FROM UK THE GUARDIAN            

Yoweri Museveni: a dictator with nothing left to promise Uganda

 Patience Akumuin Kampala

Sunday 23 February 201400.06 GMT

/http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/23/yoweri-museveni-uganda-dictator-anti-gay Yoweri Museveni: a dictator with nothing left to promise Uganda

Like any other dictator, Uganda's Yoweri Museveni is addicted to attention. And what better way to guarantee attention than promising an African utopia, free from homosexuals, pornography or any such moral decadence imported from the west?

Museveni's apparent willingness to sign the anti-homosexuality bill – taking all "scientific" evidence into account – was a simple transaction whose reward would be another term in power.

No, it was not a hideous, shameful trade-off that he and his party's MPs did behind closed doors. Everything was captured on camera and broadcast for all to see. To show his commitment to the MPs, in the meantime he signed a law that many have understood to outlaw miniskirts.

Ululation at the promise to stomp gays and immorality out of the country was followed by members of parliament pleading, begging, and cajoling the old man. Could he please run one more term, if only to finish the fight against poverty that he started 28 years ago, fix the roads whose funds his ministers already spent on personal projects and put drugs in hospitals his family would not trust to treat a cold or to deliver a first daughter's baby.

The highlight was a female MP, Evelyn Anite, kneeling down to present the petition that endorsed the president as the sole candidate for his party come 2016. In some Ugandan ethnicities, women kneel for men as a sign that they are subservient.

When he came to power Museveni promised to uplift women and spearheaded the enactment of a constitution that would guarantee equality for all Ugandans. Then, he recognised that there is no such thing as a pure African culture. That same African culture he is now "protecting" displaced women from their land, killed innocent children for having disabilities and mutilated women and children's genitalia.

Museveni, who is by no means stupid, recognised that it was time for Africa to look colonialism in the eye, count her losses and move on. Early in his regime, there was a sexual revolution, the beginning of genuine recovery from Idi Amin's era, when women were not allowed to wear miniskirts and intolerance reigned.

But like most revolutionaries, Museveni lost focus and the benefits of the revolution started to matter less. Women being undressed on the street for being "indecent", homosexuals imprisoned and killed are a small price to pay for another chance to dupe Ugandans.

Instead of using the power of persuasion he is gifted with to explain to the populace that culture is dynamic and Africa must find it in her tolerant heart to embrace diversity, Museveni has sought the easy way out and sided with the populace to reinforce intolerance from the post-colonial era.

The Bible and the Pentecostal movement, of which his wife Janet is a devout member, have come in handy. Museveni and his cronies know that there is no such thing as recruiting people into homosexuality. The law, which requires everybody to spy on homosexuals, is unenforceable. But there is nothing left for the regime to promise.

Roads have never been built, hospitals have only become worse and even the HIV/Aids successes have stalled for a while now.

Museveni's conscience may have died, but even he knows that the slogan of democracy, equality and good governance that he once used would now look somewhat awkward on his campaign posters.

An untainted African morality is more appealing to most – especially the products of government universal primary education who hit voting age every year. They may find it hard to read beyond their names, but surely they can imagine an Africa that has something to offer the world other than disease and poverty – a new morality.

They will not question the incoherent mumblings about the evils of homosexuality, but they are ripe enough to begin the cleansing that will finally let Africa shine.

And Africa is shining, in its own twisted way. From Cameroon, Nigeria, Uganda and now even Kenya with her "emerging economy", the continent is casting a hateful glare on gays.

But the thing about glares is that they light up even the darkest corners. If you are bathing in the dark and it is cast in your direction, you might look up and find the entire neighbourhood staring at your naked backside.

And maybe, just maybe, the homosexual witch-hunt is what it will take for Africa and the rest of the world to see that dictators like Museveni have nothing more to offer.