FOX TV insults Uganda over Pope Francis visit

Uganda, singled out in recent years by such institutions as National Geographic as among the best places in the world to visit, with the Kidepo Valley National Park given CNN’s thumbs up as their choice of best national park in Africa and Lonely Planet’s repeated mention as among their top global destinations, has in fact, together with Rwanda, been one of the great stabilizers of regional security and been recognized as such by several global institutions.

Hosting Pope Francis, the third Pope to visit the country since independence, is clearly showing that the country is not war torn, and Fox News and the anchors responsible must apologize to the people of Uganda for making such grave and totally-unfounded accusations. The United States is held in high esteem in what is commonly referred to as the “Pearl of Africa,” and such affronts are not helpful for continued close partnership and cooperation on many levels in the international arena.

With the visit of Pope Francis just a day away now, Ugandans and country tourism stakeholders are waking up to news of being called names by America’s Fox News, which has broadcast that His Holiness is flying into “war torn Africa.”

Stereotypes of this nature were peaking when President Obama visited Kenya in July, with CNN topping the charts by calling Kenya a “Hotbed of Terror,” promptly triggering a massive counterattack on social media via the instantly coined hashtag #SomeoneTellCNN.

The same is now expected from Ugandans, and Kenyans for that matter, #SomeoneTellFoxNews, as both countries have been labeled what this particular, and many other American stations, continue to look at as a poverty-stricken, disease-riddled, war-torn and terror-struck continent, all of which in their view must be one country.

Well Fox News, hear this, Africa is NOT a country (it is a continent consisting of many countries), Ebola was geographically isolated in a small part of West Africa – remember how the US mishandled their Ebola outbreak when it happened – terrorism is a global phenomenon and challenge, and most of the current civil wars and upheavals in particular in the Middle East and North Africa were triggered by shortsighted US intervention. There, I have said it!