Browsing by Author "Tabaire, Bernard"
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Item Decentralisation: A Good Thing Being Abused?(ACODE, 2010) Tabaire, Bernard; Okao, Jackie"Various official documents enjoin local government units to help enhance effective and transparent governance in Uganda. Decentralisation is the policy under which local governments operate. Local governments here refer to district councils, city council, municipalities, city and division councils, town councils, and sub-county councils. Decentralisation aims to involve the people in their governance – in decision-making, in identifying their own problems, in setting priorities and planning their implementation and monitoring, in ensuring better use of resources, and in ensuring value for money. The decentralisation policy is designed to achieve a number of objectives. a) Transfer real power(devolution) to local governments, thus reducing the workload on central government officials. b) Establish decentralisation as the guiding principle applied to all levels of government to ensure citizens’ participation and democratic control in decision-making. c) Achieve good governance, which is a prerequisite for better performance of public servants. d) Bring political and administrative control over services to the point where they are actually delivered, thereby improving accountability and effectiveness, and promoting people’s feeling of ownership of programmes and projects executed in their areas. e) Free local managers from central constraints and, as a long-term goal, allow them to develop organisational structures tailored to local circumstances. f) Improve capacities of councils to plan, finance and manage the delivery of services to their constituents."Item The Media and the Rwanda Genocide(Development in Practice, 2008) Tabaire, BernardAn anguished search for answers, in order to avoid a repeat, automatically follows the occurrence of such monumental human-made catastrophes as the Rwanda Genocide. Most times a deep sense of guilt accompanies, or even informs, that quest for understanding. The Media and the Rwanda Genocide is one of the latest books to try to wrestle with the demons that consumed the enchanting hills of Rwanda for 100 days in 1994, leaving behind some 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu dead. In more than 30 fine (if sometimes repetitive) essays, the book provides a worthwhile read concerning the role of the media in the Rwanda Genocide. It is the first such study. Editor Allan Thompson, a professor of journalism at Carleton University in Canada and a former reporter with the Toronto Star, introduces the book by contending that the international ‘news media could have made a difference’ with early and ‘more informed and comprehensive coverage’ of the genocide (p. 3). Such robust reporting would have sparked ‘international outcry’ and consequently action to stop the genocide. The crux of the book, he says, is that while ‘local hate media fomented the genocide’, ‘international media essentially facilitated the process by turning their backs’ (p. 6). His point is that with local Rwandan media co-opted by a beleaguered regime which had turned ethnicity into an ‘organising principle of state policy’ (p. 25), proper coverage by the international media would have forced the world powers to act to prevent or halt the genocide. That this did not happen means that international journalists failed in their responsibility to report. Thompson, who says he first visited Rwanda in 1996, takes this personally, feeling that he should have done more to prevent the genocide. ‘But Rwanda does get inside you and, since then, I think I have been trying to some degree to make amends for not having been there in 1994’, he writes in the preface. Thompson's framing of the news media's role begs the question: where does this guilt-ridden analysis leave or take us? Reading through all four parts of the book (Hate Media in Rwanda; International Media Coverage of the Genocide; Journalism as Genocide – The Media Trial; and After the Genocide and the Way Forward), one comes away none the wiser. In fact, I ended up thinking that the power of the international news media to stop the genocide or any such event is overstated. Western governments knew enough to evacuate their nationals within days of the start of the genocide, after the downing of the presidential plane on 6 April 1994. The international news media used the word genocide pretty early on (Libération on 11 April, AFP on 20 April, and BBC on 29 April), and yet the Western governments still did nothing. Actually they did something: the Security Council voted to deny the UN peacekeepers of General Romeo Dallaire the support that they so desperately needed. As Linda Melvern states, ‘For three months the British and US administrations played down the crisis and tried to impede effective intervention by UN forces’ (p. 209). Why so? Steven Livingstone attempts an explanation. He places American government reaction to Rwanda within the context of Somalia, from which the USA hastily withdrew in 1993 after several members of its armed forces were killed in Mogadishu. He dismisses as a ‘myth’ the notion that somehow, if the media had given the genocide the right reporting treatment, as Thompson and others argue, the Western powers would have acted. He argues that generally the ‘media do not have the ability to reprioritize [US foreign] policy objectives’ (p. 189). He says that there is no basis in fact for the argument that media coverage of Somalia prompted the first President George Bush to intervene. ‘Instead,’ Livingstone writes, ‘the decision was the consequence of political pressure put on the administration by key members of Congress, and even from officials within the administration itself’ (p.195). It was nothing to do with the media, which ‘simply do not have that capability, however understood’ (p.196). As for halting killings in Bosnia, media coverage followed US involvement. Not the other way round (p. 193). Western foreign policy is not shaped by the media. It is shaped by policymakers operating under all sorts of influence. The media simply follow. To think otherwise is to live a delusion. The USA has recognised what is