This topic has 2 replies. The last reply was posted on 29-04-2008 21:31.
Environmental Forum for Action
- Posted on Thursday 28 February 2008 - 02:09The Environmental Forum for Action consists of 15 Environmental groups in Sierra Leone, working together for a healthy environment. It would like to know if other forums of development organizations exist anywhere else in Africa.
Reactions
- Posted on Thursday 28 February 2008 02:12As an executive member of the Union of Environmental Journalists here in Sierra Leone and a constituent member of the Environmental Forum for Action I can attest that unity in action is the way to move ahead in the New Millennium. I can give several instances on how this is bringing success...Harold A. Williams
- Posted on Tuesday 29 April 2008 21:31The Sseesamirembe Eco-city: Lake Victoria Free Trade Zone is currently Africa's largest rural development project designed for environmentally friendly methods and practices. It was the only African Low-carbon city project showcased in the recent London conference on low-carbon cities some months back. The other one was Dontang, from China. This project has been well researched and documented through a long period of decades. Orignally though it was presented as international city until the mind 1990s when the foucs was placed on the project as a Free Trade Zone.
The project is designed to be replicable in other developing countries around the world. It may be the most practicable hope for Africa's sustainable growth and development especially where it is designed to maintain local settlements in their natural state while erecting modern developments to sustain the eco-systems in the 200 square miles, authorized by the Ugandan government.
When I first arrived at Sseesamirembe in 1976, there was no house of office building made of permanent material. There was no road passable by car to the hub of this growing project. I was a visitor to the man who had cured my many years of migrain headaches. There were about thirty people who lived, worked and communed in some three natural caves at the time. I had never seen a people living and working and communing in joy, happiness and mutual cooperation as I saw at Sseesamirembe. The high level spirit of bro-sisterhood was a marvel. The Founder, a Perfect Born-Saint, has established the first environmental rules and regulations even then in 1976 for members not to cut any trees from thickets and forests and that whoever did cut a tree for building their houses, planted three to five trees in return. This is what fascinated me; one of many reasons that touched my heart and soul. Thickets at Sseesamirembe are left in their natural state and the low-carbon city project is planned to not dismantle much of the natural environmental state.
However, there is one trouble about this project; some evangelical crusaders are striving to malicisouly portray the project as anti-Christ, satanic and a cult. They have been responsible for maliciuos allegations that the project initiators sell body parts which in the native African context connotes canibalism. They say this even though they know that the members of this Foundation are strict lacto-vegetarians, teetotallers and live their life free of narcotics and mind altering drugs. They are non-violent citizens who pracatice the ageless noble principle of nn-violence to humans and lower living beings.
Members of the organization have practiced pooling their resources; human, materia and financial in order to sustain the rresearch relevant to the development of this project since 1975. They engage in spiritual discoursing, selfless service and group or individual meditation sessions every day in their homes or in one of the caves on Sunday mornings. They have a spiritual hierarchy headed by the Perfect Born-Saint, His Imperishable Glory Bambi Baaba Baabuwee; an Inner Circle which is in charge of spiritual administration, a Board of Trustees, a President, a Secretariat and a Business and Industrial Board as well as an Outer Circle which serves as the general forum for all members where they meet to discuss all matters pertaining to their community, the external world and about government laws and order. They never engage in active partisan politics without permission by the hierarchy.
A few days ago, the Ugandan President who instructed his Minister of State for Finance and the Attorney General's Office to sign a Memorandum of Understanding between the Ugandan government and Kagera Eco-cities, the company that was formed to handle the work of promoting and developing the Free Trade Zone Project, has now now instituted a commission of inquiry into the Sserulanda Foundation whose members initiated the project.
Here below I give an brief overview of the history and activities of the Sserulanda Spiritual Foundation for the reader to understand well, the origins of the said Free Trade Zone.
I am a long time member of the Sserulanda Foundation. Others like me, welcome the ongoing probe into the activities of this organization and we thank the Ugandan President for instituting the commission. Perhaps it has been long overdue but in nature and creation everything has its right and opportune moment in time.
The Sserulanda Spiritual Foundation (The Registered Trustees of Sserulanda Nsulo Yobulamu Spiritual Foundation) with its headquarters at Sseesamirembe Eco-City, in Rakai District, Uganda was formally registered within the framework of Ugandan laws on May 26, 1986. The Certificate of Incorporation was signed by the Minister of Lands and Surveys, the Hon. Ben Okello Luwum, under the numbers T 36245 and C 1438.
