Could Uganda Descend into Civil War?
Youth unemployment is at 41%,according to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics.
Could Uganda, one of the most stable countries in East Africa, descend into civil war? Ands what would such an event augur for the Great Lakes region? Journalist Charles Onyango-Obbo brings up an excellent point on Twitter this morning that Yoweri Museveni, who has been Uganda's President for 37 years, has no successor and is at present quarantined with COVID-19. At 78, death is not an impossibility. And with no successor in place, there is a very real possibility of electoral chaos at best. Of what might happen at worst, it is best not even to contemplate.
Further, in the vacuum of any coherent transition process, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the son of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, has been issuing what can only be properly construed as batshit crazy social media. “Muhoozi,” as the nepo-baby is known, boasts, for example, of invading Kenya (“It wouldn't take us, my army and me, 2 weeks to capture Nairobi,”). He loves Putin — as many right-wing populists do — tweeting, “President Putin is a real Muchwezi! Respect this man!” And “Muhoozi” tweeted about how he would use Uganda’s armed forces to defend Putin if the war criminal was ever thrown from power by “imperialists.” He later discovered enough good sense to delete that tweet. So there’s that.
In any other country, Muhoozi’s tweets would be laughable. Preposterous, even. What African soldier would risk his life to save a paleo-bigot like Putin? Who believes that a nepo-baby blowhard like “Muhoozi” could defeat a regional military power like Kenya? Except, to be sure, that this is Uganda we are talking about. Youth unemployment is at 41%,according to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics. Those are the type of statistics where bank robberies begin to rise. And 85% of the country is under 35 years of age. College graduates are being outsourced to Saudi Arabia, and the problem has existed for almost a decade. The digital revolution, unfortunately, has passed Uganda altogether as Museveni, at 78, still is of the coffee beans and tourism mindset for the political economy. There is no such thing as a Silicon Kampala.
Then, there are the cold, hard facts of history. “Uganda has NEVER had a peaceful power change,” Onyango-Obbo warns. “Only a few diehard optimists see a painless transition from a semi-authoritarian decades-long rule. Still, Uganda has a way of surprising.”
Uganda’s young voters are hungry — starving, really — for change. Museveni’s Uganda is doubling down on the retrograde economics of oil, tourism and coffee. Popular musician "Bobbi Wine," also known as Robert Kyagulanyi, ran against Museveni in the last rigged election in January 2021 (Spoiler: he lost). Here’s an account from Patience Akumu of The Guardian, one month before the election got jacked:
Kyagulanyi was right when he told Christiane Amanpour on CNN last week, when asked why he continues to risk his life for the nearly impossible feat of unseating Museveni, that no one is safe in Uganda.
Museveni came into power after a five-year guerrilla war. He embarked on economic and political reforms, castigating older regimes for rigging elections and staying too long in power, and bringing a semblance of stability to the east African nation. He likes to remind us that we can now sleep all night because of him.
I was born in 1986, the year Museveni came into power. My mother tells of a long and difficult pregnancy during the war. She remembers one evening when rebel soldiers came home from fighting. Just after sunset, as my mother and her sisters-in-law were getting ready to serve dinner, they heard gunshots. It was a familiar sound, their cue to flee to the bush. My mother, heavily pregnant with me, fell numerous times over shrubs and trees as they ran into the dark. Soldiers often raided homes, where they took food, grabbed money, and raped women.
To my mother and her contemporaries, anything is better than those old days of strife.
This is, of course, a familiar story to Ugandans. I was born in 1971, the year Idi Amin Dada came into power. My mother tells of a difficult pregnancy, of wars and rumors of wars and an attempted coup in the early first trimester. She remembers one evening when rebel soldiers attempted to take the capital city, Kampala. Just after sunset, as my mother was listening to American country music on her record player, she heard gunshots and the sound of heavy military vehicles moving in the streets. She hid under the bed, and according to family lore, this was the first time that I kicked. Soldiers, even then, often raided homes, where they took food, grabbed money, and raped women. This is 1971, 15 years before Patience Akumu’s eerily similar story.
I can think of no stronger argument against Museveni's patriotism than the fact that he would rather be "indispensable" than groom a successor to run on his legacy in the event he passes away suddenly. Even President Joe Biden acknowledges that his age — 80 years — is a legitimate campaign issue. But the United States has an electoral framework that would hold up (God willing) in the event of his sudden death. Not so much so with Uganda, which could easily descend into civil war in the event of a sudden death. The Rwandan genocide, which claimed upwards of five million lives, was the result the assassinations of neighboring Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and neighboring Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira. There are 45 million people in Uganda, a volatile mix of Hutus, Tutsis and Batwa living together in relative peace. In the event of the sudden death of Museveni, the chances of another genocide occurring in the region are terrifyingly high.
Would the youth vote, hungry for change, accept Vice President Jessica Alupo as their new President in the event that Museveni passed away, from COVID or otherwise, suddenly? Vice President Alupo, according to reports, is lower on the totem pole than the First Lady, Janet Kataha Museveni. So it is difficult to imagine a scenario where she actually holds real and not ceremonial power. And how about Uganda’s most famous nepo baby, General Muhoozi? He who would invade and conquer Kenya in two weeks. At 48, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba has been jostling to succeed his father for years. “To the Ugandan opposition, after my father, I will defeat you badly in any election,” he tweeted, last October. “Ugandans love me more than they'll ever love you.” Muhoozi tends to be at his most bellicose-grandiose in the evening, perhaps after too much Waragi. Allegedly.
Uganda, an integral partner in the War on Terror, has a total assistance budget from the United States of nearly $1 billion. Could Uganda, one of the most stable countries in East Africa, descend into civil war? And could such a civil war reignite the embers of the Hutu-Tutsi genocide that torched the region nearly thirty years ago? It would behoove the State Department to find an acceptable answer to that question.
And soon.
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