going on in Darfur as genocide. The news media have constantly covered Darfur. The result? Not strong intervention from Western powers, but hand-wringing and impotent pleadings with Khartoum. Certainly, it was not the media that took the second George Bush into Iraq. To rephrase a question posed by Anne Chaon, the news media cannot do much ‘when the world doesn't want to listen or to hear’ (p. 165). As many have argued, Rwanda was left to its own devices not because the media initially described the killings as tribal savagery or whatever other choice terms the West reserves for the rest, but because Rwanda (in ‘deep Africa’ or in the ‘middle of nowhere’ (p. 238) was of no strategic importance in Western capitals. Even then, The Media and the Rwanda Genocide raises some hefty issues worth sweating over. Where does free speech end and the rabble rousing of the hate media begin? How should we deal with media that spew out hate-ridden statements in an already charged atmosphere? This is a book for anyone interested in the Rwanda Genocide, or in genocide generally, and the attendant international legal regime; the role of the news media in conflict situations; the place of humanitarian NGOs; and the relationship between Western powers and small developing countries. Considering post-genocide Rwanda, the book calls for vigilance. The regime of Paul Kagame (who once was deputy head of military intelligence in Uganda and not the head, as claimed by Lars Waldorf and others before him) has exploited the genocide to stifle dissent, creating a situation where ‘there is less press freedom and media pluralism in Rwanda today than there was before the genocide’ (p. 404).Item Politics of Patronage and Religion in Uganda(ACODE, 2010) Tabaire, Bernard; Okao, Jackie"The 9th State of the Nation Platform meeting held on June 4, 2010 debated the “ Role of Religious Leaders in Promoting and Sustaining Democracy and Good Governance in Uganda: Towards the 2011 Elections and Beyond.” Bishop Zac Niringiye, the assistant Bishop of the Church of Uganda’s Diocese of Kampala and the chairman of the National Governing Council of the African Peer Review Mechanism was the main speaker. The meeting was well attended by religious leaders from other denominations and officials from Inter-religious Council of Uganda. There was near unanimity at the end of the debate that things are not going well in Uganda. A new beginning with a new cadre of leaders with vision, conviction, and courage in Uganda needs to kick the country to a higher level, not new laws and institutions because country has Bishop Zac Niringiye framed his submission in terms of the politics of patronage. “Our governance challenge is political,” he said. “We have a long history of the entrenched politics of patronage.” It is no longer God and Country first, the bishop said in reference to Uganda’s national motto: For God and My Country. The motto that works, he said, is: For Me and My Group First. Whether it is creation of districts or behaviour of churches. “We seem not to have leaders who are capable of going beyond this mindset,” the bishop said."Item The preparedness of the Uganda Police to ensure a free, fair and violent-free Elections in 2011(ACODE, 2010) Tabaire, Bernard; Okao, Jackie"In recent years, Uganda has experienced violent riots and tensions surrounding elections. With violence reported in the most recent by-elections, the 2011 general elections have the unfortunate potential of erupting into serious violence, particularly in the urban areas. Uganda is struggling to cope with the shift from two decades of a “no party” to a pluralistic political dispensation. The forthcoming elections will be the third in 30 years to be held under the new pluralist, or multiparty, system. The first, held in 1980, were heavily disputed leading to the launch of a five-year guerrilla war that ushered in the present government in 1986. The 2006 elections were marred by violence, charges of rape and treason against the leading presidential challenger, allegations of vote rigging, intimidation of voters, and reported incompetence by the Electoral Commission. They were also affected by a lack of understanding of the system by most voters given that not only were these the first multiparty elections in a long time but also it was the first time that presidential, parliamentary, and (higher) local council elections were being held on the same day. Memories of past insecurity, particularly among the older generation and those in rural areas, mean that for many, stability and peace are more important than development and prosperity. Younger urban voters, on the other hand, are pushing for new opportunities and the hope of a better future."Item The Press and Political Repression in Uganda: Back to the Future?(Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2007) Tabaire, BernardSince ‘liberating’ Uganda in 1986 the government of Yoweri Museveni has professed support for freedom of expression. Print and other media have flourished and grown dramatically in the country over the past twenty years. This article examines press freedom in Museveni's Uganda in greater detail, comparing the experience since 1986 with that under the first regime of Milton Obote in the 1960s. Both these periods are presented as moments of liberal politics in Uganda's troubled past, yet both are periods in which political repression of the press has persisted. The article focuses first upon the Transition affair of 1967–69, when the Obote regime clamped down upon what was then Africa's leading literary magazine for its criticism of government policy, before turning to the Museveni government's harassment of the print media, especially the Daily Monitor, from 1989 to the present. The concluding section draws parallels between the behaviour of the Obote and Museveni governments toward the press, suggesting that press freedoms need to be vigorously protected at all times, and perhaps especially at moments of liberal and democratic rule.Item A Reflection on Uganda’s Foreign Policy and Role at the UN Security Council(ACODE, 2010) Tabaire, Bernard; Okao, Jackie"Uganda is a landlocked country that depends on foreign imports for most of its consumer goods and energy requirements. Thus, even