Ugandan President uses Somalia deployment as cover to distract attention from domestic repression: Lawmaker

By The Star Staff Writer

MOGADISHU – Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is using his country’s troops in Somalia under the African Union mission as a ploy to divert the world’s attention from the ongoing repression at home, said a popular Ugandan lawmaker.

In 2012, Uganda threatened to withdraw its troops from Somalia after a U.N. group of experts accused Kampala — along with Rwanda — of supporting the defunct Congolese rebel group M23, whose leader, Bosco Ntaganda, is now facing war crimes trial in The Hague.

“He has used our military’s involvement in regional peace missions to keep the eyes of the world away from the repression at home,” wrote Robert Kyagulanyi, popularly known as Bobi Wine, in an opinion piece for the Mail & Guardian newspaper in South Africa.

African countries, which have troops in Somalia, continue to reap hundreds of millions of dollars in compensations and leverage their presence in the war-scarred nation to squeeze what they want out of the international community.

Western countries, especially the US and the EU, have also used the criminal militant group of al Shabab as a convenient cop-out to interfere in the internal affairs of the nation, although many Somalis believe the group is being supported financially and militarily by foreign countries, whose aim is to prolong Somalia’s political and security problems.

Bobi Wine said the military aid Kampala receives from other countries had been used “to suppress” Ugandan citizens.

“Footage from the recent protests puts on stark display the nature of ammunition deployed on the streets of Kampala, as though it was a war zone in Mogadishu,” he said on Thursday. “The writing is on the wall. Uganda cannot export genuine peace to the region when it is not at peace with itself.”

The pop star opposition figure was arrested in August, held in military facilities and charged with treason and unlawful possession of firearms. He was also accused of inciting the public to stone a presidential convoy on Aug. 13.

Bobi Wine denies the allegations, saying the treason charge is usually leveled against “many people who have dared to stand up against President Museveni’s regime of national shame.”

“Those who dare oppose this government are finding themselves kidnapped and brutalized,” wrote the singer. “The streets resemble those of a police state, with military officers on alert to harass all those who raise their voice in the face of injustice.”

The rookie politician went to the United States last month to seek treatment for injuries he said were inflicted by Museveni’s security guard. The government denies the allegation.

He called on the international community “to solidly stand with the people of Uganda in their aspirations” of democracy, equality and social justice to get “a country,” he said, “that provides equal opportunities.”

The singer, who is popular among the youth who’re the majority in the country, said he had decided to be a voice for Ugandans who are “too often silenced” by Museveni’s regime that ruled the East Africa nation since 1986, when he overthrew his predecessor Idi Amin.

“When I was elected to Parliament just over a year ago, I decided to continue rallying the young people of Uganda to shun corruption, reject bad governance and believe in their capacity to shape their destiny,” he said.

He said the “autocratic Museveni made it impossible to remain apolitical.”

“I was disgusted that whenever young people chose to protest peacefully, some would end up dead, others injured and many incarcerated for long periods,” he wrote. “It is such injustices on me and on the people of Uganda that politicised me”

Ugandans are now “united in purpose” and are “snubbing the regime’s divide and rule strategy, which has worked to prop it up in the past,” he said.

“Regardless of their respective religions, tribes, regions, economic standing or political affiliation, young Ugandans are uniting in the quest for a better country,” he wrote.