Uganda, 2001

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.