{UAH} Raila: 'Why I did not trust Museveni in post-election crisis'

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Raila: 'Why I did not trust Museveni in post-election crisis'

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Raila Odinga's autobiography, The Flame of Freedom, is a tale of dreams dreamed and lost, flames lit and extinguished. Photo/FILE 

By DANIEL K. KALINAKI

Posted  Friday, October 4   2013 at  14:06

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• The story of Raila Odinga

Raila Odinga did not trust President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda's efforts to broker a truce during the political standoff in Kenya after the disputed 2007 election because he believed the Ugandan leader was "part of the problem," a new book by the former Kenyan prime minister reveals.

Officials in Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement have previously quietly expressed discomfort at Museveni's role. The revelations, detailed in his just-published autobiography – The Flame of Freedom – represent the first time Odinga has publicly expressed his views on the matter.

Odinga and his supporters were surprised when President Museveni telephoned Mwai Kibaki on January 2, 2008, to congratulate him only two days after he had been controversially declared winner of the disputed election and hurriedly sworn in.

The ensuing violence had disrupted the movement of goods and passengers across Kenya's borders. In a telephone conversation with President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania, Odinga wondered why the Ugandan leader had been so hasty in congratulating Kibaki.

"Kikwete wondered if it was economic pressure — which, of course, it was, at least in part. Oil and petrol tankers supplying Uganda were still stalled at the border," writes Odinga.

Suspicious Odinga

The more President Museveni became involved in trying to resolve the standoff, the more suspicious Odinga and his close officials became of the Ugandan leader.

When former UN secretary general Kofi Annan was appointed mediator, President Museveni advised the two Kenyan leaders to institute a judicial commission of inquiry instead, and sent a document to both parties on how this should be done.

He told Annan what he thought of President Museveni's role: "He is part of the problem and therefore cannot be part of the solution.
There are stories of Ugandan soldiers in the country, and the public perception is that he's leaning to the other side. He is the only one who has congratulated Kibaki. People would like us to ignore that suggestion."

Team Odinga consulted officials from the Electoral Commission of Kenya, who advised against a commission of inquiry, as much of the documentation and evidence from the electoral process were either missing or had been altered, they said.

Museveni travelled to Kenya and met both Kibaki and Odinga, but the book reveals that this was not enough to build confidence and repair the damage caused by the early congratulatory telephone call.

After meeting Museveni with his team, which included William Ruto, Najib Balala, Charity Ngilu, Joe Nyagah and Prof Anyang Nyong'o, Odinga briefed other officials the next morning.

"He [Museveni] had come on his own but we thought he was conspiring with Kibaki. He had called me prior to leaving Uganda and told me Kibaki had said he could come, asking me if I had any objection, to which I said no," he writes in the book. "But I thought his role was to scuttle the mediation process. He wanted instead a judicial commission of inquiry, with Commonwealth judges Kibaki would appoint and who would scrutinise the ballot papers."

Retallying exercise

He adds: "I told the team it was my view we should refuse any retallying exercise and also that Museveni could definitely not be part of the solution."

 

The impression that Museveni was not an impartial arbiter was also informed by actions on the part of Kibaki and the protocol team at State House Nairobi during the Ugandan leader's visit.

Museveni had been to see Kibaki at State House, Odinga writes, and although Kibaki had known that Kofi Annan was arriving to initiate the mediation process, in an embarrassing protocol lapse, Kibaki sent the mediator away from State House because he was too busy with Museveni.

President Museveni has previously denied taking sides in the dispute, noting that he was only helping resolve a crisis that was affecting the flow of trade in the region, and eventually led to an exodus of refugees from Kenya into Uganda.

No evidence

Although there were reports in western Kenya of "police combing the area in vehicles with Ugandan registration plates, raiding homes and shooting the occupants," there has been no evidence since of any official involvement of Ugandan armed forces in the violence or its control.

Odinga and Museveni earlier had a happier history, as the book reveals. The Ugandan president helped Odinga, then an opposition politician, to flee from the Daniel arap Moi regime into exile through Uganda in the early 1990s.

The book reveals the behind-the-scenes efforts by world and African leaders to resolve the Kenyan post-election violence in which about 1,300 people were killed and property was destroyed across the country.

Among the regional and world leaders who telephoned Odinga to try to resolve the problem were Muammar Gaddafi (Libya); Joseph Kabila (DR Congo); Meles Zenawi (Ethiopia); Omar Guelleh (Djibouti); Salva Kiir (South Sudan); and prime minister Gordon Brown of the United Kingdom.

Government of national unity

Odinga reveals that it was Brown who suggested the idea of a mediator — initially John Kufuor, a former president of Ghana. He writes that the United States government, on the other hand, was more interested in protecting its interests and suggested the formation of a government of national unity with Mr Odinga as vice-president.

President Kibaki initially refused to meet Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who also came on a mediation mission, until he received a telephone call from South Africa's president Thabo Mbeki, with Tanzanian officials doing quiet diplomacy in the background through former prime minister Justice Joseph Warioba.

After Kibaki refused to meet Kufuor, it was again left to Warioba to telephone US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who "forced" Kibaki to let the former Ghanaian leader fly to Kenya, according to the book.

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Ocen Nekyon