Museveni has been found to be a benevolent dictator. He is known to have abused human rights; massacred people; jailed many without trial; stole Buganda's land; uses public money and proiperty like it was his personal property; and many unspeakable atrocities against the Ugandan population and her neighbours.

Hence if Bush invites this despot to the white house, and Mrs Windsor finds it appropriate to dine with the same, what's wrong with that? It clearly shows that both these guys are not angels and are no better than Museveni. Then you think of Bush's killings in Baghdad or Kabul, or the fact that Bunyoro is suing Mrs. Windsor for the atrocities commited in Bunyoro-Kitara, then you don't wonder at anything anymore.

Bon voyage to and bon apetit in Kampala, Mrs. Windsor

Goldman, London, UK

Oh dear Jack. You appear to be nurturing the apparently comforting illusion that Africa was the only place ever to have been colonised and suffer associated injustices?

There is barely a country or region in the world that has not been colonised many times over, including "pre-colonial" Africa. Clinging to victim mentality is a bad enough trait in any human context, but using it to justify tyrannical African leadership in the 21st century is staggering.

Where does Mugabe's systematic murder and rape of 30 000 minority Ndebeles during much more recent and enlightened times than the days of British Empire fit into your trite black and white view of justice?

It's time to move on.

Muchina ye Mhepo, Diaspora,

how lovely and inspiring/surprising to see the truth in print.

visit exposeugandasgenocide.blogspot.com to read more on this topic. Good job Times!

Xpose Uganda, London,

As young peace lover and as an Acholi, i speak without fear,I have alway said British support to uganda was a direct cause of the massive loss of life in Northern Uganda,if not what happen to the British Diplomates who toured northern uganda ,Gulu IDP, kitgum IDP and never reported the scale of the concentration camps and thousands of deaths.
NGO's under United Nations played major roles in covering up the scale of abudaction children fromNorthern uganda for the purpose of arming them for the removing the government of Congo.
Western Diplomates are very guilty for covering up the genocide in northern uganda,how would a diplomate tour IDP and he or she is not able to sense massacres, rape, death, burnt homes ,armed troops in camps.
Western media where all silent as the western PR firms closed their way of functionality,Museveni 's pounds ensured that nothing was Reported regards Northern Uganda.Donor cash pour in with arms to exterminate Acholi and their Removal from their Land.

alex oloya, london, Uk

Why can’t Lord Mulloch Brown to tell Gordon Brown what the UN says about democracy and poverty reduction?

When Lord Mulloch Brown worked with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), he must have known about, even helped to produce the UN Human Development report for the year 2002, which sated in its foreword:

"Reducing poverty depends as much on whether poor people have political power as on their opportunities for economic progress. Democracy has proven to be the system of governance most capable of mediating and preventing conflict and of securing and sustaining well-being. By expanding people's choices about how and by whom they are governed, democracy brings principles of participation and accountability to the process of human development."

You would be forgiven for thinking that that this report was written with Uganda in mind. As Mr Peter Tachell has rightly points out, Uganda is not only a police state; it is also a rogue state, which has terrorised all its neighbours Sudan in the north, Rwanda in the south and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the west.

In 2005, the International Court of Justice found Uganda guilty committing war crimes in the DRC, and pillaging its natural resources including gold, diamond and timer. The Court ordered Uganda to pay $6-10 billion in compensation.

This is the second time for the Foreign Office has dragged the Queen to associate with a murderous Uganda dictator. In July 1971, it had advised that General Idi Amin was fit to be hosted to a state banquet. Idi Amin went back and killed some 500,000 innocent Ugandans, mainly civilians. Their deaths are now immortalised in the award-winning film “The Last King of Scotland”. The Queen’s attendance at the Commonwealth meeting will encourage Museveni not to institute any electoral reform; thus opening the prospect for violence as the only way to remove Museveni

Sam Akaki, London, UK

One really must question the motives behind HRM the Queen’s visit to the President of Uganda, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in November 23-24, 2007.

