{UAH} WHAT MUSEVENI IS NOT TELLING HIS BAZZUKULU ABOUT THE COLLAPSE OF EAC

WHAT MUSEVENI IS NOT TELLING HIS BAZZUKULU ABOUT THE COLLAPSE OF  EAC 

Note from the Editor: This article has minor errors which will be corrected after the lockdown.

CHANGE OF GUARDS - In an effort to vent out his frustration over some neighboring countries outright refusal to declare a total COVID-19 lockdown, in his national address on April 28 he said that if the East African Community political federation had been achieved, the response to COVID-19 pandemic would have been much easier.  He claimed to be pursuing the dream of former Tanzania's President, Mwalimu Nyerere on the regional political federation which eventually collapsed in 1977.  He went further to hint on the efforts by the Catholic Church to declare Mwalimu Nyerere as a Saint.

      "If the federation had been formed at the time, Iddi Amin would have never come to power.  East Africa would not have allowed it.  The 1972 massacres in Burundi,  the problem of Congo would not have gone the way it went.  The issue of South Sudan would have taken the time it took.  The Genocide of  Rwanda would never have happened.  Even today, as we are managing these crises - locusts, water, virus - it would be much  easier to take care of them in a much consolidated way. Thereforeampion of East African federation, I feel the need to remind the Bazzukulu (youth)."

To drive his point home, he displayed a 1964 copy of the Argus newspaper that had a front page photo of then President Nyerere of Tanzania, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya and Milton Obote of Uganda together with a Congolese rebel leader, Christopher Gibenye.


Here- below, we bring out what Museveni ought to have told his so-called Bazzukulu if they are to understand the idea behind the formation of the EAC in 1967, it's collapse in 1977 and why the current revived one is crawling instead of running.

Independence for most of the African states came at the time of the Cold War between the Eastern and the Western blocks - an ideological war between capitalism and communism respectively.  The two blocks competed for control and influence over African state entities.  In 1960 the West helped Joseph Kasavubu to oust Congo's first communist Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba and replaced him with Kasavubu and Mobutu.  In 1961 Lumumba was killed and a rebellion was declared by his supporters who established bases in the eastern part of the country.


The rebels managed to capture the city of Kisangani which they turned into the capital of their People's Republic.  With it's leaders like Christopher Gibenyi, Laurent Kabila, Gen. Victor Olenga, and others, the rebels allied with the Eastern Block from whom they sought assistance.  The Soviet Union implored the neighboring nationalistic governmens of Burundi, Tanzania Uganda and Sudan to aid the Congolese rebels.  Through these govenments, the Soviet Union was able to supplied the rebels with the much needed logistical, training and diplomatic support.  That is how the likes of the communist Che Guvarra and his Afro-Cuban mercenaries ended up in eastern Congo.  Not to mention the joint meeting of rebel leader, Christopher Gibenyi with the three leaders of the East African countries (photo displayed by Museveni).


Uganda provided training bases and a supply route for the rebels.  President Obote assigned the then Deputy Army Commander, Col.  Iddi Amin as the liaison between the rebels and his govenment.  Bob Astles who was at the time heading the civil aviation services, would personally fly Col. Amin to different parts of eastern Congo for the same task.  The rebels purchased some of their logistics from and through Uganda and it was Col. Amin to take charge of all such finances and procurements.  Col. Amin would keep all the rebels'  cash on his personal bank account. It is this fat account that gave rise to the infamous 1966 Gold Scandal Motion by Daudi Ocheng that accused President Obote, Iddi Amin, Felix Onama and Adoko Nekyon of looting gold, coffee and ivory from Congo.  In some instances the Uganda Army's 1st Battalion troops fought alongside the rebels along the border area in West Nile.  This is what sparked off the retaliatory aerial bombing of Two Ugandan villages in Paida and Goli by Congolese planes.


Burundi and Tanzania facilitated the continued supply of the Congolese rebels who were controlling congo's Lake Tanganyika region.  Sudan would receive plane loads of military equipments that would directly land at its southern Juba airport before being transported by road to the Congolese rebels.  The American CIA allied with Sudan's Anyanya rebels who would ambush and take away those weapons destined for the Congolese rebels.  The same Anyanya rebels would help to locate the Congolese rebel camps for ease of bombing by the Congolese Airforce in return for more weapon supply.  Consequently, the Congolese government expelled the Soviet Union's embassy in Kinshasa and the later responded with increased support to the rebels.  Kenya is said to have intercepted consignments of military equipments destined for the Congolese rebels.


