Why President Museveni will always have a soft spot for Kenya

Sunday, April 14 2013
By Oscar Obonyo

KENYA: When it was announced Yoweri Kaguta Museveni would deliver the keynote address at President Uhuru Kenyatta’s inauguration ceremony last Tuesday, many wondered at the choice of the Ugandan leader.

However, there were no further doubts when he rose to speak. Only he, among the 15 Heads of State present and other invited foreign guests, could authoritatively talk on local politics, including details of the Jubilee versus CORD campaigns. And only he would blatantly dismiss the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a tool of “arrogant actors using their careless analysis to distort the purpose of the ICC”.

He was applauded for defending President Uhuru and Deputy President William Ruto against prosecution at the ICC, and jeers as well for publicly reprimanding the Pokot community for “stealing our cattle”.

Irked by Museveni’s comments, legislators from the community have since demanded an apology. Indeed, these instances demonstrate Museveni is no stranger to controversy, with regard to Kenyan affairs. He has had a series of crude encounters with locals, including members of the Bukusu and Samia Luhya sub tribes, along the Mt Elgon area and border points with Busia County. The same is true about the Luo, over fishing boundaries in Lake Victoria, leading to Museveni’s eventual claim of Migingo Island in 2009.

Guerrilla warfare

Besides his intimidating posture, for example, threat to the Pokot “waacha kuiba ng’ombe yangu (stop stealing my cattle) and protest directed at the Luo during the 2008 post-election violence, “jaruo wanany’oa reli (the Luo are uprooting the Kenya-Uganda railway line)”, Busia residents have memories of a totally different Museveni from the “bully” he is today.

When he staged guerrilla warfare against the Government of Milton Obote and later interim leader, Tito Okello, in the early 1980s, Museveni was a common figure on the Kenyan side of Busia. Busia stretches to the Ugandan side, and is occupied mainly by members of the Samia community.

Then, Museveni and members of his National Resistance Army (NRA) were on the run and took refuge in Kenya. It was not surprising to bump into Museveni and his men along the village paths at dusk near Muluanda, Sigalame, Nambuku, Namboboto and Funyula shopping centres.

Locals recall Museveni as particularly friendly as he and his men cautiously interacted with villagers. Sometimes they would descend on a mango tree in the farms and devour the fruits before retreating to the bush.

“Museveni is no stranger to us. He lived here and among us for nearly ten years and knows the geography of this place pretty well. By the time he and his senior lieutenants left, they had mustered the Samia language,” recalls Mzee Zablon Wandera of Magogongo village.

KENYA: When it was announced Yoweri Kaguta Museveni would deliver the keynote address at President Uhuru Kenyatta’s inauguration ceremony last Tuesday, many wondered at the choice of the Ugandan leader.

However, there were no further doubts when he rose to speak. Only he, among the 15 Heads of State present and other invited foreign guests, could authoritatively talk on local politics, including details of the Jubilee versus CORD campaigns. And only he would blatantly dismiss the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a tool of “arrogant actors using their careless analysis to distort the purpose of the ICC”.