By Dr Peter Kopling
May 30, 2014 (SSNA) — By now, all objective observers agreed, Kiir Mayerdit pulled the trigger for the war consuming our country, what may eludes others is the fact that the fuel for the current conflict in south Sudan has its roots, deep, decades back and this fuel is Yoweri Museveni of Uganda. There is an occult reason why Museveni hurriedly deployed his army in South Sudan, faster than the news of the crisis could travel and why he has insistently defied the world government calls to withdraw his UPDF from South Sudan.
It very much has to do with Museveni’s another past moves against South Sudan, as well as his future as the eternal president of Uganda. The path to Museveni’s end may well be through South Sudan, the fall out of this conflict, to which he has no misgivings and understands well and the very reason, he Museveni will not let his last grip to life, South Sudan, slip from his hands. It has nothing to do with Ugandan national security but rather Museveni’s personal security, his survival as the Ugandan president and that of his family dynasty.
Mr. Museveni is preoccupied with the implications of any change of government in South Sudan that could mean the end to his three-decade rule over the Ugandan people. This, not just any government in South Sudan but one that will result into the presidency or executive cabinet post for madam Nyandeng the widow of late Dr John Garang, His sons, any prominent Sons of Bor or any of the political figures, the so called “Garang’s boys” like many patriots all over the country,who even today have not gotten satisfactory explanations from Uganda of the sudden death of; A husband, father, son and best of the land of Bor has produced, our national hero, Dr. John Garang.
Against all logics Museveni continue to plunge his country each day deeper into the South Sudanese internal war and some of his security analyst are urging full fledged national mobilizations and risks the lives of their people as well risks the collapse of the Uganda economy given the forbidding daily costs of keeping his army deployed in South Sudan. One only has to look at the very high unemployment rate in Uganda which shall only deepens as Uganda remains bogged down knee deep in South Sudan, with resultant crippling economic drains for the country but also more body bags returning daily to Ugandan villages, with no negative physical or financial impact on the Ugandan elites nor their families but the commons.
It must be clearly pointed out that the relationship between South Sudanese and the Ugandan People is historic and predated Museveni or Kiir. For decades the people of South Sudan have no quarrels with their southern neighbor given most of the tribes at either sides of South Sudan- Uganda border are the same people, brothers and sisters and have a shared heritage only artificially divided by lines drawn by the colonial and European powers around 1905.
Thus the relation between Ugandan and South Sudan is not political or can be shaken by politicians, it is a blood relations and it is families. Any dictator that emerges in either side of the borders cannot shake these blood relations between our two Sister nations. The Ugandan people’s security had never been in the past, not today nor in the future threatened by any despot leader who emerged in the old Sudan, or the now South Sudan and not now nor tomorrow. Any claim otherwise is Museveni and his crocks tricks to remain in power and waste the lives of Ugandan Soldiers and massacre the Nuer people in South Sudan thus participating in genocide. Museveni’s deployment in South Sudan has nothing to do with Ugandan security; it has all to do with his personal Security and that of his presidency. If Museveni loses the presidency or if Museveni’s Dynasty comes to an end, it is not Uganda that comes to an end, although Museveni believes Uganda started with him and will end if he is no more.
This, Museveni’s, obsession with South Sudan dated back to the Sudden death of our national hero, Dr. John Garang. It is reported that as a trusted friend of Dr Garang, he left a huge wealth deposited in Ugandan bank under the custody of President Museveni; this is the money for the war of liberation in South Sudan. It was this money and Museveni’s abhorrence to neighboring leaders who are more intelligent and ambitious than him, for Museveni dreams not only to rule his country eternally but also the region.
Museveni wishes to be the only bull in the region, resulting into him and opponents of Garang in the SPLM, to include Kiir and those now close to him to assassinate Dr. John Garang de Mabior, in the very convenient, so called helicopter crush. This explains Museveni fear of the sons and daughters of Bor and Kiir sidelining and rendering them voiceless and irrelevant in his government the so called “Garang’s boys” and his attempt to eliminate them through the accusations of the invented coup and humiliating the surviving widow of the founding father of the nation.
The only person with greater knowledge of this deposit is none other than the widow of the Late Garang and the only people who have not closed the chapter on the purported helicopter crash are, his family and the so called Garang’s boys thus Museveni would do all in his power to prevent, Madam Nyandeng, her sons or any of the “Garang’s boys” from ascending to power in South Sudan, fearing old wounds shall be opened and shall mean the end of his dynasty.
Museveni by now should have realized the war in South Sudan is nothing like any of the wars he has fought neither in Uganda nor in other neighboring regions and he must take notes that he is so far facing the fury of only one ethnic group of the 64.
It is an open secret that Museveni sees the widow of the late Garang as a greater threat than Dr Riek Machar,despite of the public postures towards the Madam, after all Riek has not posed any threat to Museveni until the day Museveni declared open war against him. Was it not he/Riek Machar the very man who made several attempts in the past, in his capacity as the vice president of South Sudan, to reconcile Museveni with his archenemy Joseph Kony the leader of lord Resistant Army/LRA?
