Threats and Promises: Uganda Gets Tough at Home and Abroad

Ugandan leaders have worked closely with the military brass of both the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Rwandan-backed rebel movement, M23, in the country while running its own fighters in the eastern DRC. They have also sent troops to South Sudan to help the country as a civil war rages in neighboring Sudan and spills over the border. 

These operations have expanded Uganda’s sphere of influence in eastern Africa, which Ugandan leaders take seriously after Islamist rebels based in the DRC launched bombing attacks in the capital of Kampala in 2021, wrote Xinhua.  

These policies have also sown the seeds of violence for generations, say analysts. “Ugandan meddling perpetuates conflict in the eastern DRC by proliferating the number of armed actors, injecting regional competition into local conflicts, and complicating peace efforts,” wrote the Institute for the Study of War. 

The same Ugandan leaders are equally decisive and arguably ruthless when they handle critics at home. 

The country’s military chief, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, who is the eldest son of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, recently said he kidnapped and held captive Eddie Mutwe, the chief bodyguard for Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine, according to Reuters. 

Mutwe went missing on April 27 after armed men grabbed him in Kampala. On social media, Kainerugaba claimed that he had captured Mutwe “like a grasshopper,” put him in his “basement,” and was “using him as a punching bag,” reported Al Jazeera. Four days later, when he appeared in court to answer to charges of aggravated robbery, Mutwe was “visibly weak.” His attorneys said he was tortured. The justice minister called the situation “an abuse of the judicial process.” 

Critics of President Museveni and his regime said Mutwe’s ordeal was a sign of an escalating and harsh government campaign to silence dissent and crush the opposition before elections next year, the BBC explained. Wine is expected to run against Museveni, who has run Uganda for nearly 40 years. 

Wine and other opposition leaders say that Museveni’s security forces have kidnapped more than 2,000 activists in the country since 2021, noted Radio France Internationale. Police have arrested Wine numerous times during his political campaigns. Another Museveni rival and presidential contender, Kizza Besigye, has been detained for nearly five months on treason charges that he rejects as political. 

On social media, Kainerugaba later challenged Wine to a boxing match, wrote Business Insider Africa. Wine accepted, saying that he will quit politics if he loses, but, if he wins, the military chief must give up alcohol. 

That was a much less serious threat, however, than one he made in January on X against Wine, threatening to behead him, added Business Insider Africa. Soon after, the president’s son quit X, saying, “It is on the instructions and blessings of my Lord Jesus Christ that I leave this social media and dedicate myself to my assignment to bring peace and security to our region.”