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• ‘In the spotlight’: the Commonwealth and Uganda

‘In the spotlight’: the Commonwealth and Uganda

Date: 11 Jun 2007
Speaker: Don McKinnon
Location: Uganda Society, Kampala, Uganda

Ladies and gentlemen,

My thanks to Charles Twesigye and the Uganda Society for this kind invitation: I am delighted to be with you  today.

I know something of your Society’s history, its ups and downs, its incarnations and reincarnations since it began life as the Ugandan Literary and Scientific Society in 1923. 

I know that you have struggled in various ways over the years, in particular when this country experienced political unrest and economic hardship. 

Yet I know, too, that you have remained true to your founding ideals and to your love of your country – and the reputation of the Society, its Journal and its Library goes before you. 

I’m very pleased to be part of it for this short time today.

This is my 6th visit to Uganda in my 7 years as Commonwealth Secretary-General. 

This evening I shall be at the Speke Resort for the opening ceremony for the 8th Commonwealth Women’s Affairs Ministers Meeting, an event of global significance that asks how we can fund our commitment to gender equality. 

Later this week I shall be meeting President Museveni to discuss the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting which will take place – again here in Kampala – at the end of November.

So this is a busy time for both Uganda and the Commonwealth. 

We are ‘in the spotlight’ – hence my title for this talk today.

Most people enjoy the spotlight, the limelight, occasionally. 

It’s their chance to see and be seen in the best possible light. 
But they also know that the bright lights are unforgiving, and that attracting attention is a double-edged sword. 

Blemishes and inactions can be cruelly exposed.

So our challenges – our individual challenges as the Commonwealth and Uganda, and our shared challenges – will get a lot of attention.  We want to be seen to have a mission, and we want to be seen to be business-like in carrying out that mission.
 
That mission is above all to better the lives of the 27 million citizens of Uganda, and of the 1.8 billion citizens of the Commonwealth.

And in Uganda and throughout the Commonwealth, it’s about helping the people who have the least – the people who most need our help.
 
Let me look first at the Commonwealth in the spotlight, and  then at Uganda.

CHOGM is a Heads of Government Meeting – and much more.  What you see referred to in your newspaper as ‘CHOGM’ is in fact four events rolled into one.

A Heads of Government meeting on 23rd to 25th November….
…. preceded by a Commonwealth Foreign Ministers Meeting on 21st and 22nd November….
….preceded also by a Commonwealth Business Forum from 20th to 22nd November….
…. in turn preceded by a Commonwealth Peoples’ Forum for NGOs and all civil society organizations (Commonwealth ones, and others) from 18th to 22nd November….
…. in turn preceded by a Commonwealth Youth Forum from 9th to 18th November.

So the Commonwealth will be camped in Kampala for the best part of a fortnight. 
That means thousands of visitors. 

Heads of Government travel with their retinues; businesses and NGOs will each bring several staff; and even more than 200 young people.
 
It all adds up to an extraordinary period of activity, formal and informal discussion, bonding and networking. 

It’s living testimony to the ties of language, history, culture and institutions that bind us. 

It is difficult to describe the magic of a ‘family of nations’ sitting at the same table.  The first Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Arnold Smith, said “it works more easily than it can be described.” 

We can’t just say these are wonderful meetings That is the danger of rhetoric and sentiment, because the family of nations is nothing if it merely enjoys itself. 

t has to function; it has to achieve.  This Meeting in November has to be worthwhile.  Your own President Museveni has chosen a hugely important theme: ‘Transforming societies to achieve political, economic and human development’.  Our discussions must rise to that theme …..

…. Just as we have risen before, to other  themes.

Commonwealth Heads of Government, for instance, gave us several important mandates when they last met in Malta in November 2005.

One was to use the diversity of the Commonwealth as the springboard to examine what makes societies and communities function.
 
‘New York’, ‘London’, ‘Madrid’, ‘Nairobi’, ‘Dar-es-Salaam’ will remind you of cruel terrorist attacks. But terrorism does not necessarily translate itself into dysfunctional societies.

Heads knew very well at Malta that there are in fact all sorts of fractures in their own societies. 

But they also knew, that each of them could contribute something to a shared understanding of peaceful and productive co-existence – as much between men and women, rich and poor, rural and urban, as between one faith and another, one tribe and another. 

So a Commonwealth Commission led by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen will present its findings in Kampala.

I believe it will make news as much with its analysis, as for its recommendations of practical things which countries can do to build up respect and understanding within their communities.

Heads in Malta also asked us to report back to them on if and how and why and when the Commonwealth should take on new members. 

Several countries are knocking at our door, with particular interest from your neighbour Rwanda. 

We welcome this interest, but it’s important that we get the process right and consistent for all applicants. 

It is also important we clearly set out the Commonwealth values so dear to the hearts of its members, so that any applicants know what they are signing up to.

This is what the Committee on Membership is doing.  It will report to the leaders at the Kampala CHOGM. 

Once leaders have considered this, and made their views known, then we will be in a position to consider new members, and they will know what is expected of them.

Heads also asked us to report on our progress at marshalling information technology as a tool for development, and indeed for democracy. 

We will report on what we are doing to bring the simplest of IT benefits to people on the ground who most need it.

