By Ahmed Kateregga Musaazi
One afternoon in 1998, soon after the capture of Kinshasa by Banyamulenge and other Congo Zaire rebels that installed Laurent Desire Kabila, President Yoweri Museveni held a press conference at State House Nakasero, where he said that Uganda would construct a tarmac road from Kasese to Kisangani.
As l arrived in New Vision Newsroom to write my story for Bukedde, Hope Kivengere, the President’s Press Secretary sent a press release emphasizing the construction of the road, which guided us in our writings.
It remained a remote dream as just after one year, Kabila fell out with the Banyamulenge and their Rwandan and Ugandan allies that had installed him. Another civil war broke out between Kabila and his allies; Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia and even Chad on one hand, and Banyamulenge and other Congolese communities and their allies; Rwanda and Uganda.
However, as Baganda say: Obuwangaazi bw’emmese bugiriisa ku ddiba lya kkapa (if a mouse lives long, it can feast on the skin of its predator, the cat), President Yoweri Museveni’s dream has come to reality in our lifetime.
Tomorrow, Wednesday June 16th will be a big day in the Great Lakes Region as Presidents; Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Felix Tsishekedi DR Congo commission the newly constructed Mpondwe bridge in Kasese. They will later launch the construction works for the planned 1,182 KM of roads at Kasindi, North Kivu Province.
Back to President Museveni’s conferences, at the outbreak of the war against Mobutu spear headed by the Banyamulenge, when we asked whether Uganda was involved, the President smiled and said “…ok, we used to know about some of the tribes in North Kivu, but l have never known that tribe (of Banyamulenge).” That was what he could tell local and international media. But in the Second Edition of Sowing The Mustard Seed, the President says that he is the one that advised the Vice President and Defence Minister of the Republic of Rwanda to identify some Congolese communities that were separated that are linked with Rwanda and boost Kabila’s force which was almost nonexistent.
The President states that Uganda was not physically involved in the anti Mobutu war, although it had supported Lumumbists (Patrice Lumumba was the Independence Prime Minister of DR Congo that was assassinated by Belgians in 1961 and imposed their puppet Mobutu) whom, he gave some cash. He talked about other Pan African volunteers that contributed in the Congo and later in South Sudan, whom he says he cannot reveal their identities.
But the late Peter Busomoke, a Ugandan journalist with Congolese origins, had, in the honey moon of Kabila victory, written an article in Daily Monitor, which he transplanted from a local paper in Lubumbashi which had mentioned countries like Ethiopia, Eritrea, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Angola and others that had participated.
As the President always say, as a Pan Africanist, the colonial boundary imposed on us by the Berlin Conference could not break Africans apart. Bulega, Omukama John Kabalega’s home county is on the western shores of Lake Albert which is in DR Congo. In fact, the President cautioned Banyoro to stop claiming for lost counties when they are in Uganda and said that the lost counties are those lost outside Uganda like Bulega. A section of Batooro is also in DR Congo. The Bakonzo, sometimes called Bayira or Banande, are a Bantu-speaking group of people in western Uganda and eastern DR Congo. In Uganda, they are concentrated in Kasese and Bundibugyo districts. Others live in Bunyangabu and Ntoroko districts. A section of these, even in recent years, attempted to secede from both countries and form Yira Republic, but the rebellion was crushed. The Hema are related to our Bahima and Basongora, the Lendu are related to the Alur.
The worst affected by the colonial boundary are the Kakwa, majority in DR Congo, and others in Koboko District in Uganda, and again others in DR Congo. Thus, while Idi Amin, despite his other problems was a Ugandan, his detractors could call him a Sundanese or a Congolese. But Amin, who was a nephew to Gen. Oleng (According to Bob Astles), one of the Congolese rebel leaders in the sixties, whom Prime Minister Milton Obote, in collaboration with the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and Mzee Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, instructed him to assist, also brought in his relatives like the notorious Brig. Isaac Maliyamungu, who was his cousin, then Col. Eli, Brig. Hussein Malera from the South Sudan.
According to a former Uganda’s Ambassador to DR Congo now in the Sudan, Maj. James Williams Kinobe, eastern DR Congo has a potential market for Uganda’s products which triples that of South Sudan at its peak. Prof. Lwanga lunyigo in his Land Struggles in Uganda, advises Ugandans to settle in DR Congo and grow coffee and bananas and some of the Ugandan rebels are said to have given up rebellion and concentrate on agriculture and timber. Hence the justification of construction of the roads and bridges. Let us sing with Kwame Nkrumah; Forward ever, backward never.
Haji Ahmed Kateregga Musaazi is a veteran journalist and a Communications Assistant with the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance Digital Team.
Do you want to share a story, comment or opinion regarding this story or others, Email us at newsdayuganda@gmail.com Tel/WhatsApp........0726054858
