Keynote Address

by

H.E. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni

PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF UGANDA

at

The France-Africa Summit

on
Partnership, Peace and Emergency

14th January, 2017

Bamako-Mali

Your Excellency Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, President of Mali;

Your Excellency Francois Hollande, President of France;
Your Excellencies the visiting Heads of State;
Distinguished Guests;
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I greet you.
I want to take this singular opportunity to thank Their
Excellencies President Keita and Hollande for inviting me to
talk about a subject, I am familiar with, especially here in
Africa regarding Partnership, Peace and Emergency
We are here to discuss mainly the security situation in Africa.
Up to 1990, the insecurity in Africa was, in part, being caused
by colonialism. When the Organization of the African Unity

(OAU) was founded in 1963, only 36 countries attended the

founding conference.
The rest of the present 54 countries were still under
colonialism.
That OAU Conference resolved, among other
decisions, to liberate the whole continent, by force if necessary.
Supported by some few African countries, the socialist
countries and some progressive countries and forces in the
West, the African Liberation Movements, by 1974, a mere 11
years after the 1963 Addis Ababa Conference, were able to
inflict defeat on the Portuguese Empire in Africa, leading to the
Independence of Mozambique, Angola and Guinea Bissau. By
1994, the whole of Africa had been liberated.
Indeed, Southern Africa, which was the last to be liberated is
now the most peaceful except for some isolated remnants of
actions such as those of Renamo in Mozambique.
In other parts of the continent, however, there is quite alot of
insecurity. I do not have to enumerate the areas. Many peace
conferences are held to address these conflicts, including this
one in Bamako. I, however, always feel concerned because
these conferences tend to address the consequences of these
conflicts rather than the causes. They address wars, coup
dtats, election results disagreements, sometimes total
breakdowns of state structures, etc.

The question, however, is: What is the cause of these endless

conflicts and upheavals? Our observation of the last 55 years,
starting with the Congo crisis of 1960 but without forgetting
the earlier problems, is that the main problem in Africa is
ideological. The political elite, many of them acting on behalf of
foreign interests, have failed to determine what is more
important: interest or identity. What is more important
identity of groups or interests of those particular groups? The
correct answer is that interests are always more important
than identity. However, sometimes, identity is also important
not to the exclusion of interests, but important enough to
become a main problem. When the Whites in South Africa said
that Black people could not vote and, along with dogs, could
not enter certain hotels, then identity had become a major
problem. Our brother country, the Sudan (the old Sudan),
faced the issue of identity. Was it Arab or was it African? Was
it Islamic or Christian?
That question, among others, was at the root of the civil war
that broke out immediately after Independence.
Our brother peoples of the Sudan have been trying to deal with
that issue and the efforts are going on. Somebody seeking to
eclipse or obliterate the identity of any of our African peoples is
to commit a crime against humanity. In Ugandas case, we had
alot of turmoil and lost 800,000 people killed extra-judicially on
account of those ideological mistakes. The manipulation was
to create conflicts among the tribes and the religious
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denominations: Baganda vs Banyoro, Catholics vs Protestants,

Christians vs Moslems etc.
Therefore, in the cases where our people are persecuted for
their identity by chauvinists of any description (religious, racial
or tribal sectarianism and chauvinism), we must take a
principled position and oppose the mistake makers.
Nevertheless, much of the chaos in Africa and, indeed, in other
parts of the world, is not caused by the legitimate struggle for
defending identity threatened by chauvinism, but, rather, by
opportunists manipulating identity and totally forgetting about
the peoples interests. What are the legitimate interests of the
people? The major interests are: prosperity and security.
Prosperity involves dealing with the 10 strategic bottlenecks we
have identified in Uganda. These are:
(i)
(ii)

Ideological disorientation;
A weak State, especially the Army, that needs
strengthening;
(iii) Under-developed infrastructure (the railways, the roads,
the electricity, the telephones, piped water, etc.);
(iv) The underdevelopment of the human resource (lack of
education and poor health for the population);
(v) Interfering with the private sector (either by policy or by
corruption);
(vi) A fragmented African market on account of colonialism;
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(vii) Exporting unprocessed raw materials and, therefore,