I first learned of this organization far back in 1975/76 when I was introduced to its Founder, HIG Bambi Baaba Baabuwee, as a patient. I had suffered from migraine headaches since I was a little boy as far back as I can recall. By the time of meeting with the said HIG Bambi Baaba Baabuwee I had two neurologists who were treating me. One was Dr. Sseezi at Lubaga Mission Hospital. The other was the late Dr. Obache at Mulago government hospital.
The above two medical doctors had treated from for more than two years at the time of my meeting Bambi Baaba Baabuwee but to no avail. At the time he was popularly known by his colleagues and patients as Dr. J.K., in respect of his great healing works. He gave me one bottle of a herbal medicine concoction branded as Memory Reviver. I took his herbal medication for only one or two week and got rid of the migraine headaches once and for all. For that, I knew he was the real “Doctor,” even though he had no medical degree or medical training in conventional medicine. I realized why they called him Doctor, which he never encouraged.
April 27, 1981, I left my business and city life in Kampala and settled in Sseesamirembe and have lived, worked and communed as a life-time member of this organization since then up to the present day. My partner (Mrs Teopista Namusisi Mubiru) and I had a Gifts and Curios Business at Uganda House on Kampala Road by the time of my leaving Kampala. I say this to indicate that I was not an idle citizen at the time of my departure and subsequent settlement at Sseesamirembe. I was a responsible man, with a diploma equivalent certificate in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations from Makerere University center for continuing education. I was a Double Champion member of the YMCA and had been trained in Export-Import documentation at the Management Training and Advisory Center, Nakawa .
In 1984 I was appointed Deputy General Secretary of the Sserulanda Spiritual Foundation and Private Secretary to the Founder and Lineage Holder. (The Foundation is a Spiritual Lineage or Fraternity). During that period I witnessed several episodes of persecution by some individuals or groups of people who labeled all kinds of negative name-tags against Bambi Baaba Baabuwee and us- his colleagues. Their reason for this was basically because we were vegetarians and therefore we professed to a new religion in their area. Moreover, the first members lived in a cave in which had they settled on Christmas day of 1975. For this reason, they thought we were ghosts or ghost catchers. However, the main cause for persecution was the fear that we would attract or proselytize their members from their religions into our vegetarian philosophy which they saw as another religion; in brief a competitor. It is not our policy to proselytize for new members.
One of our companies, J.K. Mugonza and Company manufactured herbal remedies that cured or healed many people's diseases. I am a witness to the many cases of patients who traveled from Rwanda and different places in Uganda seeking HIG Bambi Baaba Baabuwee’s curative medications, methods and systems of natural therapy and what has come down to be referred to as “divine” healing practice. I may not have a name that best describes some of His healing methods but I know that I am a living testimony to these facts. HIG Bambi Baaba Baabuwee ceased making herbal medicines around 1985/6 in spite of a high demand for his herbal medicines products. He said he would resume manufacturing at a time when the whole world would have recognized natural herbal medicines and the World Health Organization supporting their use.
In 1994 HIG Bambi Baaba Baabuwee left Uganda with a group of about eight to ten other members to the United States via India where they stayed from about two years before settling in America. The purpose of their protracted journey was intensive reaserch in natural therapies, organic herbal remedies and the collection of books for a giant general reference library that is planned for construction in Sseesamirembe City. In addition, His purpose for traveling to America was a fulfillment of an old prophecy that he and his colleagues would travel and and remain there for a very long time, for spiritual reasons among which are the founding of a North American center and the assimilation of esoteric knowledege of the native American peoples and the lost energy of African descandants and those that were enslaved in America. To reconcile the trinity energy of Native Americans, Blacks and White races in America and to craft a vessel by which they may all be reconciled for the benefit of the human race.
I have been an integral part of the rural development projects and programs initiated by this Perfect Born-Saint, (HIG Bambi Baaba Baabuwee) which have included among others, the following:
1. Kirabo Memorial Primary School admitting pupils from members and non-members since 1981.
2. Lwabayambi Health Center (planned to become a fully fledged hospital), treating all patients- members and non-member since 1982.
3. The first Uganda Police Post in Kabira Sub-county was established by the Sserulanda Foundation, with HIG Bambi Baaba himself asking the Regional Police Commander for this post to keep law and order in the area of Sseesamirembe, Kabira Sub-county. The Sserulanda Foundation provided the office and police officers' quarters, a bicycle and office equipment such a typewriter and stationary for the police post, free of charge.
