At Uganda Talks we welcome guest articles from our readers. These can be on any issue of your choosing. Today Kyomuhendo-Ateenyi, a law student at Makerere University, looks at why the government response to hunger deaths in the North and North-East has been so muted:
"When a government intentionally refrains from answering the calling of help from its citizens in times of crises, it in the alternative aspires to dismantle them!
Last week, those who died of hunger and starvation related diseases in the Northern and North Eastern part of the country were being counted in their hundreds! It was also related that three million people were on the brink of starvation by the turn of the week!
The press was awash with grim pictures of women crying after missing out on the last of the World Food Programme's (WFP) handouts, a two-year old Karamojong boy crawling after a cockroach, teenagers feasting on poisonous cassava tubers, an elderly woman rabidly rubbing her stomach as if to intimate that exactly that could reduce her hunger and Peter Oduluse, a 70 year old resident of Amuchu parish, Amuria district hopelessly stretched down!
When reports of massive deaths as a result of the famine flowed to Kampala, the honourable Minister of Disaster Preparedness (in a press conference he personally convened) asked the messengers for proof of their allegation by show of graves!
According to him, this hunger thing was a smear campaign orchestrated by disgruntled opposition hotheads whose major occupation is to sound doldrums even where it is not necessary. He then reminded the people that it was not the duty of government to feed its people and counselled the famine stricken people to grow more mangoes, dry them in times of plenty and save the excess for tough times. He is a Professor of sociology from Makerere University, East Africa’s premier tertiary institution.
When famine hit Kenya at the turn of last year, the Kibaki-led government, whatever its excesses, swiftly responded by declaring a state of emergency. Through negotiations with Kenyan partners abroad and with the blessing of the ODM, the major opposition party, pathways of relief were constructed in the Harambee nation.
Thus in Kenya there may be electoral theft and those other evils that plague African democracies but there is no such a thing like the government forsaking its people in dire times. The government loves its own!
When a powerful earthquake shook L’Aquila in Italy, Silvio Berlusconi’s government impressed and even made it the venue of the G8 summit to show that he feels the plight of his countrymen.
In the Peoples Republic of China, Hu Jintao’s government has repeatedly shown commitment to its people during crises, the latest being an earthquake.
But in Uganda, ‘tinker man’ Yoweri Museveni and his segregationist junta cannot just stop tinkering with the lives of Ugandans. By show of their actions, they virtually feel nothing for the ordinary poor Ugandan. That explains why ministers have the liberty to post such despicable comments in such trying times. That is why Museveni’s henchmen can afford to live lavish lives fit only for Hollywood actors of fame and name as jiggers ravage the electorate.
That is why a ‘super’ minister can openly rob workers of sh11 billion and the government he is serving parcels out a paltry sh10 billion in relief envelope to the people being overwhelmed by famine.
If the NRM administration goes on with such cosmetic responses to dire crises like the current famine that is running over the Northern and Eastern parts of the country, these brothers of ours shall not only feel segregated against and thus seek secession but will also doubt the motive of the government."
N.B. The opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of Independent Publications Ltd.
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