My recent
visit to Mogadishu and seeing what our troops have done there made me
proud. Yet perhaps the greatest lesson from Somalia was not necessarily
the good that our army is capable of doing in foreign lands but how
smart President Yoweri Museveni is at geo-strategic positioning.
Museveni has cultivated a very good understanding of the dynamics of
regime survival in Africa, a factor that explains his decades of rule.
So why did
Museveni go into Somalia? Perhaps because he genuinely feels he should
help our African brothers out of their quagmire through Pan African
solidarity; and our president holds strong Pan African feelings. Perhaps
it was to serve his vision of grandeur; for Museveni has a
larger-than-life image of himself. Today, with his armies in five
countries – the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central Africa Republic,
South Sudan, Somalia and of course Uganda – he seems to have achieved
his dream of grandeur and empire. And of course, UPDF’s presence in
Somalia also comes with other perks – good pay for the soldiers,
revenues from renting our equipment to AMISOM, replacement equipment for
every weapon we send to Mogadishu and some measure of international
prestige.
While
important, these reasons were not decisive. Museveni’s Somalia project
seems to have been influenced by a political calculation regarding his
relations with America. The US needs to occupy every country without a
state, especially a Muslim country, in order to forestall the entry of
Al Qaeda to establish a base there. However, this creates more problems;
America loses blood and treasure, thus creating political discontent at
home. Just look at the dead and injured plus the money spent on
Afghanistan and Iraq.
Hence,
America has shifted its strategy to outsourcing the troops for
occupation of foreign lands. By using AMISOM and the UN to sponsor a
poor African country like Uganda to do its dirty work, America spends
less money while at the same time loses no life and keeps its citizens
happy. In Iraq or Afghanistan, the US spends $250,000 per soldier per
year. Uganda spends less than 10 percent of that.
Somalia is
also important for global trade. With a coastline of 3,000km along the
Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Eden, a significant share of global
shipping through the Suez Canal depends on security in Somalia. Somalis
are smart entrepreneurs; so they took advantage of statelessness and
their geographical position to profit through piracy. In response, the
big powers have deployed massive navies in the Indian Ocean to stop
pirates. To effectively control piracy on the seas, you need to control
the land from which they operate.
This is
where Museveni, the master strategist in geopolitical repositioning,
came to life. For many years he had been America’s points-man in Africa
through his support for SPLA against the Islamist regime in Khartoum and
stabiliser-in-chief of the Great Lakes Region with his military support
(real and perceived) of Rwanda and DRC. But with the signing of the
peace agreement in 2005, which paved way for the independence of South
Sudan and the emergence of Rwanda as a competing military power, he was
beginning to lose his traction in Washington’s regional schemes and
thereby almost becoming internationally irrelevant.
Somalia
has remade Museveni. For as long as he fights America’s war against Al
Qaeda (real or perceived) in Somalia and is the key player in ensuring
the security of global trade in the Indian Ocean, the opposition in
Uganda can shout themselves hoarse but the Western powers will only
listen to them to offer hypocritical sympathy but not meaningful
support. This is even made worse by opposition leader Kizza Besigye’s
threat to pull Ugandan troops out of Somalia if he were president.
Uganda’s
contingent commander in Somalia, Brig. Paul Lokech told to me: “Before
we captured Mogadishu, Boka Haram [the Nigerian Islamist/Terrorist
group] were occupying Pasta factory; Bin Laden had visited five years
earlier and we have killed Fasur Mohamed (a Cameroonian Islamist
terrorist). We are therefore part of the wider global manhunt against Al
Qaeda and the wider problem of Islamic extremism.” I sat back and took
off my hut for Kaguta’s son.
Can America afford a change of government in Uganda? Perhaps they may consider the opposition’s anti-Somalia policy as political posturing knowing that once in power, they can turn Besigye around to change his mind. But why risk with an angel you don’t know when you have a devil you trust. Besides, US policy is driven by very short term considerations – like what opinion polls show that morning. President Barak Obama does not have the luxury of time to deal with an uncertain change of power in Kampala when he has an election in November.
With
America on board, the rest of the Western world can only follow suit.
Museveni may have lost his brand and spark as a new breed of an African
leader given the length of his stay in power coupled with the
incompetence, corruption and nepotism in his government. So Obama may
not visit Kampala to be seen schmoozing with our president. However,
Museveni has regained his centrality in America’s (and I think the
larger Western world’s) global and regional objectives. So Washington
will be least willing to undermine him. So hate or love him, and his
domestic failures notwithstanding, Museveni seems to be holding the
strategic initiative. Perhaps the core weakness of his opponents has
been their consistent underestimation of him.
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