Africa 'aids' Western countries
2005-09-22 11:38
Washington - Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled Uganda for almost 20 years, the last nine as an elected president, says he has accomplished much of what he set out to do but still can't shake his country's lack of an industrial sector.
He puts democracy at the head of his government's list of achievements. Presidential elections are scheduled next year, but Museveni refused to say on Wednesday whether he would run. He said that's up to the National Resistance Movement, to which every Ugandan belongs.
"Uganda has not had serious political problems for many years", he said. There have been many elections and referendums, he said, and "the people of Uganda seem very satisfied at what is going on".
Regime's main achievements
The rest of Museveni's list of his regime's main achievements, after democracy:
-"Minimum economic recovery" has brought solid growth; the gross national product finally surpassed that of 1971, when Idi Amin seized the government, held it for eight years and left office with an economy shrunken by 40% from its size a decade earlier.
- Children are being educated now and are receiving health care.
- Roads and other infrastructure fixtures are being expanded.
But industrialisation has remained an unrealised goal, Museveni said in a talk at the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent foreign policy think tank.
"You hear so much about poverty in Africa," said Museveni. "As a matter of fact, Africa is not poor. It is very rich in natural resources."
"The whole problem so far has been the problem of exporting raw materials. You normally hear that Western governments are aiding Africa. The truth is that Africa is aiding the Western countries. Africans are the donor."
Museveni explains himself
"How does Uganda donate to Britain, for instance?" he asked himself.
"When you sell a 1kg of coffee in Uganda, you get $1 per kilo when we sell unprocessed coffee beans. The same 1kg, when it is processed, it goes for about $10 or $11 a kilo, maybe more.
"Therefore, with every kilogram of coffee, Uganda is donating $9. That is the situation, it is the situation for all raw materials."
The same situation exists for jobs, Museveni said: for every British job that processes Ugandan raw materials, a Ugandan job goes begging.
"This struggle for industrialisation is actually one of the biggest struggles," he said.
The other failure of the Museveni era, the president said, is the map of Africa. It is Balkanized into 53 countries with "terribly irrational" borders drawn mainly by colonial powers.
At a recent summit on the problem in Libya, Museveni said, some wanted to create a single government for the continent. Others said regional governments would be better. Nothing was resolved.
"In any case, general agreement was reached that the status quo in Africa has got to go," he said.
- AP