By Stephen Lwetutte
LONDON-UNITED KINGDOM/NEWSDAY:
Despite being of different races and at different socio-economic stages of development, the Russian Federation (Russia) and the Republic of Uganda (Uganda) have actually got a lot in common – both have no democratic culture, never had a democratic transfer of power, are poor resource-rich countries, are hospitable and friendly nations currently presided over by repressive, unaccountable and power-hungry strongmen.
President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin of Russia and Yoweri Tibuhaburwa Museveni of Uganda are post World War II contemporaries whose fate, faith and fortune have been formed and informed by the Cold War and post Cold War realities. It is arguable that they are both communists at heart, who are steeped in classic Marxism, but have had painfully to adapt to the new reality of a US-led unipolar world that emerged in the ruins of the Soviet Union, in order to live and fight another day.
They both seem to harbour deep-seated ideological differences against the West that infrequently bubble to the surface and can be detected in the acerbic public statements they often blurt out in diplomatic off-the-cuff gaffes. Yet they have undertaken considerable economic and political reforms to align their policies to the new capitalist reality, including the establishing and entrenching an open market economy. Paradoxically, they have taken to it with such affinity that they are reported to have enriched themselves to becoming multibillionaires almost overnight. Tales of fantastic wealth of both men and their close circles – the oligarchs – abound, a significant part of it allegedly conveniently stashed away in overseas havens.
Both men rose through machinations from relative obscurity from within the security services of their respective countries – Museveni was reported to have held a security docket within the presidential administration of President Obote I as his first job in late 1960s/early 1970s, as Putin joined KGB (Russia’s State Security Agency) straight on completion of law school in 1975. He scaled its ranks to the rank of Colonel and Station Chief in communist Germany Democratic Republic (GDR) or East Germany by the time of the demise of collapse of the Berlin Wall and reunification of Germany in 1990, and the completion of the demise of the Soviet Union itself a year later.
While Museveni fought, lied and charmed his way to the Presidency 36 years ago in 1986 after short stints in-between as government minister in post-Amin governments before President Obote’s second regime came to power in 1980, Putin returned to Native St Petersburg and occupied various positions at the State University and City administration there. A few years later, he was to be hand-picked by influential family circles of then Russia’s President Boris Yeltsin and named the Prime Minister, before being named interim President in a shock announcement on New Year’s eve in 1999 on Yeltsin’s resignation.
Once in Office, both men have hung onto the Presidency and have manipulated their respective Constitutions to prolong their tenures. They have stifled voices of dissent and enacted laws to persecute, prosecute and confine political rivals to jail sentences. The less fortunate ones have died in suspicious circumstances in both countries. Independent accounts of the state of human rights and governance in both countries are eerily similar – torture and ill-treatment concerns, political persecution, violations of the right to freedom expression, kleptocracy and vote rigging.
Both leaders believe they are military invincible and their armies are known to have intervened in neighbouring countries with disastrous consequences – Putin in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, Kazakhstan in 2021 and Ukraine in 2022, with ongoing conflicts in parts of Moldova, and Museveni in Rwanda in 1990, Democratic Republic of Congo in 1998, Somalia in 2008, Southern Sudan in 2013. Both men have conducted Special Operations in foreign countries, Museveni and the Americans, for better fir worse, a Special Operation in the Central African Republic in the hunt for banished Ugandan rebel leader, Joseph Kony, of the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), Putin in Chechnya and in Ukraine.
Both men have also had to grapple with domestic armed rebellions in their own backyards, Museveni with Joseph Kony’s LRA and Putin with the Chechen rebels who had succeeded in defeating and humiliating the Russian army and established an unrecognised Chechen Republic, Ichkeria, before regrouping after a hiatus of 10 years and conducting an Scorched-earth policy offensive that razed the capital Grozny to the ground before he could re-establish effective central control over the restive region.
A similar policy is reported to have been deployed by Museveni in northern Uganda in order to defeat Joseph Kony. It is feared that Putin is using that same method in the ongoing war in Ukraine in order to break the impasse in stalled offensive and make quicker progress, notwithstanding the blatant breaches of International Humanitarian Law which protects civilians and non-combatants, which have resulted in massively disproportionate loss of life and damage to civilian objects.
Both men seem to have mortal fear of contracting Covid-19 judging by the bizarre distance they keep in official meetings between them and their interlocutors, almost to the point of absurdity. The similarities between these two men are so striking that vocal President Museveni’s silence on the war is deafening, presumably for fear of antagonising his western benefactors to whom he has warmed over the years.
Although it would appear that he would come out in support of his natural soul mate President Putin, he is also acutely live to the potential consequences for any action that is seen to be undermining and upsetting the International sanctions regime against Russia, especially for a basket-case economy that Uganda has become on his watch. Officially, at the UN, Uganda has abstained on anti Russia Resolution under the convenient guise that Uganda are the next Chair of the Non Aligned Movement, and needs to remain neutral.
Yet soon after the UN vote, the Russian Ambassador met up with President Museveni, presumably to explain Uganda’s position, which had been pre-empted anyway by the loose-canon “tweeting” General First Son, Lt General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, not known to mince his words when, on 28 February, twitted “the majority of mankind (that are non-white) support Russia’s stand in Ukraine”, inviting criticism from the European Union delegation in the sub region.
Those are pieces, l guess, left to the Uganda Ministry of Foreign Affairs to pick up, as indeed Junior Foreign Minister Okello Oryem did, by retorting: “That was his [Lt General Muhoozi] opinion to which he is entitled but that is not the position of the Ministry or the Foundation of the Ministry, President Yoweri Museveni, he (Muhoozi) doesn’t speak for us”. That was after Lt General Muhoozi’s statements were queried, including by this column in our article dated 01 March and entitled – Russia-Ukraine War: Has Uganda’s Foreign Policy been surrendered or highjacked?
President Museveni is clearly conflicted, his silence does nothing to help, but there are no prizes for guessing what his views are and his support is. Too many similarities to be anything else – he hasn’t criticised Russia, and he is not about to start. Hopefully, he is on the right side of history as, in the words of the late South African prelate Desmond Tutu, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
As a long-standing regional strongman, neutrality should not be good enough for Museveni and he must pluck up the courage and pronounce himself one way or the other. After years of arrogating himself the role of African spokesman on the global stage, he must exploit the occasion to set the record straight if only to allay the interpretation imputed by late Tutu and redeem his image.
The writer is a Multilingual Human Rights Practitioner, formerly at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International in London for over 20 years and now Legal and Human Rights Consultant.
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