Tribute to Kibaki as meeting closes Story by
MACHARIA GAITHO, CHRISTOPHER MASON and GRACE MATSIKO in KAMPALA
Publication Date: 11/26/2007
President Yoweri Museveni closed the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting Sunday by paying tribute to President Kibaki for taking a break in his election campaign to travel to Kampala.
“Even President Kibaki who as you know is campaigning had to come for a few hours and go back home”, he told fellow Commonwealth leaders during the closing session at the Speke Resort in Munyonyo. The Uganda leader, who is the new chairman of the Commonwealth, recognised the presence of other leaders from the region, President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania and President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, who is seeking membership in the Commonwealth.
“I do not see this as a CHOGM for Uganda, I saw it as a CHOGM for East Africa” he told the delegates.
He said that some of his staff wanted to title the document on climate change the “Munyonyo Declaration”, but he insisted it be called named after Lake Victoria, which is representative of all the East African countries.
The meeting closed with Commonwealth Heads of Government on a secluded retreat a few kilometres out of Kampala, endorsing for the first time a common position on climate change and also a declaration of transforming societies to achieve political economic and human development.
The Kampala Declaration, as it was called, however was much softer than the social engineering experiment President Museveni has been pushing which calls for the elimination of peasantry and feudal societies to be replaced by a middle class of skilled workers .
The Ugandan president delivered what has become his staple lecture at every press briefing and speech – the need to transform “backward” and “primitive” societies from manual labour, peasant agriculture and feudalism to modern industry, technology and services-based economies. .
Meanwhile, Britain has given President Museveni his first assignment as the chairman of the Commonwealth, to Zimbabwean leader, Robert Mugabe to restore democracy and the rule of law.
At the sidelines
During their meeting at the sidelines of the CHOGM at Munyonyo Resort Sunday, Mr Museveni promised to use his new office to rein in Mr Mugabe.
“The President said that in his capacity he can influence President Mugabe because previously he had no capacity to involve himself in Zimbabwean politics,” the Presidential Press Secretary Mr Tamale Mirundi told journalists Sunday.
The President cautioned the West that Mr Mugabe is a revolutionary who fought for the emancipation of his people and therefore he will not accept to be given orders.
“His views (Mugabe’s) should be listened to,” Mr Tamale quoted President Museveni as having told British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
But Mr Brown said President Mugabe has refused to listen to other views apart from his own.
“If Mugabe can accept to restore order in Zimbabwe, Britain was willing to participate in the rehabilitation of the country’s economy whose inflation rate has shot up to over 1, 500 pre cent,” Mr Brown was quoted as having said.
At the meeting Mr Museveni asked Britain to support a fund which squatters in Uganda bibanja (land) owners can pay landlords or mailo owners. Mr Museveni told Mr Brown that the land disputes were created by the British which created mailo land and made the initial owners into servants of the land owners.
“(Late President Idi) Amin abolished mailo land but the NRM government restored it because Amin had tampered with the right to property of land owners,” Mr Museveni added.
Mr Brown in response to Museveni’s request on the fund said that starting this financial year, UK is going to commit 70 million pounds (Sh9.3 billion) in budget support to Uganda, part of which the country can use towards the land fund.
Mr Museveni also asked Britain to pay Uganda’s World War II veterans who have remained unpaid since 1945. He said Britain promised to pay but has not. Mr Brown promised to put the issue of veterans before the UK parliament.
Mr Brown commended Uganda’s education system but said UK is concerned about its quality. He promised that Britain will provide scholastic materials to improve on the quality of education.
The UK premier also asked Mr Museveni to intervene in Sudan’s war torn region of Darfur region but Mr Museveni said that the region is very far from Uganda’s border.
He advised Mr Brown to hold a meeting with the leader of South Sudan Government General Salva Kiir.
Mr Brown also said that Britain was concerned about the outcome of the South Sudan mediated peace talks between Kampala and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).
But Museveni said with or without the talks the security situation in Northern Uganda is irreversible.
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