The opposition in Uganda has been plunged into a sense of uncertainty and hopelessness, after President Yoweri Museveni met with US Ambassador to Uganda, Natalie E. Brown.
According to a tweet by the president, the two met on Tuesday and the US envoy delivered a ‘special message’ to the the East African nation’s leader, from US President Joe Biden.
“I had a meeting with the US Ambassador to Uganda, H.E Natalie Brown, accompanied by Amb. Adonia Ayebare. We discussed issues of mutual interest. She also delivered to me a special message from H.E Joe Biden, the President of the United States of America,” Museveni’s tweet says.
Details of what is contained in the ‘special message’ have not been divulged, but the news is an indication of a détente between the two nations following recent strains in their friendship. Uganda is a longtime US ally.
The development comes against a backdrop of increasing frosty relations between Kampala and Washington with the latter accusing the former of human rights violations in the just concluded general elections that Museveni won.
Washington has since slapped travel restrictions on members of Museveni’s government it accuses of rights violations.
Members of the Ugandan opposition especially the National Unity Platform (NUP) led by musician-turned politician, Bobi Wine, had hoped that Washington would ramp up her pressure on Kampala, and that the days of meetings like Tuesday’s, will be history.
However, sources in the opposition have intimated to us on condition of anonymity, that the news has been received with a pinch of salt, especially after Museveni, just last week, appeared to bash the west.
At his inauguration on Wednesday, Museveni revealed he would not accept lectures on democracy from anyone.
“I doubt there are many comparable pro-democratic structures in the world. It is therefore quite comic and laughable to hear some actors in the world giving us lectures about democracy. You give me lectures about democracy, what are you credentials,” Museveni asked.
Although he did not mention direct names, it is widely believed that his comments were aimed at the west.
He added, “We diagnosed this system not from air conditioned rooms but from jungles of our country where we lived with people for more than 16 years of the resistance war. We need no advice from anybody Uganda, apart from our peers from the African continent.”
Tuesday’s meeting between Museveni and Natalie, came a day after the Ugandan president met with a group of African-American investment team mobilized by singer Aliaune Badara Akon and his wife Rozina Negusei at State House Entebbe to discuss investment opportunities in Uganda.
