Uganda

There is a lot of talk floating around regarding some catchwords: the “new international order”, “globalization”, the “global village” and so forth. All of these ebullient, self- gratifying positions are, apparently, due to the end of the cold war between the Western countries and the former Soviet Union. Of course, the end of the dangerous and misguided rivalry between communism and capitalism is welcome and has, indeed, opened some new opportunities, if fully utilized by all concerned. However, it must be pointed out unequivocally that many of the problems in the world today predate the cold war; they predate the onset of communism in Russia in 1917. The slave trade started in the 1440s along the West African coast. A shift from bleeding Africa through slavery to resident colonialism was ordained in Berlin in 1884. That was long before communism took over in Russia. Therefore the cold war could not have been responsible for these mistakes and for the complications they created, many of which we are still grappling with today, especially in Africa. Therefore, the euphoria that followed the end of the cold war was not wholly justified. The song about globalization, as I have pointed out repeatedly, is not a new tune at all. Africans were globalized as slaves all over all over the world in the 1440s. My Christian name is Joel, actually a Jewish name, so I am already globalized. Many of my countrymen have got Arab names like Azizi and Musa because they are Muslims. We were globalized long ago in Africa. Unfortunately, though, that globalization movement was parasitic. It was a parasitic globalization movement; it was not a symbiotic globalization movement. Therefore the only new question we can legitimately and usefully ask is: Will the new phase of globalization be less parasitic and more symbiotic, or not? That is the question. Will the new globalization be to everybody’s mutual benefit, or will it be the old story of parasitism on a global scale? The parasitism in the world is not the sole responsibility of those who benefit from inequality. Even the victims have always contributed to their marginalization by their own wrong aims and methods — before colonization, during colonization and, even, after colonization. Myopic African chiefs were the main facilitators of the slave trade. Until very recently the Europeans did not possess the technological means to subdue the African continent as far as means of transport — that is to say, railways — weapons or medicine were concerned. Without the fratricidal, brother-against-brother wars fomented by African chiefs, neither the slave trade nor colonialism would have been possible. We would have defeated the colonialists and forced them, right from the beginning, to cooperate with us to everybody’s mutual benefit. Weakness on the side of the potential victim always tempts the aggressor. The aggressor is always encouraged by the weakness of the potential victim. 9 Even today, however, the authorship of the inequality among peoples is still a joint responsibility of the victims — who in this case are Africans, Arabs and other marginalized peoples — of the parasitic globalization movement that is now 500 years old, on the one hand, and the beneficiaries of this hitherto unequal and, in the past, evil movement, on the other hand. Both the victims and the beneficiaries of the parasitic globalization movement are responsible for this situation. The beneficiaries of the hitherto parasitic globalization movement have been the North Americans, the Europeans and the Japanese. For a variety of reasons, some formerly colonized peoples — such as the Indians, Indonesians, Pakistanis, South-East Asians and Native Americans — and formerly semi-colonized peoples, such as the Chinese, have made significant upward movements that are helping, slowly but surely, to even out the balance of power in the world. Some other peoples, however, on account of a number of endogenous and exogenous factors, are still living as the wretched of the Earth. Many Africans and some Arabs fall into this category of the still-unredeemed of the Earth. As I have said, the unredeemed are so categorized partly on account of their own internal mistakes — such as sectarianism, xenophobia, unprincipled conflicts, the strangulation of free enterprise, the political balkanization of their regions, the strangulation of political freedoms and so on — and partly on account of still very unfavourable exogenous factors. The most unfavourable such factor is the lack of access by these countries to markets in North America, the European Union, Japan, China, India and Russia. The song about aid is meaningless without access to markets. Aid without access to markets is meaningless. All protectionism must end, especially in the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation in Europe (OECD). Subsidies to the farmers of Europe must end, if we are talking of a global village of symbiosis, and not parasitism. I commend the American Government and President George Bush for the recent African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) initiative. Although Uganda has not yet benefited from AGOA on account of our endogenous weaknesses, which have been accentuated by the blurred views of our partners in the multilateral institutions, other African countries have started benefit, such as Kenya, Madagascar, Lesotho, Nigeria and South Africa. This is good. The African Growth and Opportunity Act enunciated by the American Government is the first good news I have heard in a long time. The Americans are at last beginning to change their image of being parasitic global villagers. The Europeans must catch up with the Americans in shedding this uncomplimentary label. Although they have talked about “everything but guns” going into Europe from Africa, they are still giving subsidies to artificial farmers in Europe. As a consequence of the $1.2 trillion value of global trade in agricultural products, Africa gets only about $20 billion — if the recent results of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) are included; that is about 2 per cent of the total. So of the total value of agricultural trade, Africa only gets 2 per cent. At the same time, the countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) are spending $361 billion on artificial subsidies for farmers of those countries. Yet these are the countries that evangelize in the name of free trade. The preachers of free trade are practising incredibly expensive protectionism. What an unfortunate paradox. These double standards must end. Africa has removed some of the old impediments, some of the old endogenous factors, to private investment. The sanctity of private property is now almost a universal concept in Africa. Nationalization of private enterprises is no more. Some of the African countries have a consistently stable macroeconomic framework. Inflation in Uganda is now negative 0.3 per cent. The African currencies are now convertible; a large part of Africa is very peaceful; infrastructure is reasonable; and democracy is widely practised in Africa today. We are even addressing the issue of the excessive political Balkanization of the continent, which has 53 States, compared