Fourth edition November 2007
By Prof. Dr. Wolfgang H. Thome

A SUMMIT REFLECTION
I could after all not stay away from the city as I had considered for some time, to escape those hectic days inevitably associated with such a major political meeting taking place in Kampala.

An opportunity came along to productively fill those ‘spare days’ by accepting a short term consultancy for a newly opened hotel, not far from my own residence, which reduced driving time to a mere few minutes, leave alone sparing me trips into the city on a daily basis. Located nearly on top of one of Kampala’s major hills it overlooks the lake shores and allows glimpses towards the main summit venue, the Commonwealth Resort in Munyonyo. The elevated setting also allowed me to monitor traffic and the convoys zapping back and forth from the city to the venue down in the valley. As a Kampalean it made me proud to see thousands of visitors from across the Commonwealth world assemble in our capital city, and to have the global media houses set up camp and cover not only the proceedings but also the country as a whole. This gives our beautiful Uganda exposure and will hopefully attract in coming months and years more visitors yet, coming to meet our friendly people, explore our landscapes and see the flora and fauna, which is incredibly varied and diverse to the extreme.

The massive deployment of security across the city and the suburbs did not unduly disturb me (YET) during my daily trips up and down that great hill, and the detach around the hotel too made friendly and competent impressions on me and the hotel guests. In fact, a not entirely unexpected trip into the city under peak summit conditions revealed that, while traffic was thinner than usual it also ran smoothly, drivers were very disciplined and our traffic police looked real pretty in their new white livery. If this experience is anything to go by we at least now know that orderly traffic can be achieved – I hope we will not return in coming weeks to the rowdy scenes of the pre-summit days, when often ‘survival for the fittest’ is the battle cry, or at least s/he wins who seems the least worried about having another fender bender while fighting over positions in the jams. More next week on how we conducted ourselves while being under the global spotlight and a few comments caught from our visitors. Watch this space.

CASSIA LODGE OPENS JUST AHEAD OF SUMMIT
A Belgian owned small upmarket hotel, nestled on top of Buziga Hill, has opened its doors to the public last weekend. It offers commanding views over part of the city and across Lake Victoria and the surrounding lake shore suburbs, including Munyonyo where the main CHOGM summit activities will take place. Presently the ‘lodge’ offers 20 well sized rooms, with a further 10-15 to be built some time in the future, once occupancy levels justify the additional investment. Besides a restaurant and well stocked bar the hotel offers a small business centre and wireless high speed connections in all public areas. Also available are meeting and conference facilities for small to medium sized corporate meetings and last but not least a pool which almost seems suspended in the hill side. This is the second Belgian owned small boutique hotel in Kampala after the Le Petit Village opened recently. Distance to the city’s business district is only about 12 KM from the Cassia Lodge and exactly 2 KM to the Commonwealth Resort and the Speke Resort and Conference Centre, all on recently upgraded tarmac roads. The building style is distinctly different from a ‘normal’ hotel building and truly deserves the name ‘Cassia Lodge’ for its garden and hillside setting and the feeling of remoteness from the city.

The restaurant in particular offers panoramic views which are especially attractive at night, when the city is lit up and the outlines of the main hills in the city are clearly visible, making it a ‘must visit’ lunch, dinner and party venue. The young kitchen brigade is already living up to the high expectations and produces food of a quality which matches the ‘million dollar’ view. (Quoting a TV team crew member staying at Cassia while covering the summit with his colleagues).

Cassia is by the way the name of a common tree in the neighbourhood, which is very distinct with its bright yellow flowers.

COMMONWEALTH SUMMIT UNDERWAY
Two years of hard work and preparations are coming to a conclusion this weekend, as the Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles, Heads of State and Government of the Commonwealth countries and their delegations have arrived in Kampala for their biannual summit. Related meetings like the Youth Forum, the People’s Forum and the Business Forum have already been concluded or are in their final stages and will deliver their recommendations to the main summit participants. Ministerial meetings are also now underway at various venues in the city dealing with working group issues and preparing position papers for the Heads of State and Government meetings.

The Queen is, besides opening the summit officially, due to visit the Mildmay HIV research and treatment centre, which was opened by her daughter Princess Anne some years ago. More significantly for the tourism industry she will also visit the national park in South Western Uganda named after her in 1954, when she first visited Uganda. Prince Charles and Lady Camilla in the meantime are due to visit Jinja and see the Source of the River Nile, where the world’s longest river starts its epic journey to the Mediterranean Sea, a must see landmark for all visitors to Uganda.