The UK Government would have the world believe that as the world’s most civilised and democratic country it is interested in world stability, democracy, good governance and rule of law.

We applaud it when it takes a stand against the dictatorships in Zimbabwe and Burma. But in President Museveni we have a corrupt military dictator who has funnelled billions of pounds into his pockets and those of his family and his elites, both military and political, even as hundreds of thousands of his countrymen in the north died and are still dying from the hideous conditions in IDP camps that were left unprotected and wide open to attack by the insurgent group known as the LRA.

By every definition of the Rome Statute President Museveni is guilty of genocide of the Acholi people in the north and is responsible for the coming to being of the LRA to start with.
While we might commend the rhetoric put forward by the British government that they are interested in stability in northern Uganda and Sudan’s Durfur why do they support the likes of Museveni who has been largely responsible for over four million deaths and plundering the natural resources in DRC, and even found guilty by the International Court of Justice.

Democracy is an illusion in Uganda. Museveni has bribed MPs to vote himself life presidency. Opposition parties have had rallies and demonstrations brutally curtailed and often prevented. People who oppose Museveni find themselves in jail and tortured. This is good governance? This is shades of Mugabe. The UK has been funding at great expense to the taxpayer a mass murderer. One would highly doubt that someone who has such little respect for human life can be “taught” good governance.

It would appear that the UK and other western countries have utterly failed to “teach” President Museveni the meaning of the rule of law. Even the country’s High Court was invaded by the infamous “Black Mambas” para-military unit! Money meant to treat those suffering from AIDs and Malaria was stolen and misappropriated by Museveni’s closest associates and not one has been punished. Graft and corruption are the pillars of his regime. However the British government sees fit to lend Museveni credibility and accept him to host CHOGM. What do they expect to achieve?

President Museveni and his elites are guilty of abusing every human right there is and committing crimes against humanity of the ugliest proportions with total impunity and any allowing him to host HRM Queen Elizabeth II.

What we don’t is whether the Juba Peace Talks will be discussed at this meeting, yet the UK government has spent hugely towards these talks.

Hopefully, the UK government aware that President Museveni has scuttled peace talks that have taken place on at least five occasions right back to 1985 and the current rhetoric suggests his lack of enthusiasm for these talks to succeed. He and his cronies have made vast amounts of money from this war, and we know that he has plans for the land that he intends to “buy” from the decimated Acholis, which he will provide to “investors”. It has not been a good omen for peace that US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi E. Frazer now advocates 90 days for the LRA to sign the peace accord and uses terms like “mopping up” the LRA, a favorite phrase of President Museveni. This is nothing short of inciting a continuation of the war.

As recent as last month, fearing that the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings may have been postponed or cancelled due to recent devastating floods in the northern part of the country, the Uganda government delayed declaring the crisis an emergency, we have learnt about that fact.

Yet, President Yoweri K. Museveni’s government has been spending millions of dollars to host the summit in November even as floods victims suffer.

President Museveni’s government or recent imported a fleet of sleek automobiles to ferry the world leaders when they arrive there next month and also built luxury accommodations, all costing several hundred million dollars.

To clear the way for Commonwealth construction, Shimon Demonstration School and Teachers’ College which had been around for more than 50 years, were also demolished for a hotel displacing 3,600 pupils and 600 student teachers respectively.

Assuming that the June 25th, 2007, floods in Hull had happened this month, would HRM the Queen have travelled for the summit? I don't see any reason why the government accept such person who doesn't respect the rule of law to host a meeting of CHOGM nature!

It’s still early for my Queen not to attend and dine with a person who is not even worth of having a meal with Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe.

Because during Uganda’s occupation of DR Congo’s mineral rich Ituri region from 1998 to 2005, its army under the Command in Chief of Museveni and allied militias allegedly committed heinous crimes, massacres, mass rape, mutilations, burning of home and looting of the Congo’s natural wealth. (see; http://hrw.org/reports/2003/ituri0703/DRC0703-04.htm#whoiswho).

