Peace talks seem more of peace jokes

Dec 17, 2004

UGANDA’S No1 COLUMNIST..INFORMED, CONTROVERSIAL AND PROVOCATIVE<br><br>OBVIOUSLY the ceasefire granted to the dreadful Kony and his so-called Lord’s Resistance Army lies bleeding, as have so many of his victims.

UGANDA’S No1 COLUMNIST..INFORMED, CONTROVERSIAL AND PROVOCATIVE

John Nagenda

OBVIOUSLY the ceasefire granted to the dreadful Kony and his so-called Lord’s Resistance Army lies bleeding, as have so many of his victims.

The highly orchestrated “new direction” taken by Government, to end the 18-year-old war through talking, is now seen for what it was: hope based on complete lack of reality.

There was not, in any case and in any sense, a new direction; the Uganda government has granted these ceasefires before. It has kept the amnesty going for any surrendering terrorist, and even for many whom it captured in fighting, and therefore who were not eligible.

These have included “brigadiers” and the like. It has never stood in the way of those who believed in talks. But for the alert of mind even these latest trumpeted talks were a triumph of romanticism and wishful thinking over logic. On Thursday the ever sensible Army spokesman Major Bantariza said, “I do not see hope of peace talks since Kony is heading northwards.” He added that Kony took advantage of the talks to re-organise his central command, forestall desertions and recall commanders who were in Uganda. Tell me something new! On December 4, I wrote: “The famous Ceasefire should now be abandoned. Kony never had any intention of paying it the slightest heed. At best he was playing for time to regroup.

Every passing day gives him that chance.” On November 20: “I was bemused at the great excitement occasioned by the announcement of a ceasefire...President Museveni, pragmatic as ever, by ordering [it] was saying, ‘If this will get us faster to where we should go, then so be it.’ Still I fancy he did so through gritted teeth, knowing why these defeated people were suing for peace!” One sober question remains: if the top Kony team (was it ever there) has vacated the ceasefire area and joined its leader on the migration to the north, with whom will Betty Bigombe now negotiate, even if a few sprats have been left behind? Enough of this dillydallying, our government, known for its resolve, must now, immediately, cancel the ceasefire and engage Kony to the hilt. Let the bleaters bleat, very music to their own ears. What matters is that Uganda starts 2005 on a new note.
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And now to China, as promised; which your columnist, wearing a different hat, visited in November. Wonderful journey, taking in parts of Hunan and Guangdong provinces. Both I had visited before. But in the intervening three or four years, the progressive changes have been mind-boggling.

I admire China. With more space to hand, I would undertake straight tourist pieces, including the place where Mao Zedong was born and raised. Also Guanzhou city where for a time the world’s tallest building, of over 550 metres, was promised. But as Chairman, Board of Trustees of the Uganda Wildlife Authority, and taking with me Executive Director Dr Arthur Mugisha, the main interest was less for holidaying than to inspect the place where our chimpanzees will be going. Even before we visited the Changsha Zoo, we had been told by many, including our fiercest critics, that the place was something of a disaster.

This view was confirmed by the zoo’s directors when briefing us on our first morning; they said their zoo was poor. It had been built a quarter of a century before, which explained a lot. Now to our eyes when we visited, the animal quarters were extremely cramped, and built in materials which would seriously deter the inhabitants’ movement. But with Chinese thoroughness the zoo was going to be relocated outside the city environs. We asked to be taken there, and for us to be shown where our chimps would reside. A beautifully green hill had been set aside for the purpose, which other like animals would share. Peasants were being moved elsewhere so that this powerful new zoo and its wildlife could move in. I asked the humans how they were taking this: people being replaced by animals. Very nice, they said, especially since Government was compensating them well for the move. To this end they were very busily adding to the sizes of the homes they were leaving, since this would push up the prices! Why not? We came away in good mood, having agreed earlier with our hosts that the chimps would go only when the new venue had been completed. In addition their keepers would come and visit them in Uganda for a month or two before the animals travelled. One of the more ludicrous foreigners in our country had tried to blackmail UWA that western tourists were likely to stop coming once we had sent the three animals (out of a population of perhaps 90,000?) to China. In China I was promised a million replacements should this be desired! When all is in place, take it from the Uganda Wildlife Authority, the chimpanzees will go to China, with every sane person’s blessing.
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Sane persons who turned up at the Munyonyo resort in their hundreds for the Thursday wedding celebrations of Uganda ex President Godfrey Binaisa (84) and his Japanese bride, Yamamoto Tomoko (58), were entranced by the feeling of bliss in the air (as Binaisa would put it) of the bridal pair. Hardboiled as life makes us, there was something so innocent and yet so right, that even your columnist was reduced to sentimental noises through the evening. Perhaps a tiny worry intervened for a moment (but only a moment) when the bridegroom trenchantly pronounced himself psychologically, spiritually and physically fully fit for matrimony!

What a joyful party, and long may it continue.

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