Who is the foreigner recruiting agents in Uganda 

On many occasions, Yoweri Museveni has accused folks in the opposition, and independent activists of working for ‘foreign agents.’

The card serves to discredit their activism as saboteurs. Government spokespersons, and their ‘wall-whisperers’ follow from here, chiding activists even on things of obvious ‘citizen responsibility’ such as exposing corruption and potholes in Kampala.

As Dr Jimmy Spire Ssentongo has often decried, why does a taxpayer need to be paid to complain about Kampala’s potholes! Why do I have to be paid to complain about the lack of medicines in hospitals! In a more recent address, pollsters noted that Yoweri Museveni uttered the phrase ‘foreign agents’ a whooping 54 times.

At the same time, people in the opposition and independent activists — including myself — have called Museveni as the absolute colonial emissary, a worker for foreign agents. There are plenty of receipts to demonstrate these claims: consider for example, the repossession of properties that once belonged to Indians under colonial rule, which President Idi Amin’s government fully compensated to deliver the long-awaited independence that had deluded natives even after independence in 1962.

Consider the perks that foreign businesspersons enjoy in Uganda (from lifetime tax holidays, free land, and government loan guarantees – only to turn out to be hoaxes themselves, and on all occasions. I am not talking about Pinetti. Who then actually works for foreign agent?

You can conclude from these counter-accusations that as a country, we agree that there is a foreigner operating in Uganda recruiting agents. However, despite this common position, our public discourse tends to treat these subversive foreigners, on the one hand as an abstraction (not as real persons or entities with names and addresses), and on the other as people/entities we have to painfully put up with since we cannot do anything about them. We have never asked the questions: Who is this foreigner?

What do they want? For what are they recruiting agents in Uganda? Why have we never tried to investigate, arrest, and charge these foreigners for subversive activity? Why do we only focus on the recruited?

Dear reader, as you may know by now, it is my position that there are many foreigners in the country dangerously recruiting, have recruited, and are on a recruiters’ search. Their first and most important recruit happened over 30 years ago when they landed Yoweri Museveni.

He remains the most important recruit with the most prized signature. Of course, it is not only Museveni that matters in this game. These foreigners have also recruited individuals especially from among the elite circles to (a) keep them away from disturbing Museveni, and (b) to use them in negotiating chips with Museveni. Recruit in elite and upcoming political circles are the scarecrows they throw at Museveni to keep him in check in case he attempts to disrespect their orders.

These recruitments, sadly, have been enshrined in law despite their seriousness to the country. On the one hand, recruitment and support happens through the work of NGOs and CSOs. Within this sort of legalised lobbying, these foreign agents have funded activists in these organisations. But as you may know, these monies are given to CSO and NGOs not to necessarily effect meaningful change.

Because they know non-government work ought to be simply activism or charity, but not replacement of the state. But these monies are given to distract intellectuals and the small elite into wealth and the privilege (of things such as travel and connections) and keep them away from the real struggle of seeking to reform the state.

It should be common knowledge that these foreigners aren’t interested in rights of sexual minorities or human rights, more generally. They have never. It is leverage. If you considered sexual rights as human rights, these foreign agents have no qualms walking over beheaded babies and maimed women to grab land and other minerals.

They are literary and practically walking over dead bodies in Palestine, DRC, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia to meet their economic interests. The point I am labouring is this: our public discourse has to reach that level where we name the foreigner, and actually seek to kick out the foreigner – especially if we all are in agreement about their subversive activities.

It must be the stupidest thing to watch as natives go after each other’s neck, accusing one another of working for a subversive foreigner, but without seeking to touch this foreigner. Wasn’t this the project of colonialism?

To paraphrase Chinua Achebe, the foreigner has put a knife on the things that held us together, we are not just falling apart, but are fighting each other, as he continues to enjoy what is truly ours.

To cut the chase, a great deal of this lies in Museveni’s hands. Had he had the courage and patriotic goodwill, he could return the country to its nationals. This almost vulgar neoliberal embrace has not only turned us into slaves, but also as recruitable agents in waiting.

You can understand this from the way foreign ‘investors’ and monopoly capitalists — disrespect nationals. Not just from cheating them on end, but also at an interpersonal level, all because they own the man on top.

yusufkajura@gmail.com

The author is a political theorist based at Makerere University.