Tumukunde, Kayihura Could Be Circumstantial Victims

On 4^th March 2018, Uganda president and commander in chief (CiC) of armed forces, Yoweri Museveni shuffled the management of the country’s security apparatus. He dropped Brig. Gen Henry Tumukunde as minister of security, replacing him with fellow bush war veteran Gen Elly Tumwine. He also dropped the longest serving inspector general of police (IGP) Gen Kale Kayihura replacing him with his deputy Okoth Ochola. The changes are believed to be prompted as a response to the continuous mysterious deaths of foreigners and locals, which has shaken the country’s security system as well its citizens. In the past month of February alone, four Europeans have been found dead. First were a Finn and a Swede whose bodies were found in different Kampala hotels. Police now confirm the two were actually murdered. Initially they had mentioned drugs as the cause—a conclusion vehemently rejected by circumstantial evidence and the victims’ relatives. Another case is of a Belgian man who supposedly committed suicide and a fourth one is of a German man said to have succumbed to hypertension.

Towards the same month end, an affluent young woman, Susan Magara, was found dumped along a highway—having been kidnapped two weeks earlier. Her killers chopped off two of her fingers and sent them to her family, to enforce a ransom of $1 million. This case gained wide publicity because it unusually drew in president Museveni and the entire nation’s security system while trying to save the woman from her kidnappers. For long, security has been the single area where Museveni has been credited by Ugandans as a total success. Now with it shaken for the last seven years, without any culprit successfully brought to book since the first mysterious murder, in 2011 of sheik Abdul-Karim Sentamu, renders legitimate question marks. But a number of theories emerging from this wake could actually vindicate both former security minister Brig. Gen. Henry Tumukunde and former IGG Gen Kale Kayihura as victims of circumstances surrounding the current security impasse. And that unless institutional approaches are changed, rather than individuals, problems are poised to persist. Below are some of the key theories:

Nature of Police Training
To keep internal security under law and order is the cardinal role of police. However, the orientation handed to the Ugandan police recruits during training has not been adequately preparing them for this role. Well intentioned reforms were introduced in the force in early 2000s, to redeem the earlier tainted image of the police by the special forces of the 1980s. But today police recruits are mainly prepared in more or less a similar fashion of the military—to

to prevent and or fight both potential and presumed enemies of the state. When they graduate from training, they embark on the look-out for organized enemies of the powerbase—leaving a wide-vacuum for all other sorts of criminality to thrive. This has, over the last few decades offered an expanse space for crimes—varying from minor to major and hard core to blossom and expand until coming to the current level—that calls for the president’s direct involvement.

Effects of Special Police Constables (SPCs) and Crime Preventers

Because of the huge ratio of police to population Uganda has been improvising by recruiting temporary manpower to reinforce the police ahead of special events such as during the hosting of chogm in 2007. Towards the 2011 general elections, police recruited thousands of unemployed youth called special police constables (SPCs) to beef its operations before, during and in the immediate aftermath of the elections that were often anticipated to assume a violent trend. The same policy was adopted ahead of the 2016 general elections—this time targeting close to a million youths—called crime preventers. The CIC embraced all these activities—occasionally attending the pass out to lecture these youths about the NRM ideology.

However, often, these youths would remain unattended to after serving the special purposes. They were at large to be used by any rogue group at a minimal fee. These would also be recruited by criminal gangs torturing the population. Their positive effects would be temporary and the larger and longer part of it be grossly negative on the population.

Remarks: The reforms introduced seventeen years ago in 2001 attracted young university graduates who, upon completing a nine-months police training course, would automatically be commissioned to a rank. Not only so, those deemed well conversant with the revolutionary ideology, but hardly with any field experience, would be handed big offices, such as district police commands (DPCs) to manage them. The reforms also saw the introduction of serving military officers to head the civil-police force. The first army officer to occupying the highest police office as Inspector General of Police (IGP) was General Edward Katumba Wamala (2001-2005). The second was the out-going general Kale Kayihura (2006—March 4, 2018) and now the 3^rd, , though in a second role as deputy IGP is Brig. Sabiit. Until this month’s appointment of Ochola, the reforms had generally sidelined old experienced police officers who became disgruntled and less productive. Not quite knowledgeable of what to do, the young officers had just resorted to fighting political battles against the opposition. They further engaged criminal gangs to help in infiltrating political groups and sometimes use them to break unauthorized opposition political meetings. Having proved efficient in this task, all security agencies across the board, solicited and allied with particular criminal gangs in executing their mandates. Hence eventually it became difficult for official security agencies to break down well established criminal gangs and instead worked with them as allies—with some core criminals gaining a monthly stipend. The gangs were protected and even rescued from apprehension. The out-going security bosses, often conflicted in their respective approaches to the insecurity and undermined each other’s efforts. Apparently the criminal activities became more attractive to other unemployed youths—contributing to the overwhelming criminal acts this country is experiencing today. Hence the problem of disagreements is not limited to the two dropped officials. And unless the new police chiefs are officially allowed to change the orientation of the police training format, from a para-military outlook to a civil non-partisan force, solely prepared to prevent and stop criminality, rather than working with criminals, the situation will just be exacerbated.

