AFRICA: Burundi blocked entry of Museveni's armed SFC, not the scouts

BURUNDI BLOCKED ENTRY OF MUSEVENI'S ARMED SFC, NOT THE SCOUTS

CHANGE OF GUARDS - On 11th December 2017 a Ugandan registered bus carrying 40 Rwandese youths was intercepted at Kikagati border with Tanzania.  It had shortly been cleared by the immigration officials of both sides before they were intercepted from the Tanzania side.

The youths who were in posession of forged Uganda travel documents claimed to have been refugees heading for a Christian Crushade in Burundi.  It is alleged that they were recruits heading for Rwanda's dissident RNC camps in South Kivu via Tanzania and Burundi.  It was further alleged that they had been mobilised from different parts of Uganda with the facilitation of Museveni's CMI.

Further that it was the Uganda Police under Gen. Kalekyezi who acting for Rwanda intercepted the group.  In particular, Gen. Kalekyezi is reported to have remotely used the then Director of Crime Intelligence, Col. Ndahura Atwooki to intercept the group.  Immediately after, police investigations lead to the arrest of another five of the group's so-called coordinators. 

From Kikagati, the group is said to have been detained at Isingiro Police station before being ferried to the infamous Nalufenya detention facility in Jinja.  On 30th December 2017 the group was charged with terrorism and forgery in Mbarara.  The charges cited prividing of funds for travelling outside Uganda for the purpose of planning, perpetuating ir prepariation or carrying out a terrorist act or receiving terrorist training.  The incident is reported to have so much embarrassed and infuriated the Museveni regime and CMI in particular that it sparked off the crackdown on police.  No wonder, Gen. Kalekyezi and the entire team were not only sacked but charged before the military court.

On March 25, 2018 during a joint press conference between President Museveni and President Kagame, the Ugandan president acknowledged that, “When I met president Kagame in Addis Ababa he gave me some facts which I followed up. A group of Banyarwanda was being recruited through Tanzania and Burundi to go to Congo. They said they were going for church work but when they were interrogated it was found the work was not exactly religious. It was something else.”

On 25th June 2018 court in Mbarara released 39 members of the group's and the case was closed.  Obviously, the incident was an eye opener to the entire regional security and diplomatic infrastructure.  Rwanda must have stepped up its observation post along the Uganda/Tanzania border while Tanzania must have lost trust in Uganda's security apparatus.

Hardly a year has passed, out of shear arrogancy Museveni sends his armed SFC to travel by road through Tanzania to Burundi.  On 14th December 2018 a group of 309 mostly teenage scouts were scheduled to travel to Burundi for this years Africa Zonal Competition.  Uganda as the chair was supposed to judges, band and the guest of honour.  After being flagged off from the National Scouts Camp Site at Kaazi, the group delayed to leave after it emerged at the last minute that armed security operatives were being organised to escort the group to Burundi.

The group left the following day on Saturday at 4.00 a.m and reached the Tanzania border of Mutukula at 9.00 a.m.  They were held there for the next 10 hours while the authorities of the two countries resolved the question of the SFC armed escorts entry into Tanzania.  At 7.30 p.m the group was allowed entry together with its SFC armed escorts but provided with its own exra armed escort.  The Tanzania security machinery diverted the convoy from the earlier main route to another remote murram road through game and forest reserves.  The convoy of four buses and two minibuses got stuck in the mud compelling the group to spend a night in the cold wilderness.

They eventually made it to the Burundi border on Sunday at 9.00 a.m where the Tanzanian armed escorts handed over the group to  Burundi's immigration officials. They were cleared by the Burund side but not allowed to proceed owing to the presence of armed security personnel from the SFC.  One eye witness tweeted;

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        "SOS Media Burundi reports that these Scouts were escorted by a dozen men armed with pistols. “They had weapons to guard a convoy in another country, which is unacceptable,” another officer in Kobero said.
Were they Ugandan soldiers? The agents in Kobero declare only to have noticed the weapons."

Despite frantic efforts by the Uganda authorities to manipulate Burundi through Uganda's Ambassador, Burundi stuck to its guns and gave one clear and simple condition;  THE SCOUTS ENTER WITHOUT SECURITY PERSONNEL OR THEY FORFEIT ENTRY.  Back in Uganda, the Uganda Scouts Association (USA) chief commissioner, Gen. Katumba Wamala,  was reported by the Nile Post to have maintained contact with the group and sent a message to one of the coordinators indicating that he had talked to Captain (SFC officer in charge of security for the scouts) on Sunday and told him to bring the kids back if the Burundian authorities had become ‘so inhuman'.  The Burundian authorities are reported to have escorted the rejected group to the Tanzanian side and off it headed for Uganda following the same route. The National Executive Commissioner for Uganda Scouts Association, a one Okello who was with the group throughout the ordeal claimed that the group avoided going through Rwanda in order to shorten the distance.

ANALYSIS
1.  No country would allow armed army officers not only into but through its territory unless they are guarding a Head of State.  In some countries, such arms, if any, remain at the entry point; one time Rwanda disarmed the visiting Museveni at the border.  Moreover this is not the first time Ugandan scouts were attending events in Burundi.
2.  By diverting the convoy from the earlier mapped route in Tanzania, its security apparatus was trying to keep roving eyes of Museveni's SFC from strategic terrain and infrastructure.  Even the military has scouts who carry out reconnaissance (spying) in a combat field.

3.  Museveni's militarisation scheme must have limits or else one day he will deploy sildiers to escort the River Nile through Sudan and Egypt or the sun at the equator.

4.  Gullible Ugandans are only condemning Burundi but don't want to discuss the main issue, THE SO-CALLED SFC ARMED ESCORTS.  The so-called EAC protocol on free movement of nationals does not apply to free movement of armed soldiers.

5.  If Museveni does not trust Burundi's security, he should issue a travel advisory for Ugandan citizens not to travel to Burundi and even evacuate its nationals from Burundi.

6.  Its not that they avoided Rwanda because of distance but were being haunted by the December 2017 embarrassing incident of intercepted suspected RNC dissidents.  Rwanda wouldn't have tolerated such nonsense.

7.  Museveni feels he is the Head of the East African Community hence does not recignise the sovereignty of other Member states.  However, other than his arrogance,  you can't rule out another sinister motive.

8.  Parliament should put the regime to task to fully explain this nasty incident that put the lives of Ugandan teenagers some as young as 11 year at risk.

9. The events of December 2017 mentioned above greatly influenced the proper conduct of Tanzania and Burundi.  Moreover the two states are bilaterally closer than any other actor in the regions.

INFORMATION IS POWER AND THE PROBLEM OF UGANDA IS MUSEVENISM