President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda inspects a guard of honour on arrival at JKIA in Nairobi in a past visit. Photo/FILE
By RISDEL KASASIRA rkasasira@ug.nationmedia.com
Posted Friday, September 9 2011 at 22:30
Posted Friday, September 9 2011 at 22:30
President Museveni allegedly questioned the capability
of the Kenyan army to fight the Somali insurgents in Somalia, a leaked
US diplomatic cable has revealed.
According to the US ambassador to the African Union, Mr Michael
Battle, Museveni questioned Kenya’s army bush-fighting credentials and
the ideological commitment of its Somali proxies.
He
advised the West to pay and develop Transitional Federal Government
(TFG) fighters rather than the much more expensive and less effective
options of funding international peace keepers and counter-piracy
operations, the cables say.
Mr Battle’s comments,
contained in a 2010 diplomatic briefing to Washington, leaked to whistle
blower website, WikiLeaks, were first published on September 1, 2011.
According
to the cable, President Museveni described the Kenyan forces as a
“career army” and wondered about their ability to sustain bush fighters.
“Is Kenya used to fighting like this (bush and guerrilla warfare)?” Mr Museveni wondered.
The
cable said the Ugandan leader was responding to (US assistant Secretary
of State for African Affairs Mr Johnnie) Carson’s question about
Kenya’s proposed Jubaland Initiative.
President Museveni acknowledged the operational value of
seizing Kismayo and, more broadly, denying al Shabaab’s access to sea
and airports.
However, “Museveni questioned the
capacity of the Kenyans to manage such an offensive, as well as the
ideological commitment of the Somali proxy forces,” read the cable.
Mr
Museveni reportedly told top US diplomats in a free-ranging
conversation on the margins of the African Union (AU) Summit in Addis
Ababa in January last year that the Kenyan army and its allies in Somali
semi-autonomous state of Jubaland were not ideologically prepared to
fight al Shabaab.
Uganda’s minister for International Affairs Henry Okello Oryem, described the cable as a lie.
“There
is no iota of truth in it. Our policy is not to comment on the affairs
of other countries and do not think the president made those comments,”
he said.
Efforts to get comments from the Kenyan Government were futile as the High Commissioner to Uganda was in hospital.
Efforts to get comments from government spokesperson Alfred Mutua, were futile as he didn’t take our calls.
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