In Apac, two women go in search of vegetarian food:

Thus it began: the most epic search for food I have ever experienced. We didn’t ask for much: beans, rice, maybe chapatti — something simple and easy, common Ugandan staple food. Our quest took us all over town, onto two bicycles and to six different restaurants, all of which were staffed by women who told us the exact same thing:

Smoked meat. Fresh meat. No beans. No rice. No chapatti.”

It was an anti-vegetarian conspiracy, developed and manned by a gang of sisters who ran Apac’s food distribution behind the backs of the LC5. An entire city — a district seat, no less — and no beans to be found. Rebecca and I sat in our hotel room for a minute, wondering what we would do.

In Kampala, Glenna Gordon explains the contradictions that exist at Cafe Pap, the swankest coffee shop in town:

I sat with Ali, a stranger to me, at our dirty Café Pap table because it had the only open spot at a smoking table at the crowded cafe. Pap, which sits just below Kampala's Parliament and just above the main thoroughfare, is Uganda's version of Starbucks, only with even more mediocre food and an even more stratified social milieu. Mbu, this is Uganda, where the average family lives on less than a dollar a day, and a cappuccino at Café Pap costs two days' income. There are 28 million people in Uganda, 1.2 million in Kampala, and about 20 people at Café Pap at any given lunch hour.

In Gulu, Moses Odokonyero writes about Congo's forgotten women, who were taken from their homes and brought to Uganda with the Ugandan Army's 4th Division:

I met little Lwize Paalwa three years ago in the dilapidated hospital of the Ugandan Army's 4th Division in Gulu, northern Uganda. The seven year old had the monumental task of taking care of her HIV-positive mother, Mamisha, who was near death. “Mummy wants to eat eggs, but there are no eggs. Mummy wants to eat meat, but there is no meat. All we have is beans and posho (ed. corn meal),” she told me.

On Nsazi Island on Lake Victoria, Basawad describes the island's natural and human changes:

Nsazi Island and many other islands on the Lake, are magnets for Uganda's unemployed. Nsazi village is a very good reflection of what the Lake's islands have become. ‘The village is a collection of mud and woven-branch huts separated by muddy lanes, with a few houses built of wooden plank and even fewer sitting on concrete foundations.' The Lake's water is used for drinking and cleaning, without sanitation. There are now about 2,000 people on Nsazi; as recently as 1998, there were only about 600 people there. Many, think of islands on Lake Victoria as a tourist paradise, some are. But islands, like Nsazi are now over crowded, very poorly served with social and physical infrastructures and are only contributing more to the rapid destruction of Lake Victoria and its resources. The Nile Perch has devoured hundreds of native fish species in the Lake. But it's humans, now, who are rapidly destroying Lake Victoria.

In Arua, Pernille shows us a woman selling matoke (medium-sized green bananas), tomatoes and a hen:

To me this is northern Uganda in one photo; a woman dressed in a mix of kufa ulay and vitenge, on the way to Arua market with green matoke and a kawera with tomatoes from her shamba, a hen and the purse for small change.

The awards were the brainchild of Jackfruity, an irreverent, civically minded blogger based in Kampala. The goal of the awards, according to Jackfruity, is “to recognize the incredible writing and art in this community.” The awards were decided based on open voting over a month long period, culminating in a ceremony at the March Happy Hour. Awards were given to a diverse crowd of bloggers, ranging from a Ugandan woman living in India to a Danish woman living in northern Uganda.

Here are the winners of 2006 Uganda Best of Blogs Awards:

Uganda Blog of the Year:

I Have Left Copenhagen for Uganda

Best Writing:
Dear Mr. Mccourt (now Once Upon Ish)

Best Design:
Living Zack's Utopia

Best Photography:
Locus Amoenus: Gulu, Northern Uganda

Best Post:
mataachi inc.: Kim +10

The Mabira Forest Controversy

Ugandan bloggers have responded forcefully to the story that the Ugandan cabinet was considering giving away 7,100 hectares of Mabira Forest to private investor to turn into a sugarcane plantation. Mabira Forest is prominently located on the Kampala-Jinja Road and is Uganda's largest tropical forest. I Have Left Copenhagen for Uganda reports that a boycott of Lugozi Sugar, a brand owned by the company intent on developing Mabira Forest, is being promoted via text message:

Congratulations to the Ugandan civil society for reacting! This is a fine example of a non-violent action, which in no time has created massive attention among the population, not just on individual basis, but also institutions and organisations are reacting. And not just within Uganda, it is going global. Campaign-wise this is a very interesting tool; any person with a mobile and airtime can participate.

However, no one said it should be easy; Police Spokesman Asan Kasingye is now hunting the originators of the text messages encouraging the sugar-boycott. He states that this kind of boycott is economic sabotage, claiming probably rightfully, it is illegal in the country. He is prepared to carry out arrests. In my opinion this man's reaction is proving that the campaign is working! Guess the Uganda goverment is to learn about modern non-violent campaigning methods…(hopefully before it runs out out teargas).

In his post titled, “Battle to halt Mabira Forest giveaway taken to cyberspace,” Abubaker Basajjabaka shows the effectiveness of the SMS campaign:

With government playing hide and seek, on top of giving contradictory statements about the whole saga, environmentalists took their fight to FM Radio Stations, dgroups and have also resorted to using Short Message Services (SMS) to caution Ugandans to stop buying Lugazi Sugar if their desire to grab part of Mabira Forest is not dropped.

SMS have particularly been effective. Over the weekend, packets of Lugazi Sugar have been piling up in supermarkets besides some business owners withdrawing them from their stalls. Environmentalists have been arguing that apportioning part of Mabira Forest would bring more adverse effects than the sugar shortage. Opposition politicians have also picked up the slack and are busy de-campaigning government for seer lack of concern if they granted a deal like that.

