Museveni’s South Sudan gambit

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As peace talks falter between opposing sides of the conflict currently roiling South Sudan, Uganda has begun to move in more troops and military equipment into the war zone. The aggressive actions and rhetoric by the government of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni have raised eyebrows as the leader has forfeited any possibility of playing a role as an objective mediator in the standoff between troops loyal to South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and rebels led by his former deputy Riek Machar. Museveni’s siding with longtime ally Kiir is hardly surprising given his historic strong ties to the SPLA movement. The ominous threat posed to Uganda’s security by a potential alliance between Machar and the Bashir government of Sudan is also a clear factor motivating Museveni’s support for Kiir.

Nonetheless, the leader’s unequivocal public backing of one side of the conflict has caused a stir in the region — not to mention on Uganda’s domestic political scene. Last month, a handful of Ugandan MPs held a press conference blasting the leader’s unilateral decision to plunge the country into the violence without parliamentary approval. The clear dangers posed by Museveni’s public partisanship on the conflict are a major cause for concern as the outcome of hostilities are far from a foregone conclusion.

Beyond the possibility of alienating Uganda from its neighboring ally should Machar’s faction prevail, there is also the issue of the Museveni government’s robust involvement in continental conflicts- what some critics would call an overextension of Uganda’s armed forces. The Uganda People’s Defense Force (UPDF) is currently deployed in four different countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Somalia, and South Sudan. As Charles Onyango-Obbo points out in Uganda’s Daily Monitor this week, the UPDF is “now actively deployed either as a peacekeeping or combat force in more countries than any other military in the world barring the U.S. army.” That is a steep charge for a small country but one Museveni does not appear to mind given some of the clear advantages it offers his rule at home.

The leader was beset last year by a political scandal around his succession plans and the defection of General David Sejusa, one of the country’s top military commanders, hit his government hard. The theory that Museveni is keeping other potentially mutinous officers occupied by flexing the military’s powers abroad is one that could explain why the savvy leader is making such a gamble on South Sudan. Museveni’s program of wide-ranging military engagements additionally ensures that the messy political struggle raging within his ruling party remains muted; the political might required to sustain such an ambitious military program effectively moots the question of the succession as it would necessitate political continuity within Uganda and keeps his ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) on the offensive given the high profile military campaigns enjoy on Uganda’s national political scene.

So, despite the clear risks for Uganda’s future bilateral relations, the current advantages of its involvement pump up the NRM’s domestic political stature after an unfortunate year. Museveni might be almost as happy as Kiir himself should the SPLA stamp out Machar’s rebellion.