President Obama to remove US Ambassador Michael Ranneberger: Kenya MPs put US ambassador on notice

It is now clear that Ambassador Rannerberger who has been playing small king in Kenya will be released from his job in Kenya. It is not immediately know whether he will get any new posting by the Democrats. His behaviour has angered Kenyan MPs and some ministers. The ambassador travels around in the country inciting the youth against the government because there are some people that he would like to see take over power.

Kenya MPs have now told him off and asked him to shut up!

 

 By Standard Team

US ambassador Michael Ranneberger is on a collision course with Members of Parliament over his grassroots campaigns to turn up the pressure for reforms.

His enthusiastic push for reforms — involving the youth and ignoring MPs — has earned him the legislators’ wrath, many of who accuse him of overstepping his diplomatic mandate.

“Ranneberger is behaving like a governor. He has no respect for elected leaders. Let him not think he has the powers to bring political order in this country,” said Rarieda MP Nicholas Gumbo.

The bone of contention is that Ranneberger has been mobilising youth groups across the country — and bypassing MPs — to pressurise Government on constitutional reforms. The standoff has rekindled memories of other power tussles between former US ambassador Smith Hempstone, whose ardent support for multi-party politics in 1992 earned him the nickname rogue ambassador.

But Hempstone, who has since died, was also chastised by top officials of the then ruling party Kanu for behaving like a colonial governor, a description that was used this week in reference to Ranneberger.

MPs who spoke to The Standard yesterday expressed their displeasure at the manner in which Ranneberger is handling the reform agenda.

But this has not deterred him from embarking on countrywide tours to address youth groups, and marshal them to support reform.

“I am supporting youth to exert pressure on politicians to start initiating reforms. Politicians fear pressure from the electorate and I think this initiative will work,” Ranneberger said at a function in Kisumu this week.

He said he had held meetings with Nyanza Youth Forum, Kikuyu for Change and Rift Valley Dialogue youth lobbies with a view to mobilising youths to a common cause.

“The groups are networking to ensure the momentum for change grows. The leaders must heed,” he added.

Ranneberger said a group of MPs opposed to the move had approached him and requested him to cease the campaign, saying it was hurting their political careers.

“Some MPs who I don’t want to name have approached me, asking me to drop the initiative because it made them uncomfortable politically,” he added.

But the MPs came out fighting accusing Ranneberger of trying to undermine them in the pretext of championing for reforms.

ODM Chief Whip Jakoyo Midiwo and Rarieda MP Nicholas Gumbo accused the envoy of launching a campaign to “incite” voters against MPs. Midiwo said he would mobilise his colleagues against the US envoy.

“Ranneberger is overstepping his mandate. He is interfering in Kenyan politics. We will take him to the courts of public opinion and fire him,” said the Gem MP.

But Ranneberger said his campaign for change was not aimed at undermining any MP.

Anti-reforms

“MPs complaining over the move were anti-reforms and must change or face the wrath of Kenyans,” he said. Ranneberger warned that failure to put in place comprehensive reforms may plunge the country in chaos. However, MPs Fred Outa (Nyando) and Yussuf Chanzu (Vihiga) warned that the move could boomerang.

“Using youths for pro-reforms pressure might cause civil strife. US should instead place sanctions on the Government,” Chanzu said.

And Molo MP Joseph Kiuna said foreigners, despite their good relationship with the country, should not interfere with the country’s internal affairs. “The US should not impose its will on Kenyans. If he is genuine then he should not disrespect those elected by Kenyans to represent them in Parliament,” he said.

source.standard.ke

 

Museveni abuses the Luos calling them mad: Now Raila and Museveni are in cold war

By Juma Kwayera

President Yoweri Museveni’s ˜Wajaruo are mad’ sneer has drawn attention to his attitude towards this populous community across East Africa.

His exact words were: “Wajaruo are mad, they have been rioting. I have been telling them that if you continue like that no Mjaruo will be allowed to fish there,” he said.