Internal Revolt
For over the last thirty years, a new bourgeois class has emerged in Uganda, replacing the old one, that mainly comprised the Baganda ethnic group. The new middle class (sometimes referred to as the mafia), has occupied and continues to amass all prime spaces of land in the country as well as influencing the appointments in positions of decision making in key public institutions. These, however, are aware that they are sitting on a time bomb ready to explode anytime, given that those on whose toes they are stumping their feet are discontented and this status quo cannot endure. In that scenario, all the wealth accumulated by this new class will either be recovered or rendered to ruins. This group is conniving with some other equally discontented political veterans of the revolution—some of who, had expected Museveni to hand over power to one of them at some point in time, which never was. The fear of a situation where inevitably Museveni can lose power—without themselves in control of the situation, is making them secretly undermine Museveni in the various sectors of governance. They are fermenting public anger against Museveni especially in the area of security where he had been widely perceived as exceptional. They want to prove that Museveni has lost the grip on security and it is time for a new experienced leader to assume the mantle. They obviously want such a leader to emerge from among them since are the ones with the requisite resources and the experience—having been long in active service. Such an internal revolt can be triggered by revolutionary loyalists like the ruling party MPs who opposed the amendment of article 102 (b) that removed the age caps and of course it’s expected to be overwhelmingly supported by the general population that expressed similar sentiments about recent constitutional changes.

Observation: Whereas the hypothesis of fears surrounding the new wealthy class and disgruntlements among veteran politicians are valid, the scheme of removing Museveni by violent means is unfathomable. (1) There is virtually no location in Uganda where such a plan can easily be organized without being pre-detected and emptied. (2) Museveni has mainly surrounded himself with people who perceive him as their only guarantor for survival. Hence they are obliged to secure his safety as much as they are, their own. They also voluntarily act as his secret police all over the country. Despite these huddles, however, the continued but carefully fermented internal insurrections are expanding and can potentially make the period towards 2023 very cumbersome.

Continental political wave
The African continent has experienced three major political waves in both the 20^th and 21^st centuries. First were the movements for independence from colonial masters, which started in the Sudan (1956), Ghana (1957) and eventually across the entire continent in the 1960s to 1994 that finally delivered South Africa from apartheid. The second wave was from the 1990s to mid-2000s. It was characterized by the introduction and or in some cases reintroduction of multi-party dispensation—a surge reinforced by western powers’ imposition of economic and aid sanctions to African countries that exercised adamancy towards these political reforms. Uganda, was tolerated for some time owing to a need to fully recover from a long period of political turbulence of the 1970s and 80s (the Milton Obote and Idi Amin regimes). Eventually, Museveni capitulated to multi-party democracy in 2005, with himself leading the ‘yes’ side for multi-party in that year’s referendum. The third and current political wave is characterized by citizens dislodging dominant leadership ideologues. This wave has taken different models in the different regions of Africa. It all started in the east African region (Kenya in 2007). Here it took a major violent shape in order to enforce a unity government between the long-serving Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga. The respective supporters of both leaders violently clashed after Kibaki was awkwardly sworn-in following a potentially contentious election of that year. Kibaki had been serving in the government of the long serving KANU leader Daniel arap Moi who had retired a few years back. The clashes led to the indictment of the incumbent president Uhuru Kenyatta by international court of justice (ICC), accused of inciting the death of nearly 1,000 citizens. He has since been acquitted of wrong doing by the same court. The violent nature of challenging government spread from East Africa to north Africa—in Tunisia and Egypt (2011) and later Libya. In all these cases, the West has been playing a central role to the regime changes. In west Africa, the wave has since been characterized by the region’s combined militaries to quell the imminent violence and instead apply regional military intervention. They, together with France weighed in against Gbagbo of Ivory Coast who had refused to let go of power. Again the regional combined military intervened in the Gambian politics to eject Yahya Jameh who had also refused to transfer power to the legitimate poll winner. Hence in the west African region, the wave of change from dominant political groups is protected and enforced by governments that have already embraced the changes. In other countries like Zimbabwe, South Africa and Ethiopia, the wave has been accepted by the ruling parties as inevitable and, therefore, moved in to eject their own leaders and replace them with those from their midst but with mild reforms—enough to postpone a potential political crisis for some time.

