Walking, Ugandan and Ethiopian style

13 October, 2011 | Hama Tuma
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    Back in 2006, I wrote a
    short story called The
    Case of the Criminal
    Walk in which I
    lampooned Prime
    Minister Meles Zenawi
    regime’s ridiculous ethnic
    bantustanization of
    Ethiopia. In the story, a
man who had walked outside of “his region” was accused of
being a criminal and a saboteur by a prosecutor whose
freakish interest in the type of "walk" the man had engaged
bordered on insanity. A type of insanity that is usually seen
among frightened dictators.

Here is how the prosecutor proceeds:

“Was he strolling arrogantly?

"Walking briskly?

"Were his lips curled in disgust as he walked?

"Were his eyes narrow like a chauvinist?

"Was he pounding at the pavement or moving surreptitiously like a
spy?

"Did he dodder, falter, lumber, stagger, totter, trudge, hobble or
plod?

"When you saw him walk did you see an innocent man like say
someone rushing to church not to miss Mass? Or did you see a
suspicious man with a saintly smile like all criminals, puffed up with
arrogance, happy at the mere thought of having trampled on yet
another sacred law, angrily pounding on our poor road?

"Did he prowl, tiptoe, slink away or stalk? Was he shuffling,
slouching off or creeping?

"Did he march, surge or meander?

"A lot depends on that walk…Was it leisurely like a stroll, the
pastime of a lazy man propagating unemployment?

"Was he moving briskly like a criminal trying to distance himself
from the scene of his foul crime?

"Was he lifting his legs up like the parading soldiers of the former
regime and pounding hard on our pavement to dig potholes? Or was
he trying to be smaller than his shadow and walking stealthily?”

In the end the prosecutor in the story gives his own definition of the
criminal walk:

“The criminal walk as we all know combines the rush and the prowl
with the swoop and stomp, the trudge and the swagger, and all this
accompanied by a maniacal chuckle.”

Eyes on Uganda. The question here is: Did Ugandan opposition
leader Dr. Kizza Besigye wear a maniacal chuckle as he walked to
work in opposition to the Museveni regime?

Did he just walk or did he trudge and swoop on downtown
Kampala?

How did the authorities determine his walk was criminal and then
resort to arresting and beating him up?

On a more curious note, a question borne out of sheer
incomprehension is why Africans, who are fortunate enough to have
a job in the first place, would protest by walking to work when they,
in fact, more often than not, walk kilometres to work and school
every single day under the scorching sun?

Zooming in on Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya

It is early morning in Nairobi, Kenya, and a stream of humanity
trudges out of the notorious Kibera slum. Some are on their way to
work, others are scouting for work. However, with price of petrol
skyrocketing and transport fares too expensive to even give a
thought to, many have been walking to work as a necessity.

Kampala, Uganda.  Thousands of Kampalans decide to boycott
both private and public transport and walk to work, in protest! A
mundane everyday occurrence can be seen as a protest if
Kampalans turned rich overnight. As rich as Museveni claims
Ugandans have become. So Besigye decides to walk to work with
a few people who don't even realize walking could be a form of
protest.

But Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is a frightened man, haunted by the
specter of a popular revolt against his rapacious desire for power.  
And after ripping the Constitution apart in order to be “elected” as
fourth time president of Uganda, the pervasive smell of his fear has
gripped the capital.

An Ethiopian proverb says no one dies looking as good as he was.
Alas, things and human beings change and in most cases in Africa
for the worst.

Yoweri Museveni was once a progressive militant, a better and
promising breed than the Obotes and Amins that Uganda had to
bear. The first years of his rule was not "bad" despite creeping
corruption, ethnic favoritism and alarming demagogy on his part.
Museveni’s declared “modernization” drive and penchant for power
clashed with tradition and customs, with kings expressing their
misgivings as Ugandans took to the streets.  

The longtime leader wrote a book in which he identified one of the
major malaise of governance in Africa as being the tendency of the
continent's rulers remaining in power for far too long… the book has
since yellowed on library shelves whilst Museveni continues to defy
his own words decades on.

Over the decades, Museveni has turned into a run of the mill African
dictator, to evoke his own words, relying on his control of the
repression apparatus. “We just lock them up… bundle them into
jail", Museveni said in 2011 whilst talking about protestors.

But whilst Besigye’s call to walk to work as a protest could have
been taken as a patriotic gesture to save on fuel at a crucial time in
the country's economy, Museveni's fear triggered an uncomely
repression of an otherwise democratic right.

A very powerful clan

The Museveni clan, much like the Meles Zenawi clan in Ethiopia,
controls Uganda like a private property. The Musevenis are omni
present in the economic sector.

Mrs Janet Museveni, admired for not wearing western wigs ever, is
the Karamoja regional Minister and proud owner of Gemtel mobile
telephone service, which also operates in Juba, South Sudan.

Half brother General Caleb Akandwanaho (a.k.a. Salim Saleh) is
presidential adviser on defense. Salim Saleh is a man accused of
gross corruption including the plunder of gold and minerals from
Eastern Congo.

Brother-in-law Sam Kutea, is Foreign Affairs Minister with his
daughter, Natasha Karugire, posing as his private secretary.

Janet’s nephew, Justus Karuhanga, is Museveni’s secretary for legal
affairs while his son Lt. Colonel Kainerugaba Muhoozi is
commander of the Special Forces guarding the newly discovered oil
fields. The colonel also leads the elite presidential guard.

As one Kenyan journalist recently commented-- Ugandans are not
all amused by the “familiarization of the State” as much as Museveni
says he is not pleased with walking to work as a sign of protest.

History in the making

While a lifetime does not signify eternity, all things must come to an
end. And Museveni's fear that reeks on the streets of Kampala is
bound to be history; perhaps sooner than he may expect. Yet, he
owes his ongoing survival, as much as Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia, to
the fact that he has slavishly bowed to the superpower and became
cannon fodder in the so called war against terror.

Nonetheless, the feared LRA still roams murderously uncontrolled
filling the pockets of those generals who remain the real beneficiaries
of the ongoing war.

Museveni has opened up Uganda for American special troops, has
rushed into Somalia to fulfill America’s order to become a preferred
western ally. A situation that assures him of financial help, security
and political support against an Arab Spring style Revolution that
may compromise foreign agenda and diktat.

Was Idi Amin not an Israeli cum British baby before he grew fangs
and became a nuisance?

But a question that begs to be asked is whether Washington’s
backing will save Museveni from impending doom. Judging from
North Africa and the Middle East, a full political backing of
everlasting governments does not augur well for the West, and it
does not seem likely that Washington will give its full support to
Museveni, who has outlived four US presidents.

Still, his rule, his ministers, his defiance of his own words…serve as
valuable lessons to Africa's copy cat rulers. For those tyrants who
kill and maim their people and suffer their blame Museveni’s Internal
Affairs State Minister, Kirunda Kivejinja, has come out with a gem
of self defense.

While admitting that people were killed and hundreds wounded or
arrested in the protest demonstrations, he said that the government
will not take responsibility for those killed as he advised Ugandans
to blame the deaths “ on the British and the Americans who
manufacture bullets”.

Now we know the real culprits!

                                           Courtesy
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Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles
Zenawi and Ugandan President
Yoweri Museveni