REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MARY McALEESE AT DINNER HOSTED BY H.E. PRESIDENT YOWERI KAGUTA MUSEVENI
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MARY McALEESE AT DINNER HOSTED BY H.E. PRESIDENT YOWERI KAGUTA MUSEVENI, SUNDAY, 21 OCTOBER 2001, KAMPALA.
President Museveni, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.
I am very pleased to have this opportunity to visit Uganda and to meet again with you
Mr. President so soon after your recent successful visit to Ireland. The warmth and sense of partnership generated by that visit is still very fresh in our memories and I congratulate you on your continuation in the role of Uganda’s First Citizen. I know Ireland wishes you and the people of Uganda prosperity and peace.
This is my first visit to East Africa. I had an opportunity to see something of your countryside during the brief journey from Entebbe to Kampala and I am beginning to understand why Africa in general, and Uganda in particular, have so enthralled and captivated visitors through the centuries. The wealth of colours, sounds and most of all, the friendly and welcoming people give to Uganda a lustre and allure unique to this part of the world. Ireland is often referred to as the “Emerald Isle” and from what I have seen of this green and fertile land, the “Emerald of Africa” could equally well describe this land we all know as the “Pearl of Africa”. Uganda has many faces whether in its wonderfully diverse geography or in the multiplicity of cultures, traditions and lifestyles of its peoples. I look forward with great anticipation to seeing more of your beautiful country, including your own home district, Mr President, in the coming days.
Growing up in a small island very far from here you might expect that Uganda would feel remote and unknown but like so many Irish, I grew up hearing stories of Africa day in and day out. These were not storybook tales or invented fantasies. Rather they were the stories of real lives, real people brought to us by returning missionaries who brought to Ireland a consciousness about, and a love for the people of this great, but often tragic, continent. Just as they brought the name of Ireland here, so too they brought the name of Uganda home to Ireland. So I feel very much at home and among friends here in Uganda. It is easy to understand why Ireland and Uganda should be so easily compatible. Our common legacy of colonial domination and marginalisation has shaped a similar national personality in our two countries. Because we have known oppression, because we have known poverty, because we have known what it is to waste the talents of generations through the absence of opportunity, we have a set of profound shared values, in the love of freedom, the thirst for learning, faith in family and community, respect for the individual. Tomorrow I will visit Irish Missionaries whose work I have so often heard of at home. They have never sought thanks or recognition for their work. It is done out of love for humanity and out of a deep belief in the responsibility we share for the well-being of the common human family wherever it suffers in the world. Over many generations they have chosen to put their lives at the service of others far from Ireland’s shores. No one forced them to come here. No law except the law of love prompted them to offer their gifts and talents to help make life better for the people of Uganda. The contribution they have made and continue to make in education, healthcare and many other areas can never be quantified but it is as extensive as it is remarkable.
We are proud of these sons and daughters of Ireland and more than proud, we are grateful because the huge goodwill Ireland enjoys throughout the world, the esteem in which our island home is held, the respect the name of Ireland can command, these things so essential to a nations’s self-confidence, self-esteem and global influence - these things were crafted, built, nurtured and seed-bedded by our Irish missionaries over long and challenging decades. We, who have inherited this goodwill, acknowledge the role of those who helped create it here in Uganda and around the world. We value it immensely. It is a life giving source of energy in our homeland and while many missionaries now face the sad reality of dwindling vocations, nonetheless their work, their vision, continues in the hands and hearts of many other people whom they introduced to this noble humanitarian endeavour.
We deeply wish to keep on growing, developing and nurturing that outstanding legacy and so we are, Mr President, seeking to build a modern and productive development partnership with the new Uganda - a partnership based on shared values and objectives, as well as on Ugandan leadership and ownership of the development process. Uganda’s first decades of independence were indeed troubled and saw appalling abuses during Idi Amin’s reign of terror.
I congratulate you, Mr President, on creating the environment in which Uganda resumed a path of progress towards an open, more inclusive and prosperous society. The remarkable achievement of decentralisation has empowered all of your people and most particularly the poor. Poverty reduction is the central objective of Ireland’s partnership programmes with developing countries. Uganda’s extraordinary success in reducing poverty levels from 56% to 35% of the population over a seven year period is a truly tremendous achievement, unparalleled in Africa. You are entitled to be proud of it and Mr. President, we in Ireland are both privileged and proud of the fact that we were able to assist you in this endeavour.
We are also proud to be part of such progressive initiatives as Universal Primary Education and the fight against AIDS - both areas where Uganda, under your leadership, has made striking progress. Together with its achievements in education and health, Uganda has achieved growth rates of between 5% and 9 % each year over the past decade, through sound and sensible macro economic management of its economy. We look forward to a day Mr. President, when the Asian and the Celtic Tiger economies will be joined by an African Lion economy, providing this continent with a much needed development success story, Uganda’s story.
History has decreed that in this generation and under your leadership, there is indeed an opportunity to move upwards to a new level of development in Uganda. We know that it will be a considerable challenge, requiring the mobilisation of effort and resources at home and abroad. In Ireland, Mr President, you will find a sympathetic and reliable partner both in bilateral development support and in advocacy in international fora for a more just, international economic and trading order. Ireland’s programme of development partnership with Uganda has doubled in the past year and it is envisaged that next year projected assistance will be more than US $30 million. This, Mr President, reflects our confidence in the potential of our partnership, but it reflects especially our faith in the ability of you and your people to transcend the legacy of the past and build a future to be proud of.
Uganda stands today at a crossroads in its political and social development. The debate on the future evolution of the political and governance framework most appropriate and suited to your people is underway and we wish you well in this process, confident that the openness and inclusiveness, so much features of the new Uganda, will continue. I know that you work under the shadows of regional conflict and instability, especially in the Congo, which pose a real threat to your development potential. You need the security of real peace to fully realise the potential of your people, your country. This region needs peace if it is ever to know the talents of its people, if it is ever to see the fullest fruits of their uninterrupted endeavours. We in Ireland applaud the regional search for peace and justice in the Congo within the framework of the Lusaka Process.
As a member of the Security Council of the UN, we have a particular opportunity to contribute to this process and we look forward to continued constructive dialogue with Uganda in this regard.
In conclusion, Mr. President, may I thank you sincerely for your warm welcome and your hospitality today. I would also like to thank you and your administration for the co-operation and support provided to the Irish Embassy since its establishment here. A new Irish Embassy is at present under construction. It marks another important milestone in Ireland’s long-term commitment to partnership and friendship between our two countries. We want for Uganda what we want for Ireland - a country where children wake up to food on the table, good schools to go to, well-paid jobs to look forward to, accessible high-quality health care, peace in their homes, peace on the streets, respect for each other, joyful curiosity about different cultures and religions and the reassurance of knowing that they are part of a global human family that cares about its members well-being wherever and whoever they are. We value your support and co-operation, Mr. President and the quality this gives to the special partnership between our two countries.
On the day you were sworn into Office, Mr. President, almost sixteen years ago, you announced a programme, which would “usher in a new and better future for the people of Uganda” built on the principles of democracy, security, elimination of corruption and the well-being of the economy of Uganda and set about uniting every corner of the country. In the relatively short time that has since elapsed, you have made so many of these aspirations a reality and have earned much respect both within and outside of Uganda in the process, to the extent that you were elected Chairman of the Organisation of African Unity in 1990 and the following year became the first African leader invited to address the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Your programme, Mr. President has borne many fruits for the people of Uganda and I wish you well in your future endeavours on their behalf.
(May I propose a toast to you, Mr President, to the people of Uganda and to the partnership between our two countries.)
Thank you.