It's darkness for Besigye as he languishes in jail, as Kenya seeks to sell tea in Sudan

**Uganda's opposition leader Kizza Besigye in the dock at the Makindye Martial Court in Kampala, on November 20, 2024.** [AFP]

I have seen an old clip of Dr Kizza Besigye during his days as a bushdoctor, or more appropriately, a doctor in the bush, when he was Ugandan Prezzo M7’s comrade-in-arms during the Bush Wars.

That’s when M7 led a ragtag insurgency that overran Kampala and installed National Resistance Army, which later morphed into the National Resistance Movement, in 1986. Then, Besigye was a bright-eyed and handsome youth, and he served as M7’s personal physician. In the bush, he served the larger populace in their area of operation, including mending the bones or suturing wounds of the soldiers felled in the field.

That’s nearly 40 years ago and M7 and Besigye long fell out, consigning the latter to the opposition ranks. Last November, Besigye was abducted from the streets of Nairobi and shuttled to Kampala, where he has been languishing in a military prison since.

I am writing with a lot of restraint because I know folks have been abducted or disappeared for less crimes, but Kenya Kwanza administration has a lot to answer for in regard to the abduction and continued detention of Besigye.

I understand Musalia Mudavadi aka MaDvd, the Foreign Affairs boss, has come out to explain why we have no explanation to make over the Sudanese outlaws who are plotting the overthrow of Khartoum from our soil, but no one has explained why Besigye was abducted from our streets.

Since foreign diplomacy is informed by strategic interests, I wonder what’s in it for us in destablising Khartoum. Selling tea, possibly, but that will only be possible in peacetime.