Uganda remains US pointman in EA

Even though he will be 70 in another three years, President Yoweri Museveni still projects himself as the region’s macho leader — one who goes where others dare not.  

Part of the reason is that President Museveni has unfinished business in the region to take care of — the troop-starved AU peacekeeping mission in Somali, the floundering political federation of the East African Community and his obsession with killing roving warlord Joseph Kony.  

In a daredevil act, for instance, Museveni flew into Al Shabaab territory at the end of last November, four months after the Islamist militant group planted twin bombs in Kampala killing 76, mostly Ugandans and some Americans.  

Especially when he is baited, Museveni does not duck a fight, even if it means foraging across the border, as he has done in Sudan, Rwanda and Congo.

And over the years, this has revealed the mindset of a man who has leveraged his military might all over the Great Lakes Region and now, the Horn of Africa.  

The radicals in Mogadishu argue that the 7/11 twin bombings were small beer compared with the daily bombardments of civilians by the UPDF in the Somali capital.

Somali nationalists hold Museveni’s army responsible for over 15,000 civilians who have died at the hands of the AU peacekeeping force.  

Without his troops in Mogadishu, innocent Somalis would not be “uprooted, massacred and shelled daily by the US backed Uganda-Burundi occupying forces with 40 tonnes of weapons shipped directly under the explicit orders of President Obama,” wrote Omar Hashi in the Ethiopian Review last August.  

And while his influence still hovers over the region, the Americans are happy to have him around.

This, in fact, scores a double shot for Museveni.

On the one hand, the Americans want him to tackle the Al Shabaab and Al Qaeda menace, while he too gets to stick around as the East African Federation takes shape.