Stop
babysitting bottomless Somalia
It is a year ago since I wrote
about Somalia in my article about the ‘gagging’ of the media in
Uganda. I said then that the Somali communities indulge in fighting
as a hobby, and that some non-Somali parents had withdrawn their
children from a Scandinavian school to create ‘more fighting room’
for Somali children.
Now that the Uganda Government, following the withdrawal from
Somalia of the Ethiopian forces, is ‘mulling’ over the idea of
withdrawing its own troops from that beleaguered country, I am
returning to the subject.
But this time I am concerned about the continuing loss of lives by
Ugandan troops at the hands of what are increasingly becoming brutal
and aggressive Somali tribal communities. I am even asking myself
why we went there in the first place, and why we keep staying on
when even countries like Kenya and Djibouti which share common
borders with and have significant strategic and other interests in
Somalia are safely watching the situation from inside their own
borders.
In other words, Uganda should stop ‘mulling’ over the idea and
instead withdraw her troops immediately from that country. Uganda
was the first country to go to Somalia’s aid and has done everything
to see that the situation there stabilises, but her efforts are not
even being appreciated by the people she went to help. Worse still,
now that Ethiopia which had even more firing power and more troops
in Somalia has left, the fighting groups there are threatening to
annihilate the Ugandan and other remaining forces.
The history of the formation of the 4th Battalion King’s African
Rifles (KAR) gives us some background information about the long
involvement of Uganda forces in Somaliland wars and other conflicts
since the 1890s.
The African levies that had been included among the forces of the
Imperial British East African Company operating in Uganda were re-organised
after the Uganda Protectorate was established in 1895 as the Uganda
Rifles – a regiment of 17 companies.
When serious fighting broke out in Somaliland in 1901, the military
units in East and Central Africa were reconstituted as a single
regiment, the King’s African Rifles (KAR) to provide adequate
garrison forces for Britain’s African dependencies. The Uganda
Rifles became the 4th Battalion of this regiment.
During the First World War, the KAR played a notable part in the
strenuous campaigns in Tanganyika, culminating in the surrender of
the German General von Lettow Vorbeck to the 4th KAR. In the Second
World War the East African Rifles were engaged in the defence of
East Africa and in the defeat of the Italians in Abyssinia
(Ethiopia).
During recruitment in Jinja in 1942, my sister took me with her to
the barracks to visit Medical Officer Gideon Bogere. On the
municipality’s main road a young man jumped off a lorry that was
carrying the recruits and took to his heels. The lorry stopped
suddenly and a British officer jumped out and shot the young man in
the legs. They threw him back onto the lorry and drove off towards
the barracks. That was my personal taste of World War 11.
The KAR also saw service during the Madagascar campaign and later
fought in Burma against the Japanese. The 4th KAR also fought in
Malaya against the ‘Communist rebels’ and between 1952 and 1955 -
according to the colonial administrators – ‘played a distinguished
role against Mau Mau terrorists in Kenya’.
After Mau Mau between 1955 and independence in 1962, the 4th KAR
reverted to its original duty of helping to maintain law and order
in Uganda, and overseeing the security of the country’s frontiers.
On 9th October 1962 the 4th KAR was renamed the 1st Battalion Uganda
Rifles and became the nucleus of Uganda’s National Army.
The Baganda have a saying in the form of a question: ‘Does a good
dancer never leave the floor?’ The Uganda government would be
well-advised to stop babysitting what has turned out to be a
bottomless and dangerous Somalia.
Mr Kiwanuka is a journalist and retired
Foreign Service Officer
Source: Daily Monitor
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