We are not happy with Uganda govt- US envoy

Mr Bruce Wharton (Left), the US Principle Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, chats with US Ambassador Deborah Malac during President Museveni’s swearing-in ceremony at Kololo Independence Grounds in Kampala on Thursday. PHOTO BY ERIC DOMINIC BUKENYA.

What you need to know:

Different? The envoys said the US is more interested in Uganda as a country, not government.

Kampala.

A senior US government official on Friday said Washington was not happy with President Museveni’s government about the diminishing space for the Opposition, media and civil society in Uganda.

Mr Bruce Wharton, the State Department’s Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, was in the country to represent Washington at President Museveni’s swearing-in on Thursday, which was also attended by representatives from his country’s archrivals China and Russia, and 14 African heads of state.

“As a friend of the Ugandan people, we are concerned when we see these freedoms being denied and we feel an obligation to raise our concerns on those decisions. We care about what happens in Uganda, not because we care to get something out of it, but because we believe that all citizens deserve to be in a country where their rights and freedoms are respected so that they can decide themselves for their own future,” Mr Wharton said.
Representatives of the US and European Union walked out at the President’s swearing-in ceremony at Kololo after President Museveni made disparaging remarks against the International Criminal Court (ICC), describing The Hague-based court as “a bunch of useless people.” The foreign envoys were further riled by the presence of Sudan president Omar al-Bashir, who has been indicted by the ICC for war crimes in the Darfur region and Uganda, a signatory to the Rome Statute, is obliged to have arrested him. The Uganda government later scorned the walkout as “hypocrisy” of the Western powers.

Mr Wharton said their walkout at the swearing-in represented “a fairly important statement” about their position.
However, when asked why the US attended the swearing-in of a president whose government they are not happy with, Mr Wharton said the US and Uganda “have a very broad and complicated relationship.”

President Museveni, in power for 30 years now, was declared winner of the February 18 elections with 60.7 percent, but his closest rival and Forum for Democratic Change party flag bearer, Dr Kizza Besigye, disputed the results as a “sham”.

The US said Ugandans “deserved better” hours after President Museveni was announced winner, citing irregularities that their European Union and Commonwealth counterparts reiterated in their election observation reports.
Even in the aftermath, both the State Department and US Ambassador Deborah Malac have been vocal against government’s repressive tendencies —harassment of Opposition and gagging the media.

Mr Wharton, in an interview at the US Embassy, asked if by attending of Museveni’s swearing-in meant that Washington had now fully recognised President Museveni as legitimately elected, said: “We are not challenging the results of the elections. The US does not recognise governments, we recognise countries; so the internal events that choose governments are less important to us than the country.”

Col Shaban Bantariza, the deputy head of the Uganda Media Centre, however, wondered how the US can continue working with Uganda [and Ugandans] while avoiding the government.

“That is contradiction to me,” Col Bantariza noted. “The main problem of the US and Western donors is being dishonest. In fact, that is why the President gets jittery with them and attacks them sometimes. Last month, about 400 young men were arrested at the Capitol Hill protesting over the increased monestisaion of US politics. Did we even arrest 400 people here during elections? How can they tell us that something is okay in their backyard but should not happen anywhere even in justifiable circumstances?”

But despite the continued repressive tendencies, Mr Wharton was noncommittal on discussing what course of action they would pursue, saying, “it would be premature for me to suggest what we might do at some point in the future.”