Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Uganda's Public Transport Still Stinks

The typical Kampala public transport users have neither voice nor partners in government (both local and central), their elected legislators and the parties licenced to provide it. They have to endure immeasurable levels of stress and torment getting to work in the morning, through a hard working and thankless day at work (or hospital or market, e.t.c) and then again in the evenings. The source of a bulk of this stress is from the providers of public transport which is overpriced and inadequate. What they have to do to finally get a voice is a puzzle.

They cannot die so that the report into their death can take twenty years to be released. Nor can they get themselves arrested for treason and be denied bail. The whole estimated one and a half million of them certainly cannot all be beneficiaries of the eleven plots at the taxi park to attract a petition to parliament to set up a whole committee to look into their issues. Even if many would like to take the route that Alice Lakwena, Joseph Kony and some of our politicians have taken to get someone’s attention, the typical public transport users love their country too much to let it slip back into the chaos they have witnessed. Besides that would be too much trouble to go through when they have elected leaders, wouldn’t it? I thought that a story in The New Vision on passengers who almost destroyed a taxi at the taxi park for what they felt was injustice could have acted as a signal of discontent but somehow it has been ignored.

The passenger community no longer has any faith in a toothless UTODA top dog, Mr. Ndyomugyenyi, who has time and again given them the false impression that his word counts for something yet it is totally worthless. At the risk of sounding like I am making threats, I must warn whoever has the duty of regulating and protecting passengers, either through elections or appointment that the avenues for venting out frustrations are running out fast and we may all be sitting on a time bomb. All they want is an atmosphere that is fair and just and allows them to earn a living and provide for their families a well as they possibly can. That is the main reason why they queue up under the hot sun, in the chilling cold and rain or in dusty air so that they can vote at elections. Is what they are crying for undeserving and too much? Each political party needs about five million votes to win an election. If parties did their maths, even with very little effort, they would find that it is the passengers that can deliver that number. So why are public transport providers treated as the sacred cow?

Saturday, February 10, 2007

WBS Endangered Namayanja's Kids

While I appreciate Drake Ssekkeba’s Vumbula programme on WBS TV on February 9th highlighting the problems Ms. Charity Namayanja is facing, I think he stepped overboard in revealing her children’s identity on TV. As minors, they are the most vulnerable in that family saga in which one purported to be their father is being accused of attempting to murder them, their mother and grandmother. Ssekkeba and WBS’s overzealousness in chasing a sensational story may actually have placed the children in more danger, exposed them to ridicule as well as other forms of unhealthy attention.

After eight years in operation, it is a shame that WBS is still miles away from ethical journalistic practice. If they have not fixed that by now, we all have to be worried about the standards at our leading electronic media houses and the training systems we have in the country. If a veteran like Ssekkeba can fail to appreciate that minors should be protected in news stories, what are we to expect from his charges? A leaf should be borrowed from Betty Tibaleka’s The Untold Story that aired the same night on UBC TV in which the featured guest, a minor female victim of rape by her father, had her identity protected. That was professional, that is how things are done.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Kalyegira Ranting as Usual.

