A pressure group of Ugandans living in the United States -The Common League of the Uganda Diaspora (CLOUD), are up in arms, demanding that Fletcher School/Tufts University discontinues Evelyn Anite, Uganda’s Minister of State for Investment and Privatization, from doing her Masters degree at the institution.
“Ugandans in the Diaspora demand that Evelyn Anite be discontinued from the Fletcher School of Tufts University so that the agents of dictatorship in Uganda can take heed that there can be global consequences whenever they act against democracy in Uganda,” the group said in their latest petition to the university’s administration.
The group alleges that Anite is an enemy of democracy and human rights in Uganda and that her education at Fletcher is paid for “by millions of public funds” while young girls remain uneducated and without menstrual pads! Fletcher. Discontinue Anite.
Anite is said to be pursuing a course in Global Master of Arts Programme in International Law and Diplomacy. She is reportedly paying US$90,000 (about Shs333 million) for the course.
“Anite, an infamous Uganda dictatorial regime official and a Museveni sycophant par excellence, is attending one of the few residence course durations for this Master’s degree (GMAP), which is mostly accomplished in the candidate’s home country online. It is incomprehensible that a premier institute of international affairs in the free democratic world the Fletcher school is cam admit a poster girl of dictatorship from Uganda,” the petition further reads.
The group members argue that international affairs in the free world postulate that democracies do not go to war with each other. Hence, it is critical that each country in the world is democratized so the world can enjoy a true democratic peace sufficient for development and human progress. “Moreover, it is as well unthinkable that the Fletcher School can be so socio-politically insensitive in this era of institutional bottom line consideration,” they add.
The members state that they have no issues with minister Anite as an individual “but her reprehensible actions and utterances, which have emboldened dictatorship in Uganda. If she is left scot free then the university shall have undermined democratization in Uganda as well as global democratic peace.”
CLOUD), claim to be a pressure group for the defense of human rights and promotion of democracy in Uganda even as they live outside the country.
Martin Byakuleka, the CLOUD President says that the online petition has been addressed to the President of the University, Anthony Monaco and that by July 30, they had collected 420 signatures out of the 500 signatures required for the university to take action.
Anite’s study leave runs from July 4 to August 28, 2018 granted, as announced by the Ministry of Finance Planning and Economic Development.