Uganda, 2014

First of all, I thank the

General Assembly for electing His Excellency Mr. Sam

Kutesa, our Minister for Foreign Affairs, as President

of the General Assembly at its sixty-ninth session.

As the Assembly knows, the United Nations system

needs reform to reflect the new needs and realities in the

world today. Uganda will use the time of its presidency

to make a small contribution towards the reform of

the United Nations and its organs by pushing for the

African agenda on that issue. Those reforms, as will be

agreed by all of us, will strengthen the United Nations,

not otherwise.

Africa, Uganda included, is at long last emerging

from the long night of decline that the continent has

been through in the last 500 years — ever since 1472,

when the Portuguese started encroaching on the African

coastline. Those 500 years witnessed great traumas

inflicted on the African continent, including the slave

trade, colonialism, neocolonialism, plunder, human

haemorrhage and, in some cases, even genocide. Those

traumas resulted in the haemorrhage of the population

and the depopulation of the African continent to

the extent that by 1900 the population of the whole

of Africa was only 133 million people, while that of

China, which is only one quarter of the land area of

Africa, was 489,000 million people. In other words, by

1990, the population of the whole of Africa was only a

quarter of that of China, in a land area four times larger.

Such traumas were possible in Africa owing not

only to internal weaknesses but also external factors.

Foreign aggression caused serious distortions in

African societies. There was, for instance, the very-

well-organized Kingdom of Kongo on the Atlantic

coast at the time the first Portuguese explorer, Diego

Cão, arrived there in 1483. The Kingdom covered parts

of northern Angola, Cabinda, parts of the Republic

of Congo and the western parts of the Democratic

Republic of the Congo. As a consequence of the actions

of colonialism, that polity, that Kingdom, declined and

disintegrated.

It is only now that the modern countries of that

area are regenerating that portion of Africa. It is those

distortions and the original endogenous weaknesses of

Africa that the present generation of African leaders

have been addressing. In many African countries,

positive results are beginning to manifest themselves.

The middle class in Africa is now of the magnitude of

313 million people, and that has boosted the purchasing

power of Africa to $2.5 trillion. That purchasing power

is growing at the rate of 3.2 per cent per annum. That

growth and expansion of the African gross domestic

product and purchasing power has happened despite

inadequate roads, inadequate railways, inadequate

electricity, and so on. Once those strategic bottlenecks

are addressed, the sky will be the limit as far as Africa’s

potential is concerned.

One bottleneck that has bedevilled Africa has been

the espousing of the pseudo-ideology of religious or

tribal sectarianism, as well as chauvinism vis-à-vis

women. When President Obama was walking out, I met

him at the door and told him that he had copied some of

my statement. That pseudo-ideology has fuelled most

of the conflicts in Africa. We are also witnessing the

same pseudo-ideology causing havoc in the Middle East

and North Africa. When uninformed outsiders link up

with those pseudo-ideologists, the permutation is most

tragic. Sectarian ideology is pseudo and bankrupt

because it is at variance with the people’s real interests

of symbiosis and the exchange of goods and services,

as well as integration for mutual benefit. Only parasites

revel in such schemes. That pseudo-ideology should be

banished and treated with the contempt that it deserves.

With regard to socioeconomic transformation,

Uganda is busy building hard-surface roads, electricity

networks, railways, information and communication

technology networks, a universal education system

and a pan-Ugandan health-care system. Together with

our neighbours, we have integrated our markets in the

East African Community and the Common Market for

Eastern and Southern Africa. We also partner with

others on common security solutions. Africa and the

individual African countries are therefore becoming

more credible partners with all serious actors beyond

our shores.

Uganda needs and welcomes investment, trade

access, tourists and, in some cases, security partnerships

that are approved by the African Union with our

partners in the world, many of whom are Members of

the United Nations.