Is Rubongoya A ''Gorbachev''?
While appearing on CBS fm radio last weekend, NUP's Abed Bwanika accused (not suspects) NUP’s Secretary General, Lewis Rubongonya, of being a spy in NUP. He accused him of paying bloggers to insult people on social media and recording meetings people have with Kyagulanyi. He also suspects that he's the one that reports to the security agencies the opposition activists that usually get arrested.
According to Bwanika, President Museveni started paying Rubongoya’s fees from primary school when his father died in late 1980s. Apparently, Rubongoya’s father used to be a veterinary doctor for Museveni. Museveni has reportedly supported Rubongoya's education up to Harvard University where he did his postgraduate studies.
Bwanika’s credibility
Because of Bwanika’s past similar accusations against Besigye, some of the FDCs are saying that he usually does that to foster mistrust and division for personal or political gain.
But in this day and age, you cannot just brush such an accusation aside if you are a leader. You try to investigate it if you think you can. If you can’t then you go for other options, like, reducing the responsibilities of that person. Even a prostitute is allowed to be listen to when she claims to have been raped.
Otherwise, even heads of state or opposition leaders are sometimes working as agents of other nations or organisations. So, don’t just freak out when you hear such suspicions.
The CIA had a standard trick of trying to gain influence over foreign heads of state by fabricating a security problem, most often KGB penetration. The CIA also has had influence over people before they rose to power. Manuel Noriega, for example, was on the payroll of the CIA since 1967, and continued to be paid by them after he assumed power over Panama.
Former West German Prime Minister, Willy Brandt, had to resign after it was revealed that one of his close assistants, Gunter Guillaume, was an East German agent. Will Kyagulanyi resign if it’s proved that Rubongoya is an asset of President Museveni?
It was widely suspected that Arafat lasted as long as he did because Israeli intelligence assassinated his more competent competitors.
Spotting a spy
Intelligence operatives come in all colours and flavours. They might look dumb or smart, are shy or chatty, and some of them might even look like the James Bond type.
There are really no clear signs that would give an Intelligence operative away. To be able to spot them, you need knowledge about the way they operate and a lot of experience. You need to train your mind to see the unseen; we all project outward what we want others to see. It is the things we hide which give away our motive and intentions thus you are hoping to see what some would go to great lengths to hide.
Unlike the developed nations, most of the intelligence officers in poor countries tend to give themselves away. They try to show guns to the public, drive expensive cars, hold parties and aren’t shy to tell people that they have direct access to the president.
According to Hon.Lillian Aber, Rubongoya was the Speaker when she had just joined Makerere University, and the latter used to organise events in the university where he could even invite President Museveni. ‘’He was one of the people we looked at closest to the president at that time at Statehouse’’, she said while appearing on one of the radio stations in Uganda.
Most intelligence officers overseas are under diplomatic cover. For example, they work for the US State Department or the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, etc. Other covers are used, but that is the most common. The trick is to blend in and have an appearance that is plain and not memorable; one that doesn't stand out.
Gorbachev Vs Rubongoya
Bwanika compared Rubongoya to the former leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, who in the late 80s and early 90s was making a lot of deals with western countries to get money the Soviet Union needed badly. The cozy relations Gorbachev had with the United Stated even led to Gorbachev touring the US and other western countries for talks and book deals. This is where suspicion comes in about him being a western asset.
However, there is no credible evidence to support the claim that Mikhail Gorbachev, the former leader of the Soviet Union, was a CIA spy. The Brezhnev years are what doomed the USSR to failure, not Gorbachev. Gorbachev walked into his final job position, running the USSR, and was greeted by an impossible political and economic task. He obviously didn’t mean for the fall of the USSR. The leaders that came before Gorbachev had already destroyed Russia’s economy through military overspending. There was a big lag time between the causes and actual effects. Humans have this bad habit of blaming whoever is currently in power for all the ills that befall them.
When Gorbachev became a major Soviet leader (not even the leader of the Union), the KGB became subordinate to him. That was the extent of their relationship. The KGB was submitting memos on the dangers of his politics, Gorbachev was rejecting those memos. Until the failed August Coup of 1991 when the KGB and others tried to wrestle control of the country from Gorbachev.
People talk about how Gorbachev, with a little finesse, could have followed the same route as the Chinese reformer Deng Xiaoping, simply using authoritarian means to force entrepreneurialism onto the Soviet Union.
The presumption is that a more authoritarian-minded Gorbachev could have forced through meaningful economic reform, thereby staving off secessionist tendencies.
The problem with that argument is that China was not encumbered by an empire comprised of restless, disenfranchised states, the so-called Soviet client states comprising what then was known as Eastern Europe - states that were all too familiar with the degree to which they lagged behind the market-driven economies of Western Europe.
Domestically, he knew drinking in the USSR was a serious problem. It hurt productivity and it ruined many marriages. So, he sought to impose new liquor taxes and toughen the penalties on drinking to excess. This made the Party less popular among lots of Russians. The CIA had nothing to do with that.
He was forced by the real dangers of nuclear war and the declining prices of oil, gas and gold in the 1980s (not by the CIA) to cut back on the USSR’s military budget. He was forced to demilitarize by the USSR’s need to cut back on military spending. That was the only way the many positive services (schools, hospitals, apartments, pensions) could be maintained. Then, when the military was cut back, the nationalities’ problem grew. Maintaining troops in Eastern Europe became too expensive.
The combination of nuclear disaster and low oil prices in the 1980s, finished the USSR. It was Reagan who persuaded Saudi Arabia to start producing so much oil that the price worldwide went down so much that the USSR’s oil sales couldn’t compete with it, so that their oil industry and all its income dried up, putting further strain on the Soviet economy. Arms are not the only way to crush an enemy.
I would add that the Americans seriously fooled Gorbachev and Yeltsin. The Americans took advantage of how desperate and naive Russia was in the early 1990s. They dangled before Russians the false hope that the cold war would be ended and that selling off state enterprises would somehow solve all problems. This was a betrayal. Russian leaders were far too naive. The Americans backed the oligarchs.
It’s possible that some of the things he did made the end of the USSR come faster. But ultimately, given that the end was already in sight when he assumed command, his main achievement might have been to make it dissolve peacefully. Gorbachev was the right man, in the right place, at the right time, to avert catastrophe. We forget how many of the “Republics '' had custody of nuclear weapons. Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan etc, all had nuclear weapons.
Lastly, his wife was a fervent Communist. She would never have let him get away with being a foreign agent. “Gorby” was naive, but I believe he was not a CIA spy.
A lot of people were astounded at the time that the USSR came apart with so little bloodshed. Maybe, Rubongoya also just happens to be in the NUP to ensure that the opposition falls apart, too, with little bloodshed in our country, who knows?
The bottom line is that spies exist in all political parties in Uganda, and there isn’t much anybody can do about it, but leaders should try to keep them away from party secrets. The one shouting ‘I want change’ loudest may be the number one spy in your party.