The pejorative remark, which he later claimed referred only to those who incessantly cut off his landlocked country by uprooting a section of the Kenya-Uganda railway line at Kibera Slums, also stirred interest on his perceived cold war with prominent Luos. It turned the radar onto the occasions he has occasionally, albeit subtly, sniped at each other before camera with Prime Minister Raila Odinga ” a national political icon and a dominant figure among the Luo.

Museveni’s press conference in Entebbe last week, which he called to restate his claim on Migingo Island, unmasked the different ideological strands the two former allies occupy today. It came just weeks after Raila recounted how he fled to Uganda, on the way to political asylum abroad, disguised as a woman.

Not once at the press conference to which Museveni invited local journalists did he refer to Raila by his title, Prime Minister in the Grand Coalition Government.

But Museveni, who was among the handful of world leaders who rushed to congratulate Kibaki after he was declared winner of the discredited presidential election on December 29, 2007, was profuse in his reference to his Kenyan counterpart as President and Mr Kalonzo Musyoka as Vice-President.

Resentment of Raila

He spoke of Raila coldly and did not sound like he had in mind the man with whom he cut teeth as fierce Marxists-Leninists ideologues.

Then it was Raila against retired President Moi, and Museveni hotly on the heels of the late Ugandan leader Milton Obote and the weapon of choice was a gun and the object armed coup. Both ended up in exile, with Raila detained for about nine years, before their fortunes changed.

Asked to put into perspective President Museveni’s resentment of Raila and the Luo, two historians and authors Kenya’s Wanyiri Kihoro and Uganda’s Obonyo Olweny said the remark during a lecture at the University of Dar-es-Salaam exposed Museveni’s paranoia as Raila’s clout spreads across East Africa.

Kihoro, a lawyer and former Nyeri Town MP who lived with Museveni in London between 1981 and 1986, says the Uganda leader nurtured a dream of uniting East Africa under one flag, but history has pitted him against the Nilotes in Uganda, Eastern Democratic

Republic of Congo, Southern Sudan and Kenya.

The former guerrilla leader, who shot his way to Kampala’s seat of power in Kampala, is an Ankole, a Bantu group distinguished by their love for long-horned cattle.

“Museveni’s loathing of the Nilotic communities became more complicated when Mr Barack Obama (son of a Kenyan father) was elected President of the United States. Uganda’s and Kenya’s presidents are perceived in the US as obstacles to democracy and it is possible Museveni fears losing the clout of a progressive leader,” said

Kihoro.

The view is shared by Olweny who argues: “The emergence of Raila as a dynamic and progressive democrat with massive following in East Africa

has changed perception in the West about Museveni. The Ugandan leader fears Raila is a challenge to his ambition to be first president of the proposed East African Federation.

Museveni would never have contemplated Raila ascending to power through the ballot. When this looked possible in 2007, he panicked and allied

himself to President Kibaki.”

Olweny, a member of Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army is exiled in Kenya and recently published a book, Eclipse of The Pearl: Contract Command, which he says chronicles Museveni’s divisive presidency. Kony speaks Dholuo.

The book chronicles the decades old rebellion in northern Uganda and Museveni’s territorial expansionist philosophy that has seen his army make forays into neighbouring Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Southern Sudan. There are also claims his army has tried moving border along Kenya’s West Pokot and the Central African Republic. Raila and Museveni, Olweny argues, share a common past: They flirted with socialism before the former transformed into social democratic. Museveni dropped socialism for free market capitalism, which drew him closer to Western donors, including the World Bank, and International Monetary Fund.

The slur on the Luo has rekindled discourse on Kampala’s alleged involvement in Kenya’s 2007 presidential election fiasco that brought Uganda’s neighbour to the brink of a civil war.

Olweny argues Museveni has always harboured a “morbid fear” of Raila. put out the rebellion in the north waged by Joseph Kony, an Acoli.

Olweny also recalls Museveni forced journalist Charles Onyango-Obbo into exile in Kenya and had strained relationship with the late Southern Sudan president John Garang.

