The Northern Uganda Recovery and Development Programme is a honey pot (By Samuel Olara)

The Northern Uganda Recovery and Development Programme is a honey pot

Samuel Olara UK

If the reasons why a "stone and shea butter (Moya)" war erupted in Northern Uganda are still disputed, there is increasingly less disagreement as to why it has persisted as events unfold themselves. The once much tinkered tenuous "Killers - Fish Pond" proposition, as advanced by President Yoweri Museveni and propagated by his propaganda chiefs and hanger-on politicians, has increasingly been discredited by new revelations by many of the now defected insiders.

The fact that has emerged from this medley propaganda is that this war has been deliberately engineered and sustained because of the psychological satisfaction, and the political (including geo-political), and particularly the economic benefits Yoweri Museveni, his 'Mafia clan' (VP Bukenya's words) and army of rodent generals derive from it.

If this was not the case, how can they explain the source of the 'stinking wealth' of the '1986 billionaires; a group of destitutes who emerged from the bush literally in rags, but now own a big percentage of the national wealth? How can they explain how army officers who earn about Shs2 million a month can buy houses at Shs400 million cash and splash off Shs40 million as chai?

How can they explain how a serving army officer can, without any reprimand for conflict of interest, earn amongst others a 'cool' Shs400 million a month from just only one dubious contract of supplying the NRA/UPDF for 12 years?

Or better still, how can they explain how their spouses and spawns who have never engaged in any meaningful employment own houses worth millions of shillings? How? How can they?

Is it therefore a surprise that President Museveni recently appointed his younger brother, the Commander of the Reserve Force, Caleb Akandwanaho, alias Gen Salim Saleh to "advise" him on the $200 million worth Northern Uganda Recovery and Development Programme (Uganda's last 'milk cow') in the wake of dwindling donor funding?

Most political observers say they are not surprised, and they smell a fish. They query the logic of putting a very senior serving military officer 'in charge' of advising the Presidency on this matter - and by implication making it a "classified military" entity detached from transparency.

Too many faces

The quasi-benevolent Salim Saleh is a man of many faces. To his admirers, he is a hero (some kind of Uganda's 'Robin Hood'). But to his critics, he was, he is and will remain an elusive villain. He has been implicated in both small and big scandals - from "Operation Simsim" to skimming off "kitu kidogo" for the junk helicopter deal! He "only wanted the money to give to the poor." It is therefore not surprising that his appointment has raised many eyebrows amongst most Ugandans, and particularly the tormented people of Northern Uganda.

Soon after Saleh and his accomplices forcefully deported the people of Acholi from their villages into concentration camps, he embarked on what has now become his past-time indulgence of 'security farming'. He exploited the desperation of the people to start some kind of commercial farming business in Kilak country, under conditions tantamount to exploitation (forced labour), under the banner of his Divinity Union Ltd. People were lent money to cultivate their own land but to repay double the amount after the harvest; while at the same time selling their harvest only to Divinity Union Ltd Enterprises and none other.

The former MP of Chua constituency Livingston Okello Okello, when asked why Acholi leaders at that time could not stop this slavery, he only lamented. In his words, the "people were so desperate that many engaged in this kind of business". (Interview with John Livingston Okello Okello, July 13, 2001; "Let my people go")

Saleh's role in forcefully encamping the people of Acholi and exploiting their cheap labour has left many observers wondering whether the policy of encampment of the entire Acholi populace was not a well-calculated move to grab their land and enslave them in a similar way that Nazi Germany did to the Jews.

This view has been reinforced by Gen. Salim Saleh's Divinity Union Ltd, and later the Security and Production programme (SPP) proposals, which have highlighted the use of some large chunks of land in Acholi for large-scale commercial farming.

The SPP is described in a document dated May 2003 and published by the Salim Saleh Foundation for Humanity as a move to incorporate all 800,000 people in IDPs in Acholi sub region into 45 highly militarised production units, each containing 17,500 people of whom 736 per unit would be involved in civil defence.

Saleh portrays it as a strategic plan for solving the insecurity in Acholi sub-region through beefing up local defence using youth volunteers who are recruited to specifically secure the production areas in which they live, an apparent semblance to the Kibbutz land occupation system in Israel.

So far, of the Shs4.7b (about $ 2.35m) SPP project funding he requested in May, the government has so far released Shs14m about $7,000 . But with the exception of the former LRA soldier's farm in Labora, and the Saleh and one or two Acholi army bigwigs and Co. private mechanised farm in Olilim, in Nwoya County Gulu district, there is little to show of this grand idea.

Should someone actively engaged in private business be appointed to this senior post without resigning his other interests? Is there no conflict of interest? Definitely, there is.
It is common knowledge that Salim Saleh has his hands in many of the 'pies' of Northern Uganda. He is a proprietor of a quasi-private model of an SPP farm, although close to a battalion of soldiers to protect the crops and not the people.

He is the strong man behind Sobertra Construction Company (SCC). The company repairs rural roads in northern Uganda and also builds "security roads" in selected rural areas in Gulu district.

The civilian population is strictly forbidden to enter these areas, which are heavily guarded. The company has NGO-like four wheel drive pick-ups with heavy machine-guns fixed to the bed, driven by expatriate white folks.

In the shameless "Allelujah! Allelujah!" appointment of his younger half-brother the Commander of the "Reserve Force" Caleb Akandwanaho (alias Salim Saleh) as de facto Minister of State in charge of the more than $ 200 million Northern Uganda Recovery and Reconstruction Programme (forget the Luweero, Kasese gimmick), it is clear what has happened, and what has been gained from this bloody brutal war in Northern Uganda. Thus confirming the old adage that, “man wages war because of his insatiable desire for power, glory honour, and wealth.”

Who will envy them for this success? They fought for it.
But the donors who provide this money should know that, unlike in the past, this time the people of Uganda have spoken out against this ripping off of the nation. If they deliberately share their money with a corrupt establishment, they should not expect future generations of Ugandans to repay this money.

Contact: olarasamuel@hotmail.com