Hello people,> Thanks for writing in. I am going to send you the first and second parts of my July 2006 conversation with this Seer.> But first, a few notes to go with it, which I might expand on in next week’s column (if we here at the Daily Monitor are not too timid to publish):> When I asked this lady what she foresaw happening in the Horn of Africa, she said there would be a short but intense spell of fighting and then there would be an ongoing war of attrition between the Somali and the occupation forces.> I was seated next to her and seated opposite me was my translator. Because she laughs a lot and is relaxed as she foretells the future, I was not too sure that I should take her Horn of Africa prediction seriously.> I could not believe it when, on December 26, 2006, I saw Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi on Ethiopian TV read a statement in which he talked of being in Somalia for a short time!> And if you have been following the world news, it is clear that the ousted Union of Islamic Courts deserted Mogadishu without bothering to put up a fight, while the Ethiopian forces were still hundreds of kilometers away.> This could only mean one thing: they decided to fade away and blend into the general public, after which they would launch the urban and highway guerrilla war that we are witnessing in Afghanistan and Iraq.> This woman could see all this as early as October.> I will write about this conflict in Somalia sometime next week if I can get space in the Monitor.> 2. When I visited Rwanda in May with my fellow Daily Monitor journalist, Andrew Mwenda, as usual he was full of praise for Rwanda and President Kagame. He pointed out the clean streets, lights, and sense of order in Kigali.> However, by then I had heard of this Seer who predicts things so accurately but had not yet met her.> Although Andrew was enthusiastic about Rwanda, I was quiet for most of the time. However, I did mention to the Director of Rwanda’s intelligence, Dr. Emmanuel Ndahiro, one evening over coffee with Mwenda, that I felt Rwanda was headed for gloom soon, although I did not know when.> “Why are you so pessimistic?” Ndahiro asked me. I could not explain why I felt so, but I maintained by pessimism.> For those of you who monitor the news, Rwanda in the last two years has been in the news for what seem to be the right reasons --- corruption is being fought, it has a clean capital and streets, it was attracting international investment conferences and Kagame was accepted as a competent leader by the West and much of Africa.> So the Seer’s forecast in July seemed unlikely. But who would have expected what happened in November when, out of the blue, the French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière issued arrest warrants for Kagame and nice of his top officials for allegedly shooting down the plane carrying the late President Juvenal Habyarimana in 1994.> Suddenly, Kagame was on the defensive and since then the positive stories about Rwanda have vanished from the news.> As I said on the KFM Hot Seat talk show last night, January 5, 2007, all the French needed to go after Kagame was the arrest warrant of a respected judge.> 3. I tried to get as much as I could out of this Seer the first time in July, but the translator advised against it. But during the second meeting in October, I pressed for the dates of when these events would take place.> The Seer talked of 2008 and is adamant that the things you will read about in my forwarded email are going to happen.> This Seer talked of “One and half years from now”, which dating from October 2006 would land in or around April 2008.> Finally, I was concerned about the departure of President Museveni leaving a power vacuum in Uganda and chaos resulting. I asked what would become of the group of people that are widely perceived as Museveni’s real power base, the Bahima.> Barely had I asked the question than the Seer told my translator that “within hours” of the end of Museveni, there would be an uprising or action of some sort, in which Bahima would be attacked, dispossessed of their property, and killed.> This last claim by the Seer shook the translator, who happens to be a Muhima.> I think if I were a Muhima and I am identified too closely with the Museveni regime, I would start to cut these links as soon as possible.> These giveaways of land, rampant and shameless corruption by the ruling clique, the assault that Museveni is making on our forests, and the constant tear gas that Ugandans face at the hands of the army (dressed up in military uniform) is creating an amount of anger and desperation that might turn the usually passive Ugandans into charging tigers.> You might wish to know that just two weeks ago, military men were passed out somewhere not far from Kampala, after undergoing a training course in crowd control and the handling of tear gas. The people spraying tear gas are soldiers, not the police.> What I learned from that strange Seer is that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, there MUST be intelligence, conscious forces in the universe that control world affairs. Whether you call that God or demons or spirits, or whatever, there MUST be some power beyond what science can explain.> An ordinary, almost illiterate peasant such as this Seer cannot know so much, so in advance, so accurately --- unless there is some kind of invisible power that people like her have.