How the past will mar future for EAC political federation

Raila Odinga’s swearing-in as “People’s president” on January 30 deepened Kenya’s ethnic division. Government responded swiftly. It shut down major TV stations and arrested key Odinga allies; one was deported to Canada after court orders to produce him before a judge were ignored.

Amidst all these tensions, old wounds re-opened in Kenya on February 10.
That day marked 34 years since the repressive Moi regime committed one of the worst human rights violations in post-independence Kenya. Yet the Wagalla massacre was not fully reported, thanks to the regime’s tight control over media outlets in Kenya. Even the report of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) that subsequently investigated the matter during Uhuru Kenyatta’s first term, was never implemented.

However, the Daily Nation of February 13 reported that there are fresh demands for justice and the implementation of the TJRC report. I went to Kenya some two years after the massacre, but I learnt precious little from people who spoke about it in hushed tones. It was a taboo topic.

It was not until August 24, 2017 that I finally saw the bigger picture. On that day, people from the Refugee Law Project at Makerere University’s School of Law came to Kumi University to call attention to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in various parts of Africa.
They screened documentary films, including one about the Wagalla Massacre; a horrifying rendition of the killing of hundreds of Kenyan Somalis by the military in Wajir District in the country’s northeastern region.

February 10, 1984: Heavily armed soldiers appear from the darkness and round up thousands of residents. Men are targeted because they are accused of having a cache of illegal firearms.
Soldiers take the arrested people to Wagalla Airstrip where they are subjected to severe physical and mental torture. The beatings quickly lead to death. The commander of the operation sits calmly, enjoying a cold beer!

The next day, the exhausted, tortured, thirsty and hungry men desperately beg for a drink of water. They are taken to a water-point where many lie they have guns just to get a drink. The soldiers give them death instead.
Torture and death continue on the third day. In all, more than 1,000 are killed.

Day four, February 13, 1984: Area MP plucks up the courage to speak to journalists in Nairobi. But media people get to the scene of crime too late; the killers are long gone!
This is a good example of how the past always comes back to haunt people. Kenya is now engulfed in a cloud of anger, tension and ethnic division triggered by a flawed electoral process. In Uganda, pent-up anger over recent events, notably the scrapping of the age limit from the Constitution and the arbitrary extension of the tenure of the President and Parliament, will also likely come to haunt some people.

Settling of old scores is likely to be one major consequence.
Thus, in Kenya as in Uganda, anyone talking about East African Community (EAC) political federation is whistling in the wind.
Truth be told, it was our “founding fathers” – Presidents Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and Milton Obote – who got it wrong on the matter of EAC integration.

They approached the whole thing on the basis of their close friendship. They viewed federation as some kind of a club, with rotational leadership to give each one of them a chance to benefit directly from their chemistry. But did they carry their people along with them? No, they didn’t. Are the current EAC presidents carrying their people along with them to the Promised Land? No, they are not.

Take Kenya. North eastern region wants secession. Coast wants out. Western wants out. So does Nyanza.
In Uganda, the people now seen as “eating” will one day disappear from the radar, just as those thought to enjoy rides in the gravy trains of previous regimes did.
Forget EAC federation. Let us first do something about the culture of political intolerance and control in Uganda.

Dr Akwap is Dean of Faculty of Social Sciences and Management Studies at Kumi University.

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