before independence, maintaining an open trade route to the Indian Ocean was a primary foreign policy objective. Indeed, in the first decade of independence, policymakers emphasised co-operation with Uganda’s neighbours. At continental level, it assumed a pan-Africanist stance, being a founding member of the Organisation of African Unity (now African Union) and a strong supporter of liberation movements especially in Southern Africa. On the global stage, the country maintained a posture of non-alignment although it sometimes sided more with the communist/socialist bloc led by the then-Soviet Union and China. When the NRM came to power in 1986, the new government enthusiastically supported international and especially African co-operation but conditioned it on an ideological evaluation of whether other regimes were racist, dictatorial, corrupt, or violators of human rights. In a new assertiveness, Uganda actively supported the overthrow of governments in Rwanda and D.R. Congo (then Zaire) because they were dictatorial, corrupt, and abused human rights."Item Reviving Makerere University to a Leading Institution for Academic Excellence in Africa(ACODE, 2010) Tabaire, Bernard; Okao, JackieEstablished in 1922 as a technical school, Makerere University is now one of the largest universities in eastern and central Africa with 20 faculties/institutes/schools offering not only day but also evening and external study programmes to a student body of more than 30,000 undergraduates and 3,000 postgraduates. It is also a centre of research.Item Synthesis Report of the Proceedings of the 10th Session of the State of the Nation Platform(ACODE, 2010) Tabaire, Bernard; Okao, JackieA national budget is as good a place to start as any when one sets out to examine a country’s development priorities. That is what happened at the 10th State of the Nation Platform debate. The day’s topic was “Uganda’s National Budget 2010/2011: How Strategic are the Strategic Priorities?” Three panellists led off the discussion. They included Minister of State for Finance Hon. Fred Jachan Omach, Shadow Finance Minister Hon. Oduman Okello, and Uganda National Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chief Executive Officer Morrison Rwakakamba. Hon. Omach represented Hon. Syda Bbumba, the Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development. Hon. Fred Omach (with microphone), the Minister for Finance (General Duties), Hon. Oduman Okello, Shadow Mnisiter for Finance and Morrison Rwakakamba, UNCCI chief during the 10th session of the State of the Nation Platform held at Protea Hotel on July 2, 2010speech before Parliament. The theme of the budget was “Strategic Priorities to Accelerate Growth, Employment and Socio-Economic Transformation for Prosperity”. Now, long gone are the days when reading the budget in Uganda was a highly anticipated public event. Because the country has had a long period of macroeconomic stability with single digit inflation rates and a free foreign exchange regime, the presentation of the budget is just yet another state ritual. Virtually no new taxes are introduced these days. So it was surprising that a budget-related subject yielded an unusually lively debate. The discussion revolved around: • The necessity of the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) tax • Getting value for money • The place of agriculture in the national economy • Politics as a constraint to efficient planning The backdrop of the animated debate was the coming general election. Uganda will hold only its third general election under a multiparty dispensation in 30 years on February 2011. The debate therefore proceeded with participants looking into the budget to see whether it was aimed at making the wananchi happy so they will return the ruling NRM party to power. In short, was the 2010/2011 budget an election-year budget? It depends, of course, on how you read it. And how you read it depends in turn on where you sit, stand, lean, or squat politically. Whatever the case, this was one of the more substantive State of the Nation Platform debates todate.Item Transforming Uganda’s Public Policy, Economy, and Politics; What we must do to make Uganda better(ACODE, 2010) Tabaire, Bernard; Okao, Jackie"Who should improve things? That is a question posed at the 7th meeting of the State of the Nation Platform, most of whose members fall in the dissatisfied age group. Appropriately, the discussion was led by a panel drawn from amongst the STON members to compel self-reflection. After all, those who are younger and economically active largely drive transformation of society. What is the vision, mission and objective of our generation? Why are we living at this time? What do we want to change? What future do we need? What means are we going to use to achieve that future? Who is going to lead us? Are we just making comments and leaving it at that? What are our own value systems as a generation, as Ugandans? Are we not making an assumption that we are talking about a homogenous generation? The questions did not have to be answered fully and immediately but, if anything, they sparked off some good amount of serious thinking about the state of affairs in Uganda."Item Uganda’s National Budget 2010/2011: How Strategic are the Budget Priorities?(ACODE Policy Dialogue Series, 2010) Tabaire, Bernard; Okao, JackieThe debate came three weeks after Hon. Bbumba read her 2010/2011 budget speech before Parliament. The theme of the budget was “Strategic Priorities to Accelerate Growth, Employment and Socio-Economic Transformation for Prosperity”. Now, long gone are the days when reading the budget in Uganda was a highly anticipated public event. Because the country has had a long period of macroeconomic stability with single digit inflation rates and a free foreign exchange regime, the presentation of the budget is just yet another state ritual. Virtually no new taxes are introduced these days. So it was surprising that a budget-related subject yielded an unusually lively debate. The discussion revolved around: The necessity of the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) tax. Getting value for money. The place of agriculture in the national economy. Politics as a constraint to efficient planning.