Thank you, Voice of America and BBC World Service, for keeping me abreast on how quickly the world out there is going to hell. I'm all about democracy and freedom, but as seen in Uganda's elections democracy doesn't just happen overnight. Quick change of government can bad (Robespierre comes to mind and he died over 200 years ago).
Now that Libya has descended into civil war, we can more clearly see the power and influence Libya and Qaddafi had on African politics and economics. In the case of Uganda alone, he built the main mosque in Kampala (the road surrounding it aptly named Qaddafi Road). He paid for my king's palace in Fort Portal, as well as the building of the mosque in that city, too. Libya owns a majority share of Uganda Telecom, as well as one of our banks, not to mention supplies a lot of our oil (we even have the oil company OiLibya).
Which brings me to the point of all this: gas prices are going through the roof! Again! A liter of petrol is now 3400 shillings, about $1.44, or $5.60 per gallon. And that's when there is petrol. One station in Fort Portal had gasoline yesterday in a town of six stations and the lines stopped traffic on the main road. The police were called out to keep order. Prices have gone up for goods already, as well as transportation when cars have gas to go anywhere.
It is interesting to see the reverberations of a geopolitical event 1600 kilometers (erm, 1000 miles) away. It will be more interesting to see the effects six months or a year from now. Uganda's 7% inflation rate just might be going up. But then again, I'm a poli-sci nerd.
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