The Congolese government counter-insurgency campaign enlisted mercenaries from France, South Africa, West Germany, UK, Ireland, Spain and Angola.  The American CIA provided technical expertise in intelligence and Special Operations.  The 1965 Aligerian coup and the Sino-Soviet split undermined support for socialist states most of which were .  The said split was based on doctrinal divergences arising from different interpretation of  practical application of Marxism - Communism.  China took a belligerent stand towards the West and the Soviet Union pursued a policy of peaceful coexistence between the Eastern Block and the Western Block.  The two now competed for leadership of world communism through respective support to vanguard political parties and other political entities in different parts of the world.


The rebels had taken control of the entire eastern Congo from the border with Sudan in the north, southwards through the Kivus to Lumumbashi at the border with Zambia.

Intensified military offensive on the border with Uganda and Uganda in the north-west and the Baraka and Fizi areas of South Kivu coupled by the unceremonious abandonment by the Cubans and Soviets and the atrocities by the rebels negative impacted the sustainability of the rebellion.  The Laurent Kabila led rebel faction in Kivu called itself "Thrue communists". By end of 1965 the rebellion had been defeated and the insurgents fled in disarray.  In South Kivu, the Kabila led rebel faction had been defeated with the help of the Banyamulenge.  Laurent Kabila fled to Tanzania where he lived till 1996 when he returned home as the figurehead leader of the rebellion that ousted Mobutu from power.  After being shot in the shoulder,  Cristopher Gibenyi lived in exile in Uganda.  The western capitalist block had defeated the eastern Communist/socialist block in the Congo.


In 1965 Nyerere made his first visit to China that lasted 8 days.  In 1967 he announced his country's pursuance of socialist ideals through the infamous Arusha Declaration.  During the same year Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania founded the East African Community (EAC).  In 1969 Uganda's President Obote announced pursuance of socialist ideals through the Common Man's Charter/Move to the West during the infamous Nakivubo Pronouncement.  Kenya outrightly rejected any socialist/communist ideals and remained pro-West.  In 1969, Israel sought the help of Uganda in passing on it's support for the Anyanya rebels in Sudan's southern region. By doing so, Israel intended to divert the attention of Arab forces from the Sinai Mountains.  President Obote outrightly rejected the request but his then Army Commander, Iddi Amin offered help to the Israelis.  President Obote was at the forefront supporting Liberation movements in Africa and opposition to the West's sale of arms to Apatheid South Africa.


Shortly after, in January 1971 Obote was overthrown by Iddi Amin in a military coup that is widely believed to have been orchestrated by the West and Israel in particular.  Among the 18 reasons that were given for the military takeover was that Obote was driving the country under the communist bandwagon.  Nyerere outrightly refused to recognise the military takeover in Uganda.  The ousted Obote, his top UPC henchmen, former army and intelligence officers (including Museveni) set up bases in Tanzania to fight against the new government in Uganda.  At the time, Tanzania was host to the OAU Liberation Committee and a number of independence nationalistic fighters from the southern Africa region.  Current Russian President, Putin stayed in Tanzania from 1973 1977 conducting training for these fighters around Bagamoyo (see his photo with Mozambique's Samora and Zimbabwe's Munangagwa taken during that time).  Around September 1972, these exiles travelling in a convoy of more than 60 trucks attacked Uganda from Tanzania.   The Uganda Army devasitatingly defeated the attackers by killing and capturing several of them before the survivors withdrew to Tanzania.  This development was a turning point in the Uganda -Tanzania relations.  The exiles did not stop at that but continued with hostile activities that further ruptured relations between the two countries.  It was not the EAC that mediated the diplomatic fallout but Somalia.


With Kenya pursuing capitalist economic policies and the Uganda-Tanzania relations raptured, the survival of the East African Community was no doubt bound to fail.  Indeed, in 1977 the EAC collapsed and each country went it's own way.  A year later, Tanzania and Uganda were at war that ended in the overthrow of Iddi Amin in April 1979.  Among the returning exiles was a little known Marxist, Yoweri Museveni who strategically positioned himself with the national security sector as Minister Of Defence and as they say, the rest is history.  The initial EAC lasted only ten year (1967 - 1977) but it made landmark developments that exist to date.  The current EAC is approaching one and a half decade old but by comparison, it has a long way to achieve what it's predecessor had achieved.  The reason is simply failure to genuinely address the causes of the collapse of the initial EAC in 1977.  It's for the same reason that the COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the EAC and sent it into disarray.  The early 1960s failed attempt to curve a communist state out Congo accounts for the current never ending civil war in eastern DRC.