Ironically, when Museveni made the slur, Southern Sudan President Salva Kiir was the guest of the Kisumu based Great Lakes University, which bestowed on him an honorary doctorate degree. Garang and Kiir are leaders of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement, which Olweny says the Ugandan president tried to sabotage during its struggle for autonomy from the north.

Garang and Kiir also share a bloodline with East African Luo, whose migratory path historians trace to Sudan. Garang died in Museveni’s presidential helicopter in 2005. The cause of the death is still controversial.

Kampala is yet to clear allegations of foul play.

At the height of post-election violence, the Orange Democratic Movement accused Kampala of deploying soldiers to help Kibaki put down resistance to a second term the party claimed he stole.

Museveni’s congratulation to Kibaki as the rest of the world adopted a wait-and-see strategy, worsened matters.

Museveni followed up the congratulatory message with a quick flight to Nairobi to persuade Raila to accept the outcome or form a coalition with Kibaki. Raila curtly termed the agenda “stupid” and declined meeting the Uganda leader.

In November 2007, while campaigning for the National Resistance Movement candidate Sarah Wasike Mugeni in a by-election in Busia-Bugwe North parliamentary seat, Museveni also talked of “Wajaruo”.

Deploying soldiers

He told off a section of the crowd chanting “ODM!” during his rally, to “desist from importing political slogans from Wajaruo of Kenya”.

The ODM! ODM! chants by Ugandans were in support of the party of choice of their cousins across the border.

When he landed in Nairobi in April last year for the swearing-in ceremony of Grand Coalition Cabinet, Museveni feigned ignorance over which party had signed power-sharing deal with Kibaki. He talked of PNU as the “only party that is popular and known to the Ugandans”.

Raila, probably as payback coin to Museveni referred to him as the President of Tanzania.

“Five years ago, Museveni was the blue-eyed boy of the West. The United States and the European Union competed for his attention and at that time Uganda received massive financial and military support from the West. This perception changed dramatically with the emergence of ODM,” argued Olweny.

 

source.standard.ke

 

 

UGANDA: MPs recommend slashing ARV budget allocation – This will endanger the vulnarable in the society

NAIROBI,  – Ugandan HIV activists have expressed concern over a recommendation by parliament’s budget committee that the allocation for antiretroviral (ARV) drugs be cut.

The national budget for 2008/09 allocated 76 billion shillings (US$38 million) to purchasing ARVs, the first such allocation in the country’s history, but this week the house standing committee recommended that the amount be cut to 40 billion shillings in the 2009/2010 budget.

“We recognise that HIV is a serious disease but it is not the only disease affecting Ugandans,” Rose Akol Okullo, chair of the committee, told IRIN/PlusNews. “Cancer and diseases afflicting women need equal attention if we are to meet the MDG [UN Millennium Development Goal] on health.”

More than 300,000 HIV-positive people in Uganda need ARVs. AIDS activists argue that the committee’s recommendation will allow the government to shirk its responsibility to provide drugs to them.

“Government is the key duty bearer tasked with keeping Ugandans alive, which means ensuring that people on ARVs are able to continue on their medication, and people who are newly diagnosed are able to access treatment,” said Beatrice Were, a prominent HIV-positive AIDS activist. “Parliament should not even be debating this issue.”

Uganda’s ARV programme is still 95 percent donor-funded; the two main contributors are the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Were argued that the government could not simply push its obligations on to donors.

“Other diseases, such as diabetes and cancer, are critical, but HIV/AIDS is a unique disease with unique ramifications,” she told IRIN/PlusNews. “The consequences of treatment interruption as a result of drug shortages would be large numbers of people developing resistance, making treatment even more expensive and risking death on a large scale.”

