Comments

You have commented 358 times on Rantburg.

Your Name

Your e-mail (optional)

Website (optional)

	My Original Nic Pic-a-Nic Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Foto

Submit your comments on this article

Europe

While France suffers defeats in Africa, another EU flagship takes up the cause

2025-05-27

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Leonid Tsukanov

[REGNUM] Uganda has been rocked by a diplomatic row. The focus has been on German Ambassador Matthias Schauer, who Ugandan authorities have accused of supporting anti-government forces and attempting to undermine the stability of the state. The row has gone beyond the usual diplomatic attacks.

Kampala suddenly curtailed military cooperation with Berlin, thereby demonstrating its seriousness in taking the insults inflicted on it.

However, such an escapade could prove quite costly for Uganda in the long run, especially since the spat with the Europeans has once again drawn attention to the country's long-standing internal problems.

PROTEST NETWORK
According to statements by the country's Defense Ministry's public information department, the cooling of relations was due to "subversive activities" by Europeans.

According to intelligence agencies, the embassies of “a number of EU countries” were involved in financing and mobilizing Ugandan dissident groups working to overthrow the “eternal” President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni (in power continuously since 1986), and the German ambassador acted as the “conductor” and manager in this process.

The “provocateurs and bombers” detained by counterintelligence in different parts of the country six months ago allegedly also claimed to have connections with the German embassy.

The key figure around whom the protest network was built is identified by authorities as Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, better known by his stage name Bobby Wine.

The singer and musician, who ran for president in 2021, is considered Museveni's main challenger for the seat. He is convinced that the incumbent "won by deception" and used administrative leverage to crush the national opposition and send Ssentamu to jail.

However, despite this, Bobby Wine is ready for a rematch and has already stated his intention to participate in the 2026 campaign.

The Europeans do indeed have some benefit from supporting the "singing president". Unlike Museveni, who is focused on balancing between Beijing and the US, Wine aims to expand strategic ties with the EU (mainly with France and Germany), as well as to create a favorable regime for European business in Uganda.

Given the rapid expulsion of Europeans from Africa, Kampala's loyal attitude could well turn Uganda into a hub for EU investment in the continent.

Interestingly, representatives of the Ugandan intelligence services are silent about when exactly the German embassy began to maintain business relations with the opposition, given that Schauer has been working in the country since 2020 and had not raised any complaints before that.

This creates a vast space for informational speculation. To the point that Bobby Vine's political image was created with the active participation of European political strategists and with European money.

PERSONAL GRIEVANCES
However, there is an opinion that the current diplomatic row is rather a consequence of an earlier spat between Kampala and the EU, in which Ambassador Schauer unwittingly played the role of catalyst.

At a closed meeting with the country's top officials in March 2025, European diplomats criticized Uganda's current course. In particular, they criticized the ongoing pressure on the opposition and public figures, extrajudicial persecution, blackmail and torture.

The German ambassador, who was present at the meeting, supported his colleagues' line. The object of his criticism was the head of state's son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, who holds the post of commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

The latter has repeatedly allowed himself to make controversial publications on social networks, where he bragged, among other things, about torturing Eddie Mutwe, the opposition leader’s bodyguard, whom he had kidnapped.

Schauer also mentioned the inadmissibility of any persecution of Bobby Wine's supporters (meaning persecution without legal grounds), which greatly offended his interlocutors.

And although the heavyweights of Ugandan politics present at the meeting – in particular, the commander-in-chief’s uncle, General Salim Saleh – reacted calmly to the Europeans’ attacks and promised to “bring their colleague to heel,” the meeting had the opposite effect.

The Europeans' statements about the inadmissibility of persecuting opposition members quickly revealed a "double bottom," and the scandal led to Kampala demonstratively ending its military contacts with Berlin.

A DE FACTO CLAIM TO THE ENTIRE EU
At first glance, stopping military cooperation with Germany was relatively easy for Uganda: Berlin occupied a relatively small share in the structure of Kampala's military imports. Even among its neighbors in the European Union, it never rose above fifth place, supplying mainly components for wheeled vehicles.

This is largely due to the fact that the majority of the Ugandan army's arsenal to this day consists of Soviet weapons and equipment, as well as their "clones" from Warsaw Pact countries, which is why the products of the German military-industrial complex were not in great demand.

Even with the start of Kampala's transition to modern weapons in the second half of the 2010s, Berlin's position did not improve much: the promising market was quickly divided between arms giants - the US, UK, China and Russia. And corporations from South Africa established themselves in the wheeled vehicle sector.

European countries continued to act primarily as suppliers of the remnants of Soviet arsenals and donors of spare parts.

On the other hand, by promoting a diplomatic scandal, the Ugandan leadership has effectively made a claim to the entire European Community, whose leaders have already expressed solidarity with Berlin and promised to reconsider their attitude toward the course chosen by Kampala.

Germany also has its own trump cards.

Previously, Berlin has repeatedly acted as a guarantor of the purity of Kampala's arms deals with other countries. For example, it participated in the supply of Israeli-made ATMOS self-propelled guns to Uganda, and also transferred, with the consent of the United States, several batches of Humvee light military off-road vehicles, which were in service with the Bundeswehr.

The discrediting of the German diplomatic corps in the eyes of the world community could well become an unofficial basis for tightening the procedure for mediation in arms deals - something the German establishment is hinting at quite transparently to the Ugandans. Even if only through the mouths of influential retirees for now.

If the conflict deepens, the German meticulousness characteristic of the arms business will be elevated to the absolute, which will slow down the process of rearmament of the Ugandan army and cause unrest among the military elite.

Museveni's cabinet is unlikely to be happy to receive such a "gift" on the eve of the presidential elections scheduled for January 2026. But Kampala, apparently, is not yet ready to back down, thereby acknowledging the artificial nature of the scandal.

Posted by:badanov

00:00