Okello’s dangling intestines a shame on army reps

On Thursday last week Parliamentarians were sent fleeing at the sight of a Uganda People’s Defence Forces soldier holding onto his intestines walked towards the entrance of the Parliamentary Building searching for “his MP” to appeal for help.

First the facts of the case; Pte Emin Okello is a serving UPDF soldier attached to the 105 Battalion. He was shot in battle at the Ugandan/Sudan border in June and thereafter admitted to Lacor Hospital in Gulu.

While at Lacor, it was discovered that he required surgery and specialist attention and was therefore transferred to the army referral hospital at Mbuya on September 18, 2006.

“The facts are that he has not been neglected and we are questioning why he left Mbuya where he was due to see the surgeon, to come to Parliament to see his area MP,” questioned the army spokesman, Maj. Felix Kulayigye.
Kulayigye further adds: “He is duly paid up to August like the rest of us, we have not yet been paid September salaries. It is therefore not correct that he had not been paid since May.”

Being a soldier, Okello belongs to a unique constituency with full representation in Parliament. With 10 MPs, the army has the biggest block interest group representation in the House but surprisingly Okello did not go in search of any of his ten MPs, but rather the one representing his county back home.

The ten army MPs represent a constituency of 55, 769, which is about 10,000 people per MP!
Why? One may be forced to ask? The answer is simple, the army MPs do not represent him as a constituent in the Parliament, they represent other interests and as we are told, they are in Parliament as “listening posts.”

At the rank of private, Okello earns a paltry Shs140, 320. You might argue that this is similar to what primary school teachers, until recently, have been earning. It’s also not different from the pay for policemen and prison warders. But the later groups have no representation in Parliament and have more sympathisers from the larger public.

The teachers have pushed their salary up by strikes, the army cannot go on strike. Were they to, “for just an hour”, a soldier friend told me, the consequences would be dire for everybody.

Our good army representatives as “listening posts” cannot even discuss the plight of their constituents in the House and that is possibly why none of them was at Parliament to listen to Okello’s story. Remember the Presidential Guard Brigade had just chased him away from President’s Office where he had first reported for help.

Given that they have no constituency to represent and are not allowed to speak in the House, can afandes Elly Tumwine, James Makumbi, Francis Okello, Sarah Mpabwa, Col. Ramathan Kyamulesire, Phenekas Katirima, Aronda Nyakairima, David Tinyefuza, Grace Kyomugisha and Julius Oketa, or would they, and the army High Command that sent them there, justify their presence in Parliament?

Sex scandal fuels Uganda-Rwanda tensions

KAMPALA, Uganda (Reuters) -- A Rwandan diplomat was photographed naked in bed with another man's wife before being briefly arrested in Uganda, further stoking tensions between the fractious east African neighbors, officials said on Monday.

In an embarrassing incident causing consternation in both Kampala and Kigali, Rwandan First Secretary John Ngarambe was arrested late on Saturday with the wife of a Ugandan businessman at a hotel on the shores of Lake Victoria.

Uganda's minister of state for international affairs, Okello Oryem, said police would not charge the envoy with adultery, which is a crime in Uganda, but that Kigali should take action.

"They know what to do when a diplomat behaves in an unbecoming manner," he said. "This incident was unfortunate."

Rwandan officials in Kampala made no immediate official comment on Ngarambe's five-hour detention. But they said privately he should not have been arrested because as a diplomat he enjoys immunity and his status was well known to Ugandan security forces who regularly tail him.

News of the Rwandan's arrest was splashed on the front pages of both Uganda's main papers, without the compromising pictures, and there was talk of little else on the streets of Kampala.

The story broke ahead of Tuesday's treason trial of Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye, which was expected to strain ties even more.

Besigye, who lost elections in February to President Yoweri Museveni, is accused of training rebels in Rwanda.

The Kigali correspondent for Uganda's independent Sunday Monitor newspaper quoted Rwandan President Paul Kagame as denying for the first time that the rebel People's Redemption Army (PRA) even existed.

"PRA has been a creation of Uganda itself," he said. "Its existence and size is something that I know nothing about."

Rwandan officials could not immediately confirm those comments but promised a statement on the subject shortly.
'A very sensitive time'

"This is a very sensitive time, ahead of Besigye's trial, and this will not help matters," said one Western diplomat of the diplomatic sex scandal.

The Rwandan and Ugandan armies have clashed twice after invading Democratic Republic of Congo together in 1998, and the health of the Kampala-Kigali relationship is a top concern for diplomats working for peace in the Great Lakes region.

Until those clashes in 1999 and 2000 destroyed much of Congo's diamond city Kisangani, Rwanda's Kagame and Museveni had been close allies.

They attended the same boarding school in western Uganda, and Kagame became Museveni's intelligence chief during the bush war that propelled the older man to power to 1986.

In turn, Museveni backed Kagame -- a Rwandan exile -- when he led rebels to end Rwanda's 1994 genocide.

But they fell out over territory in mineral-rich eastern Congo, and despite withdrawing their troops, analysts say both still use proxy militias to compete for influence there.

Both have accused the other of aiding anti-government rebels, and both have expelled diplomats suspected of spying.

Ugandan papers said Ngarambe's arrest followed three weeks of surveillance, some by agents posing as motorbike taxi riders, and culminated in the raid on the lakeside Windsor Hotel.

After police broke into the room, the pair were photographed and videotaped as they dressed, the papers said, and officers removed the bed sheets and unidentified "romantic accessories" as evidence.

Northern Uganda death rate thrice Iraq’s

According to Civil Society Organisations for Peace in Northern Uganda CSOPNU , the rate of violent deaths in war-ravaged northern Uganda is three times higher than in Iraq.
Oxfam released a press release seen here which laments the conditions of the people living in Northen Uganda.
We have the goverment's response here