Uganda’s president Yoweri Museveni’s letter of March 10 to his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame has become famous in this region, measured by the amount of analysis and commentary. It has been scanned for meaning, what it says and more importantly what it doesn’t, what it reveals about Rwanda-Uganda relations, and Museveni’s attitude to Rwanda. As is evident, its fame does not derive from it being a memorable specimen of diplomatic communication or how to conduct inter-state relations (actually the opposite) or indeed from its content. Nor is it unique. President Museveni loves writing them (he calls them missives), usually on internal Ugandan matters. They are often arguments putting across a case for a certain position or countering one that he disagrees with. But the March 10 letter is different. First, it is to a head of state, yet it appeared in the media before it got to the person it was addressed to. Second, it is not an argument, explanation or response to matters that had been raised with him. Third, it lacks any diplomatic or even neighbourly sensitivity. Nevertheless (a Museveni favourite word) the letter reveals a lot about him, more than he probably intended. It is actually vintage Museveni – disdainful and dismissive, evasive and devious, and deft at deflecting responsibility. Today, however, we are not interested in the much talked about letter, but rather the situation in Uganda that may explain it. In January 1986, a younger Museveni stood on the steps of parliament shortly after taking oath as president and told Ugandans that what they were witnessing was not a mere change of guard but a fundamental change. Those were reassuring words to a country weary of war and other forms of brutality at the hands of their governments, and yearning for peace and normalcy. Since then, Ugandans have debated those words. A growing number now think that there has been no such fundamental change. . Events in Uganda in the last several years, which have a chilling resemblance to the 1970s and 80s, seem to support this view. Is it a case of history repeating itself or a relapse to past practices, or a revelation of another side of Museveni? Take the arrest, torture and detention of Rwandans, and even some Ugandans, accused of spying. These acts have echoes of the years when Idi Amin ruled Uganda and routinely detained or killed people, allegedly for spying. Many of those arrests were made in broad daylight in public places by state security agents, the victims bundled into cars and driven to unknown places, many of them never to be seen again. Those who lived in Uganda in the 1970s will remember the dreaded State Research Bureau (SRB) operatives and the detention and torture chambers in Makindye, Nakasero and Naguru. During the second Obote government in the 1980s the Nile Mansions (today, Serena Hotel) was the torture centre of those arrested by the National Security Service (NSS) agents. In an eerie reminder of that earlier period, the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) and the Internal Security Organisation (ISO) today appear to be re-incarnations of the SRB and NSS. Even the detention and torture centres are the same, with others like Kireka and unknown “safe houses” added to the list. The number of unsolved murders of prominent people, ordinary citizens, and even foreigners in the last few years also has similar echoes of the past. The general view is that these are not the work of ordinary criminals, but more sophisticated or protected people and so fingers have been pointed at the state. Then there have been cases of armed robbery, with guns and iron bars, reminiscent of the last days of the first Obote government when Kondo (armed robbers) ruled the streets and struck fear in the hearts of ordinary Ugandans. What we have described was a reflection of weaknesses in governance and also a response to internal challenges at the time. What is it like today? President Museveni has always lectured Africans for letting themselves be colonised. He has accused leaders of the time of weaknesses due to disunity, divisions and unprincipled competition, technological inferiority and greed. His prescription against this ever happening again is: unity, economic and political integration and investment in science and technology. There is no reason to doubt his ideological conviction about integration. However, the situation in the East African Community today seems to suggest this conviction is strong at the rhetorical level but rather wanting in practice. Or that practice can be strong only when he is at the head of it. And so if there is any real or perceived challenge to this ever happening he will not hesitate to go back on his convictions. That is what the current state of relations between Uganda and Rwanda and the situation in East Africa in general in the past few years seems to indicate. Sadly, this obsession with being the sole man and a return to the past is becoming increasingly apparent. One only has to see how he is basking in the adulation of his NRM supporters, whose parliamentary caucus recently passed a resolution to have him as the party’s sole candidate in the presidential election in 2021. They addressed him as “dear leader”, “unifier”. Soon he might be “supreme leader” or “eternal guide” like Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi. Those who knew the Museveni of thirty years ago will remember how he was contemptuous of leaders who allowed to be showered with praise. His supporters are leading him down a slippery road to deification. It’s an illusion, of course, but still, all might do well to remember that the real gods do not like pretenders to their divinity and have a particular way of showing their displeasure. So who is the real Museveni – the one who talks about grand ideas of the unity and transformation of Africa, or the one whose ambition is so great that he will betray this vision unless he is driving it? Is he in the end different from his predecessors? The views expressed in this article are of the author.
