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Uganda Kenya
Relations between Kenya and Uganda have been strained
since
Museveni seized power, although for much of 1988 and early
1989,
Uganda and Kenya vacillated between cooperation and
confrontation. In 1987 Kenya's president Daniel arap Moi
had
accused Museveni of allowing Libya to launch destabilizing
attacks on Kenya from bases in Uganda, a charge Museveni
steadfastly denied. Kenya nonetheless expelled the Ugandan
high
commissioner and closed the Libyan People's Bureau in
Nairobi,
and Uganda retaliated by arresting six Kenyan diplomats,
including the acting high commissioner. A flurry of
high-level
communications succeeded in ending this incident, but each
nation's fears of cross-border insurgency were heightened.
The year 1988 had begun on a positive note when the two
governments agreed to establish a buffer zone along their
common
border near Busia. At about the same time, however, the
NRM
government alarmed Kenyan officials by announcing it was
considering shipping imports and exports through Dar es
Salaam,
Tanzania, rather than Mombasa, Kenya. This would have cost
Kenya
transit fees and several hundred jobs in its transport
industry,
and suspicions of economic sabotage began to sour
relations
between the two countries.
A more serious problem occurred in July 1988, when
several
Ugandan soldiers attacked fishers at Sumba Island in
Kenyan
territory on Lake Victoria. Kenyan security forces
responded and
inflicted several casualties. Charges and countercharges
were
aired through the rest of 1988. There were also outbreaks
of
sporadic violence along the border and accusations that
Ugandan
vehicles were being detained or delayed at the Kenyan
border
points near Nakuru and Eldoret.
Despite some progress toward peaceful negotiations, the
hopeful atmosphere was disturbed on March 2, 1989, when
some 300
armed forces, believed to be Ugandans intent on stealing
cattle,
killed a Kenyan army officer in Kenya's West Pokot
District.
Kenyan security forces responded, killing seventy-two of
the
alleged cattle rustlers, by their count. Five days later,
the
Kenyan government claimed that a military aircraft from
Uganda
had dropped two bombs near a police post near Oropoi.
According
to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC),
the bombs
killed five people and injured seven others. The Ugandan
government denied complicity in the attack and suggested
that the
aircraft had originated in Sudan, a report that appeared
to be
confirmed by independent observers. Ugandan minister of
foreign
affairs Tarsis Kabwegyere sought mediation.
In 1990 the acrimony between Uganda and Kenya
continued,
especially after Ugandan police officials accused
President Moi
of helping Ugandan dissidents plan to overthrow Museveni.
Relations improved after the two leaders met in August and
agreed
to restore full diplomatic ties and to strengthen border
security. However, by year's end, the two countries again
were at
loggerheads, in part because of Kenyan press allegations
that
Uganda intended "to establish a Pax Uganda over central
and
eastern Africa."
Data as of December 1990
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