By Matthias Mugisha and
Els De Temmerman

Anti-Ugandan feelings run high in Kisumu in western Kenya, home to opposition leader Raila Odinga and a major transit town on the Nairobi-Kampala highway.

Anybody entering the town with a Ugandan number plate is looked at suspiciously. “You people from Uganda, what your president did was not good,” shouts a young man at a dismantled road block, made of burnt-out cars and buses.

President Yoweri Museveni was the first leader to congratulate Mwai Kibaki upon his re-election in polls which foreign diplomats and observers say were marred with irregularities. “The general perception here is that Museveni advised Kibaki,” says the manager of an Italian restaurant in central Kisumu.

“People believe that Kibaki rushed to Kampala immediately after he was sworn in.”

But there is another reason why Ugandans are met with hostility. “The rumour goes that Ugandan gunmen were brought in to shoot at demonstrators after local policemen refused to fire at their own people,” says the manager.

Kisumu MP and former mayor of the town, Shabir Shakeel, confirms the rumour but says he does not believe they were Ugandan soldiers.

“A rapid deployment unit was brought in, taking orders directly from Nairobi”, he tells The New Vision team at Imperial Hotel in Kisumu.

“They followed a shoot-to-kill policy. People say among them were mamuluki (mercenaries) from Uganda because they were differently dressed.”

“But I told the crowd: These were not Ugandan forces. Museveni is a friend of Raila and of Kisumu; he has visited this place several times’.”

Hundreds of people, mainly from Raila’s Luo tribe, were shot by security forces in ten days of post-election violence in Kisumu.

Kisumu Referral Hospital, built by Russians on land donated by Raila’s father, received 261 patients with bullet wounds since the trouble started, of which 55 died.

“I participated in a peaceful demonstration last Thursday,” recalls 36-year old Joseph Rodich, whose right arm is amputated. “The Police aimed at us. I raised my hands and pleaded: ‘Don’t kill us. We only want the president we voted for.’ But they just started shooting. I got two bullets in my arm.” Most survivors at the hospital, however, say they did not in any way participate in the demonstration. “I was sitting on my verandah when I heard noise,” says Eric Omundi, a bicycle repairer of Kisumu who has a just-stitched scar running down his belly. “I got up to see what was happening. The next moment, I felt coldness on my back. When I touched, my hand was full of blood.”

Eleven-year-old Laureen Awuor was hiding in a make-shift house when a bullet penetrated the wall.

“It entered through my left hand, then through my right hand and crossed through my chest,” says the P4 pupil of St. John’s school in Muhoroni, 30 km from Kisumu. “It is a miracle I am alive.”

Alice Atieno in the bed next to her had just returned from work when a stray bullet entered the back of her head. “She was about to enter her place when she felt the bullet coming,”says her sister.

“It came out through her cheek and hit a child behind her. Her jaw is broken and she is unable to speak or eat.”

While most of the casualties were caused by the General Service Unit and the Administration Police, the mamuluki fired the first shots, people in Kisumu believe.

Back in Uganda, state minister for international affairs, Henry Okello Oryem, denies any involvement by the Ugandan forces.

“There is no truth in allegations that Museveni or anybody in authority in Uganda deployed elements of UPDF or other security forces in Kenya,” he says.

“There is no reason why we should do that. The only logical thing for Uganda to do is to sympathise with our brothers in Kenya and help them bring calm and tolerance.”

President Museveni has assured Raila Odinga that the Ugandan forces were not in Kisumu and did not intent to deploy under any circumstances, he stresses. “I cannot comment on whether mercenaries were there. But that would have had to be pre-arranged. As soon as the riots began, movement between Uganda and Kenya was very strict. We would have detected it.” He also dismisses as “absolutely rubbish” reports that Kibaki flew to Uganda after his inauguration. “Kibaki has not stepped one foot into Uganda since he was sworn in as President. Whoever is peddling that rumour has ill motives for the relations between our countries.”