> When you look at all the actions that Museveni is taking lately, isn’t it clear that some force has him in its grip, urging him on to his own destruction?> Last point: the late President Habyarimana sent some people to consult about the future a few months before his death. She told me that she avoided them. Reason? “When I see that somebody’s fate has arrived, I know I can’t change it and I would not want to have to tell them lies. So I dodge them.”> Frightening, isn’t it?> Okay, over to what the Seer told me.> Cheers!> Tim> Encounter with the spirit world, part 1> BY TIMOTHY KALYEGIRA/ July 2006> Recently, a friend told me something extremely interesting. There is a person known to him who claims to have the ability to see into the future.> I have always, like most people, had an instinctive suspicion and even fear of these diviners. I had heard enough about them to know that their powers were probably real.> However, I had to prove for myself if this seer’s clairvoyance was real and so we set up a meeting. Since the seer is practically illiterate, I needed an interpreter.> As I have made clear in this column, I have grown disillusioned with the standard education that we are given in institutes of higher learning and the standard news that we read in our press.> Once we met, I examined our surroundings at the seer’s home carefully for any signs of blood, a sacrificed animal, bones or skins, or anything primitive or weird. There was none. The Seer was dressed casually and could have passed for any simple African peasant.> Different from what I expected, this Seer was also relaxed and nice and laughed easily. The session started off with a review of my life.> Speaking through the interpreter, the Seer talked of how I work hard but I remain broke (which is true), told me that President Museveni’s State House has me under close scrutiny (true, my phone is tapped by the intelligence people), and some other general details.> The Seer then told me things about my family that I am sure that neither this Seer nor my interpreter would have known. Certainly, only my wife and I would know the things this Seer was telling me about our marriage.> I listened intently, looking out for any trace of fraud and inconsistency. I was surprised but not shocked by the Seer’s incredible accuracy.> I had known for many years that there is a real, spirit world and that certain people can see into the future using spiritual powers, be they satanic or God-given.> The Seer then turned to my friend the interpreter and told him things about his life and family. In disbelief, all he could say over and over again was “This Seer is thorough!”> However, the reason I had gone there was because I was interested in what the Seer foresaw about the Great Lakes region and most of all, where Uganda is going and what is to happen to the NRM government and its leaders.> The Seer thought for a minute and then told us what was to happen in the near future. What we heard was amazing and deeply shocking.> After hearing things about my life from this Seer that only I know or knew, I could not doubt the picture being given to us about forthcoming events in Uganda.> Although the details are extremely serious and shocking, these too did not surprise me.> I have been monitoring world news and news from the Great Lakes region of Central Africa on the basis of a prophesy outlined in the Biblical Book of Isaiah, chapter 19, that speaks of political upheaval and climatic catastrophe along the territory covered by the River Nile.> In his 1960 book, The White Nile, the Australian historian Alan Moorehead wrote thus about the River Nile: “Had it failed to flow, even for one season, then all Egypt perished….But there is no record of the river’s ever having failed.”> The fact that up to the 1960s there was no record in history of the River Nile drying up --- and yet the Bible says it is to dry up --- means that this cataclysmic change in the river is in the future.> Already TIME magazine --- CNN’s sister media --- has mentioned in its April 23, 2006 issue that, “[T]he Nile is an engine of economic growth. But environmentalists fear a development boom will destroy ecosystems, force people from their homes, and reduce the river to a trickle.”> This Bible prophesy is coming alive, as lakes in Uganda, Rwanda, Chad, Eritrea, and other eastern African countries start drying up.> Isaiah’s prophesy also obliquely suggests that the countries of the Nile basin (Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, the DR Congo, Rwanda, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt) have terrible national political crisis ahead of them.> Using the Bible as a guide and tracing the people in eastern Africa referred to by history and the Bible as Cushites, I started compiling news scripts and radio summaries in January on Somalia, convinced that something probably involving terrorism or a takeover by Islamist forces was going to shake the Horn of Africa or Islamic Zanzibar.> Then on Monday, June 5, the most unexpected news from Somalia took the world by surprise: an Islamist force had won a four-month battle and had taken over the capital Mogadishu.> Next week, I will outline what lies in wait for Uganda and Rwanda as foretold by this strange Seer and what I have been able to piece together from Bible prophesies. Be assured, Uganda’s worst days are not behind us, but just ahead.