My Enemy's Enemy: Uganda's military role in East Africa

On 02 February 2017, Ugandan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Okello Oryem, rejected calls from the international community for a military intervention in South Sudan; a call Uganda had been expected to heed. Commentators had proposed the establishment of a ‘trusteeship’ government in Juba, in response to the worsening political crisis in the country following the violence in Juba in July 2016, and the rapidly reducing international legitimacy of President Salva Kiir’s administration. However, despite these calls from the international community, and the opportunity for Uganda to increase its role in South Sudan, this time round Uganda has refrained from intervening. Yet, Uganda has long been a key contributor to regional military interventions in East Africa, including its ongoing efforts as part of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), regional operations against the former Uganda-based Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), primarily in the Central African Republic, and its controversial intervention in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Furthermore, Uganda was among the first to deploy troops to South Sudan when the conflict first broke out in December 2013. Now, Uganda’s hesitation to intervene has raised questions over the direction of Uganda’s regional engagement.

Uganda’s foreign policy is widely considered to be intertwined with the wills of long-serving President Yoweri Museveni, whose own pan-African viewpoint appears to have driven previous incidents of military engagement across the region. In power for over 30 years, President Museveni has been successful in centralising government control, including over the country’s actions abroad. Despite maintaining a Ministry of Foreign Affairs, nominally headed by Oryem, it has long been understood that State House has determined the direction of Uganda’s foreign policy. The incumbent has demonstrated a strong aspiration for greater East African cooperation, a consequence of President Museveni’s wider pan-Africanist views, as evidenced by the country’s previous support for liberation movements in South Sudan, Rwanda and as far south as South Africa. Through this pan-African approach, President Museveni has placed Uganda at the helm of regional intervention in East Africa, as well as secured engagement with international organisations, including the UN. Uganda’s regional military intervention has also been effective in gaining favour in the West and in asserting the country’s military authority in the region. President Museveni’s willingness to deploy Ugandan troops in African conflicts has been positively received by the West and served to bolster the wider ‘African solutions to African problems’ rhetoric, which has encouraged greater African Union (AU) intervention on the continent and fits well within President Museveni’s pan-Africanist viewpoint. This has, to a degree, led the West to turn a blind eye on President Museveni’s flouting of certain democratic principles, whilst encouraging substantial financial aid packages to Uganda. Furthermore, it has created an expectance among the international community around Uganda’s constant willingness to intervene.

Museveni’s control of foreign policy has proved useful in maintaining the much-needed support of domestic military heavyweights, who bolster President Museveni’s administration and helps to secure the loyalty of the Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF). In this regard, despite international expectations, Uganda’s military interventions have been centred on the ambitions and requirements of Museveni’s administration. Foreign military intervention has provided President Museveni with the means to secure funding and specialised training for Ugandan troops. For example, salaries, estimated at USD 750 per month per soldier, garnered from the AU through Uganda’s AMISOM participation have been a key source of funding for the armed forces. Access to training and multinational experience is also seen as a key benefit to aid in the professionalisation of the military, which in turn, is less likely to become aggrieved and launch mutinies against the incumbent.

Furthermore, embedded in Uganda’s foreign intervention policy is the landlocked country’s need to maintain mutually beneficial relations with its neighbours. Trade relations with neighbouring countries not only require supportive relationships, but also a stable commercial environment in which Uganda can operate. Prior to the outbreak of civil war in South Sudan in December 2013, the newly formed state had already formed one of Uganda’s largest regional trading partners. Now, as Uganda embarks on its oil ambitions, maintaining close ties with its neighbours, including Tanzania and South Sudan, will prove vital to secure its oil exports, in the latest display of Uganda’s national interest in regional participation.

This national, yet personalised, interest has been a primary driver of Uganda’s engagement with South Sudan. Specifically, President Museveni has long supported the secessionist ambitions of southern Sudan, largely founded on the protracted rivalry between Uganda and Sudan. Commentators trace this rivalry to the 1990s and Khartoum’s apparent southward Islamic ambitions. In response to this perceived threat, Museveni looked to back the southern secessionist campaign of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), led first by the late John Garang and then by current South Sudanese President, Salva Kiir. The creation of an independent South Sudanese state in July 2011 offered a new means for the Kampala and Khartoum administrations to compete for influence. President Museveni was quick to prioritise his close ties with President Kiir when civil war broke out in South Sudan in December 2013, leaving their Sudanese counterpart, Omar Al Bashir, with little choice but to seek favour with rebel leader, Riek Machar, and in turn, elevating concerns over the regionalisation of the crisis.

Amid the current political crisis in South Sudan, the Ugandan government has been far more hesitant to redeploy troops, despite calls to the contrary by the international community and increased fighting on Uganda’s border, in South Sudan’s Central Equatoria region. This time round, President Kiir appears to wield greater control over the conflict. Machar remains in exile and his rebel forces have become increasingly divided between Machar’s supporters and a smaller faction who back self-appointed rebel leader, Vice President Taban Deng Gai. Now, with a failing economy, Juba is eager to renegotiate oil export terms with Khartoum in the absence of international aid, the latter of which is contingent on a more transparent peace process. Donors’ reluctance to bail out South Sudan financially, unless Juba adopts stringent transparency and accountability measures, has inadvertently increased the attractiveness of a more comprehensive deal with Sudan. In turn, Sudan is also eager to increase engagement with the oil-rich south.

Within this context, and despite its subsequent collapse, the August 2015 Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)-brokered peace deal, facilitated re-engagement between Sudan and Uganda at the negotiating table. The deal secured favourable conditions for Sudan. These included the withdrawal of Ugandan forces and the disarmament of Sudanese rebel forces present in South Sudan, which Khartoum alleges are materially supported by Juba. This served to somewhat appease Sudan, which has been further bolstered by President Kiir’s efforts to re-engage with his Sudanese counterpart, with newly appointed Vice President Deng Gai travelling to Khartoum on several occasions to win favour with President Al Bashir. With Museveni aligned with President Kiir and Kiir seeking favour with President Al Bashir, Uganda and Sudan are increasingly on the same side in the conflict.

Now, as Kampala’s concerns shift from the political to economic amid growing oil revenue expectations, refraining from military intervention in South Sudan, could secure a new dynamic balance of power between Kampala, Khartoum and Juba. As such, it remains to be seen whether the hesitation by Uganda to intervene in South Sudan this time will be a once-off occurrence or whether the move represents a shift in Uganda’s regional engagement. Nevertheless, it is clear that Uganda will remain a prominent player in transnational developments in the region.