Ugandan Military - Uganda People's Defense Force soldiers are seen on the Mbau-Kamango road in Beni district of the Democratic Republic of Congo on December 8, 2021. Sebastian Kitsa Musai/AFP via Getty Images
On May 26, at a polling station in northern Uganda's Omoro district, crowds gather around polling booths under a mango tree along a small dirt road. Old men and women in faded blazers, young men in second-hand soccer jerseys, and women with bandages on their backs emerged from houses hidden in tall grass to watch as election officials counted votes for early parliamentary elections.
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They were flanked by several security agents: two ordinary policemen in khaki uniforms; an anti-terrorism police officer in a beret and umbrella; a soldier in camouflage pants; A police officer in blue dress uniform, who was not a soldier, but certainly looked like one; And four men in balaclavas stuck in the back of a loaded truck. Most of them came with weapons.
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This scene in an obscure polling station reveals some simple truths about the way the Ugandan state functions under Yoweri Museveni, a former rebel who took power in 1986. The military seems to be everywhere - even civilian institutions now look like the military. Museveni supports his political power with all kinds of security forces, including intelligence agencies and police units, but it is the military rationale that prevails. Under Museveni's leadership, the military is reaching deep into Ugandan politics and society.
Everywhere the army shows the weakness of the state. The modern state of Uganda was created by British colonialists who did little to build an efficient bureaucracy. In the 1970s, Uganda's then dictator Idi Amin drove what institutions there underground. Faced with a legacy of state dysfunction, Museveni has repeatedly turned to the military, the only institution he truly trusts. Unlike the police or civil service, which he inherited from previous governments, the army is a direct descendant of the rebel force he himself rebuilt.
"Museveni has always been a military man who believes that the best way to organize people, to control people, to dominate society is to have a gun," said Moses Khisa, a Ugandan political scientist at North Carolina State University. .” "But I think that in recent times, the militarization has become more ruthless and widespread because Museveni has been weakened by a leader [by] many forces that have been deployed against him."
Among these forces is the tectonic pressure of population. According to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, three-quarters of Ugandans are under the age of 30, and there aren't enough decent jobs to go around. Public frustration over corruption and inequality echoed in opposition politics, showing support for singer-turned-politician Bobby Wine and retired soldier Kizza Besigye. Besigye, who fought alongside Museveni but has run for president in four elections since, said: "[Museveni's] main focus was on building a machine, a military machine, to maintain and extend his power. "
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"Museveni has always been a military man who believes that the best way to organize people, to control, to dominate society is to have arms."
These elections are a clear example of the growing role of the military in the country. In Omoro, soldiers attacked the local offices of an opposition party the night before a snap election, beating activists, stealing money and confiscating documents, according to Human Rights Watch. On the day of the polls, the police and armed men in plain clothes detained opposition activists including MPs. Other recent elections have been marred by arrests, bribery and credible allegations of vote rigging. Such brazen oppression is reminiscent of the brutality of the 2021 presidential election, when state forces harassed, arrested, abducted, tortured and killed opposition supporters.
But the Army's text is broader than that. Watch out for the police. In the early years of his rule, Museveni openly questioned the loyalty of police officers: he once complained that they would vote for a bull instead of him. His solution was to place the force under the command of army generals, such as General Kale Kayihura, who served as the reigning police chief from 2005 to 2018. Although a civilian, Martin Okoth Ochola, now heads the force, many analysts believe that real power rests with a group of soldiers in high-ranking positions.
The deployment of military officers is "the only drawback in police work ... because these people are not trained in police service," said Julius Odwe, a career police officer who was Kayahura's deputy until Odwe's retirement in 2011. . Many of Odway's former colleagues are frustrated, he said, because there are fewer and fewer civilian police officers in high-ranking positions. "I think the police force will die because the professionals are discouraged," he said.
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And it's not just the police force that is filled with soldiers. Museveni appointed three former military commanders to ministerial positions, along with six other retired or retired military officers. Both Ministers of Home Affairs are General, as well as General Staff of the Ministry. Migrants have been controlled by the army since 2019.
Extremism has spread beyond the security sector and into public service institutions, said Sylvie Namwase, a researcher at the Center for Human Rights and Peace at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. The military has entered many of these areas over the past decade, duplicating or replacing the work of existing civilian organizations and civil servants.
For example, a soldier heads the president's "anti-corruption unit." On Lake Victoria, the military brutally enforces fishing regulations. The army maintains tax collection centers, fights corruption, runs factories, herds cattle, monitors street vendors, and trains everyone from paramilitary wildlife rangers to water engineers. is Wide areas of the economy, from seed distribution to mineral development, are now managed by Operation Wealth Creation, a massive military program.
As the army expanded, so did its budget. Security spending in Uganda has tripled in the past four years, totaling $1.2 billion (4.7 trillion Ugandan shillings) for the 2020-2021 fiscal year. In addition, Uganda's parliament regularly passes supplementary budgets – a form of unplanned spending designed for unforeseen contingencies – to channel secret funds to the military.
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Army officials justify their excesses by denying bureaucratic failure and saying the army supports economic development. "If these civil organizations actually followed their rules, followed the law, performed as expected, we would have no business," said Brig. Major General Felix Kulaigi, the army spokesman who used to be its political leader. He criticized what he called the "talk" of officers and policemen against the sacrifices he said soldiers make for their country. "We have paid the price to see Uganda today. However, our fellow citizens - we ran the country - are just doing our job. Shall we fold our hands and surrender?"
But the military also has a long history of corruption, from procurement scandals to the looting of gold, diamonds and timber in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And Museveni himself is creating the conditions for their destruction by crossing civilian buildings. "He is a micro-manager, and he is someone who cannot build institutions," said Mugisha Muntu, who commanded the army in the 1990s and ran for president last year for a small opposition party.
Museveni also relies on the military to consolidate power within his family. The ruling leader is Lieutenant General Muhuzi Kanerugaba, Museveni's son and commander of the ground forces, who wants to replace him. And General Salim Saleh, the president's brother, heads Operation Wealth Creation, which gives the first family direct control of a major powerhouse.
However, the military-state does not have a monopoly on everything. For one, it is too weak to completely silence dissent. There is a lively press and a vocal opposition. Space for both is closing fast, but Uganda is not yet a country like neighboring Rwanda, where politics is discussed only in whispers. Instead, the state uses coercion, so the limits of permitted speech are never clear.
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An example of arbitrary enforcement was the COVID-19 curfew in Uganda in 2020 and 2021. There were cars on the roads. Closed bars allow drinks to flow around the back. Yet the potential for sudden violence was always there, especially for the poor. At least ten people were shot dead during enforcement operations, often recruited by state militias and trained by the army. State authority was neither absolute nor uniform in its application. It was unexpected and wonderful.
Rebecca Tapscott, a lecturer at the Graduate Institute of Geneva who has studied regional security in Uganda, says this type of governance is best understood as a system of "institutionalized bliss." It includes the authority of various actors – army, police, detectives, militia and security. The line between legitimate and illegitimate violence has become blurred. The state seems to be everywhere, but it is not. The result is "a constant state of political uncertainty that seems intentional to those who experience it and makes it very difficult for people to organize together," Tapscott said.
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