We must stop funding the corrupt government of Uganda
Dear Taoiseach,
I am appealing to you today to take action that could save thousands of innocent African lives.
On Wednesday next the Department of Foreign Affairs will announce how it plans to spend its overseas aid budget which is scheduled to reach Euro1 billion annually by 2007 which you so generously agreed to last year.
The public will hear, among other things, that the Department of Foreign Affairs intends to increase its financial commitment to the Ugandan Government to over Euro30 million for the current year.
I am pleading with you to block this initiative as the giving of even one Euro to the Ugandan regime would, in my opinion be morally indefensible.
For many years I have argued strongly against the Irish Government having any dealings with corrupt Third World regimes.
Consider these facts:
1. The Ugandan Government is corrupt. In its Annual Report for 2001 Transparency International rates Uganda as the third most corrupt country in the world and the NGO, Uganda Debt Network, estimates that Uganda lost the equivalent of US $500 million to corruption in the last five years. Irish missionaries working in Uganda have reported that corruption is rampant amongst government officials in the country. A recent national opinion poll in the (Ugandan) Monitor newspaper revealed that only 36 percent of Ugandans are satisfied with the way the Ugandan government has handled corruption.
2. Uganda is a one party state. Democracy does not exist in Uganda; the government does not allow freedom of association. International monitors of the 2000 Presidential elections in Uganda acknowledged that the elections were neither free nor fair. Col Besigye, who opposed President Museveni, was given similar treatment to Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and had to flee Uganda. The Irish Government gave Euro259,000 towards the running of these elections. Even Robert Mugabe, the pariah of Africa, allows opposition parties to exist in Zimbabwe!
3. Uganda has blood on its hands. The International Rescue Committee (an international NGO), estimates that 2.5 million people have died in the war in eastern Congo which began in 1998. Other estimates put the death toll in excess of 3 million. The majority of these deaths were directly related to malnutrition and disease caused by the insecurity in the eastern region where 35,000 Ugandan troops are located. According to the respected NGO, Human Rights Watch, Uganda should be held responsible for grave human rights violations taking place in territories it occupies in northeastern Congo. They urged the UN Security Council "to address the government of Uganda as an important agent of unrest in the eastern part in the country, and to hold it liable for the grave rights violations and massive human suffering taking place in territories under its occupation".
In December 2001 a European Parliament resolution expressed shock at UN revelations of "horrendous figures since nearly three million people, children, women and men, have been killed as a result of foreign occupation, more than two million people have been displaced within the borders of their own country and 16 million people are threatened with death as a result of malnutrition, the absence of medical care and the abuses of the armed factions who plunder the local populations.
4. Uganda is awash with money from its plunder of neighbouring Congo. A UN Report published in April 2001 said that President Museveni and President Kagame of Rwanda, were "on the verge of becoming the godfathers" of an illegal network plundering gold, diamonds and coltan (a valuable ore used in the manufacture of mobile phones). The report incriminated members of President Museveni's immediate family and also indicated that Uganda recently became an exporter of gold, diamonds and coltan commodities that they do not actually produce. The report recommended that the foreign armies (including Uganda's) must withdraw from the Congo immediately. It also called for the UN Security Council to strongly urge the member states to freeze the financial assets of the companies and individuals who continue to participate in the illegal exploitation of the natural resources of the Congo immediately. To date, Uganda has only partially withdrawn its troops from the Congo.
Certainly Ireland, as a caring nation, must continue to help the poverty-stricken population of Uganda, but government to government aid is not the most appropriate vehicle to use. Just as the Danish government has slashed its aid budget to Uganda because "it does not want to maintain dictators in power" so too the Irish Government must apply strict conditions to any government to government aid agreement. The Danish Ambassador in Uganda said that "Denmark's international cooperation partners must respect human rights, fight corruption and follow sound business practices". He added that any countries that slipped from those principles risked "no longer benefiting from our aid". There is now a growing trend amongst discerning Western Governments not to deal in any way with corrupt third world governments. Last year the Dutch government agreed to fund a $2 million dam project in Angola but only on the strict condition that no government official was to touch any of the money. Likewise, both the Belgian and Dutch Governments have omitted Kenya and other countries from their aid programmes citing corruption and poor governance as their reasons. Similarly the Irish Government should not do business with corrupt tyrants and human rights abusers. We can assist the poor in Uganda through the wonderfully committed missionaries, many of whom are Irish, through international aid agencies, through Irish operational non-governmental agencies and through indigenous relief and development agencies. Indeed, the Irish Government could show great vision by implementing aid programmes themselves.
It is true that Uganda has made strides and reduced poverty levels in recent years but this has only been possible by the millions which have been derived from the illegal and wholesale plunder of the natural resources of their neighbours the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
It is the case that much of our taxpayers' money is being used for the benefit of the poor in Uganda but that is not the point. By giving the Ugandan government money we are legitimising a repressive regime and giving support to a government that has been centrally involved in the deaths of three million innocent Congolese.
It is imperative also Bertie, that you use your international profile and influence, and Ireland's seat on the UN Security Council, to help get the Ugandans and others out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and so put an end to what is undoubtedly the worst human tragedy to have occurred since the Rwandan genocide of 1994.
As the CEO of a partner agency of the Ireland Aid programme, I realise that there are certain risks attached to speaking out on this issue, but I consider the situation to be so grave as to warrant taking those risks.
Yours sincerely,
John O'Shea, GOAL.
- John O'Shea
