{UAH} Why Museveni stays ahead of opposition

When the South Sudan crisis erupted last month, lawyer Patrick Muvunyi Tabaro posted on his Facebook page that he has known only two occasions when President Museveni has run away from a fight: in 1987 when then Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi amassed troops along the border and fired shots into Uganda at the Busia border town, and in 1999 in the aftermath of the Kisangani clashes between UPDF and RPF when Rwanda amassed troops in the Kagera region threatening to take on "big brother" Uganda.

Right or wrong, what Tabaro was predicting was that President Museveni would likely jump into the fight in South Sudan – on either side or right in the middle. Museveni did not disappoint. Days after the fighting broke out in Juba, he deployed a contingent to secure the airport and the corridor between the capital and Nimule at the border with Uganda.

Museveni was not just an intruder; he was invited by the fledgling President Salva Kiir government, and in all likelihood backed by the western powers and the UN that were wary of the situation getting out of hand. But beyond that, there were legitimate interests for Uganda and the wider region to rein in the situation as quickly as possible.

However the noise coming from inside Uganda, especially from the opposition, is that "war-monger" Museveni is at it again stoking the fires and getting our men and women to die in a war that has nothing to do with us. Nearly all opposition parties – FDC, UPC and DP – have issued statements condemning Uganda's intervention.

Indeed MPs Paul Mwiru and Hassan Kaps Fungaroo are collecting signatures to cause an emergency sitting of Parliament to discuss the deployment in which the members claimed at least 1,000 UPDF soldiers had been killed in South Sudan, a claim refuted by the army.

Without delving into the merits or demerits of deploying Ugandan troops in South Sudan, we need to give it to President Museveni that he is way ahead of his political opponents in terms of reading the situation (both internal and external) and acting accordingly. This has made him indispensable internationally and to a large extent internally.

A few examples will suffice. In 2008/9 when President Museveni decided to take on the task of stabilising Somalia under the auspices of the African Union, nearly all opposition politicians except UPC's Olara Otunnu condemned him, saying he had sent Ugandan children do die in a useless war that had no benefits for Uganda. But Museveni understood that with the menace of pirates operating off the coast of Somalia hindering world trade, the international community was desperate for a solution and were willing to foot the bill. He won in the end, bringing stability to Somalia which had been ungoverned for close to two decades.

But more importantly for him, he restored his position as a strategic and reliable partner for the West in the region, shaking off the pariah status he had acquired after his early 2000s Congo misadventure.

In return, he gave opportunity to his poorly paid soldiers to earn UN scale allowances so that for the first time, ordinary soldiers outside their thieving commanders could build decent iron-roofed houses in their villages. This ensured that no trouble would come to him from within the military. In addition, he bought the silence of the West as he went about beating the opposition and fiddling with the vote in the do-or-die 2011 general elections as the west did not trust that his opponents had a vision beyond their villages.

The other example was the Land Amendment Act (2010). In the wake of rampant evictions especially in Buganda by absentee landlords who simply sat in boardrooms and sold off square miles of inherited land legitimately occupied by bibanja holders (tenants) and their successors, Museveni decided to take the difficult position of siding with the poor majority against the moneyed class that was on an accumulation or consolidation drive. Nearly all opposition politicians and religious leaders went the opposite side. Museveni read the situation well and won, granting some form of land security to the peasants and thus winning their trust.

Now again he seemed to have beaten the opposition leaders to it on South Sudan where hundreds of thousands of Ugandans have invested in big and small business. His intervention has not only saved thousands of Ugandans who were trapped by the fighting (and they will remember this), it also secured Juba enough to have the west evacuate its citizens. The price and procedure, of course, is debatable , not the decision.

With the global powers having their eyes on the South Sudan oil and wary of the Islamic north Sudan, he will continue to be entertained by the West who will not mind what he does to the opposition at home.

cbichachi@ug.nationmedia.com

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