Walk-to-Work Crisis Tests Museveni’s Mettle.

By Ron Kalule Mbowa in Kampala, Uganda

For years, President Yoweri Museveni has cultivated a reputation as a fundamental and
an avant-garde leader on a continent full of despicable despots, a towering regional
hegemony on whose shoulders once rested the hope that he might reform Uganda’s
militaristic state he inherited from his predecessors, hardnosed cabal leaders Gen Tito
Okello Lutwa, Milton Obote and Gen Idi Amin.

He has had the time and opportunity to help democratise this country BUT regrettably
has squandered both and now he faces a maelstrom triggered by rising commodity prices
that seriously threatens his 25 year imperious rule.

The country’s worsening crisis – a closely watched, around the world, gory clash between
the government’s exceedingly militant police and persistent protesters (largely
unemployed youths born during or just before his administration) with the strongman’s
former personal physician and ally turned nemesis Dr Kiiza Besigye at the helm – would
seem to be a chance for him to stave off the violence with restraint, bold reforms or even
relinquishing power, a path he has never taken before.

But as the death toll mounts, the portentous arrests and disappearance of dissenters
head towards infinity in the face of exorbitantly rising food, fuel and housing prices, Mr
Museveni’s future now hangs by the thread.

The protestors are becoming battle-hardened, and inspired by the outrage his violent
crack-down has caused they are growing in numbers day-in day-out. Also growing is
their courage and confidence to change tactics not just to tee themselves before they
unleash a sting in the strongman’s tail but are now even appealing to the impoverished
lower half of the security forces to denounce their master and instead join in the protests.
The police, itself an edifice of repression, appears to be stretched with its shoe-string
budget sinking like a stone triggering operational cracks within the top leadership,
according to most media reports here.

The international community too, perhaps for the first time since records began, is
weighting in seriously, taking a much closer look at a man they once labelled a pioneer of
the ‘new breed of African leaders’. On both sides of the Atlantic leaders have expressed
deep concerns. During PM’s Question time parliamentary session, David Cameron and
his Foreign Secretary William Hague condemned Uganda Police’s heavy-handedness
against unarmed protestors and have both called for immediate restraint.

In Washington, US President Obama used a speech on the Arab ‘spring’ (a reference to

Tunisia/Egypt style protests that have spread across the Middle East) at the Whitehouse
to send out a clear message that his administration will not tolerate Museveni’s brutality
against protestors. Obama’s warning was echoed by Secretary of state Hillary Clinton
who signalled that Museveni and his ruffian

Mr Museveni, far from getting clean, could still succeed in quelling the unrest, analysts
say. But to do so he would have to realise the hopes once placed in him when he swept
into power - after a 5 year guerrilla war that claimed some estimated 1 million people –
some 25 years and confront his own family and micro-ethnic group which controls
Uganda’s thuggish security apparatus and appears to be pushing hard for a continued
crackdown to protect their ‘root’.

During the barbaric arrest of Dr Kizza Besigye, at least 10 people were feared dead and
an unknown number, probably in hundreds, were arrested ……………….