By Collins Hy
Shortly after two American Congress men asked the government of President Biden to place sanctions on Uganda president Museveni for abusing human rights and the electoral process, the EU parliament voted overwhelmingly on Thursday 11th February 2021 in favor of sanctioning key leaders and organisations in Uganda. Whether you love or hate Museveni, foreign support and assistance should look very different from foreign interference. Why did the EU parliament ignore the open human rights abuses, election malpractices and media manipulation observed in USA elections to favor Biden against the incumbent President Trump. If western powers follow through with sanctions, what opportunities does Uganda stand to benefit from exploiting its hidden strengths?
President Museveni responded to EU on Saturday 13th February 2021 saying that:
“I want to comment on excitement caused by some foreigners trying to interfere in our affairs. I read in the newspapers about the EU Parliament sanctioning some Ugandans from travelling. For anybody to think that Africans are dying to go to Europe is something that shows lack of seriousness. Well, personally I need a lot of persuasion to leave Uganda. Why would I want to leave Uganda? I normally do it for friendship.”
He went on to say that, “When Idi Amin made a coup (1971); he was supported by foreigners but for us straight away after he had announced his coup, we decided to fight him because he couldn’t understand our Pan-African aims. We need state-power to solve problems of Africa not just positions. Ignore foreigners. If we had listened to them, we would have made mistakes. Foreigners can lead to a lot of distortions.”
Whereas these threats to interfere with Uganda’s sovereignty are serious and should not be underestimated, one wonders why the western nations are choosing to betray President Museveni one of their most loyal ally in central Africa, now at a time when he needs them most and demonstrated total compliance to Europe’s covid19 response rule book, of uniting the globe under one new world order which they termed as the “Great reset” under the World Economic Forum. It is not the first time that Ugandan elections have manifested the same pattern of human rights abuses, but why is the west ready to drop their faithful ally for many years, in favor of an inexperienced non political, non militaristic individual to take his place as President of Uganda? This question not only shows the lack of integrity in Europe and America’s foreign policy, it also raises concerns about the weakness of Africa’s foreign policy which seems to lack tact, courage and skill to leverage against the Goliath of western interference to protect its own sovereignty and dignity., just like our forefathers failed during the slave trade regimes.
Having seen abuse of human rights by western governments which suppressed freedom of speech during the covid pandemic, Africa has little or no reason to respect western nations. A good example is what was observed in American politics, of how opposition organised riots that destroyed businesses, media intimidated a seating president and dead peoples names were found to have voted against an incumbent president. This cannot be tolerated in Africa. If Trump learned from African dictators he would have protected the integrity of USA elections, subdued the media to be fair and deployed the military to stop the destruction of Black lives matters rioters. Even though most African nations have not yet realised that seasons have changed, having placed global geopolitical competitive advantages in their hands during covid19 pandemic, the western powers are also still blinded by the past not realising that after their failures in handling the covid 19 pandemic, they have lost credibility , strength of character and lost authority to police global human rights and freedoms in the world. During the covid19 pandemic which was far less harmful than world war 1 and 2, European governments adopted the most undemocratic policies in order to unite their people to fight spread of the virus, but yet failed to save their hospitals from being overwhelmed and failed to save many lives from treatable covid where less than 97% of those infected died and majority recovered. This failure on European nations failing to use their freedom in capitalism to fight and doing badly with China’s communist methods, is a total shame, compared to Africa with far poorer health systems and less money, where hospitals were not overwhelmed and over 99.9% of those infected recovered quickly.
The western superpowers had been respected for their democratic integrity of uncompromisingly defending human rights and personal freedoms of their citizens at all costs even when it cost many lives during wars in the past. The western democracies had proved that freedoms of capitalism was able to solve any crisis humanity could ever be faced with, challenging dictatorships, communists and socialist governments that believed that in order to prosper a nation, certain freedoms needed to be removed by government from the people by force for the good of all. Over decades we have seen communists and socialist systems not only fail, but also fail to attain the level of prosperity of free capitalistic nations even during times of war, where national unity was required quickly.
This is why the African Union parliament should respond to the EU parliament by passing a resolution to sanction the NGOs and individuals who sponsored the voted against Uganda’s elections on Thursday 11th February 2021. Why shouldn’t Ugandas parliament discuss the abuse of President Trumps human rights in America and recommend sanctions against Biden and his democratic party? The day we see such a thing happening, it will set a new precedence for Africa challenging Europe and america’s policies on globalisation and handling covid pandemic.
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