Biden’s new principled foreign policy should extend to Uganda: Democracy is under assault in Africa

Americans must demand that the U.S. stop supporting a tyrant in Uganda to the tune of $750 million annually with their hard-earned taxpayers’ money, especially at a time of mounting domestic needs.

When Uganda’s dictator Gen. Yoweri Museveni seized power, Ronald Reagan was the U.S. president. Museveni claimed he championed capitalism in Africa, where socialist ideas were waning, and Reagan invited him to the White House, ensuring U.S. support.

Under George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Museveni sold himself as a bulwark against the expansion of Islamism in Africa. Under George W. Bush, Museveni was hailed as a unique African leader, at the forefront of the fight against HIV/AIDS. Yet his own soldiers were among those spreading the disease by raping civilians in one part of Uganda, where Museveni was battling a vicious rebel movement called Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

Also under George W. Bush, who visited Uganda, and Barack Obama, Museveni struck a diplomatic jackpot. War-torn Somalia was a potential haven for militants called Al-Shabab, which the U.S. says is allied with Al Qaeda terrorists. Museveni deployed thousands of Ugandans in Somalia, saving the U.S. from sending American soldiers, a tough sell given the 1993 “Black Hawk” disaster in Mogadishu.

Today, Museveni gets a free pass despite all sorts of human rights abuses in Uganda and in neighboring countries. He invaded Rwanda in 1990, Congo in 1996 and the new nation of South Sudan in 2013, seeking regional dominance, and in the process setting off wars that have claimed the lives of millions.

Ugandans believed Museveni’s reign of terror would end with the Jan. 14 election this year. He faced a popular young challenger, a 38-year-old musician-turned-politician named Robert Kyagulanyi, better known as Bobi Wine.

Wine turned the tables against Museveni, who is officially 76 but is likely much older, by appealing to young voters. Eighty percent of Uganda’s population is under the age of 35. Wine launched a voter registration drive and signed up millions of young new voters. Predictably, he was arrested while campaigning.

During the campaign, Museveni’s soldiers massacred civilians protesting that arrest. The official death toll is 54, but many believe the total was much higher. Museveni’s soldiers even beat journalists and the dictator denied accreditation to domestic and international monitors, forcing the U.S. to withdraw from deploying election observers. The final blow against transparency occurred two days before the vote when the internet was blocked throughout Uganda.

It wasn’t surprising when Museveni’s hand-picked election commission declared that Museveni defeated Wine by 59% to 35%. Analysts observed that without the internet, vote totals couldn’t have possibly been transmitted from the 34,714 polling stations throughout the country. The then-U.S. assistant secretary of state for Africa, Tibor Nagy, called the elections “fundamentally” flawed while Wine denounced the official results as “a joke.” His home was surrounded by soldiers and even the U.S. ambassador, Natalie E. Brown, was blocked when she tried to visit.

International pressure forced the regime to end the siege. Wine challenged the results of the rigged election in the High Court, but the petitions’ prospects are dim since the judges are appointed by Museveni.

Should the appeal fail, which it almost certainly will, Uganda could be on the brink.

So what is the U.S. to do? Museveni’s dictatorship can’t survive without U.S. financial and military support.

One immediate measure that the Biden administration can do is to suspend military aid to the Museveni regime, and also endorse Wine’s call for a UN-supervised forensic investigation of the election results. Senior military and political leaders implicated in ordering human rights abuses, including Museveni himself, should be subjected to Magnitsky Act sanctions. This would freeze their ill-gotten foreign assets and place travel restrictions on them. Additionally, the U.S. should limit financial aid to worthy programs that can be directly funded, in order to avoid embezzlement by corrupt officials.

Finally, ordinary Americans can send a “not with my tax dollars” message to Museveni. They can do so by supporting petitions demanding change.

Allimadi, born in Uganda, publishes Black Star News and teaches African history at John Jay College.