President Yoweri Museveni has kick-started the course of mending ties with the United State Ambassador to Uganda Deborah Malac, whose service in Kampala seemed not to have started at the right footing with the NRM government.
Museveni today hosted the diplomat at his country home in Rwakirura and took her for a tour of his heritage, his vast cattle farm, where the two spent quality hours of discussion.
Ambassador Malac who took over from Ambassador Scott De Lissi in November last year as the country warmed up for general elections, started her tenure with a sharp critique of President Museveni and his government.
Through the election season, Malac made a mark in the media, criticizing the government’s ‘restrictions on citizens’ freedoms and maltreatment of its opponents.’
On different platforms, she criticized government for trampling the rights of journalists and restricting Ugandans’ freedom of expression while brutalizing the opposition politicians.
Government officials, some of them openly, expressed their unease with the comments of the American envoy. The government deputy spokesperson Col Shaban Bantariza once told media that President Museveni was unhappy with her remarks that he was planning on “summoning her.”
The relations were worsened after the election as president Museveni was taking oath to take office for his fifth term in office, when Ambassador Malac together with other western diplomats walked out of the venue as he made his speech.
Cattle Diplomacy
Recent developments however, suggest that President Museveni has been inclined to burying the hatchet and pulling the outspoken ambassador to his side.
And what better way to do so than at his ranch?
On Friday evening through his official social media accounts, Museveni revealed “Ambassador Deborah Malac visited me at my home in Rwakitura. We discussed issues of mutual interest to our countries.”
“Thereafter I took the ambassador on a tour of my farm, showing her the long-horned Ankole cattle on it.”
President Museveni is known to have a number of incongruities with his opponents ironed out in the company of his cattle.
It should also be remembered that Uganda’s longstanding squabbles with neighboring Rwanda which risked sending the two countries to the frontline were resolved through talks, some on the farm.
Back in the United States, President George W Bush is remembered to have invited the British Prime Minister Tony Blair to his Texas ranch to get him onboard for the expedition in Iraq.
At the Rwakitura farm, President Museveni is believed to have relaxed his guest Malac into discussion aimed at opening new chapter in their relations.