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Museveni’s crackdown on Besigye brings tough integration issues into the open

Sunday May 15 2011
riot

Opposition leaders and members of the public were sprayed with a coloured liquid in Kampala in a bid to chase them off the streets. Others were violently dispersed by the police and the army. Photo/MORGAN MBABAZI

The violent clashes between Ugandan security and Walk to Work protestors demonstrating against the high cost of living, have shocked the world — but done a lot of good for East African integration.

Just over two weeks ago, the protests reached a turning point when the prominent opposition leader Dr Kizza Besigye had his car attacked with hammers and batons, and was then roughed up and pepper-sprayed into semi-consciousness.

The videos of the attack went viral, and the story was carried with the title “Barbaric” on TVs.

Besigye was eventually flown to Nairobi for urgent medical treatment. In the first week of his arrival in Nairobi, nearly 75 per cent of columnists in the Kenyan weekend papers wrote opinions condemning the actions of the Kampala government.

However, the incident helped focus attention on the future of the East African Community like none other event had since the post-election violence in Kenya in January and February 2008.

At that time, other East African commentators and bloggers wondered whether it was possible to be in the same Community with a Kenya that was so consumed with murderous ethnic animosity.

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In Tanzania, in particular, sceptics of the regional integration project seized on the violence and nearly beat the EAC to death with it.

However, in 2008, the social network sites Twitter and Facebook, and the popularity of the video channel YouTube, were nowhere near the high levels they are today.

In Kenya, the attack on Besigye was the most tweeted subject for days.

And in Uganda, it went through the roof. Amid the agitated tweeters, there were a large number arguing that Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, who has been the leading champion of East African Political Federation, was dangerous and should never be allowed to be the federation’s president if it came about in the next few years.

However, unlike Kenya’s case in 2008, many newspaper commentators and bloggers this time have called for the “EAC to intervene in the Uganda case.”

Being the cosy old boys club it is, the EAC did not speak on Uganda. But the fact that there were quite a few people who think about the region who saw a role for it, was a boost for the Community.

Discussions also focused on how to control the excesses of leaders if an East African federation were ever formed.

Perhaps at no time have the structure and democratic controls of a future united East Africa been discussed as in the past few days.

Because of the shocking way the Museveni government beat down Besigye and other protests, a lot of things have changed.

It is almost certain that, unless the federation is postponed, over the next five to 10 years, it will be difficult for nearly all the East African governments to effect it without a referendum at home.

Also, unless Uganda restores term limits, perhaps a Yes vote will not be carried.

In the end, Museveni has helped focus and bring clarity to what needs to be done with an East African federation without intending to do so.

The Besigye affair, though, was a gift that never stops giving. On attempting to return to Uganda on Wednesday on a Kenya Airways flight, he was told he couldn’t fly.

Besigye’s account to the media was that KQ had told him that Ugandan authorities in Entebbe wouldn’t let the plane land if he were on board.

Later, KQ CEO Titus Naikuni issued an official statement, saying KQ had taken the decision not to fly Besigye on its own, following “internal intelligence” that had informed Nairobi that the plane wouldn’t be allowed to land with the opposition leader, who had been in Nairobi for two weeks recovering from his injuries, on board.

Naikuni apologised to Besigye and his wife Winnie Byanyima.

In the event, Besigye left the following day on KQ, on the day President Museveni was being sworn in, resulting in a political fiasco.

However, KQ’s seeming dilemma highlighted a growing problem in the EAC — the problems East African companies have operating in a Community that is not governed by the same business or even property laws.

The problem has been plaguing media companies quietly, as they face an East Africa where there are varying attitudes towards media freedom, licensing, regulation, censorship, and protection of journalists.

With talk of East African Monetary Union possibly as early as 2012, the KQ vs Besigye case was a reminder the sharp edge of the issues that will make or break the Community, and if any good has come of this, it is that they will probably receive more attention going forward, than they have so far.

But as KQ apologised for not allowing Besigye to fly home, and in Kampala the government denied that it had been in any kind of plot to prevent him from returning, the Kenya government moved to ensure that it did not collect any mud from the issue.

Its choice of words, though, was significant. In a statement, the Kenya government said Besigye “was free to leave or come to Kenya.”

Clearly, Nairobi was keen to protect its image as the country (together with Rwanda) with the most activist approach to freedom of movement.

Kenya and Rwanda are the only two EAC countries that have removed work permit requirement for all citizens of EAC countries.

But it is also possible that because President Mwai Kibaki was travelling to Kampala for Museveni’s swearing in, Kenya didn’t want the awkwardness of his leaving Besigye holed up in Nairobi, as half-hostage-half-prisoner.

Kenya’s role

In the end, on Thursday, after Besigye’s convoy had taken an agonising 11 hours to snake its way through the throngs of supporters, and disruptions by police and the army as they fought running battles with the crowds to open the way for the presidents who had come for the inauguration, he thanked Kenya for taking care of him at a time when Uganda ignored him.

The government information office, the Media Centre, said in Kampala that the convoys of some of the presidents, especially Nigeria’s Goodluck Jonathan, had been pelted with stones by riotous opposition supporters.

The one president who probably had the least worry about hostile crowds on that day was Kibaki.

But in affirming that Besigye was free to leave or come to Kenya as he wished, the Kenya government made an important statement about the much-talked about freedom of movement in the region.

That a higher standard of freedom and human rights would have to be accepted by the EAC on the matter, or else there will always be disputes when a citizen from another partner state, who has had political disagreements with the government back home, comes to another partner state where he is not a state enemy, or where his “crimes” at home are not considered an offence.

In just one week, all the sticky issues and tough issues about East African regional project that had remained unsaid, were propelled to the top of the charts with the Besigye affair.

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