The real battle in Uganda

Posted By Jackee Budesta Batanda Friday, March 9, 2012 - 12:16 PM Share

While the rest of the world jumps onto the Kony2012 bandwagon -- wrongly assuming that the main problem in Uganda is the Lord's Resistance Army -- Ugandans are worrying about the much more urgent problem plaguing their country: nodding disease.

The cause of the disease is unknown. It affects thousands of children in Northern Uganda, causing symptoms similar to epilepsy, but with more severe mental and physical retardation. (The photo above shows 12-year-old Nancy Lamwaka, a victim of the disease.) Yet the Ugandan government has been notably slow to deal with the problem.

A lot has happened since I last blogged about the government's strange priorities. As I noted at the time, the Ugandan president's office requested additional funding for its own needs that amounted to nine times of what the Health Ministry had specified for its first response to the disease. The government's failure to allocate resources to this threat raises serious questions about its competence and its commitment to dealing with crises.

So the Hon Beatrice Anywar, an MP for Kitgum District, decided to take action: she ferried a number of children from her constituency to Mulago National Referral Hospital in the capital, Kampala. There were reports that the police tried to stop the bus from leaving Kitgum for fear that she would parade the children before Parliament.

When the sick children arrived in Mulago, journalists had a field day taking pictures. While the ethics of this display are questionable, I think it was necessary in order to shock our leaders into action. And Anywar did exactly that by bringing nodding disease to our doorstep. The issue can no longer be ignored.

The president later visited the victims at Mulago, where he promised more government support.

In the spirit of International Women's Day, women activists in Uganda tied themselves to trees today in solidarity with Northern Ugandan mothers whose children are afflicted by the disease. Parents are often compelled to tie their sick children to trees to protect them from falling down or wandering off.

The gravity of the problem has been aptly described by women's rights activist Jackline Asiimwe: "It is not acceptable for any parent to think that the only option left to save their children is by tying them to trees when they have a government whose mandate is to ensure that the citizens exercise their right to good health and access to medical attention wherever and whenever necessary."

Jackee Batanda's Twitter handle is @jackeebatanda.

REUTERS/Edward Echwalu

EXPLORE:THUMBS, AFRICA, CORRUPTION, DEMOCRACY, DEMOCRACY LAB, DEVELOPMENT, HEALTH, POLITICS, PUBLIC HEALTH
 

READANDBEMERRY

6:19 PM ET

March 9, 2012

your article.

I think we are all aware there is always more than one issue and conflict in any country that exists. But your article seems to imply that the LRA is not that big of a deal. It is. So is the nodding disease. You should never down talk or condemn another person's cause just because it is not your own. Also, Im under the impressing that Uganda is a third world nation. With that being said, I wonder how much money the government in that country has. Maybe the government does not have the resources to deal with the problem of the nodding disease, just like the government didn't have the resources to deal with the LRA. I would suggest, if your passionate about this cause, that you rally up support by getting creative just like the people who created www.kony2012.com and invisiblechildren.com. Learn from them and steal there ideas.

 

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8:16 PM ET

March 9, 2012

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GREATPEACE

2:14 PM ET

March 10, 2012

Greediness, Mismanagement And Lack Of competency

Just like any disease can result into a seriuos issue, so also common headache. The situation of the body and the quality of intake is very important.

But majority of problems in Africa is due to the greediness of the leaders in Africa. They lack competency and loyalty to their country. They love their own pocket than anything else. Commonsinusinfectionsymptoms can lead masses in Africa to their graveyard.

Please, don't forget I am from Africa and I migrated to United States in 2000. What I faced before I left was uncalled for. Leaders are rouges and thiefs. I believe the country of Uganda have enough resourses to take care or their citizens, but mismangement of the resources will not let them use it correctly.

 

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8:33 AM ET

March 11, 2012

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WIGGLYTUFF

2:15 PM ET

March 11, 2012

kony

I think we are all aware there is always more than one issue and conflict in any country that exists. But your article seems to imply that the LRA is not that big of a deal. It is. So is the nodding disease. You should never down talk or condemn another person's cause just because it is not your own. Also, Im under the impressing that Uganda is a third world nation. With that being said, I wonder how much money the government in that country has. Maybe the government does not have the resources to deal with the problem of the nodding disease, just like the government didn't have the resources to deal with the LRA. I would suggest, if your passionate about this cause, that you rally up support by getting downloading LimeWire just like the people who created www.kony2012.com and invisiblechildren.com. Learn from them and steal there ideas.

 

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3:55 PM ET

March 11, 2012

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FILMINIIZLE

7:06 PM ET

March 11, 2012

If past protests were

If past protests were organized around the vague demand of fair elections -- or new parliamentary elections -- and to chant the charged but useless slogan "Russia without Putin," Saturday's rally was centered on thanking election monitors. Tens of thousands of previously politically inactive people, riding the wave of the winter's giddiness, had signed up to monitor elections. More than 80,000 people in Moscow, and more than 130,000 nationwide volunteered for the tedious work of breathing down the necks of members of local election committees -- the cogs in the great machine that would keep falsifying the vote, even when Putin's press secretary declared that it was Putin, first and foremost, who was interested in a clean election. (When I traveled to Irkutsk in the weeks before the election, local party leaders told me the puzzling command from Moscow was victory for Putin in the first round -- that is, over 51 percent -- but no violations.)
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TIMVIEC

4:00 AM ET

March 12, 2012

So Poor Place.

I have known about this country when I were just a kid. Nothing change up to now. Their people still live so hard. No food.. No medicine services, No process. I don't know how human can live at such place. God Bless them.

Tim Viec

 

ALDENWITEBOY

11:58 AM ET

March 12, 2012

Real shame

Shame they have to deal with that over there

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ZEDDIE

12:19 PM ET

March 12, 2012

As a Ugandan Expat living in the UK who goes back regularly....

The Kony campaign mattered, the Kony Campaign has made people talk about Uganda and its issues this week, to my mind the Kony campaign has worked.

There are literally hundreds perhaps even thousands of issues in Uganda. The usual third world issues play out in Uganda and over much of Africa. The Kony campaign highlighted something so needlessly mindless as to beggar belief, a man kidnapping children and turning them into his personal army, committing so many atrocities that not since Pol Pot have I been as shocked! The coverage of the war in Northern Uganda has been in the news over and over again in the past 6-7 years.

Aids, Malnutrition, Polio, Typhoid, Diphtheria, Nodding Disease, shall I go on? Africa has always had these monsters to deal with. Amin was another monster no one hurried up and stopped, so people like Kony who can be stopped, should be stopped. I can't believe people have spent more time discussing the value of the Kony video, then looking at the news footage and archived articles about how many children Kony has abused and families he has destroyed!

 

MAXIMB

6:40 PM ET

March 22, 2012

i think the congress should

i think the congress should stop acting like children (every one of them- D's and R's)and get something done. i wish we could get rid of all the spineless sons-of-bitches..

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MaximB

 

Transitions is the group blog of the Democracy Lab channel, a collaboration between Foreign Policy and the Legatum Institute.

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