Rainforest Blog calls for action to stop “Great Ugandan Mabira Rainforest Give-Away”:

Let the Ugandan Parliament know rainforests and their ecological services including water, climate and biodiversity are more important than sugar which can be grown elsewhere. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni continues to pursue legally dubious plans to destroy large areas of Uganda's last important intact and protected rainforests. Some one-third of Mabira Forest Reserve [search], about 7,000 hectares of an area which has been protected since 1932, will lose its protection for sugar cane production by the Mehta Group.

Daniel Kalinaki, a prominent journalist for the East African, weighs in on his personal blog:

In his book, Sowing the Mustard Seed, President Yoweri Museveni waxes lyrical about his life-long drive and ambition to liberate Ugandans politically and economically. The jury is still out on whether the political liberation, aka the ‘fundamental change', is temporary or a mere papering over the cracks. Economic development, however, will certainly not come by pawning the family silver as giving away Mabira represents. To do so would be to see the forest for the trees, instead of seeing the trees for the forest.

Two other bloggers, Just Sayin and Only in Uganda, both write that concerns of economic development and environmental protection should be balanced.

There is an online petition to save the Mabira with over 9000 signatures.

Blatant Abuse of Power

After government agents raided Uganda's High Court to re-arrest six treason suspects who had been granted bail, In An African Minute wonders how seriously Ugandans should take the President's recent abuses of power:

My last Global Voices piece seems to have brought to light an interesting conversation of how seriously to take Museveni's recent excesses in suppressing opposition activity. On one hand are those who see storm clouds fast approaching on the horizon. James can see Uganda becoming the next Zimbabwe.

On the other end of the spectrum is 27th comrade, who worries little when Presidential storm troopers raid the High Court after opposition candidates have been let off bail. Sadly, this represents the attitude of a large portion of Ugandans, for whom state excess has become commonplace:

Unfortunately, by the standards of the continent, Museveni is a darling. He has not gone the way of Mugabe, bull dozing entire slums and eliminating entire opposition parties. Nor has Museveni gone the way of Ethiopia's Zenawi, who blatantly kills protesters on the street of Addis, spies excessively, and censors the Internet. However, no nation in East Africa is beyond falling back into despotism, and Museveni's recent excesses should be treated as part of a slippery slope. International pressure, and to the extent that it is possible, domestic pressure, should continue to hold Museveni responsible for the excesses of his regime.

Finally, sub-Saharan African Roundtable paints a colorful picture of Kampala's hectic streets:

Kampala is one of those cities that are bursting at the seams. And unlike Harare where they look for fuel solutions by giving policemen mountain bikes to patrol the streets, the Ugandan capital is the first and only place in the world where everyone and anyone can get away with anything illegal. If you were caught draining mercury from all hospital thermometers for instance, you can and probably will get away with it – do not ask me how. If you evicted one of the oldest schools in the country from prime land by saying you were going to build a world class hotel for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting [CHOGM] in November 2007, nothing would be done to you if you downed the buildings and left them to the fallow for three months – making that part of the city look like Mogadishu!

On March 14th, several of the suspects were released after allegedly being beaten, and with the striking judiciary, marched around the High Court to cleanse it of the incident. President Museveni sent a letter to the judiciary and apologized for the incident. Why didn't the blogosphere comment on this major story? Reasons could range from fear of reprisal from the government to this simply being business as usual for the Museveni regime.

In other news, The Diocese of northern Uganda shares the lesson he learned from noticing an early morning cock fight:

The time is 7:20am, as I was cleaning the compound, I saw two cocks fighting seriously, and it drew my attention as well as the attention of my family members. As I continue watching this drama, I recalled what the leader of the LRA Joseph Kony said on the war in Northern Uganda. Kony said “Lweny wa ni obedo calo pa twong gweno, ma acel ryemo lawote, itamo ni dong kibwoyo ento koni inongo ni en ma ocako ngwec ni dok cako ryemo lawote” Meaning this war is like that of two cocks, one may be overpower and you may think it has defeated the other one, but surprisingly the one who is being chased may regain strength and come back to continue the fight.

Earlier this week, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) re-committed to the peace talks with the Government in southern Sudan after several weeks of protesting the talks. Uganda-CAN sees this as a second chance:

The decision by the government of Uganda and Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) to resume peace talks within the next two weeks brings fresh hope that a peaceful resolution to the 21-year conflict can be found. For those who shirked support for the process before - the U.S. Government, African Union, IGAD to name a few - this provides a second chance. As we've continually advocated, confidence-building and accountability provided by external actors will be crucial if negotiations are to succeed.

Also this month, Ugandan troops arrived in Mogadishu to increased insurgent fire from Islamists. Jackfruity, in an ongoing debate in the blogosphere, argues that sending Ugandan peacekeeps to Somalia was a bad move:

Josh argues that Ugandan troops will be met with more support than Ethiopians, but so far they've been met with bombs and mortars that have already killed or injured almost 30 civilians and two soldiers. The peacekeeping mission is miserably underfunded and understaffed, and several human rights organizations have expressed serious concerns that the operation will be a repeat of Uganda's intervention in the Congo, during which the UPDF was found to have tortured and killed civilians. An editorial in Friday's Daily Monitor compared the American anti-terrorism fervor to the Cold War and accused Museveni of “playing this card against terrorism as a tool to help him in his quest for a life presidency.

In lighter news, for those who wondered what to do if they had 36 Hours in Kampala, In An African Minute has some suggestions. Here is one:

Friday-2PM Bribe a fisherman at Munyonyo Fish Market Lake Victoria is a defining feature of the region and an absolutely stunning site. What better way to experience the lake than on a fairly unreliable, hollowed out log that smells like Nile Perch? For $4 per day you can bribe a fisherman for his boat. Within 500 meters of shore there is an uninhabited island.

