Tag Archives: Yoweri Museveni

the lra menace

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That Joseph Kony and his top lieutenants are still alive and well is testament to the ineptitude of the Ugandan and Congolese armies. The Ugandan rebel leader continues to roam the forests in the border regions of Chad, the DRC, Uganda and Southern Sudan, killing villagers with abandon. The BBC reports that late last year the Lord’s Resistance Army massacred more than 300 people.

The LRA has morphed into a thuggish movement with loads of ideological deficit. They stand no chance of reaching Kampala and so roam in the forests of the great lakes region killing villagers and abducting children. This is yet another textbook case on the Continent of a rebellion that festers on for no other reason than because of state incapacity.

the south africans cometh

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They are all over Tanzania. Kenya’s southern neighbor is even a member of the SADC and currently suffers a huge trade deficit with South Africa. Now the sons and daughters of the Continent from south of the Limpopo are eying even greater penetration into the EAC via Uganda. President Zuma just visited Uganda with a delegation of businesspeople. Uganda’s oil sector was on top of the agenda.

I hope Kenyan businesspeople, and the political class, are watching. Competition from the South Africans is, of course, most welcome – companies like the East African Breweries certainly benefited from South African competition. That said, Kenya should not give up its role as the economic locomotive of East Africa. In particular, the government should ensure that Kenyan companies in the light manufacturing, retail and banking sectors remain competitive in the region. Investment in infrastructure – roads, the ports in Lamu and Mombasa, pipelines, power generation – should be prioritized. Nairobi must ensure that the Ugandans, Rwandans, Burundians and Southern Sudanese find it cheapest to export and import through Kenyan ports.

on american involvement in Kenya

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Macharia Gaitho, one of my favorite columnists at The Daily Nation captured my exact sentiments in his column today. I hope the American ambassador in Nairobi, and whoever it is that briefs Washington on matters Kenyan took note of this piece.

And in other news, Guinea has serious problems. The junior army officer who took over  in a coup last year to “establish peace and democracy” has decided that he wants to hang on to power, inviting protests from Guineans not into such ideas. We’ve heard this story before, and we know how it ends.The Guineans should start reading on Samuel Doe, Jerry Rawlings, Idris Deby, Obiang, Museveni, Yahya Jammeh and the many others. Coups are the strongest predictor of future coups. A history of civil violence is also a strong predictor of future violence. Endemic poverty, an economy’s reliance on the export of commodities and weak to poor trade ties with the international community compound matters even more. The odds are stacked against the poor Guineans. They are in this for the long haul. And it sucks that the international community (including Sarkozy’s France) does not care about Guinea, as long as the generals keep exporting Bauxite.

Fun fact about Guinea: Guinea is a leading bauxite exporter, but most of its people live on less than $1 a day (courtesy of the BBC).

how hard can it be?

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The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) continues to run amok in the great lakes region, killing, maiming and abducting civilians at will. The governments of Uganda, The DRC, Central African Republic and Southern Sudan have proven unable to provide a solution to the LRA problem once and for all. A joint military operation by the governments of Uganda and the DRC early this year only served to fuel further attacks from the rebel movement – leading to 500 deaths, according to a UN report.

All this makes one wonder: How hard can it be to conclusively deal with the LRA? They need not be completely routed. The huge UN peacekeeping force in the DRC and the very active Ugandan military must be capable of reducing the human toll from the operations of LRA. And more importantly, isn’t it time that Uganda made up its mind on whether it wants to negotiate or pursue a military solution to the conflict with Kony and his murderous gang? Kampala’s indecision continues to cause hundreds of deaths in the wider great lakes region. Museveni should either agree to talk with Kony or take the fight to him (conclusively – and this can be done, with proper planning and commitment. The LRA is not al-Qaeda or al-Shabab). Fighting a war of attrition with a rebel movement whose MO is to maim and abduct young children is simply not an option.

bullying kenya, Southern Sudan in the mix

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A few months ago it was Uganda. Kenya’s western neighbor sent troops and hoisted their flag on a Kenyan island on lake Victoria. The Kenyan government at first wavered, unable to provide a coherent response before it formed a joint task force with the invading Ugandans to determine the ownership of the island. It turned out the island is indeed Kenyan, only for the Ugandan president to claim that even if the island is Kenyan the waters and fish around it are Ugandan.

Now Southern Sudan is also in the mix. The Kenyan immigration minister, the man charged with the running of Kenya’s border posts was stopped from accessing one such post by Southern Sudanese security people – on Kenyan soil!! How ridiculous.

This insouciant approach to territorial matters is evident of the lack of a sense of nationhood in most African countries. These states only meaningfully exist withing a few hundred kilometres radii of the capitals. Since no one had to fight for the borders, no one really cares. But Kenya’s case is even more absurd. This is not Somalia or the Gambia. We should have better control of our people and our borders.