Are we taking the situation in Uganda seriously enough?
Unresolved ethnic and regional issues, a government manoeuvring to ensure electoral victory, and confirmation that two billion barrels of oil lie beneath its western border with the Democratic Republic of Congo may prove to be an explosive combination.
Uganda's future was under discussion the All Party Parliamentary Great Lakes Region and Genocide Prevention Group this week.
Riots that broke out in Uganda's capital Kampala in September were an indicator of rising tension – but Richard Mugisha of the Open Society Initiative for East Africa, and Godber Tumushabe from Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment, both told the group that the focus on tribal disputes which led to the riots deflects from a far more pressing issue: the 2011 Ugandan presidential elections.
President Museveni – who has now been in power in Uganda for some 24 years, and will be running for his sixth term – is mobilising the machinery of the state in his favour.
Indeed, local sources suggest that the rigging of the 2011 election has already begun in earnest.
Museveni is using a neutered parliament to push through electoral reforms which make it impossible for the opposition to compete with the ruling party.
Local radio stations are being shut down, and the media tightly controlled.
And in areas of low support for the incumbent president, constituencies are being merged – while places where Museveni's support is high are having new constituencies and districts created within them.
Disturbingly, this week also saw the introduction before the Ugandan parliament of an anti-homosexuality bill which would impose the death penalty on those found guilty of committing homosexual 'crimes'.
Aside from its repugnance, it is feared that this legislation will be used to immobilise individual members of the opposition as the election approaches.
But perhaps most troubling of all, in a society where political accountability and quality public debate are already very low, these developments are being funded by foreign aid designed to increase participation and inclusion.
Troops trained as anti-terrorist forces using foreign aid are being used in an extrajudicial manner, the APPG was told, as a political police force to target opposition groups and journalists.
And in spite of military reforms funded by the UK, the proliferation of paramilitary groups has not stopped – with forty such groups estimated to exist outside any chain of command.
Historical tensions in Uganda are also likely to be exacerbated by the question of oil.
Two UK-based oil companies bidding for the Ugandan oil are Heritage and Tullow Oil.
But there are fears that the Ugandan government is not managing expectations following the discovery of vast new reserves, and is not being transparent about the bidding process.
Ugandans are calling for the UK government – which is in a unique position to use its influence on these British companies – to intervene to avert this impending crisis.
The UK has invested immense resources in Uganda, enabling significant progress to be made. But the feeling is that Uganda is now moving backwards.
Arguably, the international community sees Uganda through the lens of its troubled neighbours – DRC, Rwanda and Sudan – and the situation in Uganda is not being taken seriously enough.
The British government must now scale up its criticisms of Museveni's actions.
Back in 2006, the Ugandan elections were judged to have not been free or fair – and yet the same commissioners have been appointed for 2011.
And while the focus this week has been on the massive electoral fraud committed in Afghanistan, we must now look back to Uganda – where it is the process, not the ballot box that is rigged.
http://www.epolitix.com/latestnews/article-detail/newsarticle/ugandas-new-oil-may-cause-crisis/
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