�

While Uganda has seen far more violent conflict, it has never quite taken the lethal ethnic turn it did following the disputed elections in Kenya.��

Some media reports, on the BBC for example, are already reporting higher numbers for casualties: 1,500 dead, and 600,000 displaced. For violence that lasted only three weeks, and where combatants used mostly machetes, clubs and arrows, that was a high kill rate.

However, though Kenyans were shocked to the bone by the violence, and many had their national self-assurance shattered, no political death is ever completely in vain. There are always lessons, small and big, to be learnt: For example, a new awareness of a people�s strengths � and their capacity for evil…

Kenyans only have to look to Uganda. President Yoweri Museveni came to power in January 1986 after a five-year guerrilla war against Milton Obote�s Uganda People�s Congress Party (UPC). The war was fought in the �Luwero Triangle,� the rich agricultural heartland of Buganda.�

A year into Museveni�s presidency, I was having coffee with a professor who used to work at the UPC secretariat, and was a staunch, unapologetic supporter of Obote. He was an intelligent man.�
He wasn�t a professor for nothing. I asked him what was the one thing a UPC government would do differently if it had to fight Museveni�s National Resistance Army guerrillas all over again. He paused for about 20 seconds, and I thought he was going to give me a long yarn about changing military strategy.�

His answer surprised me. The UPC�s mistakes against Museveni were political, not military, he said. In Luwero, as part of its attempt to keep a grip on the area, the Obote government sacked or transferred all civil servants suspected to be unsympathetic to UPC.� The area was represented in Parliament by the opposition Democratic Party (DP), which had been hugely popular there. Fearing that the DP was collaborating with the Museveni rebels, the UPC government dismantled its infrastructure and ran all its local leaders out of the area.

That, the good professor said, was the one� mistake that truly cost UPC power. If it had not disrupted the DP, and had packed the area with pro-DP civil servants, he said, the war there wouldn�t have been between the NRA and the UPC, who were seen as �outsiders,� but between the rebels and DP, who were local and had a deeper stake in the region. The war was more likely to have failed, he said, because the DP enjoyed far greater support in Luwero than UPC could ever hope to get.

Museveni and his comrades too were watching, and combined with the knowledge they gained from building local support for their campaign, reached the same conclusions rather faster than the UPC.

Museveni�s Uganda remained a one-party dictatorship for 19 years of his rule. But that was at the macro, national level. At the grassroots and local levels, the Museveni years delivered one of the most democratic and representative political societies the country and� this region have ever had.� In Uganda, from mayor to head of a small village fish market, you have to be elected. This has helped Museveni defeat the dozens of rebellions against his government, as the insurgencies struggled to spread beyond the counties and districts where they started because neighbouring areas were led by people who were too deeply a product of� local interests to allow an �outsider�s war� to take root there.

That knowledge didn�t come cheap. The lesson cost over 100,000 deaths. Yet, if you asked the Ugandans who today will insist on electing even the overseer of their borehole, none knows that that was the price tag on the democratic rights they now take for granted.

*By Charles Onyango-Obbo is Nation Media Group�s managing editor for convergence and new products.

Published by Korir, API africanpress@getmail.no source.NationEA.ke

Sudanese forces have clashed with troops from the European Union (EU) Force in Chad after they crossed the border into the Darfur region. A Sudanese soldier and a civilian were killed during the exchange of fire, the Sudanese army says.

The EU Force (Eufor) said it was trying to recover one of its vehicles, which had accidentally strayed into Sudan. A French soldier who was in the vehicle is still missing, and France has asked for Sudan’s help to find him. The French soldier’s disappearance is the first serious incident experienced by the force. Another soldier was injured – the mission’s first casualty.

A Sudanese spokesman said occupants of the Eufor vehicle shot at a checkpoint five kilometres inside Sudan, and fled when Sudanese forces returned fire. He said three Sports Utility Vehicles (SUV) and a helicopter returned to the area after 30 minutes and there was an exchange of gunfire, which resulted in the deaths of two Sudanese nationals.

The Eufor says the vehicle had mistakenly strayed three kilometres inside the unmarked border, and an attempt to recover it was met with hostile fire. Eufor is mandated to protect refugees from the Sudanese region of Darfur and the Central African Republic, as well as internally displaced people. The French-dominated 3,700-strong force began deploying in eastern Chad and Central African Republic last month.

Published by Korir, API africanpress@getmail.no source.guardian.Nigeria

Khartoum (Sudan) � Sudanese presidential advisor has lashed out at the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) saying it ignores the real cause of the Sudanese crisis. He further said that what we need is to identify what unite the Sudanese people before to talk about democracy.

Speaking to the Sudanese press on Tuesday about the “Democracy and Benevolent Government”, presidential advisor Bona Malwal said �the real debate should be about the perpetual failure of the national political leadership� to identify what unites the people of Sudan. The CPA “has only massaged the issues of democracy in Sudan and not really resolved them. We, are neither free from a theocratic state, as the SPLM leadership would want us to believe, nor are we an Islamic state as the NCP also would want to believe.” The prominent southern politician said.

However, he underlined that the “best we can do, is to strive to make it [CPA] work, since it has secured for us a precious peace in our country.” The presidential advisor stressed that Sudanese need “a change of mind set” if they are really want to implement a true “democratic transformation” in the country. “If we achieve a change of mind set and the leaders of the Government of National Unity (GoNU) cooperate with one another better than has so far been the case, then we can achieve something in the remaining two years, before the people of Southern Sudan vote in their referendum on Self-determination.”

