MIDRAND, South Africa – Attempts are being made to attack core African family values on matters such as the rejection of homosexuality, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said during yesterday’s Pan-African Parliament 10-year anniversary celebrations in South Africa.
“In the West they criminalise polygamy by law, while in Africa it is, and has always been, part of our way of life. Yet we do not complain. When we legislate homosexuality, in response to the western sponsored non-governmental organisations vis-a-vis traditional values, we are threatened with sanctions. This is contempt,” said Museveni.
Africa, he says, has itself to blame for being held in contempt by the West. “We have not yet used our tremendous, unequalled potential by converting it into strength,” he said.
Museveni said the reason African states are not developing is because of small internal markets that cannot stimulate and sustain large-scale production by providing adequate demand. He singled out the lack of industrialisation and the continuing export of unprocessed raw materials, adding: “We get less money than those who convert those raw materials and also export jobs to other countries.”
“Lack of ideology is creating a criminal state, a state that kills people judicially instead of upholding the dignity of the people and their inalienable rights,” he said.
Other factors highlighted by Museveni include ideological disorientation and inadequate infrastructure, which causes the cost of doing business to be exorbitant.
Although applauding the role played by China, Russia and Cuba in bringing about Africa’s independence from colonialism he urged African nations to now stand on their own feet.
“We were able to gain independence partly because of the support of the socialist bloc – Soviet Union, China and Cuba. However, they cannot always be there for us. As they develop, their priorities change,” he said.
Museveni said African countries should have used their freedom and independence to “create a strategic base of our own through political integration.
Africa is the cradle of civilisation but leaders need to stop betraying the masses.”
The Ugandan statesman also spoke about the meddling of external forces in African affairs that he says has not stopped.
“During the Libyan crisis, a plane carrying six African heads of state on the African Union mission in that crisis was stopped by NATO planes over African soil.
The African input in the Libyan crisis was totally ignored. Up to now Libya is in crisis,” said Museveni.
By Mathias Haufiku