Al Shabaab has 100 reasons to kill Museveni, not Besigye
By Sam Akaki
30th May 2011: The announcement by the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Maj. Gen Kale Kayihura that they “…have received highly credible information that Al-Shabaab terrorists have infiltrated the country with plans to assassinate prominent political leaders, especially leaders of the opposition” would be laughable if the implications of the statement were not so tragic for Dr Kizza Besigye in particular and all Ugandans in general. Why?
To begin with, only eleven months ago on 12th July 2010, Al Shabaab attacked Kampala, killing over 70 Ugandans of different political and tribal affiliations and wounding hundreds more before promising that they would soon come back and commit even more atrocities.
The admission by Maj. Gen Kale Kayihura that the Al-Shabaab have indeed made good their promise and re-infiltrated the country is, in effect, a humiliating confession that the Maj. Gen is sleeping on his job, leaving Ugandans at the mercy of terrorists.
Secondly, any government politicians or officials who are rubbing their hands with glee that Al Shabaab has re-entered Uganda to eliminate the “undisciplined” Dr Besigye, as General Museveni has described him to foreign diplomats, should first answer these simple questions.
Who is Al Shabaab’s real enemy?
What has Dr Kizza Besigye done that has angered Al Shabaab enough to want to take his life? Is it Kizza Besigye, the main opposition leader, who has turned the so-called African Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) to the Uganda Mission in Somalia (UMISOM) with up to 10,000 troops, who are killing innocent Somali men, women and children in the market places in and around Mogadishu?
Is it Kizza Besigye, or indeed Uganda’s other opposition leaders who are receiving the millions of ‘blood dollars’ which some western countries are donating through the UN to pay for the dirty work which the Uganda People’s Defence Forces [UPDF] are carrying out in Somalia?
Is it Dr Kizza Besigye who is the Commander-in-Chief of the army, which has driven three million Somali men, women and children into refugee camps where they are existing [not living] without adequate food, shelter, water, medical care and security as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has confirmed?
If Al Shabaab is indeed targeting Dr Kizza Besigye, then why haven’t they shot him dead yet given that Besigye, even as the leader of the biggest opposition party in Uganda, is only protected his unarmed supporters? If you were to put Dr. Kizza Besigye and General Museveni in front of Al-Shabaab at Constitutional Square in Kampala, who would they want to shoot dead immediately? In my view, Al-Shabaab has over one hundred “good” reasons to kill General Museveni and not Dr. Kizza Besigye.
Who has the motive and means to kill Besigye?
If any terrorist group is targeting Dr Kizza Besigye to kill him, then that terrorist group can only be the Ugandan security forces. Since January 2001 when General Museveni issued the chilling threat to send Dr Kizza Besigye “six feet underground”, he has consistently demonstrated that he has the means, and perhaps even intention and or motive to kill his chief political rival Dr. Kizza Besigye.
On the 28th April 2011, in full view of local and international press, Assistant Superintendent of Police Gilbert Arinaitwe assumed the characteristics of a terrorist and used extreme violence to break into Dr Kizza Besigye’s car before spraying poisonous gases into his face, dragging him to the ground, beating, and throwing his semi-conscious body into the back of a pickup truck.
Prior to that, on 14th April, the police and army made what seemed to me, and many people I have spoken to, to be assassination attempt on Dr Kizza Besigye when they shot him in the right hand. If that bullet had swerved slightly to the right, Dr. Besigye would be history today and we all know who would have been the happiest General on the planet by now.
Should anything happen to Dr. Besigye now, or indeed any opposition leader, then all Ugandans should hold General Kayihura and his boss firmly accountable. END. Please login to www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories and anytime mid-week for our news updates.
