are limited due to lack of electricity. Foods cannot be preserved, industries have to be confined within Kampala and Jinja; operation rooms have to rely on generators…on and on!! 

The whole essence of privatization was to enhance service delivery. Private investors were expected to compete in the open market so as to improve service delivery. The electricity and power industry has not been vibrant enough and as a consequence, it has reneged on all these expectations. Renationalization of Umeme therefore is inevitable. 

General Saleh was right. Privatization in Uganda was done in haste to satisfy the conditionalities imposed on us by WB and IMF in the 90s. Neo-liberal policies have let down many countries and in fact research has consistently shown that most of the countries that adopted Neo-Liberal policies of deregulations have not developed at all. Most of them have stagnated and others have regressed. Most Sub-Sahara African countries have not performed any better either with democracy and deregulated economies. 

Given the gloomy state of affairs surrounding Umeme; the perennial losses, constant and increasingly prolonged outages and internal corruption, the company has failed Ugandans. This is twenty first century and we still have Ugandans who have never seen electricity. There are so many children who have to rely on kerosene lamps for studies and others simply resort to local fires because Umeme is a no show in their villages, schools and homes. 

Steady supply of electricity is key determinant of health and that of economic growth. Imagine how many hours Ugandans could be working, if they had electricity 24hrs. Imagine how many small businesses could have cropped up to absorb the large number of unemployed youths if there was easy access to electricity. Imagine how much food and animal products have to go to waste everyday because we lack electricity to operate refrigeration or cooling plants in the countryside. 

The implications of Umeme’s failures grind so deep into our skins and psyche. I believe that, one of the solutions of reversing congestion in urban centers is to transmit electricity to the countryside. Further, I believe that with the invigoration of the youths that led to the development of Kira EV many youth and women groups could emerge out of poverty when given access to reliable power source. They could find variety of avenues to invest their micro –finance investments if government decides to re-nationalize Umeme and its sister companies. 

More Ugandans in villages and in the countryside are using cell phones and they require repair, servicing and charging. Ugandans have gone tech savvy. Technology is supported by electricity without which, we shall remain a poor and backward society. 

I challenge the government and President Museveni in particular to seriously heed to Gen Saleh’s advice. This is ideological issue and is the right thing to do. If we are to transform Ugandan society as Museveni envisioned, then the infrastructure to support such a transformation must be in place. Societal transformation from backwardness to modernity, world over has been powered by rich sources of energy to run industries, process agro-products, enable education, repair equipments and implements. Energy spurs creative learning and entrepreneurship. Umeme generates too much darkness!!

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Walk-to-Work protest has been justified by Occupy Wall Street

PEOPLE'S POWER

The current Occupy Wall Street (OWS) demonstrations in US cities and the demonstrations in Greece are two incidences that have justified and legitimized the Walk-to-Wok protest by members in the opposition to Uganda’s tyranny.

The W2W demonstrators have long pointed out the disparities in wealth distribution in Uganda between the regime’s cronies and the many wretched Ugandans who are living marginal and precarious lives.

Ugandans are enduring sky high food prices, a degraded environment characterized by catastrophe, a diminishing forest cover, lowered water levels, poor health care system, chronic power outages, high tariffs, chronically corrupt government and failed institution, sporadic incidences of insecurity to the person and to property, rampant land grabs by the powerful, nepotism and sectarianism in all branches of government. Further, the unease is made worse by increasing brutality exacted on the population by the largely sectarian and high handed military police.

All these trappings have pointed to the state’s abuse of its power, a sign that the current democracy in Uganda is a fragile arrangement that can no longer predicate equity in the utilization of public space for just distribution of public goods. In Uganda, the so-called rich are intricately connected to the power base that forms the Center/Core upon which they choreograph and execute the plundering of our country.

The emerging pattern is that the incumbent regime has found difficulties establishing its authority without brutality. Through repression, it has managed to establish legitimacy as the formal authority over the largely impoverished Ugandans. The fact of the matter is that those who are at the center have diminished in influence due to many years of abuse of power. They have cultivated a state that is opportunistic and agents who are rogued. In that essence, the power brokers are viewed as predators that form the bulk of the “Greedy” that OWS/W2W now targets.

To the contrary, because of the greed exhibited by the corrupted regime’s elite and the pseudo middle class borne out of political patronage, those at the periphery have increased in volume. There are more disparate and helpless Ugandans today than a decade ago. The number of people that have suffered from reversal of faith in the future under the NRM that the prospects of the 90s had ushered has almost tripled in the last decade alone. There are more poor Ugandans on the streets, some made homeless through the systematic policies of land grab. Many, so ill and burned out from treacheries of life that they prefer to perish in agony instead of confronting the dilapidated health care system. Noam Chomsky, a renowned American scholar described many of these hapless souls as precariats - those persisting precariously at the peripheries of society.

This is where W2W became a legitimate voice for, and a political response to the plight of those living precariously at the periphery of our society today. I hypothesize that the richest 2% adults owns and controls more than half the wealth in this country, and that, the so-called wealthy people are linked directly to the center through militaristic modes of patronage. This factor alone deprives the so-called middle class that feeds off the corrupt center, of any legitimacy.

Strange things happen in Uganda which reaffirms the pitiful level of our consciousness. The understanding of demonstration has been spewed out of tangent. When Taxi/Bus drivers; teachers or doctors and merchants/entrepreneurs demonstrate, they are treated with the same measure of awe that is exacted on the political agencies. Surprisingly, when the politicians demonstrate, the other groups abscond and vice versa and yet they are all seeking for same objective – fair conditions upon which national resources, including wealth and burdens of the state should be distributed.

The dilemma is, unlike in America, Uganda’s precariats are uninformed elites who are subdued by post-colonial forms of loyalties to the state.  This is the mindset that buttress patronage, rights violations and corruption. Corruption then becomes the means paired alongside brutality for ascertaining legitimacy of authority over those at the periphery.

I contend that all Ugandans should join W2W protest through which the greed of the center can be challenged peacefully by the precariats. These actions are legitimate and constitutional rights enumerated in Ch. 3(29)(1)(a)-(e) and others, in the Uganda 1998 amended Constitution.

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