getting little money and losing jobs; this is caused by lack
of industrialization;
(viii) The underdevelopment of the services sector (hotels,
banking, transport, insurance, etc.);
(ix) The underdevelopment of agriculture;
(x) The attack on democracy.
As you can see, the 10 strategic bottlenecks include the
pseudo-ideology of sectarianism as bottleneck number one,
described as ideological disorientation. Except where identity
is threatened by chauvinism, emphasizing identity or trying to
manipulate that issue for politics and popular support, is a
false step. It forgets about the real interests of the people. I
am a cattle keeper from the savannah part of the Great Lakes
region of Africa. First of all, within the savannah areas, there
were job specialization castes of cultivators, cattle-keepers,
blacksmiths (Abaheesi), textiles people (Abakomagyi), ceramics
people (Abanogoozi), etc. etc. These groups, invariably and
without exception, depend on one another. Cattle-keepers buy
crops, beverages, alcohol etc, from the cultivators. Cultivators,
get ghee, milk, meat, leather (skins and hides), etc., from the
cattle-keepers. Especially in the past, with a low-level of
technology, to keep cattle and seriously grow crops at the same
time, was very difficult.
Therefore, specialization and
symbiosis was correct and efficient in the circumstances. All
the groups would buy iron products from the Baheesi
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(blacksmiths), pottery items from the Banogoozi (ceramics

people), textiles from the Bakomagyi (bark cloth makers). The
bark cloth were called embugu or ebitooma. This barter trade
was called okuchurika.
The exchange of goods and services among the people of the
savannah notwithstanding, the savannah people, additionally,
in order to improve their lives, had to exchange goods and
services with the peoples of the forest (present day Congo), the
peoples of the mountains (Rwenzori, Elgon) and the Kigyezi
Highlands) and the peoples of the Indian Ocean Coast
(Zanzibar, Tanganyika, present day Tanzania). Out of the
forest, the savannah people were getting copper, Ivory, giraffe
hair products (amooshe) and, sometimes, iron products while
from the coast we were getting textiles, guns and gun-powder,
glass beads (enkwaanzi) from Mesopotamia and cowries-shells
(ensiimbi) that we were using as money. Up to today, money
(modern paper money) is called ensiimbi (cowries-shells).
Therefore, since time immemorial, the peoples of the Great
Lakes, the Congo forest, the mountains of Central Africa and
the Indian Ocean coast, were depending on one another. It was
the ego-centric chiefs that interfered with this inter-dependence
by trying to maintain fiefdoms over their people and inflicting
extortions on the very useful long distance travellers. It is these
chiefs that weakened us from within and caused us to be

colonized. If the people of the Great Lakes had combined, we

would have defeated any colonizer.
That was in the past.
Even at that time, the need for
interdependence was clear. That logic was betrayed by the egocentric chiefs that failed to unite our people and promoted
fratricidal conflicts. Today, the logic is even clearer. With
modern industrial and commercial production, you need big
markets. Being a cattle-keeper, I produce milk, beef and
leather. I also produce bananas, coffee, tea, cassava, fruits etc.
The people in my area do not buy my products because they
produce the same products.
The complementarity among the people of my area in terms of
the exchange of goods and services is very low because those
most industrious people produce similar products. The saviors
of the people of the savannah are, therefore, the people of
Kampala and beyond (Kampala is in what would have been
forest zone if it was not for human settlement). It is those
people of the cities of Uganda and the other parts of East Africa
that buy products of my area. It is them that are responsible
for the prosperity of my area. The people of Kampala are also
benefitting from the savannah area. Many Kampala people are
traders or manufacturers. They sell their products to the
people of the savannah.

The Kampala hotel owners accommodate hundreds of

thousands of tourists destined for the National Parks in the
savannah area. The wider East Africa sells products to Uganda
including the savannah area. Kenya sells to Uganda goods and
services worth US$ 600 million per annum.
The people of Uganda, the people of East Africa support one
anothers prosperity. On account of the people of Uganda, the
people of East Africa and the people of the world buying my
products, I am able to build a good house, to buy a car, to
support my childrens education, etc., etc.
That is why my ideology is patriotism within Uganda (as
opposed to sectarianism) and Pan-Africanism when it comes to
Africa. A united East Africa, moreover, enables us to negotiate
better with the rest of the world. The unity of the people of
Uganda, the unity of the people of East Africa, the unity of the
people of Africa are instruments for our peoples prosperity.
Therefore, sectarian ideologies are inimical to the prosperity of
the people of Africa. They are pushed by parasites who
manipulate identity for narrow personal interests, camouflaged
as interests of the respective factions. It is a pseudo-ideology
with no benefit for the people and with only destruction and
regression.
Therefore, when somebody opportunistically
highlights identity (religion, tribe, etc) instead of highlighting
interest, he acts against our prosperity. That unprincipled
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highlighting of identity is a pseudo-diagnosis of societal

