My first meal in Uganda. From left: pineapple, coleslaw, green beans, white rice, beef & vegtable stew. Note the quantity.
Entebbe is a little bit Canberra and a little bit Miami. It resembles the former city in that it has a higher concentration of government ministries, research institutes and NGOs than one would expect for a city its size (90,000 residents). Amin used to reside here, and for that very reason the current President, Museveni, lives in Kampala.
For Entebbe’s similarities with Miami, see the following report from the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime:
“Two decades of armed conflict and lawlessness have severely damaged Uganda’s law enforcement infrastructure, which is urgently required to cope with the growing problems of drug abuse and illicit trafficking. Limited information is available on the drug control situation in Uganda. However, recent seizures show that illicit trafficking is on the increase in the country as well as the drug abuse problem. The Ugandan government has voiced concern over increasing reported drug abuse. Cannabis, heroin and methaqualone are the most available and consumed drugs.
Uganda receives abundant rainfall, has fertile soils and equatorial climate. This climate favours the growth of cannabis in almost all parts of the country. Illicit cultivation of the plant is, however, prominent in remote areas of southern, western, central, Eastern and North-Western regions. The exact acreage of cannabis cultivation is not known. There has been an increase in cultivation of cannabis in Uganda mainly for export.
Entebbe International Airport is being used as a transit route for Heroin and Mandrax from the Far East en route to South Africa. A review of drug seizures in 1998 and 1999 indicates an increase in the trafficking of heroin to east African countries from Pakistan, Thailand and India. Increased seizures of heroin with Nigerian connections bound for Uganda through Ethiopia have been noted. Due to the large amount of the substance seized, one is inclined to conclude that Uganda is in this context used as a major country of transit.
Traditionally, Entebbe International Airport (the sole airport) has been the centre of most trafficking. However, bus routes now lead to Rwanda and Tanzania in addition to the traditional bus routes to Kenya. Uganda also acts as a transit route for cargo destined for Rwanda and Burundi. The Uganda Revenue Authority also reports that post parcels are being used for trafficking especially heroin.”
I'm not waiting for the next "violence" or "rock'n roll" post to express myself. Before reading this blog, all I knew about Uganda was Amin Dada, needless to say it's very little knowledge.
ReplyDeleteThis statement made me wondering why I was so ignorant about that country, except because of my laziness. I may have part of an answer : Uganda hasn't been colonized by France (I'm French). This first step in my reasoning led me to another statement : the only African countries that we know and speak about here are former colonies. Decolonization ended mostly in the 60's but still, it seems that mentalities and information policies keep on throwing a colonizer glance on these countries. And it's not Sarkozy who will change this situation. A justification to this assertion lost in an ocean of examples : he wanted to have a law voted on "the positive effects of colonization".
Thanks for opening my eyes over the frontiers of the Empire...
"U.S. Drug Policy Is the World’s Drug Policy” Sad, but true. Looking to the United States as a role model for drug control is like looking to apartheid-era South Africa for how to deal with race. The United States ranks first in the world in per capita incarceration––with less than 5 percent of the world’s population, but almost 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. The number of people locked up for U.S. drug-law violations has increased from roughly 50,000 in 1980 to almost 500,000 today; that’s more than the number of people Western Europe locks up for everything. Even more deadly is U.S. resistance to syringe-exchange programs to reduce HIV/AIDS both at home and abroad. Who knows how many people might not have contracted HIV if the United States had implemented at home, and supported abroad, the sorts of syringe-exchange and other harm-reduction programs that have kept HIV/AIDS rates so low in Australia, Britain, the Netherlands, and elsewhere. Perhaps millions...In the United States, where roughly 40 percent of the country’s 1.8 million annual drug arrests are for cannabis possession, typically of tiny amounts, 40 percent of Americans say that the drug should be taxed, controlled, and regulated like alcohol.
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