What a coward!!!!! It is strange how people conduct themsleves when they think they are about to recieve the very medicine they have been dishing out to other people ! ..now the man had to de driven over 1000 Kilometers all the way to Sudan to attend Garang's funeral. why, apparently the indomitable, Yosweri Mucebeni Kaguta , one is fearing death!!!
MK
Museveni Drives All the Way to Sudan
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The Monitor (Kampala)
August 6, 2005
Posted to the web August 5, 2005
Andrew M. Mwenda
PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni travelled from his country home in Rwakitura, Mbarara District to the Southern Sudanese town of Yei by road on Thursday to pay his last respects to the late John Garang.
Garang, the deceased first vice president of Sudan and president of Southern Sudan died in a helicopter crash on Saturday last week.
He was travelling aboard a Ugandan presidential helicopter to New Site in southern Sudan when the plane crashed allegedly due to bad weather.
The helicopter crash has now fuelled speculation that President Museveni is wary of travelling by air, especially by military helicopters.
Highly placed sources told Daily Monitor that Museveni left Kampala on Thursday and stopped in the northern Uganda town of Arua from where he travelled again by road to Yei on Friday morning.
It is not clear yet whether the President's motor's motorcade will proceed to the Southern Sudanese capital of Juba where Garang's remains are going to be buried.
There was massive troop dployment in Arua town on Thursday night causing panic among residents until it emerged hours later that the heavily-armed soldiers were escorting the President.
Museveni surprised Ugandans when he decided to cover the nearly 1,000kms from Rwakitura to Yei by road following Garang's death in a helicopter crash. Garang died with seven Ugandans. It is not clear whether the country has another presidential helicopter.
According to security sources, Museveni had a brief stopover at the presidential lodge in Anyafiyo on the outskirts of Arua town - where he reportedly met a handful of security chiefs and politicians before leaving for Juba at around 2am. His entourage crossed Oraba border post into Sudan at around 3am.
Arua Resident district Commissioner, Mr Alfred Omony Ogaba on Friday urged residents not to panic over the heightened security in the area.
"It is good for civilians to be security conscious and vigilant by reporting any suspicious troop movements. But as for now, there is nothing wrong and everything is under control,",Ogaba, who chairs the district security committee, said.
Daily Monitor delayed to publish the story until the President had safely arrived in Yei.
Military sources, who declined to be named told Daily Monitor on Friday that the President had ordered a technical evaluation of all military aircraft, including the presidential jet. Sources further said the President travelled with a "sizeable" military escort team to Yei.
Demand for bodies
Meanwhile the Minister of Internal Affairs, Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, is in Sudan to ask the Sudanese government to immediately release the bodies of the seven Ugandans who died in the plane crash with Garang last weekend.
The government spokesman and Minister of Information, Dr Nsaba Buturo, yesterday told journalists at the weekly press briefing that the government wants the bodies released immediately so as to ease the agony of the bereaved families.
"We have agreed that everything should be done quickly to reduce the agony of the families. We want the country to move on," he said.
Rugunda on Wednesday led a team of forensic experts from Uganda to Juba to help in the investigations into the cause of the presidential chopper crash.
Rugunda visits site
Buturo said Rugunda and his team have visited the site of the crash and were working together with their Sudanese counterparts in the investigation.
The government on Tuesday appointed a team of aviation experts, which includes Mr Ahmed Ssebuliba-Busuulwa, Mr Barry Kashambo and Maj. Pascal Mangeni, to investigate the circumstances under which the presidential helicopter crashed. Buturo said the team had teamed up with an international probe team to look at the state of the aircraft. He said the intention was that the outcome of the inquiry should have international acceptance.
Buturo said two other committees had been set up at Cabinet and permanent secretary level to coordinate all matters related to this national tragedy.
"They should be finalising and by early next week everything should be done. I think it will not go beyond Wednesday," Buturo said.
Daily Monitor reported on Thursday that the Sudan government was holding Uganda's bodies until investigations into the crash were finalised.
The seven Ugandans whose bodies are Col. Peter Nyakairu, the President's chief pilot; co-pilot, Capt. Paul Kiyimba; the chief of protocol at State House, Mr Samuel Bakowa; the jet officer Lt. John Munanura also the officer in charge of the helicopter and the flight engineer, Maj. Patrick Kiggundu.
The others were Ms Lillian Kabaije, an air hostess for the President and Corporal Hassan Kiiza, a Presidential Guard Brigade (PGB) signaller.
The bereaved families together with relatives and friends have kept vigil at their various homes since news of the death of their relatives started trickling in. Buturo said the government was in close contact with the families and "everything is being done to support them."
He criticised those who he said were "manufacturing lies" that the crash was caused by the bad mechanical condition of the helicopter.
He said the plane had just been serviced and equipped with modern equipment and that it was in fantastic shape and there was no way the President's helicopter could be in a bad mechanical state.
"General Garang was a good friend of the President. Also on board were some of the best pilots in the country in whom the government has invested a lot of money in training for many years. You do not send your best brains to their death just like that," he said.
Buturo described the death of Garang as a shattering experience for Ugandans.
"It has been a tragedy of both national and regional proportions. Dr Garang was a great man. Like Moses in the Bible who led his people out of slavery to freedom and the promised land, Garang led his people from a state of indignity to one of dignity," Buturo said.
Meanwhile the formation of Sudan's national unity government - a key plank of a landmark peace accord - is likely to be delayed following the death of John Garang, an official said Friday.
"A unity government will be formed... but it's simply impractical to form a new government by the August 9 target date," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Garang's successor Salva Kiir will be sworn as first vice president following the funeral Saturday of the late leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), although a date has not been fixed, the official added.
The official said that following the swearing in of Kiir, Garang's successor of the leader of the SPLM/A, consultations "will be held at the presidency with a view to forming a national unity government."
The presidency includes President Omar el-Beshir, Second Vice President Osman Ali Taha and Kiir, who was appointed first vice president and head of the autonomous administration for southern Sudan on Thursday.
Riots between mainly Christian and animist southerners and Muslim northerns that have rocked Sudan since Garang's death have exacerbated fears for the future unity of Africa's largest country.
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Northern and southern commentators alike voiced fears that the violence would unravel the landmark accord which ended the north-south war that killed an estimated two million.
Additional reporting by Peter Nyanzi, Adah Nanziri and Tabu Butagira
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