Finally, Just Sayin reflects on wearing the red anti-AIDS ribbon around Kampala:

Most people believe only people who are living positively with the virus should wear it. Someone went on to argue the only positive people should be anti-AIDS activists. How wrong. This is the stigma we should fight. Let’s start now here in blogville. We may even impact more then one person a day. We can do it. Not by waiting for 1st Dec to act. SIDA doesn’t have the patience to wait to infect you. No. This is an everyday fight, just like the one we wage against the devil every second.

In February, the grand opening of the film took place in Kampala. The New York Times sent an outside correspondent to cover the event, and wrote in a front page article calling Uganda “one of the safest and most stable countries in Africa.” This week, the Times published this response from Patty in Nairobi:

In “A Film Star in Kampala, Conjuring Amin’s Ghost” (front page, Feb. 18), you note that Uganda is now “one of the safest and most stable countries in Africa.” That may be true in southern Uganda, but it is a very different reality for the Acholi people in the marginalized north. In Uganda, only half the population lives in a part of the country where it’s secure enough to film a Hollywood picture. We should not forget the other half.

In Kampala, Moses Odokonyero, a journalist at the independent Uganda Daily Monitor and blogger at sub-Saharan African Roundtable, describes a first hand encounter with Amin's machinery of torture, as told by an Anglican Archbishop who was condemned for speaking out against the regime. Odokonyero then goes on to draw parallels between the Amin regime and the Museveni's behavior in suppressing Kizza Besigye, his main opponent in the last presidential election:

Museveni, like Amin, shot his way to power after a five-year guerilla struggle that he and his supporters call a revolution. One of his favorite topics, besides the media, is past leaders whom he baptized “swines” several years ago. But how different is he from the “swines?” Uganda has greatly changed since the Amin days: people don’t disappear as often and crudely from the streets, and there has been an improvement in press freedom and freedom of speech which is commendable. But stories of illegal detentions, people being tortured in the most gruesome of ways, including allegedly tying stones on their testicles, are still heard of, only this time they take place in “safe houses.”

Northern Uganda and the Horn of Africa

Speaking from satellite phone from his hideout in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Lord's Resistance Army deputy Vincent Otti said, “We are not going to renew anything” in reference to the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement set to expire next Monday between the LRA and the Government of Uganda. The expiration comes after months of stalled talks prompted by the LRA delegation's mistrust of the impartiality of the Government of Southern Sudan, who is hosting the talks. The Diocese of Northern Uganda, long seen as a moral compass in the region, writes on their blog:

With the presence of the Acholi Paramount chief, Rwot David Onen Achana 11 and key player in the diaspora as well as local leaders from Acholi in Juba, what do we expect? The reality on the ground is that people are now hesitant to go back to their villages for fear of rebel incursion. The LRA walked out of the talks last month and are insisting for a change in venue and mediator. The government position is still the same- no change of venue and mediator. We appeal to all parties involve to really have the people in the camps at heart.

Meanwhile, as the new Foreign Affairs was published this week with an article explaining the connections between the conflicts in Uganda, Sudan, Central African Republic, Chad, Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, the Ugandan blogosphere debates whether to support the decision to send Ugandan troops to the UN Security Council sanctioned African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia. In An African Minute writes:

First, I agree that geopolitical posturing was a major part of the Ugandan decision to send troops to Somalia. In the month leading up to the decision, the Uganda Minister of Foreign Affairs met with Secretary of State Rice in Washington and President Museveni received a call from President Bush. However, a realist foreign policy approach can have several merits. In this case, its clear that an unstable Mogadishu will help continue the steady flow of small arms to the conflict areas in East Africa.

The more frightening theory says the Bush administration looked the other way on northern Uganda in order to give incentive to the Ugandan Government to help in Somalia. If this is the case (and it is only one theory, the State Department has been mute on this point), I am deeply distressed and disappointed because the Americans could have made a serious impact on the stalled northern Uganda peace talks in Juba.

Public Transport and Hummers

In Kampala, one sees every type of transport, from public mini bus (matatu) to a handful of yellow H2 Hummers that cruise Kampala's streets. Only in Uganda weighs in on the folly of public transport:

The typical Kampala public transport users have neither voice nor partners in government (both local and central), their elected legislators and the parties licenced to provide it. They have to endure immeasurable levels of stress and torment getting to work in the morning, through a hard working and thankless day at work (or hospital or market, e.t.c) and then again in the evenings. The source of a bulk of this stress is from the providers of public transport which is overpriced and inadequate. What do they have to do to finally get a voice is a puzzle.

Meanwhile, Ernest Bazanye questions the moral value of christian pastors buying a hummer in Uganda. According to Bazanye, it is a sin:

Now, to the Hummer. It takes a lot of money to get one. A lot of money.

That's a lot of money. There is a heart patients need tickets to India. There is a teenage girl who dropped out of school because she ran out of school fees and is being pressured to turn to prostitution to feed herself and her mother. There is an orphanage where the kids have to share beds and blankets. There are clinics that are out of essential medicines. All these people are praying to God for help.

And God has given his follower A Lot Of Money and the instruction to perform as much charity as possible, using the most extreme example of giving everything away to illustrate how important charity is. A sinner can have a Hummer and be violating only the laws of good taste and moderation (because that is just the most vulgar behaviour I can imagine—bringing a Hummer into the third world). But a Christian has a duty to not use their millions to buy huge cars that benefit no one. It is a sin to have a Hummer.

Commenting on this post, Velvet Ink argues that all hummer owners need to be stoned (including the government of California!) and adds:

having bad taste is a sin..especially when you buy a hummer..especially the yellow ones!!

Ernest concludes his post wondering:

What’s wrong with a Prado?

