The long march of Museveni, the war president

In plotting the twin bomb attacks that killed over 80 people in the Ugandan capital on the night of July 11, the Somali Al Shabaab terrorist group may have inadvertently handed President Yoweri Museveni an opportunity to indulge his taste for military solutions.  

War and conflict have defined the career of the Ugandan leader, which could even be said to mirror that of the legendary Shaka Zulu.  

As a newly installed king, Shaka told his confidant Ngomane that though his subjects were celebrating his crowning, they did not know what the real Shaka was all about.

“Shaka wants war. And even when there are no wars, I will create them,” he told the bemused Ngomane.  

War and conquest were indeed to become the hallmark of Shaka’s reign, but so too were they his downfall.  

If the mostly youthful al Shabaab militia did not get watch the 1986 Shaka Zulu TV series, they should have done a Google check on Museveni’s war profile, or at least read his university thesis in which he argues after Frantz Fanon that violence is a legitimate means to bring about a revolutionary change in politics.

Al Shabaab has thus baited a man existentially comfortable with the use of force.  

Perhaps what makes Museveni such a warlike president has something to do with the timing of his birth.

Born around 1944 when World War II was coming to an end, he was aptly named Museveni (loosely: He of the Sevens — the “Sevens” being veterans who had served in the Seventh Battalion of the King’s African Rifles, who at the time were just returning home).   

In his youth, Museveni would lead “revolutionary” groups at the University of Dar es Salaam and later formed Fronasa [Front for National Salvation], which fought alongside Frelimo for the independence of Mozambique.

From that time onwards, Museveni became a “freedom fighter” within his own country and around the Great Lakes Region. 

No Museveni speech is complete without his remarking, “I have been a freedom fighter for 45 years.”

It has been one of his favourite lines this year, at various international fora, especially where representatives from the West are in attendance.  

Former president Milton Obote on the other hand often labelled Museveni a “warmonger.”

Every time Museveni’s National Resistance Army scored a victory against Obote’s army during the famous 1981-86 Luwero Triangle war, Obote would take to national radio and unleash vitriol at these “bandits” and “warmongers.”