Abstract

Letter From Uganda

The article comments on the American free-trade initiative, African Growth and Opportunity Act, its affect on Uganda's textile industry, and a strike at the Tri-Star factory. Few Americans have ever heard of the four-year-old law. But in Uganda, AGOA, as the initiative is commonly called, is a magic word, invoked by politicians and businessmen, diplomats and foreign-aid donors--and most of all by President Yoweri Museveni. To hear Museveni tell it, AGOA is the first step toward breaking Africa's dependence on foreign aid and the beginning of an economic revival. To America and other wealthy nations, which have grown tired of pumping billions in aid into Africa with little evident effect, Museveni is a godsend: an African leader who will tell them what they want to hear. When President Bush signed a bill reauthorizing AGOA through 2015 in July, he praised Uganda's president. Museveni thought AGOA would act as a catalyst to rebuild Uganda's once-thriving textile industry, which had withered away during decades of dictatorship and civil war. A closer look at Uganda, however, reveals a reality more complicated than such blithe rhetoric. Two years after that first heady Christmas season, Museveni's countrymen are suffering from a serious case of buyers' remorse. The government-subsidized textile factory, built to be an exemplar for the rest of the nation, has instead suffered worker unrest, as politicians allege exploitation and government corruption.