If the current government in South Sudan failed to forcefully retain power, Museveni fears Kiir will be replace by Riek Machar and this send yet another unwanted message to Museveni since Riek is supported by the “Garang’s boys” and the madam Garang herself. He fears if Kiir is forced out of the office this will place the face of Garang’s family and “Garang’s boys” again in the politics of south Sudan. This new group will mean derailing the status quo and reopening of fresh investigation into the death of our national hero, in the hands of Museveni and his accomplices in the current government of South Sudan, ultimately people he had trusted and called comrades and friends.
As we now know, there was a deceptive and mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of Dr. John Garang, first the Uganda government announced that our hero died in Museveni’s own private presidential helicopter but the preliminary investigation revealed that the helicopter in which Garang met his untimely death was not Museveni’s presidential helicopter but it was with different registration and serial number.
Thirdly, Museveni holds plentiful material assets of south Sudan during the war of liberation, as Uganda was the only gateway to the by then, the New Sudan/liberated areas, most of the SPLA armors enters through Uganda, and evidence shows Museveni sat on most of the latest weaponries for the purpose of using them to fight his wars of dominance in the region but specifically robbing the Congolese gold in Eastern part of DRC.
One of the assets of SPLA Museveni refused to handover is the yellow ferry used at Laropi ferry crossing between Adjumani and Moyo districts. The ferry was brought there by the SPLA to take their armors to Kajo-keji in 1994 when SPLA launched its aggressive offensive to deliver a decisive blow to the Khartoum government in kajo-Kaji. Without this ferry, the people of Adjumani and Moyo would have survived with great difficulties, the last two decade. Museveni, therefor, is fighting a war of personal interest to keep some of these documented materials and other financial assets of South Sudan, but more so he is fighting in South Sudan for the very survival of his presidency not that of the Ugandan people.
We should not be misled by Museveni’s unfounded claim that UPDF is in South Sudan to protect the government of south Sudan or its installations. As we can all recall, Museveni first denied the presence of UPDF in south Sudan, however later he admitted UPDF is in South Sudan to evacuate Ugandan citizens trapped in South Sudan, subsequently he flopped yet again, it was to prevent genocide while his UPDF participated and is still actively committing genocide of a single tribe, the Nuer, in South Sudan and he went as far as using the internationally banned cluster bomb in attempt to help Kiir in his quest of ethnic cleansing against the Nuer ethnic group in South Sudan rather than remaining Neutral and mediating cessation of fire and preventing loss of lives but instead he ended up exacerbating and pouring more fuel to it, the flame burns bigger and hotter because of him, more massacre have been committed against the Nuer by Kiir’s forces with Uganda’s help, so what genocide has he prevented?
His security advisers believe negotiations and peace talks are a waste of time, Decisive solutions are only at the front line. Thus guns and guns alone are Museveni’s offers for South Sudan and will not advise Kiir otherwise, is it then any surprise that Kiir behaves like his master and peace has no chance as long as Museveni has his ways?
Museveni should have realized, these same people of South Sudan fought the Sudan for five decade without warplanes while Sudan with the help of the Arab world never prevailed against the South Sudanese, What made him think he could achieve what the Arabs have failed to achieve? He must know or at least by now realized he has dragged his people, the Ugandan people, into a bottomless grave.
The fourth reason is the man has created for himself many enemies among his countrymen, more specifically in northern Uganda, in the name of fighting the rebellion of the LRA of Kony . Museveni has tortured and killed more Ugandans from all parts of Uganda, works of life and has committed crime against humanity equal to or worse than Kony in Uganda at large.
The crimes against humanity committed by his biological relatives Gen. Salim Salah and Maj. Gen James Kazini, in their attempt to bring LRA to their knees, fell short in comparison to that of LRA. The two high ranking officers who were close allies to Museveni at the time were assigned to execute Museveni’s plan to crash and eliminate Joseph Kony’s rebellions.As the capture of Joseph Kony and his predecessor Alice Lakweno proved elusive, Museveni ordered his young brother Salim Salah though integral part and under the flag of UPDF, both took paid project, to fight LRA while using the northerners to die in their ventures as is now in South Sudan.
When ending of LRA did not come by easy, both Salim Salah and James Kazzini had resorted to using the banned cluster bombs like what his chief of staff Gen. Edward Wambala Katumba has done in south Sudan along Juba-Bor road in February 2014.After he failed to crash Joseph Kony, General Salim Saleh, became an adviser to the President (his own brother) of Uganda in military matters.
Unfortunately for Gen James Kazini after falling out with Museveni , he Museveni revealed that Gen Kazini had send money to elements of the SPLA, Museveni “ordered his execution, he Museveni later used the bank account of his close relative to pass the money for the payment of the executioners of Kazini, to the accounts of the assassins.
