Former US President Bill Clinton with
President Museveni at the National Medical Stores in Entebbe last
Friday. Clinton's one-day visit to Uganda aimed at fighting diarrhoea
deaths among children. Photo by Stephen Wandera.
By Tabu Butagira
Former US President Bill Clinton
extolled them as reformists, but critics now say the Ugandan leader and
his Rwandan as well as Ethiopian counterparts appear cut from the
jinxed fabric of African ‘big men’.
When Bill Clinton as a sitting
US President spoke about the “new breed” of African leaders, he was
confident a handful of relatively younger presidents on the continent
were reform-minded.
The understanding was they would
not behave like the ‘old guards’ who considered it a right to rule for
life because they led the struggle for their countries’ independence.
These ‘big men’ imprisoned opponents they could not kill or bribe, lived
lavishly as majority citizens wallowed in poverty and offered perks to
secure soldiers’ loyalty.
Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni,
Rwanda’s Paul Kagame and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi – feted
by Mr Clinton in the “new breed” league – either staged a coup or shot
their way to power following a bloody guerilla war.
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