 

Government is the key duty bearer tasked with keeping Ugandans alive…parliament should not even be debating this issue

 

Okullo said her committee’s recommendation was based on information that only about half the ARV allocation in 2008/09 had actually been spent on the drugs. The committee had originally recommended that ARVs be bought from Quality Chemicals Limited (QCIL), a new local manufacturer, but “The information we have received tells us that Quality Chemicals cannot produce drugs worth 76 billion,” she said. “So we suggest that the government uses the 40 billion to purchase what Quality can make, and then imports the rest.”

However, George Baguma, QCIL’s marketing director, told IRIN/PlusNews: “We have the capacity to produce drugs for several countries in this region; they must be misinformed.”

Beatrice Rwakimari, chair of the house committee on HIV and related matters, said her committee was disappointed by the recommendation and would meet with Okullo to discuss it. “We do not agree with the presentations made by the chair of the budget committee; in fact, what we need is more money for ARVs, in order to ensure that people who cannot access them now are able to do so in the future,” she told IRIN/PlusNews. 

A test of political will? 

Were questioned why parliament could find money for “huge” ministry of defence budgets, but not for ARVs. “We have an inflated cabinet, and officials cruise around in large, expensive vehicles; parliamentarians can even cut their own allowances,” she suggested. “If there is political commitment to save lives, then this can happen.”

Activists are also calling for greater accountability. Uganda’s AIDS fight has been dogged by corruption scandals – the Global Fund temporarily suspended grants worth $367 million in August 2005, citing “serious mismanagement”. It lifted the suspension in November 2005 after assurances by government that it would look into the matter.

Last week, David Apuuli Kihumuro, director-general of the Uganda AIDS Commission, told parliament’s Public Accounts Committee that the country had run out of HIV testing kits and drugs for sexually transmitted infections.

“As a country we have turned ourselves into beggars,” the Daily Monitor newspaper quoted him as saying. “The government should provide funds for HIV instead of relying on handouts from donors.”

 

Okullo said the government would consider her committee’s recommendations before drawing up the national budget for approval by parliament; any new budgetary allocations would only be finalised in September.

“This is a test of the government’s political will to ensure treatment for life,” Were said. “Let us wait and see how it responds to these recommendations.”

kr/ks/he
source.www.irinnews.org

NAIROBI,  – Ugandan HIV activists have expressed concern over a recommendation by parliament’s budget committee that the allocation for antiretroviral (ARV) drugs be cut.

The national budget for 2008/09 allocated 76 billion shillings (US$38 million) to purchasing ARVs, the first such allocation in the country’s history, but this week the house standing committee recommended that the amount be cut to 40 billion shillings in the 2009/2010 budget.

“We recognise that HIV is a serious disease but it is not the only disease affecting Ugandans,” Rose Akol Okullo, chair of the committee, told IRIN/PlusNews. “Cancer and diseases afflicting women need equal attention if we are to meet the MDG [UN Millennium Development Goal] on health.”

More than 300,000 HIV-positive people in Uganda need ARVs. AIDS activists argue that the committee’s recommendation will allow the government to shirk its responsibility to provide drugs to them.

“Government is the key duty bearer tasked with keeping Ugandans alive, which means ensuring that people on ARVs are able to continue on their medication, and people who are newly diagnosed are able to access treatment,” said Beatrice Were, a prominent HIV-positive AIDS activist. “Parliament should not even be debating this issue.”

Uganda’s ARV programme is still 95 percent donor-funded; the two main contributors are the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Were argued that the government could not simply push its obligations on to donors.

“Other diseases, such as diabetes and cancer, are critical, but HIV/AIDS is a unique disease with unique ramifications,” she told IRIN/PlusNews. “The consequences of treatment interruption as a result of drug shortages would be large numbers of people developing resistance, making treatment even more expensive and risking death on a large scale.”

Government is the key duty bearer tasked with keeping Ugandans alive…parliament should not even be debating this issue

 

Okullo said her committee’s recommendation was based on information that only about half the ARV allocation in 2008/09 had actually been spent on the drugs. The committee had originally recommended that ARVs be bought from Quality Chemicals Limited (QCIL), a new local manufacturer, but “The information we have received tells us that Quality Chemicals cannot produce drugs worth 76 billion,” she said. “So we suggest that the government uses the 40 billion to purchase what Quality can make, and then imports the rest.”