It’s easy to puff up CHOGM, and all that it does, and all that it signifies.

But let me assure you that CHOGM is also our detractors’ best opportunity to have a go at us. 

Are we just a relic of empire? 
What do the ties between us really mean? 
What can we actually achieve? 
Does our advocacy fall on deaf ears? 
Aren’t we chronically under-funded? 

What price or value our Commonwealth ‘soft power’ and moral authority, in comparison to superpower US, booming India and China, an ever-growing EU?

And what price our rhetoric in the face of reality: 800 million citizens in the Commonwealth living on less than a dollar a day?  70 million children out of school?  2/3rds of the world’s cases of HIV/AIDS?

What price our united stand on trade in November 2005, when world trade talks are still hopelessly stalled? 

This is what I mean by the double-edged sword of ‘the spotlight’. 

As many will praise us to the skies, as will attack us.

We welcome that debate, even if some journalists persist in writing premature obituaries. 

Some of those aggressive questions are valid; most are not. I have answers to all of these detractors. 

Now is not the time to catalogue all the good things that the Commonwealth does in entrenching democracy, spurring economic growth, and binding societies together in its health, education, women’s and youth work. 

Perhaps we will talk about them later, in the discussion that will follow. 

It’s all about relevance and credibility.

My point is, we must be ready for the spotlight, for better and worse.

So, too, must Uganda – and I turn now to how your country will also be in the spotlight – again ‘for better and worse’.

I read important articles from your newspapers wherever I am in the world.
‘New Vision’, ‘The Monitor’ ‘The Weekly Observer’: all are known to me. 

As such, I read a great many CHOGM stories about hotels, roads, telephone and internet connections, the companies who provide fleets of cars.

I certainly don’t ignore those stories – because the logistics of organizing a CHOGM are huge, and there is no second chance. 

Uganda has to be ready, and – when the event starts – it has to get it completely and totally right. 

nd I believe it will – all of our discussions with your CHOGM task-force tell us that most things are in order, and that the things that aren’t, soon will be.

So I take that aspect of ‘the Ugandan spotlight’ for granted. 

You’ll be thanked for the infrastructure (both new and old) and the organization that allow the event to run smoothly. 

A lot of very influential people will be among the few thousands here, to say nothing of the 700 or more media, waiting to report anything that has drama. For ten days, people all over the world will have Uganda ion their TV screens. 

Some may take holidays afterwards, and see at first hand the beauty and warmth of this great country.

But ‘telephones and tourism’ apart, what will they take home, of Uganda?

Here again, the spotlight will shine on you.

Many will have long memories, that take them back to the unhappy Uganda of the 70s and early 80s. 

They will ask where Uganda is now.

You have a great story to tell, so tell it. 

Tell the story of democratic reform and the first multi-party elections of February last year….
…. of a more accountable army and police force….
…. of the advances you have made in reversing the tide of HIV/AIDS….
…. of increasing investment flows and economic growth. 

This evening I shall be referring to Uganda’s great success at measuring the impact of its social programmes on women – and, where necessary, redressing the balances of discrimination.

Please tell the world, too, about how the Commonwealth has worked alongside you in projects to strengthen education, justice, and local government.  

Or about our project up in Gulu to rehabilitate child soldiers caught up in the tragedy of the fighting between the Ugandan Armed Forces and the Lord’s Resistance Army.

Or about how Uganda benefits from a global Commonwealth project to help African, Caribbean and Pacific countries negotiate their trade positions in the Doha Round.

At the same time, you have to face those bright lights, fair and square, when they ask the same really tough questions of you, that they will of me and of the wider Commonwealth.

You must be prepared for the questions that will be fired at you.  

Where stands the truce with the LRA?  Is it lasting, and what sort of justice, if any, is due to Joseph Kony?
Where stands the case against Kiiza Besigye, and the need to separate politics from justice?
Can democracy be solid when the High Court is besieged by the military?
How does the Government balance the needs of development with the needs of the environment over the Mabira Forest?

Some may even pick up on the Commonwealth Observer Group’s comments on last year’s elections, which praised their conduct and felt that they reflected the view of the people, but at the same time raised concerns about the need to separate state and party, to ensure the independence of the electoral commission and a level media playing field, and to keep harassment and the threat of violence out of Ugandan elections.

I return to what I said about tough questions for the Commonwealth.

Some of those aggressive questions are valid; some are not. 

You have answers to all of these detractors. 

Be truthful and fair in all these responses, and never more so than in acknowledging that democracy – in Uganda, in my own country New Zealand, or precisely anywhere in the Commonwealth – is a ‘work in progress’. It is a journey on which all are embarked, to which all are committed, and in which none are perfect. 

This meeting puts the Commonwealth in the spotlight.

This meeting puts Uganda in the spotlight. 

It’s extremely exciting; it’s a huge opportunity. 

But the spotlight does not shine in a model’s studio, with the benefits of make-up and designer clothing.

It shines in the midday sun, and asks simple questions of us. 

Are we good, bad, or something in-between? 
And what do we do for those who need us most? 
How do we touch and improve the lives of real human beings – our Commonwealth brothers and sisters who need every ounce of strength that we can give them?

Thank you – enjoy the spotlight, and good luck!

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