Raila visits Besigye, holds private talks

By Monitor Team
 

Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Tuesday evening made a surprise entry into Nairobi Hospital where he visited the hospitalised leader of opposition Forum for Democratic Change party Kizza Besigye.

He had initially been expected to visit Dr Besigye on Saturday, the day President Museveni was also in Nairobi for a business summit but the visit was cancelled, reportedly on the advice of Dr Besigye’s doctors. Mr Odinga’s visit is likely to amplify Kampala’s long-standing suspicion that he is sympathetic to her opponents.

Details of what was discussed between the two were not readily available yesterday, but FDC secretary for foreign affairs Anne Mugisha told Daily Monitor on the phone from Nairobi that Mr Odinga “paid a courtesy call on Dr Besigye at about 7pm on Tuesday and spent a substantial amount of time with him.

No press
“He was not accompanied by the press, and no journalists were allowed. This was a private visit,” Ms Mugisha said. She revealed that more tests have recently been performed on Dr Besigye who is still wearing dark glasses to protect his damaged eyes from direct light. The room in which he is admitted, she said, has also been darkened, and doctors treating him have advised that he does not entertain the press.

Dr Besigye, a former bush war colleague and physician of President Museveni, is undergoing treatment for the toxic effects of chemicals that were sprayed into his eyes, face and upper body.

Political rivalry
He suffered the injuries when security agents attacked him and vandalised his car on April 28 in a bid to stop him from driving to Wandegeya.
Mr Odinga’s visit will likely bring to the fore the ongoing contest between rival political groups in Kenya who have over the years sought to extend their rivalry to Uganda.

He is leader of the Orange Democratic Movement, a partner party in the coalition government installed in Kenya after the disputed 2007 elections and subsequent violence, which brought his country to the brink of collapse with politically-motivated killings that left more than 1,000 people dead.

Soon after that election, Mr Museveni was among the few presidents to congratulate Mr Kibaki, a fact which reports say angered Mr Odinga whose party believed the election had been rigged to keep Kibaki in power.
Among the Tuesday visitors was Kenya’s minister for Medical Services Anyang Nyong’o, who is also secretary general of ODM and an unwavering Odinga loyalist.

The Odinga visit is the first known by a Kenya government official. It is not clear whether a member of the Party for National Unity, which is led by Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, has been in to see Dr Besigye.

PNU and ODM have had a tenuous relationship since they were pushed into a coalition mediated by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, with the backing of the United States government, among other countries. An extension of this rivalry has seen both Mr Odinga and Mr Kibaki courting Kampala although the widely held view is that Mr Museveni finds the latter politician a more natural partner in government.

Politics at play
However, in the middle of the campaigns for Uganda’s February 18 general election, Mr Odinga arrived in eastern Uganda in December 2010 and appeared at political rallies with Mr Museveni in what observers interpreted as a mending of relations.

Shortly after Mr Odinga left the country, Kenya’s vice president Kalonzo Musyoka – a former Odinga partner in the ODM before he split to form ODM-Kenya – arrived in January 2011. Officially, Mr Musyoka was here as part of Kenya’s effort to lobby for African support in the matter of the International Criminal Court’s indictment of key political figures in Kenya.

Meanwhile, Ms Mugisha said they were expecting Dr Besigye’s wife, Ms Winnie Byanyima, herself a former Museveni ally-turned-unrelenting critic, to arrive in Nairobi last evening.