4. The first Uganda Posts and Telecommunications Post Office in Ndolo Parish -Kabira, was also initiated by the Sserulanda Foundation. The Foundation provided the building that housed the Post Office. It was later sabotaged by some people who campaigned in neighboring villages persuading the local people not to have postal boxes. There was 100 postal boxes.
5. The first World Peace Conference ever held in Africa in 1987 was organized and hosted by the Sserulanda Foundation. It was attended by well over 120 international delegates from the US, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Ecuador, Italy, Jamaica, Switzerland, England, Canada, Germany, Rwanda and Zaire. All delegates were hosted, fed, lodged and transported and given medical attention free of charge by the Foundation.
6. The biggest wood and steel carpentry workshops in Rakai District was established at Sseesamirembe by the Sserulanda Foundation. It provided over 300 various job opportunities to local people in the area. Ninety percent of all employees were not members of Sserulanda.
7. The biggest roofing tiles and engineering bricks manufacturing industry was established in Sseesamirembe by the Sserulanda Foundation. More than 100 people were employed in this facility. Seventy percent of them were not members of Sserulanda.
8. The first intercom and Radio Call in Rakai District established by a private organization was installed by this same organization under its company Astral Steel Products Limited. It served the people in the area until the intercom was sabotaged (Wires and poles were cut and thrown away by unknown persons).
9. The Sseesamirembe Eco-City: Lake Victoria Free Trade Zone project was initiated by HIG Bambi Baaba Baaba from a vision he has held as an international city concept since childhood.
10. During the NRM/NRA bush war, Sserulanda Foundation became the safe haven for many displaced Ugandans from Luweero, Kyankwanzi and other locations where the protracted war raged. These Ugandans were fed, housed and given medical care free of charge for years. Most of them left the Foundation after the rebel war ended in 1986.
11. In May/June of 1985, during that same war, the Perfect Born-Saint, His Imperishable Glory Bambi Baaba Baabuwee traveled to Rwakitura from Bazaanabaweereza in Kabula County. Although he had never met Mzee Amos Kaguta or his son, Yoweri K. Museveni, and did not know them, he had a vision in which he was instructed to save the lives of many people in Mbarara District at the time. He removed over 120 persons including Mzee Amos Kaguta, his wife and Museveni's brothers and housed them for safe custody at Sseesamirembe until the war ended. In this act he was endangering and sacrificing his own life as Dr. Obote's NASA boys were hunting and killing people in Ankole especially at the time, because of Museveni's NRM/NRA guerilla insurgency. The Obote regime soldiers came several times at Sseesamirembe trying to abduct Mzee Kaguta. The Living Saint kept telling them that it was true he knew where Mzee Kaguta was but that he would never release him to them. When Major General Salim Saleh came to Sseesamirembe before the war ended, he found their father in the company of the Living Saint, in the middle of the night. HIG Bambi Baaba Baabuwee saved the lives of many of these people as they had expressed to him how much their lives were in imminent danger at Nshwere, Munywani-Rushere and Rwakitura in Nyabushozi County of Mbarara District.
12. Soon after NRM/NRA took over state power, one of the Sserulanda companies, (Astral Alanda International) was responsible for the German-Uganda contract that brought exotic cattle from Germany in 1986/87 through the government ministry of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry. This contract brought into the country 5,000 heads of dairy cattle from which many millions of Uganda receive milk up until this day.
12. It was Astral Alanda International that also contracted for the Uganda government the purchase of agricultural tractors for Namulonge Research center during the same period 1986/87. These two projects were later sabotaged by some corrupt government officials who manipulated the German Company of Mr. Kanath for their selfish interests.
Many of the above projects were always sabotaged by some individuals who persecuted the Sserulanda Foundation because its members because we are lacto-vegetarians, teetotallers and non users of narcotics and mind-altering drugs. We were seen and treated as anti-religious or anti-Christ even though most of our members are Catholics, Anglicans, a few Muslims and others.
Religious persecution has all along been responsible for the sabotage. Overnight manufactured roofing tiles would be found damaged in the workshop the next morning. Machinery and equipment as well as materials would be stolen as a way to sabotage our work. Dubious court attachments became another way to waste our money, loot our equipment and machinery and demolish our building structures. A point in case was Kirabo Memorial Kindergarten and Primary School classroom blocks together with a brick and roofing-tiles industry structure of 600 corrugated iron sheets- the biggest in Rakai and Masaka District combined at the time, were demolished by such dubious court orders.
