By DAVID MATSANGA

The unfolding events in Uganda where every sector of economy wants to engage on a go-slow is worrying. Many Ugandans are getting increasingly concerned about the paralysis that has taken over in Kampala.

Other countries around the region are also worried about the cost of wildcat strikes to the regional economy as again, the timing and reasons behind the opposition’s walk-to-work were wrong and misplaced. Uganda after the end of the brutal war in 1986 has long been a paragon of peace and development in the region. Its policies on the killer HIV spread in the 1980s was lauded internationally as it arrested the threat of the pandemic as it marched through sub-Saharan Africa.

Sound monetary and fiscal policies have overseen the steady growth of a once battered economy to position it as one of the fastest growing in the world. Uganda’s involvement in Somalia shows its growing stature in the region. Uganda is on the right path. Yet our politics remain bitter and acrimonious. Why?

Two months ago I wrote to President Yoweri Museveni and alerted him of the US and other Western powers’ tactics of regime change that have brought chaos in North Africa and other parts of Africa. I beckoned him to embrace "walk-to-dialogue" and avoid a situation that erodes the achievements the NRM government has brought to Uganda in over a quarter of a century rule. This call is still alive and only route left for us on both sides to vomit our grievances, open our hearts for healing and reconcile for the sake of our nation. On both sides of our nation there is need for reconciliation and forgiveness that will build a new Uganda.

A violent route, as planned, will only worsen and kill the dream of a new Uganda. Let’s begin to dialogue and many miracles will happen when we start talking instead of closing shops, shutting down our transport system, and calling for civil strife as the opposition is wont to do.

One of the greatest impediments facing Africa is that those spreading the doctrine of reform have not been reformed. Think about Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa. The continent is awash with those "who preach water and drink wine". The same ones who hunt with the hound and run with the hare.

On the surface one could dismiss these as busybodies. Deeper examination reveals a truth that many dread. The truth is the extent of US machinations on Uganda and other countries.

First they had a problem with our elections and electoral laws, secondly the US threw in alleged human rights violations and other alleged democratic abuses against Uganda, to soil Uganda’s name. This again aborted with the US eating humble pie when they realised the degree of human rights and handling of human rights issues was no different from what they were doing in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Third on the list of tactics are demonstrations around Ugandan missions abroad. There are those demonstrating in London at the doorsteps of our High Commission who are not "real Ugandans but mercenaries dressed in Ugandan names and blood" paid by some political malcontents on the continent to demonstrate against Uganda.

Fangs of imperialism

The evidence points again at CIA operations in Africa. This is utter and cynical opportunism by our opposition in Uganda and the Diaspora.

The seeds of chaos seem to have been sown a long time ago. History has it that the more the US praises a President on the African continent, the deeper they plant the seeds of discord in such a country. Where is Savimbi? Kabila? Where is Patrice Lumumba?

What is happening to Uganda is simply a US tool of regime change called ‘slow death" which is expanding slowly until it reaches maturity and blows out. Any person who has studied International Relations and conspiracy theories of Western powers knows where Uganda and Africa are heading. USA supported and praised President Hosni Mubarak for almost 30 years because he created conditions of peace in the Middle East, but they left him when he needed them most.

My experience from Zimbabwe a country I have defended in Europe and the world against the fangs of imperialism shows that the trend used by USA and other Western powers are the same always. They begin with stifling the country with "walk-to-work" methods, move to human rights abuses, then demand change of electoral laws, embargo the country and individuals with targeted sanctions, associate it with terrorism, and invent names for leaders and call the leader a dictator. They finally use elections as an exit strategy to foment chaos.

These are the same tactics being used on Kenya, Zimbabwe and Sudan as USA and France finish the war in Libya. I attended the Libya Contact Group meeting as an observer in Rome in April and saw what happened on the floor of the conference. When the US distributed the $30 billion of Libyan money to rebels whose political programme is still vague to the world, most of us from Africa stood up and warned the conference about the violent trend the USA was setting in Africa. Where this will end no one knows.

Writer is a Pan- African, Political Scientist and conflict resolution expert based in London.