In the wake of the Kampala bombings, I’ve been exchanging emails with my friend and colleague Allan Brian Ssenyonga. Allan is a Ugandan freelance journalist based in Kigali, and a guy whose insatiable desire to understand history, politics, culture and place has provided me with invaluable context in the Great Lakes over the years. In another life — a future life? He’s young yet — he’d be a brilliant professor. He’s always good company, so today’s your lucky day, blog readers…
I suggested to Allan that we had common ground in that we both could think about what it means when terrorism happens on your soil. Allan subtly nudged that wasn’t so: Innocent Ugandan civilians may have died, he said, but what’s happening in Somalia is not Uganda’s war.
Here’s Allan’s guest post:
Proverbially, this post would begin with talk of ‘dust settling’, but there was no dust at the Kyadondo Rugby Club, one of the sites of the two bombs blasts that ripped through a crowd of World Cup fans in Kampala in what is now known as “7/11.”
The Daily Monitor newspaper reported that the following day, Marabou stock birds descended on the turf and ate up all the pieces of human flesh that had littered the place. One security official pointed to the abandoned vehicles at the place as the only sign that death had occurred. Although the toll is officially at 76, some of the survivors claim more people died but their bodies were carried away by their surviving relatives before the police could show up.
It was tough hearing about the attacks, for which Somalia’s Al Shabaab (seemingly linked to Al Qaeda) has claimed responsibility. I have been working in Kigali, Rwanda since 2005, but my whole family and all of my old school friends are all in Uganda, most of them in Kampala.
Although no one from my family was affected, I know of a former classmate who died in the blasts and a journalist friend of mine lost his brother. Another close friend of mine survived the blasts but is still too traumatised to even watch the news where most media outlets carelessly show images of decimated bodies. She has since abandoned her rented apartment and returned to her parents’ and even made an appointment with a counsellor.
And for what?
I believe the war in Somalia is America’s war and the fact that Uganda and Burundi (which you’ll agree needs its troops more than Somalia) are there smells of military exploitation, where the bodies are still stacking up but are now soldiers of a different nationality than the ‘Black Hawk Down’ victims of 1993. The reluctance by other African nations to send troops to Somalia just shows the shallowness of the “Africans solving African problems” mantra.
Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni is as shrewd an African dictator as they come. He chose to offer troops as part of the AU mission to pacify Somali which was bequeathed a government ‘Made in Nairobi.’
The move helps to shield him from the democratic deficiencies as well as human rights abuses by the same people who are glad he is trying to keep radical Islam at bay in Mogadishu. This is why, when his main political challenger is beaten by security in front of cameras, he does not catch the eye of the West the way Morgan Tsvangirai of Zimbabwe would. Museveni has already used the terror attacks to push through a phone tapping bill that was opposed by most legislators before 7/11. And, of course, there’s an impending election next year…
What is sickening is that innocent Ugandans died (and will continue to) simply because their government (amid a lot of criticism) sent its troops to “keep peace” in Somalia. The reality, though, is that the AU mission only controls the airport and the presidential palace (10 percent of Mogadishu). And the attacks on Kampala came after the Ugandan troops fired rockets indiscriminately killing 30 Somali civilians in a market.
The attacks have already had an impact on the life of ordinary people in Kampala. The city has a reputation as East Africa’s party capital and the blasts have essentially altered its core identity. News reports that people are afraid of visiting popular nightspots tells a lot about how terrorism impacts. I know of many Ugandans, Kenyans and Rwandans in Kigali who after getting their pay checks will jump on a bus to Kampala just to party the weekend away. At least, they did.
The Al Shabaab militia have warned of future attacks in Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, which also has troops in Somalia. Some have argued that Nairobi will also be attacked but to me this holds no water. Somalia has a symbiotic relationship with Kenya. Somali militants have no problem with the Kenyan establishment. After all Kenya’s Eastleigh suburb is now considered to be Somalia’s central bank. And this central bank has lots of the pirate dollars invested in the country. According to Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper, Kenyans firms are reaping rich from the Somali piracy by acting as links for the ransom fees most of which are paid through Kenya. With close to $80 million destined to the pirates annually passing through Kenya, Kampala will see more attacks before Nairobi is considered.
All the terrorists want is for the foreign troops from Uganda to pullout, because they know no other country will send its own and this will give them a chance to get rid of the transitional government that is seen as illegitimate in the first place. And if Uganda is not ready to pull out, they would cherish an all out war with the Ugandans for they know like I do that they will win that one hands down. The Ugandans are not made for the flat street combat with an enemy who can easily camouflage into the population.
All said and done, Uganda is unlikely to pull out unless the leadership in Kampala changes. Right now the symbiosis between Kenya and Somalia mirrors the one between the Ugandan leader who has changed the constitution to rule for life and ordered his troops to fire at protesters with his cowboy American friends who need to fight a war they are not willing to die for.
Allan,
as i read this article i felt that you were putting yourself in trouble. in our country we are no longer allowed to say anything critical (however true). when found doing it, one is silenced, whatever form that may take.
as i read your article and i felt like i was listening to someone explaining to me the politics of my own country. that is how bad things can get. that a national cannot understand the issues of his own land, unless another explained them to him. it is like someone who has to be reminded of his own name. (whatever the circumstances, there is always a problem when that happens).
Allan, the only Ugandan politics i understand is what you explain to me. (that is quite absurd because i live in Uganda currently, and you don’t. )
anyway, what i hate is the manipulation of politics almost in everything.
wars are fought, and lost or won by politicians not soldiers.
Allan, as you are doing the talking, i will do the praying. perhaps someone somewhere will listen and respond to our concerns before we are all dead.