John Nagenda
2 November 2007
column
Kampala — As the Baganda say: "Kyewayagaliza embazzi, kibuyaga asudde!" ("What you wanted an axe for, the wind has toppled!" No saying was more accurately put than when you consider what is currently happening to the so-called Lord's Resistance Army. (Incidentally, and I have posed this question before, why does it resist its Lord?).
The interminable talks in Juba have had, as this column sees it, one fundamental result. It should now be clear to any neutral observer that the Uganda government is sincere in its wish to give peace a chance through these talks, hoping they might succeed. Its patience in the matter borders on Faith which many times surpasses all logical understanding!
The principal government negotiator, Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, was born for the job. To rustle him up is virtually unknown, although sometimes even he seems close to that edge. Nobel Peace prizes have been won for less; as in, say, the case of the white ex-South African president who shared it some years ago with the saintly Madiba Mandela. Rugunda's younger deputy, Oryem Okello, seems made from the same clay, and together they make a formidable pair, with the added advantage that Okello comes from Acholiland as does most of the renegade LRA. This is not a minor consideration, Okello versus Kony: the light and the darkness respectively.
What has thus happened is that the Government side, under the masterful baton of the President back in the capital, has waited out Kony and his terrorist gangs, which "turn and turn" in W. B. Yeats' "widening gyre". Their centre, not for the first but now hopefully the last time, "will not hold".
If that was an essential part of the plan it has worked. Like it or not (I like it very much) the LRA is fast unravelling. May the Lord be blest, not resisted. The signs are plain, and exhilarating. For some time now the dreadful duo at the head of LRA, Kony and Otti, have been reported to be at dagger drawn. Put them in the same sack, and, as the Baganda say, "osanga bwooya" "you find only feathers" the next morning! No less than the reputed third in the LRA hierarchy, Opio Makasi, has said that there is complete rupture between the two. That is why he legged it to the safety of MONUC, the UN presence in Congo, en route to the delighted and welcoming arms of Uganda.
A multitude more will follow. (As for the name Makasi, translated Scissors, can we trust that it has no sinister connotations, for example to removed ears and lips?) In any event it is ripe time for Congo and Uganda to start planning for a sanitary clean-up in Garamba National Park, where the unravelling LRA are now precariously holed up. We who hope and pray for peace in our region can surely be forgiven a chuckle or five!
The President was quoted on Thursday in big headlines as saying on his current US visit that he doesn't need US $5 million to quit his job. I should jolly well hope not! The very idea! That would be a poor thing for real presidents to base their decision to quit; there are so many better ones.
And I am supremely confident that, asked the same question for instance about his Presidential Brothers, Chissano and Mkapa, (for President Museveni was only giving an answer to a question regarding himself) he would say neither would they do so. Though I was not at the occasion in the US, I can imagine him, characteristic tongue in cheek, pronouncing on his worth! He would never, then or at any other time, impugn any base motivation on the Award in question, or necessarily those in the running for it.
Certainly to say that presidents Mkapa or Chissano had retired in order to win the new Mo Ibrahim award given to retired African Heads of State would be a foul insult indeed. That did not, alas, stop Uganda's acting presidential Press Secretary Tamale Mirundi coming close to it. He was reported to have said the award was ill motivated! Why should recognition of anybody, including Leaders, not be recognized and rewarded?
What right did this man have to imply that a world class leader like President Chissano had somehow failed by accepting the award, and the cash that went with it, " because I know President Museveni would never accept this money because the intention is bad and I don't think $5 million is a big deal."
Would $100 million make it better, according to Mirundi? Perhaps it was only syntax that undid him, but unfortunately not enough to make him bite (off) his tongue. A public apology would seem in order. For myself I think this new award has opened up new ground in the most wonderful manner, recognising meritorious African Leaders; period. The accompanying cash I don't find insulting, either in intention or size. How dearly I would have wanted my time-old friend Ben Mkapa to win it, but Chissano, rightly, was formidable. Pity they couldn't be co-winners in this opening year!
I had wanted to end with loud applause for the increasing confidence in many people, whether in Parliament, Caucus or Parliament, who have taken to asking serious questions which call for serious answers. Also for Museveni who heard them out. Particularly those to do with dud investors.
A list should be compiled of these; even more so of their introducers - the bane of Uganda. On this subject the column will return, you bet!
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