{UAH} UG POLICE RAID ON MIGINGO KINDERGARTEN

So the dispute about Migingo island is back in the news again in Kenya, but in Uganda this new incident is almost passing by unmentioned by the local press. Uganda Police reportedly launched a raid specifically to shut down the lone kindergarten on the disputed island. Surprisingly there has also not been a single public statement from the line Ministry involved in this bizarre development. I say bizarre because a border dispute resolution had been announced almost three years ago.

It's fair to say that the raid has left the few poor Kenyan toddlers on the island without a chance for a bright future as leaders of tomorrow! Just like Nairobi drunkards recently lost their one and only Simmers bar & restaurant in the city center.

What is disturbing is that the Ugandan political class, the national press, and broader Ugandan public opinion isn't paying adequate attention to the resolution of this unnecessarily prolonged conflict with our usually friendly Kenyan neighbours.

Is that healthy institutional governance? Oversight institutions are supposed to monitor issues, and report back to the people of Uganda. So where have the two countries reached in regards to a permanent resolution on the disputed island?

Surely Kenya's collective public opinion would like to hear that their patience and goodwill is being trampled on, and now their patriotic Kenyan leader has ordered a special operations counter offensive where the Kenyan military is sent in to liberate Migingo island as backup from their General Service Unit (GSU) arrives by speedboat. They would then restore the islands Kenyan administration, restore the education of their children, and permanently hoist there pride, the Kenyan national flag, on the disputed island.

A Ugandan raid on the island àt this point in the resolution of this mysterious crisis is surely inflammatory, right?

I also noticed that this news comes just after Uganda acquired and launched brand new marine attack military speedboats last week.

But where are all the loud Kenyans of the 1970's? The ones who used to declared "We are ready to die if Amin dares to take even just one square inch of Kenya"?

Never mind that the Ugandan president wasn't even planning to attack Kenya in the first place. The charismatic leader had just given a history lesson during a public function where he stated how colonial Uganda used to reach as far as Eldoret city in present day Kenya. However Kenyan politicians grabbed on this for their own ends and turned a factual speech on East African colonial history into a fiery diplomatic dispute between Uganda and Kenya. President Amin then had to go out of his way to reassure Kenyans that he recognized their current borders. But even that did not stop the Kenyan politics from blowing the matter completely out of proportion.

The false dispute actually continues to this day in certain Kenyan circles. But that's now part of the disoriented politics that is at the core of the broader 40 year anti-Amin smear campaign.

However today, after an entire decade of the Ugandan regime controlling the Kenyan island, the souls of the 1970's generation of Kenyans must be turning in their respective graves. And their living descendants must be enraged at their own similar impotence on today's Migingo island conendrum. However who can forget the day a possibly confused Yoweri Museveni immediately conceded blame when he was first caught red-handed on Migingo island, and he then hastily stated "The island is Kenyan but the waters around it belong to Uganda"? Lol.

Anyway the vigurous political screwing of Kenya continues with impunity. I have previously stated that this dispute goes completely against the current of East African political and economic integration. Meanwhile the Kenyan leader has been so good at maintaining a consistent smile towards Uganda, but it now feels as if the smile might be slightly turning into a cry at this moment.

#LandGrabbing

By Hussein Lumumba Amin

Thursday June 28th, 2018

Kampala, Uganda.

Link to news of the attack on Migingo island kindergarten by my fellow Ugandan compatriots: www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/ea/Kenya-school-on-Migingo-island-shut-by-Uganda-police/4552908-4632292-peufm4/index.html

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