However, George Baguma, QCIL’s marketing director, told IRIN/PlusNews: “We have the capacity to produce drugs for several countries in this region; they must be misinformed.”

Beatrice Rwakimari, chair of the house committee on HIV and related matters, said her committee was disappointed by the recommendation and would meet with Okullo to discuss it. “We do not agree with the presentations made by the chair of the budget committee; in fact, what we need is more money for ARVs, in order to ensure that people who cannot access them now are able to do so in the future,” she told IRIN/PlusNews. 

A test of political will? 

Were questioned why parliament could find money for “huge” ministry of defence budgets, but not for ARVs. “We have an inflated cabinet, and officials cruise around in large, expensive vehicles; parliamentarians can even cut their own allowances,” she suggested. “If there is political commitment to save lives, then this can happen.”

Activists are also calling for greater accountability. Uganda’s AIDS fight has been dogged by corruption scandals – the Global Fund temporarily suspended grants worth $367 million in August 2005, citing “serious mismanagement”. It lifted the suspension in November 2005 after assurances by government that it would look into the matter.

Last week, David Apuuli Kihumuro, director-general of the Uganda AIDS Commission, told parliament’s Public Accounts Committee that the country had run out of HIV testing kits and drugs for sexually transmitted infections.

“As a country we have turned ourselves into beggars,” the Daily Monitor newspaper quoted him as saying. “The government should provide funds for HIV instead of relying on handouts from donors.”

 

Okullo said the government would consider her committee’s recommendations before drawing up the national budget for approval by parliament; any new budgetary allocations would only be finalised in September.

“This is a test of the government’s political will to ensure treatment for life,” Were said. “Let us wait and see how it responds to these recommendations.”

kr/ks/he
source.www.irinnews.org

 

 

UGANDA: Murder highlights need for protective – The woman below was chased from her home when she revealed she was HIV-positive

Photo: Charles Akena/IRIN

This woman was chased from her home when she revealed she was HIV-positive

GULU, – On the night of 13 May, in the northern Ugandan district of Gulu, Christine Atuk was woken by piercing screams coming from the neighbouring hut where her daughter was sleeping. “I peeped through the window and saw a huge ball of fire burning her hut,” she recalled.

“I got out of my hut and saw one of the attackers hacking my daughter with a machete; they were four in number. I pleaded with the attackers but they turned on me, hitting me with a club, saying that my daughter had infected one of their sons with HIV.” Her daughter, Vickie Adoch, was killed.

Attacks on people living with HIV are not uncommon in Uganda and many say they suffer humiliating discrimination by their communities.

“The killing of the woman has left us in fear,” said George Odong Opeluk, chairman of the Forum for People Living with HIV/AIDS, a local support group. “People still point fingers when they get to know that you are HIV-positive; some of us cannot freely associate because we fear that anything can happen.”

A woman in Patiko village, also in Gulu district, told IRIN/PlusNews that when she told her husband she had tested positive for HIV, he assaulted her and kicked her out of their home.

“My husband chased me away; his close relatives threatened me, saying that I have infected their son,” said the woman, who requested anonymity. She has left Patiko and now lives in Gulu town, where she feels more secure.

The regional HIV/AIDS coordinator, Dr George Openythoo, said the high levels of stigma and discrimination threatened the success of HIV programmes in the area – not only were people reluctant to be tested, “[they] are not willing to provide care and support to people living with HIV/AIDS.”

Uganda’s parliament is debating an HIV and AIDS Prevention and Control Bill that would protect HIV-positive people from discrimination by forbidding employers to subject employees to compulsory HIV tests, and prohibiting educational institutions from discrimination on the basis of HIV status.

The killing of the woman has left us in fear

The bill also states that “no person shall be compelled to undergo an HIV test or disclose his status for the purposes of gaining access to any credit or loan services, medical, accident or life insurance.”