> Catastrophe awaits the NRM. The runaway sale of valued public land by President Museveni is one of the first clues.> Part 2: The forthcoming events in the Great Lakes region> BY TIMOTHY KALYEGIRA> In July 2001, the Russian newspaper Pravda published an interview with Tatyana Koryagina, a senior research fellow in the Institute of Macroeconomic Researches in Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development.> Dr. Koryagina had predicted that the United States was to come under a major attack around or not long after August 19, 2001 and Pravda asked her how it was possible to predict this coming attack on America.> Dr. Koryagina, interviewed on July 29, 2001 replied as follows: “The mystical and religious components play extremely important roles in human history. One must take into account the shadow economy, shadow politics and the religious component, while predicting the development of the present financial situation…. The U.S. has been chosen as the object of financial attack because the financial centre of the planet is located there…The strike waves of economic crisis will spread over the planet instantly and will remind us of the blast of a huge nuclear bomb…. Some fluctuation in this date is possible.”> And as we now know, on September 11, 2001, Arab militants staged one of the most dramatic terrorist attacks in history on New York City and Washington.> Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency read Dr. Koryagina’s prediction and passed it on to Jerusalem. That is the reason why on September 11, Russian and Israeli citizens were mostly unaffected by the day’s attacks.> That is the crux of what I have been driving at in this column for the past few weeks --- there are unseen and intelligent forces from beyond the human realm that silently orchestrate the events and decisions that we see in the daily world news.> In his 1985 book Reality and Reason, Sean Sayer, a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Kent at Canterbury, argued on behalf of the ideas proposed by the Austrian Jewish psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856-1939): “[It] was Freud’s great achievement to have discovered and, in a large number of cases, to have demonstrated, that dreams (and other sorts of delusions, fantasies and apparently irrational and illusory forms of consciousness) can be interpreted. They have meaning.” (p. 67)> In February 1978, President Idi Amin’s fortune-teller went to meet him with an important message. He was called Hassan Mwangaza. His father was Malian and his mother Senegalese, but he had come to Uganda from the then Zaire (today’s DR Congo).> Mwangaza (nicknamed “Tipu Tip” after the famous 19th century Tanganyikan trader) told Amin that he had looked two years into the future but he could not see Amin being president.> According to Ssemwanga Kisolo during his Friday Sekanyola programme on July 14, 2006 on Radio Uganda’s affiliate station Star FM, Amin took offence at Mwangaza’s prediction and it appears their relationship cooled.> That October, something entered Amin’s mind, made him invade Tanzania’s Kagera salient territory, and six months later in April 1979, Amin had effectively fulfilled Mwangaza’s prophesy more than a year ahead of schedule.> In February 1994, the Seer I mentioned last week foresaw an incident involving the Rwandan President, Major-General Juvenal Habyarimana, and this incident would involve his death.> Late in 2000, the same Seer claims to have had a vision of President Laurent Desire Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo in danger and ending up assassinated.> So to continue from last week, what did the diviner I recently met predict about Uganda in the days ahead of us?> This Seer said that there would soon be a war between Uganda and Rwanda. After that war, the President of Rwanda will be assassinated. Not too long after that, the President of Uganda will also be assassinated.> Both instances will be a replication of the blowing up of President Habyarimana’s plane in 1994 and in both instances according to the Seer it will be done by their own close people.> It also seems that the President’s family will also perish after or soon after him (although the Seer was not definite about this.)> What was not clear to me was what would happen to the other NRM leaders after this stunning event, but I inferred from the Seer that most of today’s prominent NRM and military leaders will be hunted down and jailed or shot.> The Seer also said that the FDC’s President Kiiza Besigye would not become Uganda’s president and that in the near future Besigye would flee into exile for a second time.> It is a frightening nightmare that we are faced with, if the Seer is as correct as in previous predictions.> This is my faithful recollection of what the Seer told us. However, one has to caution that a Seer, a Prophet, a Fortune-teller is only just human. Perhaps these shocking events will not happen.> Watch the current sale of land and how the image of a First Family gradually becomes a constitutional monarchy.> Watch how First Lady Janet Museveni steadily proposes bills in Parliament and they easily sail through.> Watch how she will rise to become the de facto Speaker and head of Parliament, as the majority of the MPs bow to her will. See if she does not toy with the idea of proposing that Uganda be declared a Christian state. Where will all this lead?

Timothy Kalyegira.