Uganda: Buganda’s King(Kabaka)’s Health Grips Uganda, Region and International Community: As the US imposes Sanctions For Gross Human Rights Violations
This follows the Kabaka( King)’s appearance in public, on the 13th April 2021 for his 66th birthday celebration looking feeble, struggling to breath and appeared weak, as he cut his yellow coffin shaped cake.
A spectacle that attracted wide public concerns.
Yellow is the emblem colour of the ruling National Resistance Movement, under the incumbent, who has been in power since January 1986.
In a seemingly converging sequence of events, the powerful King of Buganda(Kabaka), the largest in the region, appeared ill on his 66th birthday in public after months of speculation about his health.
Images widely circulated on social media and other channels, appeared to depict the Kabaka as disoriented, feeble, walking slowly visibly struggling to breath.
His skin appeared to have patches with marked difference from his normal skin. He was guided by an entourage and soldiers while walking towards the public waving meekly and appeared visibly weak.
Perhaps the most heart breaking image was his inability to speak for himself and seen to be wearing a visor sitting in his chair gasping for his breath. His birthday speech was read by Mayiga who serves as his prime minister locally known as the Katikiro.
These images sent the country and the wider international community into unified bewilderment, anger, frustration and a call for action. Demanding that the King of Buganda, should be flown abroad for immediate treatment and independent medical examination, at least as a precaution or second opinion.
Most notable was the King’s nephew, the young Prince Walugembe, who released a video demanding those around the King, to speak up and insist on the King’s immediate treatment in the United States.
He stated that the issue appears to be the King’s inner circle. He called on everyone to raise their voices for the sake of the Buganda Kingdom and the country at large by implication.
Prince Walugembe concluded by calling on the country’s president, who has been in power for almost four decades, to ensure the immediate treatment of the King of Buganda, given his central role in his ascendancy to power in 1986 after a protracted five year civil war.
A civil war that was mainly fought in Buganda and saw the hundreds of thousands of lives lost and property destroyed. In short blood, treasure and human lives were expended.
It was widely understood that the King himself appeared on the frontlines at critical junctures in the civil war that brought the current incumbent to power in 1986.
Furore forces riled Mayiga to issue a controversial statement and diagnosis
The furore led to the Kingdom’s Prime Minister known as the Katikiro, to hastly call a press conference, a day or so later.
Mr Mayiga who has long faced questions and suspicion from sections of the public, especially among bloggers, reading from a prepared script, stated that the King was suffering from allergies. Allergies which Mayiga claimed are linked to masks and his apparent struggle to breath.
He stated that notwithstanding the King’s illness, the condition is being managed locally without specifying the medical team, type of treatment or the identity of the medical care team.
Almost immediately, there was even more doubt and aspersions cast on the nature of the allergy, diagnosis, details of the King’s medical team and why the King was not being flown out of the country for further medical analysis and treatment, in countries with better facilities and know how.
At the time of writing, there is no publicly available evidence to suggest that the King’s health has substantially improved or that there are immediate plans to airlift for further medical treatment and examination overseas as Prince Walugembe demanded.
It is clear that unless the King is immediately flown out for further medical assessments and tests, his health will remain a central topic. A tense and toxic situation.
An avoidable topic, especially in a country besieged by reports of crimes against humanity, such as torture, killings, enforced disappearances, abductions and maimings.
A situation that led to the US, EU, UN and HRW, among others, to issue damning reports and sanctions in the case of the US.
Paradoxically, the health of an individual, a key central figure in the east african country of Uganda, appears to have united the country irrespective of political, social or regional backgrounds. All are overwhelmingly calling for the King( Kabaka) to be airlifted immediately for further medical treatment and assessment.
Fearing that a failure to do so by those responsible or the authorities, could unleash a chain of events in an already toxic environment in a volatile region. But the common question and charter, even among regime diehards, is along the lines that ‘if the King is not safe, no one is safe’ or words to that effect.
Wider Background
Shortly, after independence, Buganda( Kingdom) under its first Ugandan President( Late Col. Fred Edawrd Mutesa ), was invaded by Obote under the command of Amin. He died in poverty in a flat in one of the poorest areas of London, Bermondsey. Despite his extreme wealth.
Post Amin, Buganda paid the heaviest price in the so called Luweero tirangle, both in blood and treasure.
Today, Buganda, among other regions faces poverty, exported human labour, brain drain disproportionately, and has faced insufferable events since 2009. These include the massacres of unarmed civilians,the burning of the historical UN gazetted cultural tombs and now, in the last several months disproportionately faces killings, abductions, torture, enforced disappearances.
The current King’s father, whose father died in seclusion, appears to be feeble and ill, with growing questions about his own agency or why a man of his stature and wealth, cannot go for specialist medical examination overseas.
This has therefore brought to the fore, the fact Buganda( meaning those who live and thrive in it irrespective of ancestry ), needs to be respected and given its proportionate place like other regions for the success of uganda and all ugandans.
Buganda is compared to the status of England in the United Kingdom. Its the hub and heart bit of economic, political, social and ecological synergy. The plight of whoever happens to be on the throne, at a particular time, is the plight of the population. By extention, the region’s success or failure has direct correlation to the fate of the country, region and therefore international stability by default.
To borrow a phrase, when Buganda sneezes, the rest of uganda catches a cold. When uganda suffers a cold, it contaminates the whole region and so on.
Therefore, it is in the best interest of the ugandan regime, the region and the international community to ensure the immediate airlift of the Kabaka, Buganda’s King, to a global medical facility of his choice for specialised medical analysis and treatment as appropriate.
Even as a precaution or second opinion at the very least.
In an already volatile region, its not too late to protect the Buganda King’s health and spare the country, region and international community from forseable but avoidable unintended consequences.
Time, for the Kabaka’s health is of the essence.