All over the country, malicious propaganda against HIG Bambi Baaba Baabuwee and the Foundation generally were spread by the mass media beginning far back in 1982/83 with one journalist by the name of Ntanda Lukabi. Yet, HIG Bambi Baaba Baabuwee is perhaps the only known African contemporary Born-Saint and Soul-Liberator today. Sermons were given in religions congregations against us warning congregants not to take herbal medicines from Sserulanda because they were "satanic." Years later, some of those who were opposed to our herbal medicine work opened up their own herbal and natural medicines practices and clinics.
Other members and my self are very happy that we welcome this commission of inquiry and we thank His Excellency the president of Uganda, Yoweri K. Museveni for having commissioned this probe. We know that if the probe commissioners are unbiased, un-prejudiced (citizens without religious bigotry) but serving the development and stability of our nation, the commission will greatly help eliminate or diminish much of the mystery and persecution we have faced through the decades since 1975/6 during Idi Amin and Obote Two regimes which incidentally never did anything negative to our organization. They spied on us over and over again but they never did anything wrong to any one of our members or to our business or healing activities practices respectively; and of course because they realized we were innocent.
The rural development projects we initiate serve the interests of all people in Rakai and Uganda. Some of our companies have shareholders who are not our members. We trust that this probe will eventually clear all malicious rumors and persecution. It is inappropriate for Uganda’s journalists and our persecutors to mix our spiritual matters with our business concerns. Business is business. Individuals doing business should never be judged based upon their personal religious or spiritual affiliations. Uganda is a melting pot of citizens and visitors from different religious, spiritual, cultural and social political backgrounds. Our business companies as individuals are legal entities separate from their initiators. Our spiritual life should never be confused with the companies we set up for businesses and industrial undertakings for the benefit of all Ugandans. The Uganda government consists of people of different religious, cultural and traditional backgrounds but we do not accuse the government because Yoweri Museveni or his wife are Born-Agains or because the Vice President or this or that Minister is a Muslim, Catholic, Anglican or pagan. However, all of them serve our country irrespective.
It seems that there are some individuals who think that all Ugandans should ascribe to one (their) religious or spiritual practice and that whoever does not is not fit to be a Ugandan or to do business in Uganda. This is totally against the Ugandan Constitution that provides freedom or worship and association. The fact that we have embalmed and preserved dead bodies of a few of our members does not in any way mean that we are cannibals or that we sell body parts. To compare or equate us and our activities with the Christian Kanungu cult that killed its members in 2000 is not only outrageous but preposterous; a show of ignorance and a disease based in religious bigotry. Those who are advancing these theories are from within some religious organizations which you all know of. It is our conviction and desire that we can live as a people under the banner of peace, stability, mutual cooperation and sustained growth and development as we build a stable future for future generations.
Lastly, I wish to say that the Perfect Born-Saint HIG Bambi Baaba Baabuwee is one of Africa’s super-gifted individuals (speaking of conventional standards) not to mention the fact he is a fully-fledged Soul-Liberator of our time. No one would like to go down in the annals of world history as being responsible for a similar record as that of those who persecuted and crucified Lord Jesus the Christ. If you do not believe the Supreme Deity still has the sole discretion to send down (from his legion of Perfect and Perfected Souls) into this world as IT so wills and if you do not believe in physically living Perfect Saints who live and work in divine union as one with the Supreme Lord, wake up. For HIG Bambi Baaba Baabuwee is one of those Great Souls that was sent down specifically for the peoples of the African continent and for planet earth’s spiritual transformation, now. What are you going to do with your self if you disagree? Oneetugira ku munyaanya? (Will you strangle yourself to death by a tomato tree?). Why not take God to court for such a grave mistake of sending another of ITS sons into the manifest world to redeem other souls? Certainly the Lord who gave birth to one Son about two thousand years ago appears to have decided to give birth to another one in 1937 somewhere in Africa. I also suggest you change the laws of Uganda and of the world; constitutions that give freedom of worship and association as basic human rights.
Lastly, he discouraged local people hunting and killing animals in the area and often used to buy the lives of ensnared or trapped waterbucks and antelopes; he would pay them to set the animals free.
I think the above is a valid stsory of Africa's environmental focus especially if we need to design modern cities based upon environmentaly friendly plans and programs. A low-carbn city such as Sseesamirembe: LVFTZ could be a model for the rest of Africa.
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