NGO WORK
Ugandans Say No To Life Presidency – Survey
By witnessradio.org Team
A new report by the Uganda Governance Monitoring Platform and Citizens’ coalition on electoral Democracy indicates that majority of Ugandans do not support amendments on article 102[b] that puts a seal on the retirement age for anyone vying for presidency.
A survey conducted in 100 districts in all the regions of Uganda shows mass opposition to changes in the constitution. Eastern region recorded the highest number of those opposed to the amendment with 95% of the respondents saying no to the lighting of the age limit.
The survey that involved 50,429 respondents indicates that 76% of people from Western Uganda are opposed to the lifting of the age limit. The current president of Uganda who has been in power for now 31 years hails from the western region.
In Northern Uganda, 86% are opposed to the amendments while 14% support the lifting of the age cap. Results from the central region show that 66% Ugandans are opposed to life presidency while 34% are for the changes, the highest pro-amendment figure registered in the whole survey.
This time round, the women who are said to be pro the sitting president are also opposed to the lifting of the age limit with 85% mark registered.
However in the same survey, it came out clear that 95% of people in Kyegegwa district want the age limit scrapped while only 5% are opposed to this.
The results from the survey also pit voters against their representatives in Arua municipality and Igara west represented by Hon Ibrahim Abiriga and Raphael Magyezi respectively.
In Igara West where the mover of the motion to have the age limit moved, Raphael Magyezi hails from, 88% of voters do not support the amendments while the results from West Nile where Hon Abiriga comes from say otherwise.
Presenting the findings, the executive Director great lakes institute for strategic studies Godber Tumushabe said that the position by Ugandans overall is very clear that they do not want any changes in the constitution. “It was a random sample and wherever we went, across the board, female or male, Ugandans are saying, no to the amendments”.
He however reported that their researchers encountered a number of challenges with some arrested and survey results confiscated. “our researchers didn’t find it easy to hold town hall meetings or even reach out to the respondents, in Kampala, for instance, a meeting organized for all CSOs leaders and MPs at Muganzirwazza was blocked even with police permission” Godber Said.
Reacting to the results from the survey, the Chairman Citizen’s coalition for electoral Democracy, Dr Livingstone Ssewanyana said that the findings offer scientific proof to the reports from Ugandans are against the bill. He says the biggest problem in Uganda right now is not the Constitution for one to survive. “There is a lot of discontent brewing everywhere, the doctors are on strike, the prosecutors, the other day the president was stopped by taxi operators… this all shows that the problem right now is survival” Ssewanyana emphasized.
Meanwhile the director Center for Constitutional governance Sarah Bireete says Ugandans have been clear on the age limit and will find means of fighting life presidency. “This is a debate on life presidency and if it succeeds, Ugandans will find away just like they have done it in the past”. She advised that parliament respects the voices of the people and stop debate on the matter.
Parliament convenes on Tuesday next week to debate the motion on constitutional amendments that will see a president ruling until death if not defeated in an election.
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NGO WORK
The Great “Green” Heist: When Artificial Intelligence and Arms Dealers Seize the Minerals of the South
By Franck Zongwe Lukama, Congolese journalist and researcher, leads the independent media KilaloPress in DRC.
We were sold a simple equation: to save the planet, we must dig. Dig faster, deeper, extracting from the earth the cobalt, lithium, or copper needed for solar panels and electric vehicles. Yet, this climate rescue rhetoric conceals a staggering statistical deception. Today, 70% of global demand for critical minerals does absolutely nothing to support the energy transition. These resources end up in aerospace, communication technologies, and, above all, weaponry. Sectors that, ironically, exacerbate the global ecological crisis. The green revolution has become the perfect smokescreen, the moral veneer for a very different kind of war.
Far from the promises of sustainable development touted by the World Bank, the current scramble is driven by a strict logic of geopolitical power. A damning report from the California-based Oakland Institute exposes this global scheme. The report reveals an unprecedented and formidable convergence of interests between the American military-industrial complex and the giants of Silicon Valley. With the Pentagon openly pivoting toward a combat strategy focused on artificial intelligence (AI), securing supply chains is no longer a matter of ecology, but a question of survival in the face of Chinese influence. The United States is not seeking to reduce carbon emissions; it is seeking to guarantee its technological and military supremacy.
The real winners of this frantic race wear suits far removed from environmental activism. Trillions of dollars are flowing into new alliances that intertwine AI-driven mining companies, like KoBold Metals—backed by billionaires such as Bill Gates—and companies specializing in cutting-edge defense technologies, like Palantir and Anduril, not to mention the networks of influence close to the Trump family. For these players, the discourse of climate emergency acts as a powerful public relations tool. It justifies massive and accelerated extraction that would otherwise provoke international outrage.
Local communities and Indigenous populations find themselves on the frontlines, forced to resist an extraction machine that has the audacity to justify their suffering by claiming it is necessary to save the world.
And the price of this hypocrisy is being paid in full throughout the Global South. In the Rubaya hills, in the Kolwezi copper belt, as in the Indigenous territories of Latin America and Asia, the promise of “prosperity” translates into a terrifyingly familiar tragedy. Land grabbing, forced displacement, devastating groundwater pollution: the plundering of ecosystems and human lives is accelerating. Local communities and Indigenous populations find themselves on the frontlines, forced to resist an extraction machine that has the audacity to justify their suffering by claiming it is necessary to save the world. Today, opposing the destruction of one’s village by a multinational mining company risks being accused of hindering the fight against climate change. The rhetorical trap is devastatingly effective.
The long-term consequences of this diversion are alarming. The exponential surge in demand generated by future AI data centers, mass surveillance, and global rearmament will mathematically deplete available reserves. Every ton of copper, nickel, or cobalt consumed by combat drones or algorithmic data processing servers is a ton diverted from the production of renewable energy infrastructure. We are not equipping the energy transition; we are cannibalizing it to militarize our future.
We are not equipping the energy transition; we are cannibalizing it to militarize our future.
If no strict regulations are put in place to curb this rampant mining frenzy, hundreds of new mines will spring up in the coming years, causing irreversible damage on an unprecedented scale. The question facing citizens today, from Kinshasa to Washington, is no longer whether we will have enough minerals to save our atmosphere. It is why we are willing to sacrifice millions of lives and destroy our lands to fuel next-generation algorithms and weapons. In ten years, when the Global South is nothing more than a vast crater serving a militarized hyper-technology, it will be too late to realize that the planet was never the priority.
Photos: Artisanal Coltan – manganese – cobalt mining in Mudere mine under control of Nyatura militia, town of Rubaya, North Kivu region (Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa). Erberto Zani – stock.adobe.com
Source: oaklandinstitute.org/
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No Heritage Without its People: Why Ngorongoro Cannot be a World Heritage Site and an Eviction Zone
The Tanzanian government, under the guise of “conservation,” restricts Maasai livelihoods and denies access to essential services forcing Indigenous residents away from their ancestral lands and turning their heritage into a playground for safari tourists.
As the 48th Session of the World Heritage Committee begins July 19, UNESCO continues to legitimize the continued forced displacement of the Maasai from Ngorongoro. If UNESCO cannot ensure that the World Heritage designation protects the rights of its Indigenous custodians, then the Committee must remove the Ngorongoro Conservation Area from the World Heritage List.
Increased international pressure is imperative to hold UNESCO accountable and protect the lives and rights of the Maasai!
Read our Open Letter to the World Heritage Committee.
Source: oaklandinstitute.org
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