However, many AIDS activists have condemned sections of the bill that would, among other things, impose the death penalty for wilful transmission of HIV, compel HIV-positive people to reveal their status to their sexual partners, and allow medical practitioners to inform partners.

Opeluk said people who perpetrated crimes against HIV-positive people should be arrested to deter further violence and harassment by other members of the community. “The police should join us in the fight so that we are protected.”

Regional police spokesman Johnson Kilama said the police took such attacks very seriously. He added that while there had been a number of cases of HIV-positive people being assaulted, few were reported to the authorities. “We are still investigating the case of Vickie Adoch,” he said. “We shall arrest those who are implicated.”

ca/kr/ks/he source.www.irinnews.org

DRC: Attacks against civilians and aid workers increase in the east

Photo: Eddy Isango/IRIN

National army soldiers are among those attacking civilians in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (file photo)

KINSHASA,  – Humanitarian organisations are increasingly coming under attack in North and South Kivu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with the civilian population also being affected by attacks and counter-attacks between Forces démocratiques pour la libération du Rwanda (FDLR) militia and the Congolese army, aid officials said.

“Humanitarian organisation vehicles have been intercepted to transport FARDC [Congolese army] soldiers or passengers’ belongings looted,” Ndiaga Seck, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said.

“… The perpetrators of the attacks are either the FDLR or FARDC,” said Seck, adding that some NGOs had been threatened. “This has led, for example, to some partners suspending their activities in Fizi and in other territories.”

According to a UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) situation report for 6-20 May, DRC army and non-state combatants continue to commit human rights violations, particularly in areas of FARDC deployment, in preparation for Operation Kimia II, and in zones held by the FDLR.

“… These include targeted attacks committed by armed forces against civilians and humanitarian workers; this environment has reduced [UNICEF] … and its humanitarian partners’ [access] to assist the people in need,” stated the report.

While returns have been registered in North Kivu, new, massive population displacement has occurred after renewed fighting, said UNICEF.

Grim statisitics from South Kivu
	120,000 people have been displaced since March 2009
	450,000 have been displaced in total in the province
	400,000 more people could be displaced because of the new operation (Oxfam)
	1,300,000 is the total number of displaced people in DRC
	65 cases of rape were recorded in South Kivu’s Shabunda territory between 1 April and 7 May
	39 of these have been attributed to DRC soldiers newly deployed in the area
	103 cases of rape were recorded in Minova health zone between 1 April and 7 May
	150 civilians, at least, have been killed this month by FDLR
	77 were killed on 10 May in the village of Busurungi in Kalehe territory
	702 homes were torched during the attack
	224 cases of cholera were recorded in Ziralo in Bunyakiri health zone
	32 of these died, with the high mortality rate attributed to the sick not reaching medical centres
Source: OCHA

“The increasing insecurity is an obstacle to the implementation of humanitarian activities,” it said. “From January to April 2009, 44 attacks against humanitarian workers have been registered; this means on average there is one attack every three days.”

The attacks represent a 22 percent increase on the same period in 2008, stated the report.

More sexual violence cases are being reported in the Kalehe and Shabunda territories of South Kivu since the deployment of army soldiers there, according to a 20 May update by OCHA. The soldiers have been deployed in preparation for a joint anti-FLDR operation with the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC).

The soldiers are engaging in looting and rape during their foot patrols and are contributing to a new wave of population displacement, according to the update (see box). It said the village of Karega has twice been looted in separate incidents by the FDLR and FARDC.

Seck said two women and four men had been taken into the forest and that residents in some villages had been threatened and were being held hostage by the FDLR.

According to MONUC spokesman Lt-Col Jean-Paul Dietrich, the clashes are due to FDLR counter-attacks in inhabited areas or in FARDC-occupied zones.

Dietrich said the reprisals were also targeting civilians who have had dealings with the armed groups, adding that FARDC had managed to push the FDLR back.

ei/aw/mw source.www.irinnews.org