Hint: The President is in a row with Buganda.
For me the destruction of a World Heritage site trumps the riot story (especially since the riots were all over the radio and television all day yesterday). The fire occurred last night.
So which one is the government paper?
Hint: The President is in a row with Buganda.
For me the destruction of a World Heritage site trumps the riot story (especially since the riots were all over the radio and television all day yesterday). The fire occurred last night.
Did Makerere shooting need to be fatal?
According to an article this morning in the New Vision, the three students were not transported to a hospital for a whole hour after they were shot.
How can this be? Did no one think to call the police? Emergency services?
That last one is a sad joke. After speaking to Ugandan friends this morning, I learned that there is no Emergency services in Kampala. If someone is hurt, you can call one of the private hospitals to send a ambulance but you have to pay the ambulance before they will take the patient.
How can a city exist without ambulances.
And according the the New Vision, the fire trucks that responded to the fire at were unable to access the fire. WHAT?
This is an embarrassing state of affairs for a metropolis. Where is the anger here?
Eyewitnesses said Richard Hafasha, a private security guard, fired one bullet which passed through Nyongesa’s chest and hit Amoga who was behind him. The bullet also hit a Ugandan student, Amon Mugezi, and got lodged in his neck. Mugezi is a third-year law student.
The bodies lay in a pool of blood for about an hour until other students in the hostel mobilised funds and hired a car that took them to Mulago Hospital. By press time, Mugezi was still in critical condition at the hospital’s intensive care unit.
How can this be? Did no one think to call the police? Emergency services?
That last one is a sad joke. After speaking to Ugandan friends this morning, I learned that there is no Emergency services in Kampala. If someone is hurt, you can call one of the private hospitals to send a ambulance but you have to pay the ambulance before they will take the patient.
How can a city exist without ambulances.
And according the the New Vision, the fire trucks that responded to the fire at were unable to access the fire. WHAT?
The Police Fire Brigade rushed to the scene but its efforts to put out the raging fire at the traditional burial grounds of Buganda kings were disrupted by a crowd.
This is an embarrassing state of affairs for a metropolis. Where is the anger here?
Makerere students riot and forget to tell anyone
Last night two Makerere students were shot by an armed security guard leading to widespread riots near the university today.
Uganda Online - Makerere Students on Strike after 2 Killed
However no one thought to utilize Twitter to get the story out. Searches for #Makerere all day on Twitter Search resulted in nothing more than news reports. How is it that students -- particularly politically-active students -- are not making use of the social media tools available to them. Is it ignorance of Twitter? Is it the high cost of an internet connection? What has led to this?
I know that thousands of students are active on social media sites like Facebook but ignorance abounds. During the deadly riots here in Kampala, only a tiny handful of techies were sending out tweets on what was happening. For many Ugandans and Uganda lovers all over the world, these tweets were THE ONLY source of information on the riots. Local media was not spreading the word and international media does not exist here. Much was the case today.
Even now as I listen to police sirens passing my home, I wonder why this is and how it can be changed. With national elections happening in a year's time, citizens need to be "armed" with their own tools that can help them take a stand against violence and intimidation. Technology and information is one way that such tactics can be countered.
The cost of internet access in the past six months has gone down but it is still high for students of a budget. And unfortunately of the six of so major providers, only Uganda Telecom has a Twitter update feature. These things need to be changed before elections hit full bore.
Perhaps people have ideas as to how we can remedy this media black hole. Only when each citizen holds a Twitter-enabled cellphone will people in power realize that there is no longer such thing as an isolated media event, violent or not.
Uganda Online - Makerere Students on Strike after 2 Killed
However no one thought to utilize Twitter to get the story out. Searches for #Makerere all day on Twitter Search resulted in nothing more than news reports. How is it that students -- particularly politically-active students -- are not making use of the social media tools available to them. Is it ignorance of Twitter? Is it the high cost of an internet connection? What has led to this?
I know that thousands of students are active on social media sites like Facebook but ignorance abounds. During the deadly riots here in Kampala, only a tiny handful of techies were sending out tweets on what was happening. For many Ugandans and Uganda lovers all over the world, these tweets were THE ONLY source of information on the riots. Local media was not spreading the word and international media does not exist here. Much was the case today.
Even now as I listen to police sirens passing my home, I wonder why this is and how it can be changed. With national elections happening in a year's time, citizens need to be "armed" with their own tools that can help them take a stand against violence and intimidation. Technology and information is one way that such tactics can be countered.
The cost of internet access in the past six months has gone down but it is still high for students of a budget. And unfortunately of the six of so major providers, only Uganda Telecom has a Twitter update feature. These things need to be changed before elections hit full bore.
Perhaps people have ideas as to how we can remedy this media black hole. Only when each citizen holds a Twitter-enabled cellphone will people in power realize that there is no longer such thing as an isolated media event, violent or not.
Is the SA World Cup good for Africa or wealthy Africans?
Cost of Stadium Reveals Tensions in South Africa - NYTimes.com:
In the past month, three supposed hit lists landed in South African newspapers. One includes people to be shot, another those to be poisoned. The Sunday Times recently quoted a repentant Mozambican assassin who asserted that he was hired by top-level politicians and businessmen to kill their adversaries, describing his profession as the work of a “cleaner.”
Invisible Children - Full video
I have been hearing a lot about this video and I wanted to see what all the hype is about. Here it is from Google Video:
US protestors take a stand for Uganda. Uganda fails to notice
As a professional cynic (read journalist), I am usually pretty negative about the do-gooder attitudes of Americans -- or Westerners for that matter --who think they can parachute into third-world countries and change the world. It might look good on a College resume but after they fly home, the struggle continues.
The one thing I have learned from living in Uganda is that the people in power here are often more concerned with their own wealth and power than with the plight of the common Ugandan. Why should a UN worker who works a three-year stint in Uganda care for the welfare of its citizens when many Ugandan politicians and civil servants don't? Or more precisely, why do they even care?
For the common Ugandan, life here is extremely difficult and an "every man for himself" attitude exists in all aspects of life from politics to business to driving. It is matter of survival. But for the ones in power, it is a matter of corruption, of selfishness, of power.
But to hear about a small group of American students who camped outside a US Senator's office in the freezing cold for 12 days is heartening (read more on the Monitor, local US news video and Resolve Uganda the group who spearheaded the protest). The goal of the protestors was to get Republican Senator Colburn to drop his hold on a bill that would provide $40 million of aid to Northern Uganda. Other students even staged a hunger strike.
For many of these students the only connected they have to Uganda is the film Invisible Children. A documentary that tells the story of young people living in the North who sleep on streets to avoid being kidnapped by LRA rebels, the film has been running the college circuit for a number of years.
One of the leaders of the protest said after Coburn relented: "We have a responsibility to take care of our brothers and sisters all over the world."
Cheesy? Naive? Absolutely!
Impressive? Heartfelt? Enlightened? Even more so!!!
I'm still a cynic and corruption still reigns today in Uganda, but for a few American activists and their Ugandan benefactors, today is a good day.