*Toyota Land Cruiser Prado, popularly known as Prado, is a common SUV in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Last week, Uganda bloggers descended on Mateo's bar in Kampala for the second Uganda Bloggers Happy Hour. In addition to catching up with friends and discussing the main challenges facing the nation, the group made nominations for the first Uganda Best of Blog Awards. In a way, 2006 was the year that the Ugandan blogosphere woke up, with a massive increase in quality of writing and the addressing of public issues. The Best of Blog Awards, the brain child of Jackfruity, is an excellent way of recognizing both communal improvement as well as specific blogs and their content.

For Global Voices readers who haven't been following the Ugandan blogosphere closely, below you will find a brief review of the 8 nominees for ‘Uganda Blog of the Year.' Think of this as akin to those slick video montages at major award ceremonies. This quick review is intended to show the incredible diversity of writing style, topics and personalities in the Ugandan blogosphere.

Building the Nation has been blogging irreverently since June 2005. He writes about his nightmares, traveling by bus in Uganda and how his grandmother can tell from him stirring a cup of coffee whether or not he has added milk. He is linked up with what I call the Makerere School, a group of students and former students who went to Makerere University and usually write about their daily adventures in Uganda.

Dear Mr. McCourt, which has recently changed titles to ‘Once Upon Ish,' is a blog by Inktus, a Ugandan student studying in New Delhi, India. She writes reflections on life in the form of letters to her favorite writer, Frank McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes. Inktus writes about conversations with Mexicans in India, participating in Gulu Walk India, and calling up strangers and offering to buy them coffee.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place is Uganda's most controversial blog. Author and provocateur Dennis Matanda, who works in the banking industry in Kampala, has published intense critiques of Ugandan character, the practices of politicians and the economics of dependency. His posts are some of the most challenging blog posts to come out of Africa.

Ernest Bazanye is perhaps the funniest man in Uganda. He is an author and journalist, who writes a weekly column for The New Vision, one of Uganda's two daily English language newspapers. He describes himself as an ‘incorrigbly fractious young man; not the least nettlesome of his countrymen.' He writes about modern artists, using the word ‘fuscia' in a sentence and the perils of Kampala's nightlife.

I've Left Copenhagen for Uganda is the blog of Pernille, a 35 year old Danish aid worker who has been in Uganda since June 2005. Pernille lives in the West Nile region of northern Uganda and travels throughout the region, making her remarks on the Sudanese border, visiting Internally Displaces Persons (IDP) camps and going shopping for groceries in small Ugandan towns.

Ivan Presents (200 Coin Has Fish) is another blog nominated from the Makerere School. Ivan writes about what its like to live in city facing constant power cuts, and ranting and ravings about friends and family.

Twisted Nation is a blog by Mr. Magoo, a self proclaimed O-level (high school) dropout turned movie producer. Also nominated for best design for his ‘all seeing eye' design, Mr. Magoo writes about the movies he helps produce, reflections on global entertainment industry and finding his friend in a You Tube music video linked off the US Military HIV Research website.

Velvet Ink is the blog of Zack and Joshi. Joshi is a Ugandan living in the UK who is somewhat of a pundit, leaving comments all over the Ugandan blogosphere. The pair write about Ugandan personalities they would love to see blogging, having dreams about meeting other Ugandan bloggers, and what the government should really do to stop the spread of HIV among Ugandan youth.

Check out the links above and vote for Best Ugandan Blog here. On the same site you can vote for best design, best post, best writing and best photography.

The Juba Peace Talks between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Government of Uganda, whose wheels had been humming energetically as recently as October, have ground to a halt, with reports early this week of rebel movement towards the Central African Republic (CAR). However, Uganda-CAN, a leading policy advocacy organization has helped fill the void by creating an 8-part interactive blog series called ‘What's At Stake in the Juba Peace Talks.' Two highlights:

On Implementing Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA):

The LRA rebels’ presence in southern Sudan is further weakening the CPA. They continue to destabilize the region, making it more difficult for the GOSS to rebuild institutions and communities. The NCP may also try to maintain its monopoly on political power and access to oil revenues by renewing its support for the LRA in an attempt to destabilize the south and prevent its secession. However, success in the Juba peace talks would help consolidate the gains towards peace and democracy in South Sudan initiated by the CPA over the past two years, which in turn are crucial to the hopes for the stabilization of Darfur.

On Peace in Karamoja:

The proliferation of arms in the region from conflicts in northern Uganda, southern Sudan, and Somalia has also fueled Karamajong cattle raids in the neighboring Iteso and Acholi regions of Uganda, undermining the Juba peace talks by making northern Uganda less secure and safe for IDPs to begin returning home. If the Juba peace talks succeed in bringing stability to northern Uganda despite this, the Ugandan government might be encouraged to seek a peaceful solution to the violence in Karamoja. However, a failure of the parties to the Juba talks to come to an agreement would greatly hamper efforts to address the arms proliferation, political tensions and humanitarian crisis in Karamoja.

In other news, we can see the level of organization, profile and relevancy of Ugandan bloggers rising. The first Uganda Bloggers Happy Hour in Kampala in mid-January was discussed by prominent Amsterdam based podcaster Bicycle Mark as well as the Daily Monitor newspaper in Kampala. Coming up in February, nominations are due for the First Annual Uganda Best of Blog Awards (make nominations here by February 15th), the awards for the cream of the Uganda blogging crop, and the second Uganda Bloggers Happy Hour will take place in Kampala.

In other news, Uganda blogger and provocateur Dennis Matanda is quickly becoming much talked about across the the African blogosphere. In our last Uganda roundup, we talked about his proposal for recolonization of Africa. This post has been muched talked about, including this comment from White African:

Want to become an instant pariah? Talk about race in Africa. How about you continue and blame Africans for Africa’s problems, and how Africa isn’t living up to it’s potential. How about you make things even more explosive and talk about how things would be better if the white man was back in control. Stirring up a huge pot, that no one in their right mind would want to touch, Dennis Matanda has really put himself on the map.