Communism hates religion in general and Christianity in particular.  It assumes that religion would fade away in the bright light of scientific reason.  It is said that the Bolsheviks murdered thousands of Russian Orthodox Priests, Monks and Nuns during 1922 alone.  In Eastern Europe, persecution of Christians and the Church was the order of the day in Check, Bulgaria, Spain, Hungary, Albania, North Korea and China.  Before taking their lives, Communists would first take away their property.  It was in this regard that in the 1960s the Congolese Communist rebels in South Kivu took hostage Belgian and Italian Nuns in Uvira.  In 1922 Lenin wrote secretly that the Politburo must use the Bolshevik-inspired famine as cover to "confiscate all church property with all the ruthless energy we can still muster."

An orchestrated scheme from to subordinate the church to the state including separation of educational institutions from the church.

Stalin sent soldiers door to door to confiscate all food, utensils, pets before starving six million Ukrainian to death in Holodomovi.  Communism abolishes private property, business, capital goods.  It concentrates all wealth into the hands of it's state functionaries.  Marxism is intensely anti-Christian views, advocates oppression and economic decimation of it's citizens. The current COVID-19 pandemic has provided the Marxist Museveni an opportunity to economically decimate Ugandans through his politically motivated lockdown.


In 1949 the Catholic Church responded by coming up with a document called Decree Against Communism that was issued by the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holly Office with approval of Pope Pius XII.  The decree declared that Catholics who professed communist doctrine were to be excommunicated as apostates from  the church faith.  It was directed against all Roman Catholics Communists and communist supporters.  Interestingly, most Marxist leaders were former seminarians - Joseph Stalin (Orthodox seminarian), Khuruschev memorised virtually all the four gospels.  Since then the Catholic Church's unbroken teaching condemn all forms of Marxism and Communism.  Pope Pius II went ahead and wrote in Quadragesimo Ammo that "no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist."  He went further to argue that communism is intrisistically wrong and no one who would save Christian civilisation may collaborate with it in any undertaking whatsoever.


As earlier discussed, the so-called nationalistic struggles for independence by most African countries controlled and influenced by the Cold War global political order.  In Uganda, the so-called nationalistic independence struggle was not free from the Cold War influence.  The youth wings of Uganda's independence movements were communist militants.  One such UNC youth winger was John Kalekyezi (father of Museveni's  Gen. Kalekyezi).  While still a Veterinary student and Vice President of the Students Guild at Makerere University, he stole 30 rifles from Kisubi that he intended to use to block the visit by Queen Elizabeth for the opening of the Owen Falls Dam in 1954.  He was expelled from Makerere University and deported to his mother country, Rwanda-Urundi.  The Catholic Church declared him a Marxist and excommunicated him from the church.  From Rwanda, he sneaked to Congo where he attempted to link with the Patrice Lumumba but was imprisoned in Goma.

Somehow, he managed to sneak back into Uganda from where he travelled to Cairo via Sudan in 1957.

At the time Egypt under Abdel Nasser was the centre of the communist controlled anti-colonial efforts.  He established himself as the UNC Secretary for Foreign Affairs and he would use the Egyptian state radio to broadcast communist propaganda.  His militant nationalistic UNC office in Cairo acted as a link between the anti-imperialist (communist) world and the anti-colonial movements prompting the 1959 UNC split that saw the formation of UPC.  He died in a plane crash in Kiev in 1969 and since he had been excommunicated from the Catholic Church in Kisoro refused to conduct a funeral mass in his honor.


Even after independence, the Cold War split influenced the cohesion of the UPC.  During the 1964 UPC Delegates Conference, the capitalist Grace Ibingira defeated the communist John Kakonge.  This development was a precursor to the infamous 1966 Crisis that culminated into the what communism terms as liberation of people from feudalism - abolition of monarchs in Uganda in 1967.  A few years later, he declared the Move to the Left that open the country to the communist floodgates.  Don't be deceived, Museveni hates monarchs and prays for the day he will get a good excuse to abolished them.

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Rehema
Patriot in Kampala,East Africa:Assalamu Alaikum

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