Thursday, October 10, 2024

Africa’s loudest rooftop diplomat radio-silent on Israel-Palestinian issue

At 10:08 a.m. on October 7, Hamas’ sneak attack on Israel was already underway. As a former army commander, a follower of international affairs as well as a great friend of Israel and voracious consumer of its military and spy hardware, former president Ian Khama would certainly have known about this attack within an hour of it happening. However, three hours and 33 minutes into the attack, Khama used his Facebook page to highlight, via hyperlink, a completely different issue – “the jack boot tyranny of regimes in Uganda and Zimbabwe.”

Such tyranny is of grave concern to Daily Maverick, a South African online publication which ran an opinion piece headlined “From Johannesburg to Jail – Bobi Wine pleads for action against Museveni as he is arrested at airport.” Bobi Wine is the trade name of Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu a Ugandan musician-turned-politician, whom President Yoweri Museveni sees as a threat to his multi-decade rule and succession plans. On Wednesday (October 4), Bobi Wine had attended the launch of a new book, Rich State, Poor State, in Johannesburg. Among the guests was a man whose Facebook page identifies him as “The 4th and Former President of Botswana”, who posted pictures from the launch on the page. In one of the pictures, he is engaged in a conversation with Bobi Wine. The Daily Maverick piece was written by the book’s author, Greg Mills.

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