Despite tourist kidnapping, let’s tour Uganda with CNN

Wildlife walks don’t come more fascinating than a trip into Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, where you can get up close and personal with the area’s mountain gorilla population.”
Thus partly reads CNN’s entry on Bwindi. The global cable news giant ranked Bwindi number 15 on its list of “23 of the world’s best hiking trails”.
Let me detour for a second and reach for the flag: none of our three flashy neighbours, touristically speaking, makes the list. Morocco, with its Mount Toubkal, is the only other African country (assuming it considers itself so) that makes the cut at number six.
CNN published its list on Monday, April 1, and it wasn’t one of those Fool’s Day pranks. This was the real deal.
And, then, bang!
The next day, Tuesday, an armed gang struck in Queen Elizabeth National Park. Two kidnapped — a tourist, who happens to be an American woman, and a Ugandan driver-cum-guide. The bastards just rained on our little CNN-hosted party.

Apparently, the touring party, on an evening game drive, along with an elderly couple, should have had an armed guide.
The issue of armed guides unsettles me. It sends a double, if contradictory, message. One is that you are safe because there is someone armed by your side. The second is that the area you are touring is actually not safe, necessitating the presence of an armed person.
In 2015, friends and I climbed mountains Elgon, Muhabura and Rwenzori. For the Elgon and Muhabura hikes, we had armed guards/guides. Rwenzori, thanks to the Rwenzururu gods, was a gun-free affair. Muhabura is a one-day climb and the matter of guns doesn’t register much. But we did five days up Elgon, combining different trails. It was eerie having armed men, even jolly good fellows as they were, with us all through.

Despite the high-level physical and mental exertion that mountain climbing demands, one can’t avoid beholding and revelling in the majesty of a mountain range. From the caldera and gorges of Elgon to the bogs and glaciers and peaks of Rwenzori, the spectacle is magical.
Even as a group — our climbing party of six up Rwenzori had a support corps of more than 20 people (chefs, guides, porters) — you are nothing compared to the splendid world around.
You want to take that all in knowing fully that you are safe. But the guns are there to suggest otherwise as they were on Elgon.
We live in the tricky Great Lakes neighbourhood, but we need to get to a point where no guns are needed in tourism areas, except in very restricted ways to shoot at poachers and illegal loggers and such other crazies.

President Museveni likes to boast that Uganda is now peaceful from border to border (including the Rwanda border) for the first time in eons. That statement has to carry real substance.
Look, the kidnap, isolated as it maybe, couldn’t have come at a sensitive time for Uganda. The tourism numbers are rising, the budget is rising, new management teams at the wildlife authority and the tourism board are off to an encouraging start, and Uganda Airlines is about to lift off after decades in the grave of a hangar.
Then bang.

Military and police crack units have to prove themselves. They need to get the bastards like yesterday and free the hostages unharmed. It may be tough, but that is exactly why we have specialised units.
A less satisfactory outcome could harm Queen Elizabeth National Park as a major tourism destination. Jobs will be at risk and the local economy could take a hit. I would like to think the rest of the destinations would not take a knock too.
Which is why I hope that by the time this column lands on the streets and pops up in cyberspace the captives will be alive and well and the kidnappers will be ruing the day they took their gamble. Assuming they will have the chance to rue.
For now, this Easter holiday, let’s go tour Uganda. And that includes Queen. Why not? The bad guys should not win.