This week, Matanda published 100,000 Guns Later, another provocative article detailing the subtle connection between Uganda's history of ethnic militirization and today's proliferation of weapons in the big business private security apparatus:

Uganda has over 100,000 guns floating around. It is roughly estimated that there are over 5,000 guns in private citizen’s hands; another 22,000 in the private security firm’s armories, a colossal 20,000 amongst the Karimojong, another approximately 18,000 with the police force, 50,000 plus divided amongst the regular army – and maybe 5,000 or so scattered amongst the many secret and sub secret security organs.

The point I am trying to make is encased in the fact that a great many Ugandans have lost their jobs and their livelihoods under the Yoweri Museveni years, 1986 to the present. The country has never been as polarized as it is right now. Our future has never been as uncertain as it is today. We are living in a bubble as it could burst any time. Unlike the Obote time in 1985, these over 100,000 guns in the “wrong hands” could do damage to ordinary people like me.

Finally, Ugandan bloggers are continuing to cover issues out of the sight of mainstream media. In Uganda there is much talk about the plight of both urban and rural Internally Displaced Persons (IDP's). However, I Left Copenhagen for Uganda provides a fascinating piece that addresses the plight of Sudanese refugees displaced in Uganda:

Officially, there is peace now in southern Sudan, and asking any Sudanese refugee if he/she is to return, they answer positively. Asking ‘when that would be more specifically?', they whirl into abstract explanations, finally concluding ‘that when the repatriation starts, that will be'. Translated into plain English it basically means ‘when there is someone facilitating the transport'. It is very simple, someone else (UNHCR) brought them here, now those ones must also bring them back.

At last week's Uganda Bloggers Happy Hour, I may at one point have been so overcome with spirited enthusiasm that I declared an upcoming blogging competition without real regard to who would organize, sponsor or regulate such a competition.

Jackfruity, who has the guest list and pictures from the gathering, writes:

The topics of conversation at Thursday night's Inaugural Uganda Bloggers Happy Hour ranged from cell phones to Alice Lakwena to the transvestitical possibilities of Philip Seymour Hoffman. The Jabberwocky was recited, blogging addictions were confessed, heaven was declared to be just like North Korea, and the Ugandan blogosphere gained a fanboy. Also, we unanimously agreed that Inktus is hot.

Northern Uganda and the Horn of Africa

In Uganda, stories about foreign relations with countries from East Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East and America dominate the headlines and the blogs.

As Juba peace talks between the Government and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) continue to stall, the LRA's colorful and enigmatic spokesman in Nairobi called for the talks to be moved from Sudan to Kenya, citing bias on the part of the Government of Southern Sudan.

While the partners in the talks squabble over location, the people of northern Uganda held their first joyous New Year's celebration in two decades, celebrating the fact that at least one million displaced persons were able to return home in 2006. However, the first weeks of the new year brought increased fear that the blundering of the peace talks would lead to a return of abductions and violence in the North.

On to the Horn of Africa, where a conversation between President Museveni and President Bush led to the Ugandan announcement that they would take a lead in a peace keeping mission in Somalia, following the routing of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) by the Ethiopians over Christmas. In an African Minute weighs in on whether Uganda is ready to send its troops to foreign lands:

So is it a good idea that Uganda, at the urging of American Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice, recently pledged over 1,000 troops for stabilizing the region?
Well, it depends. Anarchy in Somali ports, a major port of entry for small arms, is one major reason that the Horn and East Africa are so destabilized. Guns from Somali ports feed the most dilapidated war zones in the world: southern Sudan, northern Uganda and eastern DRC. Also, no one in the region benefits from a Somali led by Islamists with extremists leanings, who enjoy basking in the support of Saudi Arabia and Iran instead of promoting a moderate image that assures the international community that they will not turn Somalia into a Al-Qaeda training ground.

Ugandan Mercenaries in Iraq and Re-colonization of Africa

In a lesser-known story, Sub-Saharan African Roundtable discusses why Ugandans are the prefered mercenaries for private security firms in Iraq:

According to various sources, Ugandan servicemen serving private military companies in Iraq have a good reputation. Their command of English offers an advantage over Asian and other competitors for non-combat guarding jobs. However in this billion-dollar industry, Ugandans' share of the booty is being shared by the lack of malpractices at home- and the need for better regulatory oversight.

Also on Sub-Saharan African Roundtable, a well-written but intensely provocative and perhaps evasively satirical unsigned piece calls for the re-colonization of Africa:

I would like to recommend that instead of wasting our time and wringing our hands in helplessness while the rest of the world slowly but surely gets numb to our pain and leaves us behind even faster, we should let these good white folk come back to actually and effectively run our African countries and affairs. Yes – we know that white people control our budgets behind those curtains of donor aid and NGO’s – but they give momentary power to uninstitutionalized Africans – who can, in less than a heart beat, do more damage to a good and viable project than 1,000 barracudas can do to a ton of succulent lean beef!

On OpenDemocracy.net, Patricia Daniels provides an overview of this continent wide phenomenon. In Africa: tools of liberation, she concludes with a general lesson:

The conclusion is always going to be the same: for peace, democracy or development, let's leave the real decisions to the people who know what matters to them. There is plenty of existing ICT capacity in Africa, as well as the potential to continue developing it, with the right kind of support. The conclusion of the discussion that sparked this essay was right: it's empowerment not patronage that's needed.

