In The Magazine

By Charles Onyango-Obbo A Ugandan analysts whose views I respect, told me recently that the ‘Opposition to the [President Yoweri] Museveni is getting exhausted, and it would seem many people now believe he cannot be removed’. He anticipated that while Museveni’s rule is discredited daily by corruption and incompetence, and …

By Patrick Matsiko Wa Mucoori One time two Bahima friends left their small village in Nyabushozi and went for shopping in Lyantonde town on the Masaka-Mbarara Road. They entered a restaurant for breakfast. When tea was brought, one of them, Rwetsiba, tasted and turned to his friend Rucurumbukana and said: …

By Andrew M. Mwenda On December 14, 2008 the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) launched Operation Lightning Thunder on the camps of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Later President Yoweri Museveni, in a national broadcast aired on radio …

By The Independent Team Here, The Independent talked to Maj. Gen. Zed Maruru, former army chief-of-staff under Gen. Tito Okello’s short-lived government. Maruru is an air force pilot trained in Czechoslovakia and at Bracknell Staff College of the Royal Air Force of United Kingdom, one of the world’s most respected …

By The Independent Reporter The Independent talked to two retired military officers; one from Britain, one from the United States. Both have worked for the Special Forces of their respective countries. According to these experts, the way UPDF employed its Special Forces in the operation demonstrated a lack of understanding …

By Andrew M. Mwenda A common joke about our roads in Uganda goes like this: If you see someone driving zigzag, then you know he is sober; and if you see someone driving straight, they must be drunk. Why is the logic of driving inverted? Because we have too many …

By the Independent Team One of the key issues identified in crippling LRA is to kill its leader, Kony. This is not the first time voices in UPDF are saying this. In 2002, then Chief of Military Intelligence and Security, Brig. Noble Mayombo, began negotiations with a private security firm …

By Obed K. Katureebe In early February 2006 President Yoweri Museveni called an urgent meeting with the Sembabule district NRM leadership at State House Nakasero. High on the agenda was who should be the NRM’s official woman candidate for Sembabule district in the February 2006 parliamentary elections? Museveni, who was …

By Andrew M. Mwenda The recent Uganda Peoples‘ Defence Forces (UPDF) attack on the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) camps in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was certainly the right thing to do, although the assault itself was ill-timed, poorly planned and incompetently executed. Before the assault, the Uganda government …

By Patrick Kagenda On November 3, 2008, Arthur Asiimwe Kirimani 25 was on his way to Baghdad Airport to board a plane that would return him to Uganda after a 10-month service with a private American security firm  EODT. The firm that is stationed at Forward Operating Base in northern …