Angelo Izama
2 November 2008
New Year's Day 2009 may be a day too far for Uganda which has been savoring its elevation to the head of the table of the Africa group at the United Nations.
Back in Kampala where a "Tripartite" Conference declared a historical step towards the largest economic bloc in Africa, is warming the stomachs of diplomats, the specter of all that high-minded talk was being put to test first in Somalia, where Ugandan troops are involved in a fluid security situation as peace-keepers and secondly in DRC where rebel leader Laurent Nkunda [who just the other week was rumoured ill in a Ugandan hospital] was poised to take Goma and change the status of that city, and the politics of it, permanently perhaps.
Goma and Somalia represent two leaves of Uganda's unofficially interventionist foreign policy, which itself is tied to two strands of its domestic politics - one rooted in ideology and the other the pragmaticism of regime maintenance.
According to State Minister for Regional Cooperation Isaac Musumba, Uganda was "concerned about the escalation of fighting in Congo" but added that sustainable peace in Congo can only come "organically" through regional actors and not the United Nations or the international community.
He also said that the region should return to the Lusaka Accords, an internationally brokered agreement that ended the '90s conflict in Congo as well as the occupation of its territory by Ugandan and Rwandan forces - a sign that the current conflict was more serious for the region than is being reported.
Pragmaticism has returned to Uganda which appears unhappy with the " "intransigence" of DRC President Joseph Kabila [who snubbed the Tripartite meeting] with whom relations have been rocky - Uganda is unhappy that Kinshasa is not doing enough to rein in rebels like Joseph Kony and the ADF in its territory. Most importantly, perhaps, Kabila is generally anti-Ugandan, especially in his politics in the east.
The last time Uganda and Rwanda intervened in Congo, it was for similar reasons - Kabila's father had not just rejected an alliance with them but formed an alliance with militias opposed to the two countries - things seem to headed that way again. But Uganda, who will be on the Security Council, seems ill prepared [it still has no budget or strategic plan for its role in New York].
Its positions on Congo must strike a balance between its interests and consensus, which will be its job on the Security Council. It appears however, that being a broker, Ugandan policies will be restrained on the Council. Projected on DRC it means that a policy of dialogue will be pursued at least in public.
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