Wikileaks: Kabaka’s views on Museveni

Kampala

Kabaka Ronald Mutebi has spoken to a senior American official about his fears on the country’s future at a time he believes that President Museveni is trying to “dismantle” his kingdom. Writing in a classified diplomatic cable leaked by Wikileaks, US Ambassador Jerry Lainer said he met the Kabaka at his palace in Banda, a Kampala suburb, and he warned that Uganda is slipping towards instability.

This, the King recounted, was because the President had not strengthened the institutions needed to prevent a relapse into civil strife yet Mr Museveni’s popularity was ebbing. “Kabaka Mutebi described Museveni’s refusal to reform the Electoral Commission (prior to the February 18 vote) as a recipe for disaster,” Mr Lanier wrote of their meeting, a year to the February 2011 election.

Other Mengo officials who attended the meeting, which came 15 months after the September 2009 riots in which at least 27 people were killed, included Katikkiro John Baptist Walusimbi, Attorney General Apollo Makubuya, and his deputy David Mpanga.

Mr Makubuya admitted yesterday that the meeting took place but declined to comment further. “The best person to talk to is Ambassador Lanier,” he said. “He came and visited the Kabaka but what he wrote is his business.”
The US Mission in Kampala said it would neither confirm nor deny the memo’s contents.

The confidential diplomatic note says the Kabaka spoke about rising ethnic tensions in Uganda. According to Mr Lanier this offered a glimpse into the Kabaka’s undeclared personal views. Under a current law, cultural leaders are barred from dabbling in partisan politics.

Information Minister Mary Karooro Okurut said last night that the Kabaka’s allegations were without basis because “President Museveni can’t want to dismantle the kingdom he restored”. “In order to dismantle it, you need a constitutional amendment which Mr Museveni has never at all proposed,” she said.

The cable notes that the Kabaka expressed “apprehension” about the February 2011 election, describing Mr Museveni’s “refusal” to reform the EC, as a “recipe for disaster”.

Speaking about the September 2009 Kayunga riots, the Kabaka is said to have told Mr Lanier that his kingdom was undergoing a kind of “persecution” by the state. The Mengo officials reportedly informed the envoy that contrary to public declarations, there were no on-going talks between them and government at the time.