A source in military intelligence has told Radio Katwe about Uganda’s involvement in the US led fake war against the Muslim militants in Somalia, how the Ugandan forces are secretly selling weapons to the insurgents they are supposed to be controlling.
In December 2006, the Bush administration tried a “regime change” operation through their eager proxy Ethiopian PM Menes Zenawi. Both men vainly believed they could defeat what they saw as a radical Islamist threat through military force. So they decided to invade Somalia and neutralise the shaky Islamic Courts Union government who briefly ruled Somalia two years back. But as is often the case when actions are based on arrogance, prejudice and greed, the plan has floundered on the rocks of unintended consequences. Somalia has gone from bad to worse, the whole region is now unstable and experiencing a horrific humanitarian disaster. The extremism which they allegedly sought to crush has been given ample reason to grow stronger, more wide spread and virulent.
Now opportunists like Uganda’s Museveni have been recruited to try and contain the mess in the name of “peacekeeping”.
The Americans were given a bloody nose last time they tried to impose their vision on Somalia through the military in 1993. This time they have been giving allies like Museveni of Uganda and Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia money, intelligence, and arms to help America fight the Islamic Courts Union. However from what our source says, the Americans are about to test the saying that there can be no honor among thieves.
The official line is that the Ugandan troops are in Somalia to act as peacekeeping forces under the African Union arrangement. But the source told Radio Katwe that President Museveni has been double-crossing the Americans by secretly reselling some of the arms which Uganda is getting with US funding to the very Islamists who the Bush White House contracted Uganda to fight.
The Ethiopians seem to be fighting their best against the Somalis because for them this is no joking matter. In that region hostilities are centuries old and run deep so now that Zenawi foolishly stuck his nose in Somalia’s problems, there is no turning back. They have provoked and must fight a sworn enemy just across a porous and still contested border.
Museveni does not care about that because Uganda is very far away from Somalia. Our source said this is why if you follow what is happening in Somalia, you will see that the Islamists fighting in Mogadishu are attacking only the Ethiopians.
There was a time when the Islamists threatened to attack Ugandan troops whom they accused of being backed by the imperialists in Washington. But after some time, according to our source, the threats against Ugandan troops did not materialise. It is not because there is now peace in Mogadishu, to the contrary, it is still a volatile place filled with insecurity and much violence. Ethiopian forces often come under attack. But Museveni’s “peacekeeping” force have remained relatively safe because they are doing mutually beneficial business with the Islamists and other clan based militias. They are secretly selling some of their arms got from the Americans to the supposed enemy.
Somali clan forces now boast of having weapons funded by the United States including rocket propelled grenades, some mortars and other gadgets like GPS systems.
The money from the sale of the arms is being pocketed by the Museveni backed mafia in the UPDF.
In other news, the Somali mission in Kampala has become a business bureau for Museveni and his family members. The lady who is building a shopping centre next to Garden City is a Somali national called mama Amina, she is also a concubine of Minister of Foreign Affairs, Samuel K. Kutesa. Museveni’s half-brother General Salim Saleh is rumoured to have Somali blood in him, that his father was a Kenyan-Somali.
There are some other stories circulating that Museveni was thinking of sending his son, Lt. Col. Muhoozi Kainerugaba to Somalia to check on the Ugandan troops there. Other sources say he will be deployed there not to be in charge of the troops but as a way of Museveni giving him combat experience since the son has never been in any truly dangerous situation, and this would be a good chance to put on his record that he is a veteran of the “successful” peacekeeping mission in Somalia.