Ugandans-At-Heart

Ugandas at Heart,

Uganda has been known internationally for being an African state with the state of the art embassies. All Uganda embassies you would visit you would not believe that this is a Uganda property for Uganda is a very small country. Through nationalists especially Obote we moved from renting embassy properties to buying them and in cash. And we bought in only Porsche areas.

In UK for example we bought on Trafalgar square. Do you know who else had an embassy on Trafalgar Square? Canada and United States. And the crane for a very long time was flying right between the stripes and stars and the Maple Leaf. And than is the Uganda the nationalists built for you. Go to Moscow you will be surprised at the property we own. Paris, Ottawa, Copenhagen on and on,

 In fact it was Iddi Amin who raised the bar way high, he came to Manhattan and instructed a construction company to build a Uganda house, and they did. But all wood to be used had to come from Uganda and so the Omugenzi Uganda Air Lines was instructed to turn one air craft into a convertible air craft to be used both as a cargo and a passenger flight. Ugandans constructed the doors and all wood amenities in Kampala and loaded them to head to Manhattan. The wood in this building is Mvule tree. When Uganda House was finished it was a state of the art, and The UN took it immediately to be used as their head quarters. In fact Uganda house has housed the UN headquarters until when you lunatics came to power and failed to maintain the building that the UN decided to build its own head quarters near by Uganda house.

Try Havana you will love it, Nairobi is bought as well, I think that was even bought in Obote two if my memory is good. And yet we didn’t only purchase the office premises but we went into the most expensive properties and we bought the residencies of the ambassadors. Uganda owned/Owns, and I must use those two terms for some of them are being sold as we speak to no Ugandan’s knowledge, the embassy with the managers residencies and offices of all Coffee Marketing Board chair men or call them representatives, as in Morocco, New York, London and so on. All these created the stock of Uganda’s foreign property. And that is what sells the Uganda state internationally for it has a damn crane on a mast.

When the Movement came to power tragedy struck. All properties were abandoned yet monies were allocated to maintain them, Manhattan started to see bulbs and doors being sold off for the foreign workers were not getting salary from Kampala. The current Uganda ambassador in Rwanda who I think is a member of the ‘UAH’ forum was one of the people that were selling off those bulbs. And I do not blame the man for he reached a point to be a security guard on a mall for he was not getting salaries from Kampala. We destroyed our own property. But in Kampala they were busy trying to sell it off, in fact I have at two times blocked the sell of that building by simply getting a lawyer and registering a debt on the property. If you are in New York go to a real estate agent and ask the history of than property you will see the block I registered on it. If they manage to sell it today it will be for we as Ugandans have simply given up but the days we are comming from we are glad for we have saved some of the Uganda properties out here from the Rwandese in Kampala that see any and every thing as for sell.

The city of London has threatened many times to sell off Trafalgar Square for we are not maintaining it and we are not paying city bills, France has been threatened, Moscow has been threatened, I visited the embassy in Ottawa and I swore to never ever go into it for it looks terrible, they turned it into half rental units and I saw burnt cooking pots in a room next to the ambassador’s office it was unbelievable sight. The one that made me chuckle was the Paris one for we stood opposite it and I took a time to look at our flag and this flag I think had taken 5 years with out comming down so the cloth stood between green. black and brown, but the wind had torn it in half that when you looked at the crane on the flag, the head would swing to the left when the ass is swinging to the right. Man I stood and bowed to the Gods that created the Movement. they are powerful Gods.

But this is the most important paragraph I want you to read. Even those embassies that are still running, embassies like London and Manhattan they are directly funded by Rwandese government. If you pull the Rwandese government from those embassies today, Uganda’s foreign service will stall. They pay the maintenance and the bills for example when Uganda was paying the bills London many times lost heating in winter, but today they are heated thanks to Kigali. Transportation is Kigali, you see when we buy cars in these embassies, foreign officers come here and use them and they instruct the vehicles to be shipped to Kampala to be used for they look good. I remember a foreign officer that instructed an old Mercedes Benz to be shipped from new York to Kampala, this was an old car that he would even get at cheaper price in Kampala than the money used to ship it.

The government some of us are looking for is a government that must start by taking some very tough decisions. the building of Uganda must start from home not from abroad. The time when we needed those properties were UPC times when we had a developing country, for example Luganda books were stalked into Paris embassy library you would go in and read, but if we cannot even get them from Kampala what is the use, so we do not need all these properties.

 This is what the new government must do. Register all Uganda foreign properties and hand them to a reputable real estate agency to be rented out to public. use the money from those rentals to maintain the buildings but to pay for our foreign service as well. You still will get more money handed to Bank of Uganda as un-used funds. Hold those buildings with two options, re using them as embassies if we can raise Uganda from the dead at a later time or prepare our selves to sell them off. But close thousands of embassies, honestly why do we need an embassy in Kigali ,Nairobi, Bujumbura Kinshasa? You do not need those embassies for every thing they do can be done by a single powerful ministry of regional cooperation or tell me why you need a minister of regional cooperation and another for foreign affairs. Close the embassy in Ottawa and Manhattan and use Washington to cover the entire North and South America including the UN. Close all European embassies except UK France and Germany. The one in China must take all Asia Australia NewZealand included. We have the technology and communication is simple why don’t we get a staff that can travel across Europe in mere hours?

 But do two things as well, when you close these embassies create business centers for example in Toronto and Vancouver to coordinate with Washington embassy. Business centers are ran by Uganda friends, a friend establishes an office at his place of work and puts in a phone line fax line and email dress only committed to Uganda affairs. Campbell did that for Canada in Uganda Bata many years, we have Lukabyo I think is the name in Canberra that is a friend to Uganda and runs Uganda affairs.

In other words all embassies and locations must prove that they are economically viable to raise the money for Uganda that covers their being operational I do not want to see any embassy getting money from Kampala so the services you gain for Uganda must be calculated into monetary form to pay your existence or Uganda does not need you in that city as a representative and good bye. I am going to write a piece of a great need of small scale industries in Uganda thus we need an embassy in Japan China India and Singapore to target those little technologies. If we start good I would start by opening up one in Germany as well but not for now. Joshua Kato I have just demonstrated the failures of this incompetent government, I have posted you the solution and an immediate solution. Respond by posting how the movement has improved the state at home or internationally. Let us kindly put into perspective the wider picture, at home and internationally.

EDWARD MULINDWA

Toronto