to 3 States in the whole North American continent. We are handling this in a variety of ways, including through economic blocs like the Southern Africa Development Community in southern Africa, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa in East and Central Africa and the Economic Community of West African States in western Africa. The world needs to encourage these positive trends in Africa by opening up their markets on a quota-free, tariff-free basis. This will, ipso facto, force multinational investors to rush to Africa and invest there. They are already doing so just by the limited AGOA measures by the Americans. With more civilized aims and methods, balanced world 10 development is possible and desirable for everybody, including OECD citizens who are forced to eat inferior foods and are taxed to protect those poor-quality foods against better foods from Africa. Whenever I travel abroad, I pack my own Ugandan foods — milk, millet flour, fruits, legumes, chicken, honey and plantain bananas, called matooke in our language. The other day, on my way here, my pineapple stocks ran out and my staff bought pineapples from a supermarket in the United Kingdom. I took just one slice and terminated the whole exercise at once. First of all, the pineapple was hard. I had never seen a hard pineapple until I saw that one in London. It was less sweet and had an ammonia-like pungent taste. I had had the same experience in Washington once. They brought something they called a pineapple. I could not believe it. Why must citizens of the world endure these deprivations on account of policies designed to serve narrow interests? Why must this be? I will not eat pineapple again until I go back to Uganda. The oppressors, the colonialists and those who sought to control the destiny of others used barbaric methods: genocide, forced labour, ethnocide and so on. It is amazing, therefore, that some of those who claim to be fighting for the liberation of oppressed peoples also use barbaric means such as terrorism. In the ongoing debate on terrorism I have not heard anybody bothering to define the difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist. What is the difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist? Mzee Nelson Mandela — “Mzee” means someone who is dignified and elderly — was a freedom fighter until recently. Was he a terrorist? Not at all. Did anyone hear that Mr. Mandela had hijacked a plane or planted a bomb in a restaurant? But Mr. Mandela was a freedom fighter. He was not a terrorist. The difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter lies in the fact that while a freedom fighter sometimes may be forced to use violence, he cannot use indiscriminate violence. The person who uses indiscriminate violence is a terrorist. A freedom fighter may sometimes be forced to use violence. I was forced to use violence against Idi Amin. But I never hijacked a plane. It was never heard that Museveni hijacked a plane or planted a bomb in a bar. People in bars are not politicians. Some of them just go there to make merry. What kind of revolutionary is someone who kills such people? The person who uses indiscriminate violence is a terrorist. A terrorist does not differentiate between combatants and non- combatants, between civilians and servicemen and between armed servicemen and unarmed servicemen. Even if someone is a soldier, if he is off duty, he should not be attacked, if one claims to be a freedom fighter. He should not be attacked. It is against the laws of war. The terrorist fights a war without declaring one. That is why terrorists hijack planes, plant bombs in populated centres and so forth. We normally get technical advice from other parts of the world. The Europeans always come to give us technical advice. I would like to give you technical advice about freedom-fighting. We have done very well in that. In Africa, since 1961, we have fought wars of liberation in Mozambique against the Portuguese; in Angola against the Portuguese; in Guinea-Bissau against the Portuguese; in Zimbabwe against minority whites; in South Africa against minority whites; in Namibia against minority whites; and in Uganda against Idi Amin. There was a criminal called Idi Amin whom we had to fight. However, we never used terrorism. This is on the record. We always fought combatant to combatant. Quite a number of times our comrades used mass action: strikes, demonstrations, petitions, diplomatic struggle and so on. Not a single plane was hijacked by African freedom fighters, although there were anti-colonial wars in all these countries. Terrorist actions are misguided and criminal and must be opposed by all as a matter of principle. Africa was beginning to benefit from AGOA, the measure taken by the Americans to open their markets to our goods. Business has, however, now somewhat slumped in America. Therefore, the terrorists, who claim to be fighting for the Palestinian cause, are objectively hurting the interests of Africans, who have always been the allies of the Palestinians. This is counter- productive. The terrorists have also tried to polarize the world, pitting Moslems against Christians. This is erroneous and unacceptable. Exploitation knows no boundaries and cuts across all races and religions. Exploiters are found in all religions and races. The Arabs had to oppose Turkish imperialism. Yet both the Arabs and the Turks were Muslims. Why, then, did they have to oppose each other? One of the monsters of the last century, Idi Amin, of my country, was a Muslim. We had to get rid of him to liberate everybody, including the Muslims, in Uganda. War has been going 11 on in the Sudan for decades. Elements that claim to be acting in the name of Islam have been the ones taking the wrong position in this conflict, seeking hegemony over God’s people. I, therefore, support the position of the United States on this occasion, as we did in the Gulf War, in fighting and defeating these reactionaries, who profane the name of freedom fighters. If necessary, all countries of the world opposed to terrorism should contribute troops and finish the job quickly. The coalition against terrorism should be regarded in the same way as the coalition against fascism in the 1930s and 1940s. Nevertheless, the just aspirations of the Palestinian people and of other oppressed peoples, like the people of southern Sudan, must be supported so that we can get peaceful resolutions to these conflicts. I welcome freedom and equality for all peoples of the world. Those who strive to dominate or exploit others have illegitimate ambitions. We now have a chance to build a new, just world. The free will of all peoples should be ensured. In addition, the most important instrument of emancipation, free trade, should give African goods quota- and tariff-free access to the markets of the countries of the Organization for Cooperation and Development (OECD) and vice versa. Africa is beginning to tame its conflicts. The conflict in Lesotho was resolved by an African mechanism. Recently, the Arusha Agreement on Peace and Reconciliation ended the conflict in Burundi. It is possible to resolve our age-old problems and finally become part of the new world order rather than mere spectators of the process.