By Wisdom Mumera.
Harare, Zimbabwe. (News Of The South) – This week saw the swearing in of another guerrilla, President Yoweri Museveni, 30 years after his first entrance as president, at an event graced by several heads of states including Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and SA’s Jacob Zuma.
(State publications must have ‘forgot’ to mention that several notable dignitaries from the US and other European nations walked out in protest midway through the ceremony when Museveni embarked on a hare-brained tirade against the ICC and the West.)
Yoweri Museveni came to power in 1986 and many fondly remember him for his role as guerrilla fighting Idi Amin. He came to power leading a multitude of grateful Ugandans thankful for the ousting of a dictator.
The lingering effects of that are still apparent today with the 71 year old drawing most of his support from the rural areas where many still have the image of a revolutionary guerrilla in their minds.
Today however Uganda is the continent’s biggest importer of tear gas. It’s a statistic that makes for comic relief in an otherwise tragic turn of events for the East African country.
The tear gas is for political opponents and other elements seeking to foment political change that leaves Museveni out.
Museveni, sworn in after winning the recent elections by 61%, should have gotten out of power back in 2005 but engineered a constitutional twerking that removed presidential limits allowing him to contest again in the 2006 elections.
In 2015 Rwanda and Congo Republic also changed constitutions to allow their leaders to contest for third terms.
Burundi’s Nkurunziza has also overstayed the constitutional two term limit leading the country into a whole crisis.
Museveni retired from the military in 2004 to contest elections but still remained as the army commander-in-chief.
In 2005 he had his chief opponent Dr Kizza Besegye of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) arrested and charged with treason and terrorism. Besegye has since been arrested many times including being placed under house arrest.
Currently there is genuine fear that even after his latest term runs out in 2012 Museveni won’t go and if he does may install his son Brig.
Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba. The fundament in all these actions is that the former hero simply
wants to die in control. The corroding effect of power has eaten away all similitude’s of heroism and selfishness upon which he rode to power in the first place.
In their place has remained a vacuum of gaseous vanity, silliness and bristling pride at own works which leads one into believing besides him no one else can do the job.
Museveni has become a power hungry granny twisting and wringing around every available opening so that power remains within his reach.
His actions echo those of Robert Mugabe who at 92 still doesn’t believe anyone else has the capacity to rule Zimbabwe and has allowed fictitious battles over succession to rampage on to the detriment of the whole country whilst he professes an oath to follow people’s wishes that he remain in power.
In the while the economy is calling for a different personnel.
Unlike Mugabe who is at loggerheads with America and Europe Museveni has generally been a friend of the West and has only recently started off on a different trajectory of leaning towards the ‘blind’ Russians and Chinese.
It’s the Chinese selling him the teargas and together with Russia, they care little if a leader develops an iron arm to wring into line those below. After all, existing in both Russia and China are face
powdered versions of dictatorship.
Just that with white people dictatorships may sound and appear as something else.
Thus Museveni has been an ally of the West grateful for his efforts fighting terrorists and brokering peace as mediator across the Eastern belt of Africa.
As the lust for power has grown he has however sought for similar minded friends who won’t question why his immediate staff has more relatives than a family gathering.
They won’t even question why he had the internet turned off on Election day, fearing most likely to suffer the same fate as Burkina Faso’s long time ruler Blaise Compaore driven out by masses rallying
through social media.
Mugabe also, in these his latter days, has left the West for the Russian and Chinese companions whilst spewing the same anti-ICC rhetoric as copied by Museveni at his swearing ceremony.
The easy analysis for some is to brand these man Pan – Africanists whenever they scold the West, but their overstaying begs the question why the supposed Pan-African visions they carry can’t be handed over to other relay team members.
What kind of visions do they have which they can’t share as pioneers to other members, even from their own parties, to carry on with?
Zimbabwe currently is staring into the bleak abyss of a resurrected 2007-8 with the coming of Bond notes, an airy creation of the Reserve Bank after a cash crisis that has left banks cashless and queues long.
With the president at 92 and Succession a treasonous word, the future looks bleak for the country.
A rural mass with the 1980 image of the returning guerrilla has also been the driving force for Mugabe and with donors pushed and frightened out in many areas, the ruling party has taken over
government initiatives and cursed with hunger be anyone found on the opposition side.
Meanwhile Pan-African former guerrilla fighters live the life of plenty looking forward into a tomorrow multitudes are afraid of.
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