Bona said declaring Sudan as an Arab state can be considered as “a show of power by those who took over the country from colonialism.” He further added that �The idea of an Islamic State totally ignores the reality of our country.” asking “What democracy are we talking about therefore?” Bona pronounced a harsh verdict against the ruling party saying that the Sudanese society has degenerated into a series of tribal societies. �Tribalism has become even proudly acceptable mode of individual identification in Sudan.”

“You almost witness the pride in the face of our politicians, when they identify themselves in power as Jaaleen or Shagia or Danagla. It is as if it is some shame on those tribes who have not set foot on the Presidential Palace along the Nile as rulers of Sudan. Where is the room for real democracy or for Sudanese nationalism?” he said.

Published by Korir, API africanpress@getmail.no source.SudanTribune

Lagos (Nigeria) – The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on the Somali government to reign in the country’s security forces as a way of stopping the incessant attacks on journalists and media organisations in the country.

The call came as government soldiers raided three radio stations — Horn Afrik, Radio Shabelle, and Radio Simba — in Somalia on Sunday and detained the director of one of the stations. “Security forces must be reined in by the Somali government so they do not carry out their own personal agendas against journalists,” a CPJ statement quoted the committee’s executive director, Joel Simon, as saying.

“We call on the authorities to ensure all the equipment (seized from the stations) is returned undamaged to the three radio stations,” he added in the statement, made available to PANA here. According to the New York based CPJ, Sunday’s raids occurred after heavy fighting and looting over the weekend in the central area of the capital, Mogadishu. Journalists from the affected stations told CPJ that government troops took key radio equipment, including computers, mixers and microphones in order to shutter them.

All three stations were off the air on Sunday but Radio Shabelle and Horn Afrik managed to renew broadcasting Monday. On Sunday, government forces raided the central Howl-Wadaag district, including Bakara market, a day after at least 14 people were killed and 30 wounded in heavy fighting between soldiers and insurgents. Local journalists suspect key equipment was confiscated from the three radio stations in order to censor reporting of Sunday’s mass looting.

The Minister of Information, Ahmed Abdisalam, said the central government did not order the raids on the stations and that the Prime Minister called an emergency meeting on Sunday to investigate the incident.
An estimated 20 soldiers in two armored vehicles raided Radio Simba, looting equipment and beating reporter Abdiaziz Hussein Hassan, local journalists said. Soldiers then proceeded to knock down the doors of Radio Shabelle, taking radio equipment and arresting Director Muktar Mohamed Hirabe.

Hirabe was released the same day. The soldiers also confiscated radio equipment at Horn Afrik and ordered the station to be closed, Chairman Saeed Tahlil told CPJ. Journalists told CPJ that they suspect the order came independently from a top commander and relative of President Abdullahi Yusuf, especially as journalists at two of the stations recognised individuals who took part in the raids as security personnel based at the presidential palace.

The violence in Somalia has taken a heavy toll on journalists, with seven Somali journalists killed because of their work in 2007-

Published by Korir, API africanpress@getamil.no source.PANA

Lagos (Nigeria) – The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on the Somali government to reign in the country’s security forces as a way of stopping the incessant attacks on journalists and media organisations in the country.

The call came as government soldiers raided three radio stations — Horn Afrik, Radio Shabelle, and Radio Simba — in Somalia on Sunday and detained the director of one of the stations. “Security forces must be reined in by the Somali government so they do not carry out their own personal agendas against journalists,” a CPJ statement quoted the committee’s executive director, Joel Simon, as saying.

“We call on the authorities to ensure all the equipment (seized from the stations) is returned undamaged to the three radio stations,” he added in the statement, made available to PANA here. According to the New York based CPJ, Sunday’s raids occurred after heavy fighting and looting over the weekend in the central area of the capital, Mogadishu. Journalists from the affected stations told CPJ that government troops took key radio equipment, including computers, mixers and microphones in order to shutter them.

All three stations were off the air on Sunday but Radio Shabelle and Horn Afrik managed to renew broadcasting Monday. On Sunday, government forces raided the central Howl-Wadaag district, including Bakara market, a day after at least 14 people were killed and 30 wounded in heavy fighting between soldiers and insurgents. Local journalists suspect key equipment was confiscated from the three radio stations in order to censor reporting of Sunday’s mass looting.

The Minister of Information, Ahmed Abdisalam, said the central government did not order the raids on the stations and that the Prime Minister called an emergency meeting on Sunday to investigate the incident.
An estimated 20 soldiers in two armored vehicles raided Radio Simba, looting equipment and beating reporter Abdiaziz Hussein Hassan, local journalists said. Soldiers then proceeded to knock down the doors of Radio Shabelle, taking radio equipment and arresting Director Muktar Mohamed Hirabe.

Hirabe was released the same day. The soldiers also confiscated radio equipment at Horn Afrik and ordered the station to be closed, Chairman Saeed Tahlil told CPJ. Journalists told CPJ that they suspect the order came independently from a top commander and relative of President Abdullahi Yusuf, especially as journalists at two of the stations recognised individuals who took part in the raids as security personnel based at the presidential palace.

The violence in Somalia has taken a heavy toll on journalists, with seven Somali journalists killed because of their work in 2007-

Published by Korir, API africanpress@getamil.no source.PANA