Hoping to end the cycle of abuse with impunity, the DRC under president Joseph Kabila, who had replaced his father -and who recently was confirmed to an elected term of office- referred the alleged atrocities to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In its December 9, 2005, ruling, the ICJ ruled in Congo's favour. (see: http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/116/10455.pdf). Uganda was found liable for the mass killings, mutilations, destructions and thefts and subsequently the Congo was awarded $10 billion in compensation; not a cent has been paid.

Separately, in 2004, the International Criminal Court (ICC), which handles criminal matters, launched its own investigation of alleged crimes against humanity involving Uganda’s army and allied militias.

Certainly General Museveni is aware of the grave seriousness of the ICC's probe. On June 8, 2006, The Wall Street Journal, in a front page article reported: "President Museveni of Uganda asked U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to block the Congo investigation, according to one person familiar with the matter. Mr. Annan replied that he had no power to interfere with the court, this person said."
Indictments for such alleged crimes would not be unprecedented. The ICC previously indicted Charles Taylor, Liberia’s former president for sponsoring militias that committed atrocities in Sierra Leone similar to the ones allegedly committed by Uganda and allied forces in the Congo. Taylor is now being tried in The Hague for crimes against humanity.

In light of the ICJ's 2005 rulings against Uganda on the Congo atrocities, and in light of the ICC’s action against Taylor with respect to the crimes committed in Sierra Leone, it is not beyond reason that the ICC might in the future indict Ugandan military commanders, including the commander in chief, General Museveni.

An invitation to HRM the Queen by a Ugandan general, a possible suspect on war crimes charges, the UK Government diminishes the prestige of HRM. Their meeting could also be misconstrued as the HRM Government’s repudiation of the ICC’s on-going probe, or a signal to the Court to shelve the investigation as it relates to Uganda officials: Unless, indeed these are the objectives. The ICC probe should be allowed to travel wherever the evidence leads.

As we all know that, the ICC has already struggled to exert its credibility. The court has indicted Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda, and three of his top officers for its role in Uganda’s brutal civil war. Only recently have the LRA and the Uganda government, which for decades preferred a military solution, been negotiating, half-heartedly, to end 20 years of war-fare.

One really must be concerned about the motives behind why President Museveni invites HRM the Queen of England.

Not long, just as recent as three decades ago, the Commonwealth in its 1980 election reports, “stated clearly that, the elections were free and fair,” yet it “failed to condemn the rebellion which started the war that brought Museveni into power on pretext of rigged elections of the same year.

The Commonwealth kept quite which means they approved the rebellion and people started fighting in Luwero. The presence of Musevi in Luwero resulted into nse As

Now they are the same advising The Queen to go to Uganda in November and we don’t know what will be next.

Shirley, Portsmouth, Hampshire

Yep somebody finally says it. Uganda's have been bullied by this tyrant for 20 yrs and counting. Yet he is rewarded with the CHOGM conference, and invited to the White house. The west never learns from the past. You reap what you sow. Let Musharaff of Pakistan be an example. Unfortunately Africans suffer the brunt of the ills, while tyrants enrich themselves on state assets. Museveni belongs at the Hague. Everybody know it.

DENIS, Wash, DC, USA

This is typical British hangover. What you know, but you won't admit it, is that a lot of Ugandans and other Africans care less whether a Commonwealth meeting is held or not. As a Kenyan, it is abominable enough that Museveni should allow the queen and company to feel sweetly nostalgic about the murderous British empire in Uganda. There certainly can't be a worse insult to people whose parents and grandparents were killed in the British Gulag. It's also no way to help heal the emotional wounds of Kenyan men and children whose wives and mothers were not long ago raped by British soldiers in Laikipia and Samburu. Of course, rail at Mugabe and Museveni is the easy and convinient thing to do for a British mouthpiece like you. But spare us this hypocrisy about British "humanitarian principles", please.

Jack Otieno, Nairobi, Kenya