She notes a particular ICT project in Uganda:

In Uganda, ISIS-WICCE have developed a multimedia, multi-pronged approach to bring women under the ICT umbrella. This included training, opening a women's cybercafé, collecting women's stories and basing content on real urgent needs. Working with different technology and developing partnerships (including the Women of Uganda Network [Wougnet]) created a synergy, which has had concrete results in a wider sense of empowerment. In particular, their radio talk shows on violence against women, especially war victims and refugees, raised awareness among the international community and prompted donor support to address these issues.

In An African Minute reports on the launch on an innovative IT project aimed at helping the country coming to consensus on post-conflict reconciliation issues:

I'm happy to announce the launch of a new site:
USAID's Northern Uganda Peace Initiative (NUPI): A Portal for Reconciliation is space designed to discuss the multifaceted issues of Ugandan reconciliation. While none of the tools on this site are new (blog, vlog, cell phone text messaging capability), as far as I know this is the first time they have been used to help identify solutions in a post-conflict setting. Since the site will be only as good as the amount of engagement from all communities interested in reconciliation, it will be a fascinating experiment to see how useful and relevant participatory communication tools are in the developing world.

In Kampala, the X-poser covers a Makerere University video conference on Blogging and Media in Africa:

Fears for blog-sphere to wipe-out journalism took center of the discussion for some good minutes but later Abdullahi Boru from Makerere University commented that, “Blog-o- phobia has to be substituted by blog-o-mania. Journalist will not run away from the new technology instead they should do their part professionally”. Hard material like Academics and news are blogged not forgetting sensational or un-researched material. Journalism students or journalist too have to blog, but what is the impact of their blogging?

In other news, there were three important pieces written this week about some of Uganda's under-reported issues: the Karamojong conflict, regional geo-politics, and new information on Uganda's HIV/AIDS rates.

Samuel Olara reports on the undercovered continuing conflict in the northeast Karamojong region:

People rarely win wars, and governments rarely lose them. People get killed. Governments moult and regroup, hydra-headed. Civilians become hostage and victims to the actions of their own governments, which is constitutionally mandated to protect them. Such is the tragic situation that has been playing itself in the Karamoja sub-region of northeastern Uganda since President Yoweri Museveni launched his so-called “disarmament program,” which has now turned out to be a massacre of the poor Karimojong.

Head Heeb outlines the continuing disasters in the Sahel region:

And a new theater may be opening in southern Sudan, where the Machakos peace may be collapsing before the world's eyes. Since the 2002 peace accord and the installation of a national unity government last year, the south has experienced a tentative recovery and thousands of displaced persons returned to their homes. Three days ago, however, the peace was broken when a clash between government and SPLA troops in the southern town of Malakal escalated into a pitched battle in which hundreds died. The latest reports indicate that calm has returned to the city and high-level delegations are attempting to mediate, but these efforts face uncertain prospects amid the southern ethnic groups' growing discontent over their marginalization. Unless regional conciliation is extended to ethnic groups as well as governments and militias, and unless the international community makes a sustained commitment to peacekeeping and development rather than choosing sides, the Sahel conflict zone may continue to expand.

In An African Minute asks if violence in Sudan, Central African Republic and Chad have an impact on events in northern Uganda:

Of course, the conflict zone has already expanded, playing a role in destabilizing the talks between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Government of Uganda in Juba, Sudan. The LRA this week suspended the peace talks, claiming the cessation of hostilities agreement had been violated.

Elsewhere, Jackfruity investigates America's role in a possible reversal in Uganda's famous AIDS success:

The Washington Post recently reported that the AIDS rate is rising in Uganda. Peter Piot, director of UNAIDS, attributes the increase (from 5.6 to 6.5 percent in rural men and from 6.9 to 8.8 percent in rural women) to “a period of ‘decreased credibility' of condoms, the consequence of messages by some fundamentalist groups, a run of defective condoms and then a shortage of condoms.”

While serious issues continue to crowd the agenda, Ugandans continue to recognize the importance of laughter despite the struggles. Ernest Bazanye, known to Ugandans as Baz, and perhaps Uganda's funniest man, writes about his recent ride of Uganda's famous boda boda motorcycle taxis:

Twice in the past seven days I have found myself riding a boda in town, something I don’t usually do. It is both unsafe and unhygienic. It is on record that the National Boda Boda Association (NBBA) tests members’ underarms and will withhold an operator’s licence if the carbon concentration levels fall below a certain level of toxicity.

Sometimes, these places are overlooked by the main stream media and by the blogging community for the same reasons. These places are incredibly difficult to cover, not only because of the logistical lack of power and bandwidth, but also because it is difficult to effectively translate such experiences to an average reader whose daily experience is, in many ways, incomparable.

Gulu Town is such a place. Gulu is the portal to a greater northern Uganda that has suffered as much as any region in the world. It is a vast and diverse suffering. For the last twenty years, over one million people throughout the north have lived in miserable Internally Displaced Person's (IDP) camps, fearing the occasional Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) attacks and the daily government hostility. Warriors in the deeply troubled northeastern Karamoja region fight one another for cattle using AK-47's and fear occasional government air bombing. In the 1930's, the West Nile Virus was discovered in the region, and in the 1970's, it experienced an Ebola epidemic.

And yet Gulu Town itself is strangely calm and charming. It is a beautifully laid out town in the British design; it is relaxed and pleasant compared with Kampala. Many people look strong and upbeat, and nearly everyone is endlessly helpful and generous. The LRA attacks have ceased recently, and there is a modicum of hope; perhaps this is the most one can ask for after lifetimes of never ending hostilities. For those who have heard about the tragedy of northern Uganda, there is a strange contradiction after visiting the place. Despite observing the often unspeakable difficulties of life, one often leaves with hope that the actors in the violence are human, even though their actions are not.