Back in East Africa, the wave briefly hit Burundi in 2015, but he managed to fight back into control in Bujumbura after a short-lived coup detat against him had crumbled. Up-to-date, Burundi has not fully stabilized and the Arusha—peace talks, mediated by president Museveni and facilitated by former Tanzania leader, Benjamin Mkapa have so far failed to make ahead way. Uganda has historically been a late embracer of political waves sweeping across the African continent but always having elements who push for these similar changes from underground. The mysterious murders are assumed to be part of the clandestine activities to: (1) disorganize and divide leaders of the ruling party—such as lately the heads of security organizations on one side and (2) isolation of the commander in chief from the population on another side.

Remarks: This theory is valid to the extent that the country’s security system has, since the Arab Spring at the turn of this decade, been having this scenario on paper as potentially likely to happen in Uganda. It has, therefore, been keen to break down any organized groups among civil society organizations and opposition political parties who are likely to organize a citizen’s uprising. The government has been struggling to find a better way of controlling content on social media to the extent of mooting an idea of developing its own social media platforms rather than those controlled from Western capitals.

External Conspiracy
The sophisticated methods used by the criminals that are often ahead of the nation’s security apparatus had driven a belief that the criminals bear a foreign dimension. The kind of guns and communication gadgets used as well as the time intervals between the attacks and the shifts in approaches of the crimes as well as the wide international publicity they gain, indicate a carefully well experienced management of the whole process that is beyond the competency of indigenous regular criminals. The initial approach by criminals was characterized by instant assassinations of especially Muslim leaders—in order to incite the often known violent Muslim population to rise up against government. When this proved not to workout, the approach shifted to murdering rural dwellers especially in the central region that is known to be a political strong-hold of president Museveni. From this, it shifted to targeting women—and specifically those in the neighborhood of president Museveni’s official residence of Entebbe State House—to prove him helpless to save the situation.

Comment: The fact that for seven years now the culprits have remained at large, without any one successfully brought to book, supports the foreign input in these actions. And the central aims in all cases have been consistent: (i) incite public anger and mistrust of Museveni ability to protect them with their properties, (ii) cause confusion and divisions among leaders of the security apparatus (iii) Make the ruling class feel insecure and either cause an internal revolt or initiate actions for all-embracing political reforms. This theory contributes about 5% to the current security impasse.

The External Dimension
The four Europeans murdered recently constitute a bigger picture of the depth of insecurity in Uganda. This has led to major European development partners as well as Washington’s State Department to caution their respective citizens from unguided visists and stay in Uganda. Whereas the insecurity is largely perpetuated by indigenous actors, the murder of foreigners has no particular indigenous interests to represent but foreign interests. For example, the Finn was an international arms dealers representing a Finnish arms factory, Patria. But Finland as a country had no intentions of selling arms to Uganda. It follows then, that the assassins who must have administered the substances that insttantly killed the Europeans representaed foreign interests. The argument about money robbery doesn't convince for, Uganda has over the years been home to investors who never reported similar treatments. Now more than any other form of insecurity that has lately hit Uganda, this must have had a direct and more effect on the appointing authority.

How the enemy learnt of the presence of Europeans in the particular hotels and with easy managed to kill them instantly, was alarming, as it evidenced clearly the highest risks at which Uganda’s security is and worse, that top secrets are being leaked by their supposed custodians. Hence the murder of these Europeans must have triggered the appointing authority to promptly effect the changes announced on March 4, 2018. The Ugandan ADF rebel outfit that is based in eastern DRC is still struggling to reconsolidate itself after suffering major losses in its personnel strength and leadership echelons. With that challenge still up their sleeves in order to survive, the ADF have no immediate purposeful missions to conduct from inside Kampala that can significantly shake the country’s security to the level being currently witnessed.

Conclusion
All the above scenarios combined constitute 100% of explanations about Uganda’s current internal security crisis. And, certainly they can't all be balmed on the guillontened officils. it is advisable that the president spearheads reforms in the country’s body-politic to embrace all divergent political representations for—a continued policy of sidelining ristks to breed more chaos and blood-letting in the country. Also the president must rethink his approach to the concept of political-economy especially as regards the welfare of the most populous ethnic regions of central, east and north to feel a national charcter at play in representation in public instititions. Else these people are just waiting for any simple spark off to raise in a bid of recovering their lost status and glory. Whether they will succeed or not is another question. But that moment of action is potentially awaiting—the reason why the population is not forthcoming in volunteering full information regarding the actors of gruesome crimes. In other words, the population is acting as the waters canopying the mad fish.

Swaib K Nsereko
Lecturer in department of mass communication, Islamic University in Uganda and National Coordinator, Moral Reform Movement (MRM)