This and many others political assassinations have left Museveni with no safe haven and paranoia of his countrymen. For whoever lives by the sword shall die by the swords and he is obsessed that those swords shall come in the way of south Sudan should the government of Kiir fall today. As we recall, last year in 2013, five major generals who served under Museveni after falling out with him, like late James Kazini had to flee the country for their very lives.
This is how Museveni has positioned his Kaguta’s family to oppress the 36million Ugandan. Museveni has trained Kiir to employ the same style he has successfully used in Uganda by sending his Ankole brothers and sisters to represent him in foreign countries as diplomats, all critical security and army positions given to Ankoles, including ministerial posts. While the commoners in the North, takes the brunt of foot soldiers, dying day in day out in all of Museveni’s fatal ventures into the neighboring regions, South Sudan inclusive.
Even the Buganda Kingdom has not been spared in this hostilities, the man, like Kiir has robbed millions of the coward Mugandas from their lands, one of the sold out places is the garden city, which is turned into shopping complex today in Kampala, and the owners were not compensated. Most of the so called green land designated swampy land are not suitable for human habitat but Museveni sold them to Indian investors and the money from the sold land has gone into his private bank account.
Many poor Mugandas, in Kampala, as I write are left with no better prospect to better survive in their own ancestral lands. As I was on a business trip from Entebbe to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, France, I met a Ugandan businessman who told me his ordeal when he sued the Ugandan government because of his land. And he also told me shocking stories about how Museveni is humiliating his opponent all over the country, and he said Ugandan are fed up and are waiting for yet another savior to come to save them from the hand of a type of government Museveni himself used to referred to as “a murderous government”, which ironically, his government has become one, so it is clear Museveni knows a change of leadership in south Sudan will force him out of presidency, Since many Ugandan, specially the northerners are frustrated of how Museveni run his one man’s show to bully the 36million Ugandan for the benefit of him and his family.
All the above, making Museveni, the worse President Uganda has ever known, he is worse than late Idi Amin, who killed people in the open but Museveni killed in hiding and at the pitch of the night as such, the number of disappearance under Museveni’s iron and bloody fist is far greater than that of Idi Amin. Under Amin Ugandans were all equally except those who wanted to ascend to power.
In conclusion, Museveni’s self interests, not that of the Ugandan people, whom he has oppressed for the last 30 years, his obsessive need to survive at the expenses of others and to pass his dynasty to his offspring, mirroring North Korea, is what is at risk and at play in the frontlines in the towns and bushes of South Sudan, at the expenses of the blood of Ugandan poor turned Museveni’s Soldiers, this eclipses Kiir and indeed he cares less for Kiir, as brought to light by his following undiplomatic but true comments.
“I (President Yoweri Museveni) have never called the United Nations to guard your (Uganda) security. Me, Yoweri Museveni, to say that I have failed to protect my people and I call in the UN. I would rather hang myself. We prioritized national security by developing a strong army otherwise our Uganda would be like DRC, South Sudan, Somalia or Nigeria where militias have disappeared with school children. It would be a vote of no confidence to our country (Uganda) and citizens if we can’t guarantee our security. What kind of persons would we be?”
If being like Kiir, relying on the UN and foreign mercenaries means Museveni would hang himself, why does he want to force Kiir alive on us? He Museveni fights in South Sudan not because he believes Kiir is the best leader for South Sudan, judging by his statement above, He fights rather to prevent the best leader for South Sudan from emerging, the very same reason he took down one of the very best our land has ever produced, Dr John Garang and now preventing his followers, the “Garang’s boys” from ascending to the throne that was rightly so of Dr. John Garang de Mabior which Kiir now has defiled by the blood of his fellow countrymen.
He, Museveni, fights for the survival of his family’s dynasty not that of the Ugandan people whose children are dying daily in South Sudan.
Museveni would rather risk more young Ugandan soldiers, bogged down and killed in the bushes of South Sudan to keep him in power, thus as long as this young lives are being extinguished day in and day out in foreign lands, it robs Uganda of forces that will pose threat to him in the home front, thus Museveni is in no hurry pulling them out of harms way at least not alive.
Under the very watch of Museveni his own Munyankole have lost great deal of land to Museveni’s family, in Mabarara and Masaka his only sister who never stops to consult the dark forces under waters of the Nile and lake Victoria, shows,in addition this is a family of witchcrafts, griped by the dark underworld spirits, thus life is cheep to them except their own. Even his aging mother lives on grabbed land of the poor Mugandas , revealing Museveni is preoccupied with his own survival and that of his family at the expenses of any and all others, domestic or regional.
It therefor must be reiterated; Uganda’s sisterly relation with South Sudan is built not on Museveni’s erratic self-interest and his internationally murderous regime but rather on a historic, solid rock, which must not be confused with Museveni’s sinking dynasty. This relation shall outlive Museveni’s family house build in blood of Ugandans and now South Sudanese,whose foundation is laid on sand now fast sinking with no type of propaganda or deceptions or blood letting Shall save it.
“He who maintain silence in the face of massacre is a murderer himself”
Dr Peter Kopling Josep, MD, lives in the Republic of South Sudan. He can be reached at [email protected].