We have heard much political commentary about the stalled Juba Peace Talks between the LRA and the Government of Uganda. However, we rarely hear about what life is like for the people that have been affected by the cycle of conflicts that has existed in the North since independence. This is strange, because in the North there is an ongoing joke about how the population is merely extras for foreign videographers filming the humanitarian disaster. While a few documentaries exist on the subject, there is very little online content.

We are lucky this week to have some blog posts about life in the north. I hope that more writers emerge from the greater northern Uganda, and that more Kampala based bloggers travel to the north and record their experiences.
The difference of life in northern Uganda can be seen in simple, everyday experiences. In I've Left Copenhagen for Uganda, Pernille traveled to the north and asks Where Is the Bathroom in an IDP Camp?

When you live in an IDP camp, on little space, without cash, and without access to materials - you have to be inventive. The things which can be recycled and used for a new purpose is amazing. But remember it is mainly done due to the above reasons.

The left image is a shower made out of jerry cans cut open. The right image is a ‘handwash', where you tip the stick below with your foot in order not to touch the water can with dirty hands coming straight from the pit latrine. Handwashing is taken seriously around here, i.e. due to cholera.

In another post, Pernille travels to Arua, the far north border town with Sudan. She writes:

In Arua peace is a brand, and as one reader put my attention to the other day, now ‘peace talk' is slang for chatting up the opposite sex. A good sign, I believe.

There are poets who can take on the voice of the suffering. Chorya, writing in Poems from a Civil War, shows us how fed up and tired those in the north have become:

Enough. Uphold the day’s
baton resolve - and let us marshal
a kindred peace as perennial
as this present overcast.

Sweep under the ignominy;
monument the carnage, if you must,
until shame whisks it away.
And in its wake, revealed,
new secrets and patient
formulas discovered, distilled from
blood-gore.

A time for peace a-brewing…

One conspicuously absent donor was the United States. Uganda-CAN asks why:

At this point, we cannot help but wonder what interests the Bush Administration is worried about hurting or losing if it shows any support for this historic peace initiative. Is it worried that it could hurt its alliance with President Museveni, whom has been a strategic ally in the war on terror? Is it worried that it could hurt the working relationship between the UPDF and the U.S. Combined Joint Task Force in the Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA)? Is the it worried that it could lose the U.S. military's air base at Entebbe Airport? Is the it worried it could hurt foreign military sales to Uganda? Is it worried that it could hurt its business interests in the country at a time with China's influence on the continent is growing? Whatever it is, it appears that the White House is putting perceived geopolitical, military or economic interests before the interests of northern Ugandans in peace after 20 years of brutal war.

Meanwhile, Ngromrom remains highly critical of the Government's intentions at the Juba talks:

Right now as I speak, if the Museveni government were to remove the NRA soldiers from all detaches, reverse its policy towards the people in eastern and northern Uganda, promote a committee for reconciliation, obtain and disburse fund for rehabilitation of the northern and eastern regions, revert maintaining of law and order to the police, embark on a program to empower the people in all communities, the Juba peace talk would become redundant. These few points would result in a speedy return to normalcy in Uganda. Juba isn't the only place where Ugandans are making plans for after the conflict.

In a controversial move, the Government has announced that it is shutting down all IDP camps by the end of the year. While many welcomed Government moves to take post-conflict development of the North seriously, critics, including Jackfruity, believe that the move was dangerously premature:

The government's showy closing of the IDP camps as proof that northern Uganda is finally safe is a dangerous move, with the potential to further damage the lives of millions of conflict-affected people. Though LRA attacks have dramatically reduced since the beginning of the peace talks in Juba, a better system for resettlement needs to be firmly in place before IDPs are forced to return.

Further south, in the dusty town square Kasana, in Luwero District, In An African Minute reports on a little noticed meeting that could be the first step towards creating a Ugandan culture of reconciliation:

On Wednesday, October 11th, 2006, The Daily Monitor published an unlikely headline: ‘North Seeks Reconciliation With Luwero' The article (not available online), written by Rogers Mulindwa, goes on to describe a meeting between cultural, NGO and political leaders from the greater northern region, and their counterparts from Luwero (central Uganda). The leaders from the north asked for forgiveness for the crimes committed against the people of Luwero by the Oboto regime in the 1980's. To understand the significance of this meeting, one must understand that for many Ugandans, the Luwero Massacres are symbolic of deep and complicated divisions that exist within Uganda's many regions, tribes and ethnic groups. More often than not, these divisions are sealed with memories of blood.

A long time member of the Ugandan press, but a newcomer to the blogosphere. Angelo Izama, on the Sub-Saharan African Round Table, writes penetratingly on the legacy of a hardworking president:

An author himself, Museveni and the critic Kalyegira aught to get together and write a book possibly entitled “A Backward Dream: From Third World to Third World,” the biography of a frustrated Ugandan president. The stasis in Uganda as in elsewhere on the continent is however constructed not just on poor economic policies, tribal wars and an exclusionist global trading environment but also on a debilitating attitude crisis. If writers like Kalyegira mourn that Africans do not amount to much, he and others do not work on expanding Africa’s options more. Instead, there is a retreat by his ilk to another favorite African pastime, the opaque sanctuary of religion and myths like white supremacy.

Also, the Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni briefly traveled to Juba to take part in the peace talks. Ugandan blogger Ngorom remains skeptical of the President's involvement:

Considering the international interest in Sudan as a whole, Museveni is on a mission that has nothing to do with peace talks going on in Juba. The fact that he has been reported to have met the LRA delegation and berated and merely abused them is indicative that his main aim is not peace negotiations. Museveni is searching for some “buttons” to push in order to torpedo the talks and achieve his aims in southern Sudan.

