By Mulengera Reporters
Should he succeed in securing Senate approval and end up becoming the new Director for America’s top terrorism-fighting agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigations ((FBI), Donald Trump’s nominee Kashyap Patel could help lift President Museveni from the US foreign policy making-related obscurity he has been in since his friends, the Clintons, left the White House in 2000.
During his Senate hearing session, Kash Patel (an influential blue-eyed boy to Donald Trump) twice made proud reference to his connection to a country called Uganda.
Firstly, he told Senators on the Judiciary Committee that his first linkage to Uganda relates to the fact that it’s the country from which his father (who was present at the hearing) flew in 1972 back home to India from where he relocated to New York City to chase his own version of the American dream. This was after then Ugandan President Idi Amin expelled Asians accusing them of economic exploitation.
Kash Patel also referred to the circumstances under which Amin forced out Indians, including his father, and even killed some of them. He made it clear that is how and when his resentment towards injustice started.
He contemptuously referred to the Amin era as a period of “Genocidal Dictatorship” which ruined Uganda’s reputation as a country of good standing in the world.
He controversially claimed that during that Asian expulsion chaos, not less than 300 Asians lost their life as others, including his dad, fled to safety.
Kash Patel told the Senate Committee that the Amin era injustices in Uganda made him appreciate the importance of any country being governed by leaders who value and are deliberate about justice, fairness and rule of law which he vowed to promote and defend at all times should he get confirmed to head FBI.
Barely 45, Patel is a US-trained lawyer by training and practice, which is why he has loyally served under the US Justice Department for more than 16 years.
The second reference the very assertive Kash Patel made about Uganda (and by implication indicated he knows a thing or two about Gen Museveni’s capabilities) related to the East African country’s relentless efforts to fight terrorism and also punish those who perpetrate it for and on behalf of Al-Quaeda and Al-Shabaab, on it’s soil.
He recalled how he excellently and effectively worked with the Ugandan security apparatus (as of that time chiefly headed and coordinated by Gen Kale Kayihura who was IGP) to investigate perpetrators who masterminded the 2010 bombimbs in Lugogo where dozens of people were executed as they watched the World Cup final game of that year.
As of that time, the US President was Barrack Obama under whose Justice Department (DoJ) Kash Patel served as a senior terrorism prosecutor. The Obama administration deployed him to Kampala to come as an FBI agent to advise and guide on the investigations Gen Elly Kayihura’s Police was conducting into the 2010 World Cup bombimbs whose mastermind was eventually established to have been Al-Shabaab.
Controversially stating that 74 people were killed in the Kampala bombings including one American citizen, Kash Patel told Senators that his involvement enabled the Ugandan security system to do such a good job to the extent that the actual perpetrators and masterminders behind the heinous crime all ended up being identified, apprehended and succesfully prosecuted in the Ugandan Courts.
That the subsequent US administration was so much appreciative of the great work he did supporting anti-terrorism investigations in Uganda and ended up giving him an award in 2017, in recognition of his work.
Kash Patel exhibited so much fondness and pride in relation to his Ugandan experience and connections to the extent that he said all this about our beautiful country in his opening statement on the first day of his appearance before the all-powerful Senate Judiciary Committee.
He was also proud of the great lessons and additional expertise that was accumulated as he participated in the Ugandan anti-terrorism investigative operations. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
