Dear Mr. Terrance Howard,
Greetings from the NUPUSA, Inc., leadership team on behalf of the East African diaspora, especially the Ugandan diaspora in the United States and worldwide.
We are writing to inform you that your recent visit with dictator Museveni of Uganda who is responsible for deaths of millions of Africans in East and Central Africa horrified us. Museveni is an illegitimate ruler, who has perpetuated himself in power for over thirty-six years by rigging
elections and suppressing the opposition while his patrons — the United States and Europe — turn a blind eye. In January 2021, Uganda held its latest Presidential elections. Although Museveni’s handpicked partisan electoral commission announced him the winner, independent
tallies indicated that Ugandans had overwhelmingly rejected the tyrant in favor of Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, also known as Bobi Wine, but per usual, Museveni rigged the results.
https://uvote.nup-uganda.com/rigged/Rigged.pdf
Museveni is one of Africa’s worst neo-colonial dictators, serving the interests of the United States, Europe, China and Russia at the expense of ordinary Africans. For instance, Museveni is exacerbating armed conflict in the Democratic of the Congo through proxies, while simultaneously facilitating the plunder of its vast mineral resources by shadowy Europeans.
https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0664
When Akon and Kanye West consorted with Museveni in 2021, the diaspora furiously shamed them via social media and the press. You are fortunate that we have decided to approach you differently. We chose to engage you with information that avails you a rationale to immediately
discontinue your association with Museveni and his officials including your host, Uganda’s Agriculture Minister, Frank Tumwebaze. Your reputation and image are too precious to get caught up in their criminality and shenanigans.
We urge you to disassociate yourself from Museveni due to a litany of crimes he has committed including gross human rights abuses, plunder of African resources, anti-black utterances, and
perpetuation of modern-day slavery through a “labor externalization” policy.
Museveni has committed many atrocities since shooting himself to power in 1986. The atrocities include mass murder in Northern Uganda and a particularly gruesome massacre in the Kasese region of Uganda.
Museveni atrocities in Northern Uganda were narrated by survivors and participating military generals in the documentary titled: “A brilliant Genocide:”
Atrocities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo:
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2010/oct/01/uganda-un-war-crimes-congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo filed and subsequently won a case against Uganda in the International court of Justice due to Museveni’s atrocities and plunder of the country’s resources:
https://www.icj-cij.org/en/case/116
Kasese massacre
https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/10/10/uganda-no-justice-2016-kasese-massacre-securityforces
Museveni lauded, Peter Elwelu, the general who commanded the massacre for a job well-done and expeditiously promoted him. Emboldened, the general unapologetically boasted of his actions:
https://tntribune.com/they-deserved-death-ugandan-general-on-armys-2016-massacre-of-155-in-kasese/
Electoral violence
Imagine a situation in which Americans are shot, abducted or incarcerated indefinitely for supporting either Biden or Trump during elections. That is precisely what Museveni has been doing in Uganda for over twenty-six years – he did not allow for elections at all until 1996, his tenth year in power. The violence against the opposition has escalated each election cycle
since. The period before, during and after the January 2021 elections, Museveni orchestrated the worst election related violence in the history of Uganda. The Ugandan army abducted and killed hundreds of Ugandans. Thousands of opposition party members, including elected
officials, are still languishing in prison without trial.
Human Rights Watch and several international media, including the New York Times documented the abuses:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/11/world/africa/uganda-election-disappearancesmuseveni.html
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2022/country-chapters/uganda
In November 2020, Museveni arrested Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu (“Bobi Wine”) his main opponent in the then upcoming January 2021 elections. When Ugandans protested, Museveni unleashed his military, killing over two hundred people over a course of two-days, though the regime only acknowledged fifty-four deaths. Worse, Museveni characteristically hailed the military for its murderous actions.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported some of the November 2020 killings in a documentary titled: “Three Killings in Kampala:”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7d2AvLEPyA
Plunder of Land and Resources
In addition to facilitating the plunder of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s resources, Museveni is forcibly evicting Ugandan citizens in favor of foreign “investors.”
