Did I hear that Kenyan students at Makerere University rioted and even manhandled the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Livingstone Luboobi?

Their complaint is that they pay more tuition than Ugandans for university education! And our dear President goes on to ask Parliament to allow foreign students to pay the same tuition as Ugandans, even before the storm at the university is over! Am I damn or something has terribly gone wrong in the Uganda that we long knew!

What would the two students Tom Onyango and Tom Okema who were shot dead by Police during a strike by Ugandan students on December 10, 1990, say were they to know how Kenyans were being treated? Where was the riot Police? Where were the mambas? Where were the Military Police? Where were the NRM cadres who beat the hell out of us in the early 1990s at Makerere for simply asking what we thought were genuine requests from a government that we can now say cares less about Ugandans? I don't get it!

A foreign student rioting, wanting to use petrol to burn university installations and nothing is done to them? Our strike leaders of the olden times, the likes of Norbert Mao, Wilbroad Owor, Richard Mugolo Kapiriri, Jacob Oulanya and many more must be wondering what on earth happened to Makerere!

These were Ugandan student leaders who led us into some of the more memorable battles. We were proud Ugandans fighting for our boom, our books, our transport allowance, our welfare which unfortunately has been slowly and surely removed by turning the university into a commercial institution. What would these leaders tell us today; that Ugandans students have become so impotent that they have nothing to strike for and have to wait for Kenyans to show them the way? And now we have turned eastwards for help? I am shocked!

Look, if we allow these Kenyans who are still basking in the Barrack Obama glory to take over the leadership of anger at Makerere, we are cooked. If we want to make an East Africa Federation which is headed by Kenyans and not Ugandans, we are dead.

That is why I think the President was making a strategic point about having the same school fees in the region. So were these students being encouraged to go on and strike since they had gained support from the man himself?

Where are the Richard Nabuderes of the Police fame who clobbered us with no let? Where were all the men dressed in Police uniform but shooting on the meat? Where were all the tanks that patrolled the university before we were summarily ordered to leave the university? We were so thoroughly beaten and scared that we did not even remember to pick our luggage as the university was closed. You returned to the university only after the Special District Administrator (SDA) cleared you.

Imagine a Ugandan studying in Kenya; they even fear mentioning that they are Ugandans! Otherwise the rungu wielding policemen will turn you into minced meat if you open your mouth. You will be lucky if they dump you in some prison or at Malaba or Busia border posts and bid you farewell.

Are we now content with having a Kenyan style of education here; where strikes are part of the curriculum? Some of these are students who have never completed their courses despite being in university for 10 years because every year the university is closed due to students' unrest; is that what we want at Makerere?

I am really at loss.

Agreed, Makerere has changed for worse; but where were the Ugandan students during this rioting; why couldn't they intervene and show these Kenyan brothers that post Kyankwanzi indoctrination, we abhor anyone who resists any authority?

Can someone tell these students that anger for us Ugandans is kept under wraps for fear of what will come with it? Did these students see what happened at the Uganda High Court? Do they know the Black Mamba? Have they ever tasted the sweet and sour smell of tear gas?

And these people go as far as harassing innocent motorists going about their mundane work? Where do they get the courage from? Next time these students want to riot, they should first inform the older generation of Makerere to show them how things are done. Ours were painstakingly planned, executed to such perfection that even a government minister would come to beg students. But these were Ugandan students.

What if the many Burundian, Rwandese and Tanzanian students that are supporting the myriad of schools in Uganda began striking for this and that? There are so many of these foreign students in this country that we may not be able to countenance if they begin taking the law into their hands.

Strikes are a preserve of only Ugandans; we are the ones who can brave the kind of consequences that come with the state machinery should it seem to them that a strike might cause harm to the establishment.

My advice to the Kenyans students is that if you want to burn our buildings and assault our docile motorists, be careful, we might take the law into our hands and escort you to Busia. We have the means!

Dismas Nkunda, The author is a human rights expert and specialist on refugee issues