October 23 - November 6, 2014

Lessons From Burkina Faso/ Zambia

Privately Owned Media

The Observer, November 6, 2014 – Lessons from Burkina Faso

• Museveni has held an unbridled power over Ugandan politics for over 20 years
• Museveni has had an unrivalled and rhetorically charged stance against “Western imperialism” (most especially in recent spotlight with the Anti-Gay agenda). He remains the leading trusted player for the West in the geopolitics of the Great Lakes region and the horn of Africa
• Recently ousted Compaore of Burkina Faso was for long also a key player in West Africa, especially in doing the bidding of the French. Both are seen as leaders who can be counted on by French/American political muscle in remaining strongholds against Islamist activities in neighboring regions
• Perhaps Museveni can see the turn of events in Burkina Faso as a sign of things to come, given his continued repression of opposition
• “It now looks increasingly unlikely that Museveni will ever peacefully hand over power either after losing an election or by declining to seek another term in office. By making peaceful transfer of power impossible, African rulers make violent overthrow inevitable” – Moses Khisa, Columnist 

The Observer, November 4, 2014

As we Bury Zambia’s Sata, let us cry for our Uganda

• Columnist compares GPD per capita in Zambia to Uganda to assert that peaceful political turnover of power (since 1991, Zambia has peacefully changed presidents five times) leads to higher GDP per capita
• Columnist compares GDP per capita in Burkina Faso to Uganda to assert that violent political overthrow is inevitable for Museveni, so long as elections persist with fixed outcomes
• “Cost of that is not only in Museveni failing to deliver but in maintaining him in power. […] should we hold elections, in which we spend billions, whose outcomes are pre-determined?
• […To] get MPs stop Amama Mbabazi from contesting, the cost now exceeds tens of billions of […] and it is not only MPs that are being bribed. Financing a life president in a country where elections are regularly held is an expensive venture. I see no reason why our kings don’t rule us?” - SSEMUJJU IBRAHIM NGANDA, Columnist 

Kony’s Continued Grip on Power

Privately Owned Media

The Observer, November 7, 2014 – How Kony has Eluded Regional, US Military

• Fugitive Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) leader Joseph Kony continues to use two sons to maintain his grip on the rebel group. The group successfully exploits civil conflict and state rivalries to evade death or capture. The LRA Crisis Tracker and Invisible Children claim that the end of the indicted rebel leader is difficult to predict . “His movements reveal a complex leader who is extremely isolated yet well-informed about regional political dynamics and skilled at exploiting civil conflict and state rivalries to evade his pursuers,” – Report by LRA Crisis Tracker and Invisible Children 
• Kony continues to hold power in the South Sudan and Central African Republic where he received periodic support from military factions
• AU mandate for Ugandan troops and American advisors to hunt down LRA in the jungles of CAR has fast approaching MID-2015 deadline
• Kony may also seek to deepen the LRA’s ties with the Sudanese military whose Kafia Kingi-based troops have given the rebel outfit a safe haven and periodic supplies in recent years

Ugandan Rebels Blamed for DRC Massacres

State Owned Media 

The New Vision, November 3, 2014 – Army clashes with 'rebels' blamed for DR Congo massacres

• Congolese army clashed with suspected Ugandan rebels - blamed for two massacres in which more than 40 people died in the Democratic Republic of Congo's volatile east
• Contact today with rebels of the ADF (Allied Democratic Forces), rebels were "organizing themselves" for another possible attack on the town, he said, the scene of two massacres in almost as many weeks
• Fighting ended when night fell, Paluku added, "We couldn't see the enemy... and we risked falling into an ambush."
• 30 people killed with machetes and clubs in a night attack on Beni, a major trading crossroads of half a million people
• 11 people were butchered in another attack there, only hours after DR Congo President Joseph Kabila left the town promising to defeat the ADF
• Past month about as 120 people have died in "successive massacres by the ADF" around Beni, and thousands of families have been forced to flee, the Civil Society of North Kivu group said
• Rebels have been active in the mountainous border region between the two countries since 1995 after being driven out of Uganda by President Yoweri Museveni
  • Have been blamed for atrocities, pillaging villages and forcing locals to fight for them, while funding themselves from the lucrative smuggling of wood
  • January - Congolese army and the United Nations began an offensive against the ADF, the last major group active in the region. Rebels have bounced back since the brutal death in August of Congolese army chief General Jean-Lucien Bahuma