problems. Almost inevitably, it creates friction which results
into conflict that scares away investments, diverts resources
from infrastructure to security and, above all, leads to tension
among the otherwise partners in prosperity creation, the
buyers and the sellers of Africa.
The second legitimate strategic interest of the people of Africa is
strategic security. The 1.25 billion people of Africa, who will be
2.5 billion by 2050, should not be threatened by anybody either
from within Africa or from outside. By dealing with
sectarianism, we deal with internal war-causers using identity.
We must, however, also deal with external aggressors of
whatever type. Hence, African sovereignty must be protected
from any external military and non-military interventions. You
have all seen the chaos generated in Libya and the whole of the
Sahel as a consequence of military action by foreigners against
the express objection of the African Summit of Heads of State.
Such a crime should never be tolerated again. Genuine African
freedom fighters do not need external militaries to assert their
rights against internal dictators. The African stand-by forces
and the African Crisis Response Force (Acril) will provide the
answer if there is any need for military intervention.
We stood against the external influences in Somalia by fighting
the criminal Al-Shabaab. We must stand against all foreign
intervention in Africa without the approval of appropriate and
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legitimate African bodies. In the Bible there is the concept of

the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy
Spirit. The three combine to form one God although each one
can also perform tasks independently like when Jesus came to
die for us. Similarly, the Trinity of the national effort, the
regional effort and the international effort, where there is
genuine partnership like in Somalia, works well and can make
impact. As our economies improve, we can rely more on the
duolity of the national and the regional. This does not preclude
sovereign Governments having bilateral arrangements with
non-African partners.

I salute France for providing financial and technical support to

the African Union Mission for Somalia (AMISON) in Somalia
which has enabled the African Union to continue getting rid of
Al-Shabab and providing an enabling environment for a
government to be put in place.
Combining ideology and collaborative efforts at the national,
regional and international levels, in the short-run, with
genuine partnership, will bring good results. In the medium
and long term, as our economies improve, the peace-making
packaging should entail using the national level and the
regional level.

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Unilateral actions by the international forces without the

permission of the African Union or a legitimate national force
(an elected Government) is imperialistic and must be rejected
completely. It should never happen again. That is why I salute
the recent stand in the Security Council when the African
members Senegal, Angola and Egypt - refused to vote for the
resolution that aimed at imposing sanctions on South Sudan.
The Security Council and the UN in general are becoming
famous in Africa for being terrorism conservators and vacuum
creators.
In Congo (DRC), the UN has been promoting
dictatorship (Mobutu vs Lumumba) and conserving terrorism
for the last 56 years.
Even today, there are 22,000 UN troops in the Congo; but in
Eastern Congo, poor Congolese are being slaughtered almost
every week.
In Libya and beyond, the UN has created
dangerous vacuums.
You generally have four types of situations in Africa. There are
countries where a vacuum of political and State actors has
been created by either internal actors or foreign ones. In such
countries, there are no pillars of State (Army, Police,
Administration, Judiciary) or political parties with a national
appeal. In such situations, you get political fragmentation as
had happened in Somalia or the situation is held together by
external forces without capable internal pillars of control. It is
a type of ideological and political leukemia where the body can
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no longer manufacture its own blood and must depend on

endless blood transfusions from outside. The unfortunate
citizens who find themselves in such situations need serious
ideological therapy.
The second scenario is where the politics has taken an
unprincipled sectarian character, but it is not yet a vacuum
because there are capable factions that are still in conflict. Our
task here should be to encourage these factions to work
together and not aim at creating a vacuum by aiming at
eliminating the exiting factions. Targeting those factions will
negatively promote that country to category I, where a vacuum
has been created.
Scenario III is where the sectarian factions reach agreement
and start working together. These efforts should be welcome
and not impeded in any way or to be undermined.
Scenario IV is when the ideological therapy has been applied
and the population has moved away from sectarianism (either
wholly or partially) and to behaving in a political way rather
than being manipulated along identity lines.
They vote guided by need for employment, service delivery,
wealth creation issues etc. etc. This is the healthy situation
that we should ultimately aim at. Therefore, the uninformed
and highhanded ways like some elements were utilizing in the
recent Security Council debate on South Sudan in spite of our
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advice, should be completely rejected. This is also another

problem. Why should some players ignore our advice when we,
obviously, know some of those situations better?
Where political fragmentation has already taken place,
ideological therapy can be applied and reverse the situation.
That is what saved Uganda. Starting with student groups in
the mid-1960s, we were able to defeat the sectarian pushers
and reverse the decline of our country. A country cannot work
for unity when there are no political groups with national
ideological and political ideas. These national ideological and
political ideas like the ones I have pointed out above, will
generate a followership. The followership will help in forming
national political parties and, eventually, other state organs like
the Army. It is not correct to start fires guided by wrong ideas
and then work to put out the fires. That way Africa will
continue to be a continent of endless fire brigading.

I thank you.

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