French Crude Pipeline to displace thousands of African families
https://www.stopeacop.net/home
In the mineral rich Karamoja region of Uganda, the Museveni regime has been evicting poor citizens off ancestral land for years without compensation.
https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/karamoja-residents-facing-eviction-bymining-companies-1717896
Museveni is now cynically looking on as inhabitants (the Karamojong) starve to death due to a severe drought in the semi-arid region even though the rest of Uganda has a food surplus.
Starvation in Karamoja:
https://ugandaradionetwork.com/story/relief-food-delays-irk-karamoja-leaders
Meanwhile, foreign “investors” in Karamoja are protected by the State:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/3/11/ugandan-mining-communities-battle-elite-forland-ownership
Museveni’s anti-African/anti-black utterances
The September 1994 Atlantic magazine quoted Museveni saying: “I have never blamed the
whites for colonizing Africa; I have never blamed these whites for taking slaves. If you are
stupid, you should be taken a slave.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1994/09/an-african-success-story/670697/
Museveni also referred to African chiefs many of whom tried to resist colonialism and slavery as
“idiots” while giving a speech to European diplomats. Evidently, Museveni is a disgraceful neocolonial dictator, whom no right-thinking African, or person of African descent should associate
with. Incidentally, Museveni is a conman per excellence. He mesmerizes Africans when he talks
of Pan-Africanism while practicing neo-colonialism and fragmenting Africans through divisive
and exclusionary ethnic politics and policies.
Modern Day slavery
It is not surprising therefore that Museveni is knowingly superintending over modern-day
slavery. Despite ruling Uganda for over thirty-six years, Museveni has not created employment
for Ugandan youth, whose true unemployment rate is over 80%. Instead, he promotes a “labor
externalization” policy which ‘exports’ Ugandans through labor export companies many of
which are owned by his regime officials and their associates. But the policy amounts to modernday slavery. A 2019 report noted that in some regions of Uganda girls were being sold on open
market for as low as $14, and then exported to the middle east, where they are re-sold.
https://www.ozy.com/around-the-world/modern-day-slavery-the-public-markets-sellingyoung-girls-for-14/94386/
Even the girls who leave voluntarily suffer the same fate. They are promised goods jobs by the
labor export companies, but when they get to the Middle East their passports are confiscated.
They are then forced into domestic labor, working very long hours with little or no pay. Many
are also sexually abused and tortured by their ‘employers.’
https://afjn.org/labor-export-or-human-trafficking-tackling-the-labor-laws-in-uganda/
Worse, labor externalization in Uganda is closely interlinked with an organ harvesting syndicate
allegedly involving Museveni’s own family:
https://www.thepeoplesagency.org/body-organs-business-syndicate-headed-by-sam-kutesa/
There have been several reports that internal organs of many “labor externalized” Ugandans’
such as kidneys are being illegally harvested.
https://observer.ug/news/headlines/72675-govt-starts-probe-into-internal-organ-harvesting
For those and other reasons, we request that you publicly disentangle yourself from Museveni
and his officials. Incidentally, your announcement of a new drone technology for Uganda
unwittingly stirred up horror images in Ugandans’ minds because vans which Museveni’s
military uses to abduct innocent Ugandans off the streets and forcibly disappear them are
known as drones.
https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/oped/commentary/-drones-are-a-threat-to-nationalsecurity-3822882
Like your character “DJay” in your seminal 2005 film, “Hustle & Flow,” Ugandans are essentially
hustling to survive very tough conditions. Many youths are engaged in the creative arts
including music, drama and film. But like your character Glen Holland in your 1995 film “Mr.
Holland’s Opus”, they are short-changed because Museveni — like Principal Wolters in the film –
- prioritizes funding Science and Math over the Arts.
The situation in Uganda is very volatile and complicated. It does not neatly fit into a formula like
your concept of “Terryology.” It can severely impact your reputation and career by your mere
association with the principal actor, Museveni, and his associates.
We are looking forward to your response to our appeal. Our next course of action, no later than
one month from now, will be determined by what you choose to do.
Sincerely,
Joseph Senyonjo, Board Member, NUPUSA, Inc
On behalf of NUPUSA, Inc’s leadership team