Meanwhile, In An African Minute reports on discussions in Kampala on long term peace and reconciliation. He notes that the Government and civil society have left these crucial questions unanswered:

(i) Is there political will to make national truth and reconciliation a reality? The answer lies only with Museveni. There is reason to be hopeful. He is increasingly interested in his legacy, especially relating to East African unity. He must know that this cannot happen unless his own house is in order. There are also economic reasons. Stability of Southern Sudan, with Juba as its capital, makes for enormous economic opportunity. Anything material going to Juba will surely come from the Mombasa Port via Kampala and Gulu. Uganda loses much needed income if the north is unstable. Even political adversaries like Gulu LC V Chairman Norbert Mao have acknowledged that Museveni has become significantly more open-minded about resolving the northern question. However, it will take a heroic effort for him to transcend the political culture of neo-patrimonialism that has pervaded Uganda.

(ii) What would a national truth and reconciliation process look like? The details of this plan are beyond the scope of this post, but the process should be served by the careful balancing of two disparate principles. First, all parties should recognize that the process of ‘acknowledgement' is central to the Ugandan sense of justice. While punitive justice would be a Sisyphisean task considered the twenty-two armed conflicts in the last twenty years, public acknowledgement of wrongs would go a long way towards reconciliation. Second is Rosiland Shaw's concept of ‘social forgetting.' Shaw is a Tufts University anthropologist whose work in Sierra Leone showed that truth commissions, which are the international norm in transitional justice, are not always therapeutic. Shaw showed that religious or traditional based approaches to dealing with the past can often be more appropriate and effective.

In Kampala, the First Lady Janet Museveni, backed by USAID, launched a birth control system called Moon Beads, designed to help women track their menstrual cycle, and thus avoid sex when fertile. Several bloggers, including Jackfruity, criticized this controversial program:

Though Mrs. Museveni’s plan recognizes the need for better family planning in Uganda, it is sorely misguided. The natural family planning method is intended for monogamous couples and requires the women to carefully observe her periods for three to six months before implementing the system (the Moon Beads are intended to be used immediately and do not account for varying menstrual cycles). Even then, the method is only 75-90% effective, as compared to 95-99% for oral contraceptives and 86-98% for condoms.

In another post, Jackfruity provides insight into Aga Khan, the man whose portrait is displayed around Kampala as prominently as President Museveni's:

As for Uganda and why Aggie's countenance smiles down upon me wherever I go, that question is still unanswered. I choose to view him as a benevolent Big Brother figure, trusting that whatever happens — whether I come up against a massive natural disaster or find myself in need of a $2500/night suite in Mombasa — the Aga Khan will be there for me, cheerfully helping me make the world a better place.

Why would anybody even consider that the peace talks proceed with ICC threat unresolved? Museveni, has to provide conditions to keep the ICC away from Kony and his commanders, otherwise there will be no peace involving those five men. These two issues are mutually exclusive. Without these men, there must be modified peace talks, becasue the people of Uganda in the affected areas still need peace from the government of Museveni. Twenty years of oppression and mistrust cannot be wiped out by mere signing of documents in Juba.

Meanwhile, Uganda-CAN warns that there are nearly unnoticed security challenges in the eastern region of Karamoja, where small arms proliferation is rampant. Uganda-CAN indicates that these small arms cross the border from Sudan and threaten to spill over into northern Uganda:

While peace talks between the Ugandan government and LRA rebels continue, lawlessness and violence is flaring up in the east almost unnoticed. Per Engebak, director of Unicef for east and southern Africa, said even if a peace deal is signed, violence in Uganda's eastern Karamoja region threatens to spill over into the war-weary north.

In more hopeful news, Basawad's Safari Notes has an encouraging story about the recovery of Uganda's tourism industry through the lens of Bwindi National Park, in western Uganda:

Not all stories are bad. Some are good. Some very good and encouraging. One such very encouraging story is that of Bwindi; Bwindi National Park, Uganda. Bwindi's recovery as a major tourist attraction, is a reflection of the recovery of Uganda's tourism industry.

During the Idi Amin years and the unsettled years after that, many thought that Uganda would never recover as an attractive tourist destination. Many too, thought, that most of the attraction - wildlife in particular - would no longer be much of an attraction for tourists.

Openminded.com writes a critique of Andrew Mwenda's Prison Notes. Mwenda is Uganda's most prominent journalist, who was arrested briefly in August 2005 for speculating about the cause of death of Sudan's southern leader Vice-President John Garang:

Mwenda’s serialization of his ‘prison’ experience is a true expression of the old dictum that “History is always written by the victors”. Mwenda is spot on when he writes that, if you look at the statute books in Uganda, the legal regime governing the media reads like it was drawn by a committee of five dangerous men-Adolf Hitler, Benitto Musolini, Joseph Stalin, Idi Amin and Pol Pot. However, in first part titled “Background of my arrest”, Mwenda tactfully leaves out the details of whole story: He doesn’t write what exactly he said on Radio that prompted government to arrest him. As a person who listened to the programme live on 10th August 2005 and later read the transcription of the whole programme in The Sunday Vision of 14th August, 2005, I find Mwenda’s prison notes lacking and strategically designed to tilt public opinion in his favour.

In an African Minute writes about his “delicious” experience at an Ethiopian restaurant in Uganda:

The hierarchy of Ethiopian restaurants in Kabalagala goes like this: If you want to impress a girl or have a taste for swank, you go to Fasika Up the road is Ethiopian Village, a moderately priced restaurant and bar. Few venture beyond luminaries on the Kabalagala scene. However, down the road, nestled between two local dive bars, lies, as J. Slab would say, the epicenter of delicious.

Rehobot is a humble spot. It hosts 4 tables and a pool table, and is presided over by Mamma, with her two deputies, her 9-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son. Mama makes beef and vegetarian miracles with the fundamental elements of Ethiopian cuisine: injara (spongy sourdough flatbread), berbere (strong red chili powder) and niter kebbeh (light butter spiced with ginger and garlic).