While the unpredictable weather continues to alternately drench Kampala and its suburbs with rain galore and then bask the city again in bright sunshine, this has not put a damper however on the mood of government and many Ugandans, who have worked tirelessly to prepare for the event and are now working equally hard to deliver a quality summit. To the regret of many certain print media in East Africa however continue to pour scorn over the activities, and while with half of their tongues singing (very) limited praise for the event (obviously to avoid a severe backlash from the authorities) the other half of their forked tongues speak with acid voices about the cost and resulting (non)benefits of the summit to Uganda and her citizens, and publish endless stories about the alleged trials and tribulations of ordinary people ‘suffering severely’ from the summit and its security preparations. The political opposition has also largely absented itself from the summit proceedings and turned down invitations to join the proceedings. Some of the cultural leaders, speak local ‘kings’ have reportedly even shunned to join the State Dinner for Her Majesty to demonstrate their opposition to whatever it is they feel like opposing today. The seemingly ever angry and self-pitying opposition members lost a great opportunity to make friends across the Commonwealth and make sure they are taken seriously. Some of them are said to be planning apparently an ‘alternative summit’ somewhere, probably under some tree with all meeting venues booked solid for months now, while yet others intend to organize demonstrations against all and sundry, in particular the latter … Patriotic indeed … as for me, it is ‘Proudly Ugandan’ during these days and appreciating the facelift the city got and all the improvements, which otherwise may have taken years to materialize.

RWANDA APPLIES FOR COMMONWEALTH MEMBERSHIP
‘The land of a thousand hills’ as Rwanda is fondly known to her neighbours and friends, is at last dropping the remaining pretence to be a Francophone country, when visiting President Paul Kagame confirmed that his country would seek full membership to the global body. Rwanda was one of about 30 countries in the Francophone group of newly independent nations, when she attained her freedom from Belgium in 1962. English was added as an official language after the genocide of 1994 and has taken the country by storm, as many of the returnees who had been forced into exile under the Hutu dictatorship years grew up in other English speaking East African countries.

Rwanda severed diplomatic relations with France last year over a French magistrate’s feeble attempt to indict President Kagame over some wild allegations of having been involved in the fatal plane crash which killed the Burundi and Rwanda presidents ahead of the Hutu inspired genocide in 1994. This diplomatic row paved arguably the way for the final integration of Rwanda into the group of Anglophone countries in Africa. Rwanda also became a full member of the East African Community earlier this year, further cementing the use of English as the main business language. Even the most British of games has now taken root in modern Rwanda and cricket is being played in schools and as a recreational sport, although the country is a long way off from joining the test cricket nations. Welcome to the family then, says this correspondent, and if only Rwanda could now adopt the East African Standard Time of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, it would make live in the region even easier.

RAINSTORMS CAUSED KAMPALA FLOODING
One of the heaviest downpours in recent months, lasting almost 10 hours last weekend caused the biggest damage yet in Kampala. President Museveni’s convoy to the airport was delayed at the end of last week for some time when trying to leave the city, as residents were rushing away from the low lying areas, their houses were built in, to escape the rising waters. Several parts of Kampala were former drainage swamps towards Lake Victoria but had been encroached on and now easily flood whenever the weather conditions are so adverse. The President upon seeing the problems promised the gathering crowds to deal firmly with the issue of rubbish collection, as he blamed plastic bags and empty plastic water bottles to be the main cause for blocking the roadside drainages and the channels dug towards the lake. After reportedly making some calls the President eventually managed to leave but not long afterwards the Minister for Works came to the same site to inspect the problem also, before proceeding to other affected areas in the city and its environs. The Minister was subsequently quoted in a local newspaper that government would deal with the issue of illegal buildings in wetlands and take councils to task which approve building plans in designated drainage areas. Over the past months, as also repeatedly mentioned in this column, Uganda and in fact greater parts of Eastern, Central and Western Africa across the equatorial belt, have experienced out of season heavy rains which caused wide spread flooding, ruined crops and destroyed roads, bridges and other infrastructure. The Meteorological Department in fact attributed the weather anomalies to the ‘la Nina’ effect, while predicting more heavy rains in coming weeks.

Some three children were reported to have died on that particular day in a Kampala suburb, when their mud and wattle house collapsed on them as the waters rose fast to nearly 6 feet before gradually draining off in subsequent hours and days.

AUTHORITIES RELOCATE RED LIGHT BUSINESS
Until a few weeks ago the nightly flesh trade in Kampala took place around some of the poshest hotels in town and apart from the occasional police raids or bad weather the ladies of the night went after their business regularly just across the main gates of some of Kampala’s major business hotels. No more that is. The introduction of CCTV cameras and the restored street lighting has driven the ’buyers’ away, seeking anonymity and being shy that their car registrations could be detected and ending up in the rainbow press. The city authorities too took advantage of the forthcoming Commonwealth Summit and set aside certain areas in the city for the shadowy ‘business’ although prostitution continues to be a criminal offense in Uganda. When confronted with this contradiction therefore government, through the Minister of State for Ethics and Integrity issued a statement to the contrary, although the local media had extensively quoted a senior cabinet minister and the Lord Mayor of Kampala previously about having earmarked such ‘zones’. In fact, the Minister ‘ordered’ the twilight ladies off the streets during the summit to the amusement of the media attending the press conference. The Minister has in fact a history of making statements which provide ‘nourishment’ and ‘fodder’ for the press. Make sense out of this as we are also wrestling with the issue.

Out of sight however is not out of business this correspondent contends, and in this day and age, in a country fighting HIV / AIDS with vigour, more needs to be done to offer alternative sources of employment and income for prostitutes and as and where necessary and possible not only the women but also their ‘clients’ should have to answer charges in court as a deterrent to others.