How Museveni sold Uganda to UK in exchange for protection

During the interim period between the fall of Amin in 1979 and the 1980 elections which he lost, Museveni realized that he was unpopular at the national level and in his home area. He concluded that his ambition of becoming president would be achieved through the barrel of the gun and close collaboration with and guidance by foreign powers especially Britain.

Museveni planned and executed the guerrilla war with British support. Much financing was provided by Tiny Rowland, chairman of Ronrho, publicity was directed by William Pike of BBC while political backing was led by Linda Chalker. One commentator observed that “Museveni is not acting on his own. His links to the British royal family run through two interlinked personages: Lady Lynda Chalker, Minister of Overseas Development and a favorite of Lady Margaret Thatcher, and Tiny Rowland, chairman of Lonrho, who reportedly introduced Chalker to the higher echelons of London society. The on-the-ground British case officer for Museveni is reportedly one William Pike (Mike) Pike, editor of New Vision, a daily financed by Rowland. Pike is believed to report directly to Chalker.

Revisiting Tutsi Empire in the Great Lakes Region

In her response to my article titled ‘Why Bahima men will not marry Bairu women’ in which I inserted a paragraph on the Tutsi Empire in the Great Lakes Region of Africa which came up during my mission to Burundi, DRC and Rwanda in January/February 2010, Ms Kesaasi dismissed that paragraph in large part because there was no substantiated evidence. In other words I did not provide sources confirming that such a project existed. It would not have been possible to do so in an article limited to seven hundred words.

In the following paragraphs, I shall provide the sources at my disposal right now and will update the article as more information becomes available.

In order to understand how the Tutsi Empire project evolved and who has been the champion, one has to be familiar with some background information albeit not related to the project directly. Yoweri Museveni’s rise to power had external backing. The external powers were interested in the wealth of DRC and wanted some one in the Great Lakes Region to serve as their surrogate. At the beginning of the 1980s, there was no leader in the region that could be entrusted with that responsibility. Obote was not trusted because of his so-called socialist ideas (Vijay Gupta 1983).