Hillary jets in to meet Museveni over DR Congo

The US Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, is expected in the Uganda on Tuesday, 2, to discuss with President Museveni the worsening security situation in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, highly-placed sources have confirmed.

A diplomat, who asked not to be named because the secretary’s planned trip is still being kept secret for security reasons, said the two leaders will also discuss the uncertainty surrounding political transition when mandate of the Sheikh Sheriff-led Transitional Federal Government lapses next month.

Ms Elise Crane, the acting public affairs officer at the US Mission in Kampala, said when contacted on Friday: “We have no comment at this point in time.” There is growing unease, according to one senior Uganda government official, among international actors that Somalia could slip into deeper anarchy and AU peacekeepers’ (Amisom) gains on peace restoration reversed, if the expected transition is mismanaged.

The Ugandan military constitutes the largest contingent of Amisom’s 17, 000 troops that has flushed al- Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabaab militants out of the Somali capital, Mogadishu and posted great battlefield successes on their chase in the countrywide.

Ms Hillary Rodham’s expected trip here on Tuesday, next week, comes roughly 10 days after her husband and former US President Bill Clinton flew in on what his aides said was a journey to appraise the works done by his health and educational charities. “She is visiting a number of African countries, including Uganda, and will meet His Excellency the President,” Foreign Affairs Permanent Secretary James Mugume said, “We are still finalising the programme.” He declined to divulge further details.

Discussions between Mr Museveni and Ms Clinton are to centre on regional security and development, a source familiar with the preparations said. A contact in Washington separately said whereas President Barack Obama’s administration remains nervous about Mr Museveni’s governance record, it is impressed with the discipline and successes of the Ugandan military under him while on regional assignments, especially in Somalia where US forces withdrew in humiliation in the early 1990s.

“Museveni’s successes on the military side in Somalia endeared him to the US and Clinton will try to ask him to help with the political transition; how it should be handled and what the US can do to assist,” the source said.
The mandate of TFG, extended by 12 months last year following a deadlock on political reforms and writing of a new constitution, expires in August.

Secretary Clinton will be consulting with President Museveni on the DR Congo in his capacity as chairman of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), an 11-member bloc for preventing conflict and promoting security.

This newspaper has been told that the DR Congo instability is sensitive and the two leaders will explore ways of resolving it “conclusively without causing injury to the Rwanda position that it is not supporting the M23 rebels”.

The US government this week cut $200, 000 in military aid to Rwanda accused by UN experts of aiding the Congo fighting, allegations President Paul Kagame said are based on “bad information”. As Secretary of State, Ms Clinton is the head of America’s global diplomacy and her visit to Kampala shows the ruling government opportunity is in the good books of Obama administration.

Up until now, the highest-ranking US official under Obama to have visited Uganda was Deputy Secretary of State Amb. William Burns, who while here in January, urged government to punish members of security forces that brutalised walk-to-work demonstrators and build stronger institutions to safeguard the country’s future.
He said then that Washington is “unapologetic” for pitching for civil liberties across the world after Kampala said it required no lectures on how to govern, and accused the US and UK of financing the demonstrations to instigate unconstitutional regime change.

Ms Clinton will be watched for her actions and words – spoken and unspoken – for clues on America’s shifting opinion on Mr Museveni described in 1998 by President Clinton as a “new breed” African leader.