WHO IS YOWERI KAGUTA MUSEVENI?(Part2) Musevenis mother: During her years in Ankole in the mid 1960s, Musevenis mother had become a convert to the born again Christian faith. She sometimes visited Bweranyangye Girls Secondary School and took part in mission outreach programmes in Ankole. Many people who observed her became convinced that her eldest son had taken his personality from her. She was eccentric and was fond of wearing woollen clothing. In some way Esteri Kokundeka was ahead of her time. The main fashion of the day among the ordinary women in Ankole at the time was the traditional robes. Kokundeka on the other hand took a liking for European fashions and so stood out as odd whenever she went about in public, wearing woollen clothes and western-style dresses, some of them above the knees in length. At first some people wondered who this strange woman was, who was so different from the rest of her contemporaries in a society that was still very traditional. She did not have an education and had not travelled widely out of her home area but looked to be very modern. Moreover she was a modest woman and a devout Christian. In between periods of depression and silence, she experienced high levels of energy. During her excited phases that was when the common village fellas started to feel that she might not be ok. What was beyond doubt at the time was that Musevenis mother was suffering from some kind of depression. She certainly showed all the signs of what they call bipolar disorder. Bweranyangye Girls Secondary School in Ankole, where her daughter Violet was studying, is a place where Kokundeka used to visit a lot to preach. She was dreaded and shunned by many of the girls. They saw her as a tyrant, a complicated and extremely difficult woman to get along with. On some occasions when she visited the school, girls would avoid meeting her and hide in the dormitories. She did not display the normal affection and motherly traits that would be expected in a parent, even toward her own children. She was not affectionate and was too unreasonable and hard to understand. Many became convinced at Bweranyangye that Kokundeka had a problem. In 1967, she did have a breakdown. The details of that are not so clear. But she was admitted at the Butabika Hospital on the outskirts of Kampala that year. Her disorder combined with the series of traumatic experiences in Rwanda that affected her so drastically as to lead her to reject her son, are the rock on which the crisis in Musevenis life originated. That crisis in Musevenis life lies at the root of the personality that we shall examine in forthcoming parts. People who knew him during the mid 1960s say the change was brought about by rejection from his mother, Esteri Kokundeka. It was not Rhodesia, for Gods sake! How she rejected him, why she rejected him, and when she rejected him is something we dont know. I will not lie that I know. But it seems to have been very painful to him to rock the foundation of his whole entire life. Maybe he had tried to probe her to tell him who his real father was and she dismissed his questions. Maybe he persisted with his questions and in impatience, his mother finally disclosed to him the circumstances of his birth. What brought her from Rwanda to Uganda reportedly either still pregnant with Museveni or when he was still an infant? Those who knew Musevenis mother all through her life in Uganda remarked at how bitterly she hated and resented Rwanda. In 1982 during Musevenis guerrilla war, one of Musevenis most trusted commanders, Kahinda Otafiire, was charged with smuggling her out of Uganda through Rwanda and then on to Nairobi, Kenya where she would see her son. Musevenis mother protested vehemently saying she hated Rwanda and did not want to go there ever again in her life. After repeated begging, Otafiire managed to get her into Rwanda from where the two went on to Kenya. This gives us an interesting look into Musevenis origins. Sincerely why should his mother resent and hate Rwanda so much unless she had once lived there or had heard too much about it or maybe had experienced enough about Rwanda that even to talk about Rwanda made her feel so bad? It is one thing to hate Rwanda. It is quite another for your sons commander and aide Otafiire to want to take you safely out of Uganda to Kenya at a time of high risk and yet you would rather remain in harms way in Uganda than set foot in Rwanda. What was it about Rwanda that Musevenis mother hated so much? We can guess the following things. She knew Rwanda much better than the average illiterate village woman. She definitely hated the country. She seems to have either lived there for some time or even originated from Rwanda. She seems to have had such a terrible experience in Rwanda that her outlook toward that country was clouded by all sorts of resentment. What terrible memory was this? To be continued.....Part3 to follow..
Posted on: Sat, 15 Feb 2014 11:05:55 +0000
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