In his Telegraph article, President Yoweri Museveni hails Uganda Airlines’ new London flight, UR110, as a symbol of “progress” and “global partnership.” But beneath the glossy rhetoric lies a familiar colonial script: Africa must kneel before imperial markets, sacrifice its sovereignty, and call it “development.” This is not diplomacy; this is servitude dressed in a suit and shaking hands at Heathrow.
Let us dissect Museveni’s arguments and expose the gears of imperialism he is greasing.
Museveni’s Claims vs. Marxist Reality
Claim: “Direct flights reconnect Uganda to global markets, creating jobs and growth.”
Reality:
- Jobs for Whom? Uganda’s aviation sector employs fewer than 2,000 people. Meanwhile, foreign companies such as Airbus and Heathrow’s Qatari owners reap windfalls from taxpayer subsidies of over $200 million to launch Uganda Airlines.
- Growth for Whom? Uganda hemorrhages $3 billion annually through illicit financial flows, most of it ending up in British banks. Museveni’s flight is not delivering Ugandan goods; it is exporting wealth.
Claim: “Britain is a partner, not a colonial master. Trade, not aid, will uplift Africa.”
Reality:
- Trade Equals Theft: UK companies like Tullow Oil extracted $1.5 billion from Uganda’s oil sector in 2023 alone. Meanwhile, rural clinics are emptying of medicines.
- Aid in Reverse: For every dollar the UK gives in “aid,” it takes fourteen dollars via debt, profit repatriation, and tax dodging. Museveni’s “trade” rhetoric is the same bait used by the IMF and WTO to enforce global apartheid.
“We Give You the Raw Materials”: Museveni’s Confession of Colonial Subservience
In a revealing moment, Museveni writes: “We give you the raw materials.”
This is not a mere phrase; it is a confession of dependency. It is the manifesto of a comprador elite still operating under the logic of colonial accumulation.
And it starkly contradicts his recent domestic posturing, where:
- He dissolved the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) in 2024.
- He announced a ban on exporting raw coffee to supposedly promote value addition and industrial transformation.
So, which is it, Mr. President? You cannot claim sovereignty at home and servitude in London. Either you are building Ugandan industry, or you are greasing the pipeline of imperial extraction.
From a Marxist lens, this contradiction is not just political; it is structural. Museveni plays anti-imperialist for Pan-African applause, but when he lands in London, he resumes his role as broker for the empire, reassuring investors that Africa will remain a plantation—only now with jet service.
The Neocolonial Playbook: From Plantations to Planes
Museveni’s flight is just the latest iteration of a 500-year legacy:
- Colonialism 1.0: British ships stole people, ivory, and rubber from African coasts.
- Colonialism 2.0: IMF structural adjustment gutted public health and forced privatizations.
- Colonialism 3.0: Uganda’s “direct flight” now facilitates capital flight and smooths access to agribusiness-controlled export corridors.
This is not “integration into the global economy.” It is submission rebranded.
Uganda as Haiti? Free Trade, Famines, and Flowers
When the U.S. forced Haiti to drop rice tariffs in 1994, subsidized American rice destroyed local agriculture, and hunger followed.
Museveni is laying the same trap:
- Uganda now grows flowers and vanilla for European supermarkets on vast tracts of land while 20 percent of Ugandan children face acute malnutrition.
- EU “standards” written by corporations such as Nestlé and and Unilever block peasant producers, locking Uganda into low-margin, high-risk supply chains that export soil and import poverty.
Reparations, Not Runways
Museveni says nothing about reparations. Of course not. His role is to maintain imperial access, not question it. But from a Marxist perspective, reparations are not a gift; they are a material obligation owed for centuries of labor theft and ecological plunder.
We demand:
- Cancel Odious Debts: Uganda spends 27 percent of its budget paying off loans from colonial-era banks.
- Return the Loot: $89 billion leaks from Africa each year in capital flight—enough to build 12,000 hospitals.
- Repatriate Stolen Treasures: If France can return 26 royal artifacts to Benin, why not the £45 billion Britain stole from Uganda and East Africa during colonial rule?
The Real Bridge to the Future: Continental Sovereignty
We do not need more planes to London. We need:
- A trans-African railway system, connecting farms to factories and people to people.
- State-owned airlines, not nationalized debt for foreign carriers.
- Industrial hubs and food sovereignty, not Heathrow terminals for cut flowers and underpaid flight attendants.
Museveni calls his flight “a bridge to the future.” But true Pan-Africanists know the only future worth building is one rooted in the soil, anchored by solidarity, and directed by the working class.
Land, Labor, Liberation
Museveni’s Heathrow handshake is not a sign of progress. It is a last gasp of a comprador elite seeking relevance in a world waking up.
The future of Uganda is not 35,000 feet in the air. It is on the ground: in the hands of nurses striking for pay, farmers resisting evictions, and students decolonizing their minds.
The real revolution will not come from London. It will come when we take the land back.
The author is a rural peasant who rejects imperialism in all its forms and dreams of a sovereign, United Africa.
