President Museveni (left) and then UK Prime Minister Theresa May in London in 2017. PHOTOS/ FILE
A prominent Kampala businessman planning a trip to the Schengen area discovered the hard way two weeks ago the literal meaning of walls closing in on someone when embassies of two European countries separately denied him visa in a space of three weeks.
The Schengen visa allows the holder entry to 26 European countries – Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, and Hungary.
The businessman [names withheld] with top political connections first applied for a Schengen Visa through the Italian embassy in Kampala, which was denied. Some embassies disclose reasons for the visa denial, others don’t.
With paperwork in order, enviable bank account statements, solid references, and extensive travel history, the disconcerted businessman sought urgent intervention of a senior Cabinet minister to prod the embassy for answers.
As the minister nudged the Italian diplomats for details, it occurred to the desperate-to-travel businessman to apply for a Schengen visa from the French embassy. The result two weeks ago was the same: visa denied.
It appears, one senior government official briefed about the matter told Sunday Monitor, the businessman [and probably his political cronies] are on the European Union (EU) sanction-list.
“So the names of everyone barred from entering the Schengen territory are shared to governments of all EU countries. Once barred from entering one country means you can’t enter another,” the official said.
The best case scenario is, the official added, once an individual is on the EU sanction list, they are likely barred from entering the United Kingdom, which is reeling from its topsy-turvy January 31, 2020, divorce from the European Union, and the United States, across the Atlantic.
Unilateral coercive measures
Such scenario illustrates the mechanism of unilateral coercive measures which several developing countries, including Uganda, are protesting lately at every international fora.
The Kampala regime is using its chairmanship of the 121-member Non-Alignment Movement (NAM), and G77+China alliance to speak out strongly against such actions.
Ugandan diplomats in New York under the auspices of the G77+China are scheduled to hold meetings with EU and US diplomats at the UN over unilateral coercive measures that have been imposed for years on the likes of Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe and Eritrea with debilitating effects.
The G77+ China alliance is the largest inter-governmental organisation at the UN and recognised as a negotiating bloc.
As such, discussions on the unilateral coercive measures are expected to feed into the high-level Summits of the Future in September to chart solutions to some of the world’s pressing problems.
In Kampala, State minister for International Relations Oryem Okello said unilateral sanctions are “now being weaponised by the West”.
“I think sanctions have lost their original purpose. If you are sanctioned by the US you are sure you are on the EU/UK list and some of other countries. And vice versa,” Mr Oryem said, adding, “The issue of the Speaker [of Parliament Anita Among], I have no doubt that now she was sanctioned by the UK, all other EU countries will be required to act.”
On April 30, the UK government, in a first, invoked the Global Anti-Corruption sanctions regime on the Bukedea Woman MP as well as two former Karamoja ministers—Mary Goretti Kitutu and Agnes Nandutu—following their involvement in the iron sheets (mabaati) scandal. The sanctions are a repertoire travel bans and asset freezes.
Speaker Among has described the sanctions as “politically motivated” over her stance on homosexuality, especially the anti-homosexuality law and vowed not to back down.
Damage control
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement signed off by State Minister for Regional Cooperation John Mulimba said Ms Among “has not been charged by the Director of Public Prosecution in the aforementioned cases”.
“We, therefore, seek to find rationale for actions taken by the British government in his sanctions designation,” the statement read in part.
State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Henry Oryem Okello.
The statement noted: “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs looks forward to engaging with the British High Commission and the government of the United Kingdom, with whom we maintain cordial relations, on this matter while mindful that sovereignty is a cardinal principle in bilateral relations between the two states.”
Highly placed diplomatic sources intimated that four days after the UK sanctions were announced the ministry’s Permanent Secretary Vincent Bagiire held meeting with top British diplomats in Kampala over the matter.
However, the meeting was outside office setting hence categorised as a “fireside chat” while a date for a formal meeting is yet to be penciled in.
What are they?
The UN defines unilateral coercive measures as a form of economic sanctions taken by one state to compel a change in the policy of another state.
These include trade sanctions in the form of embargoes and the interruption of financial and investment flows between sender and target countries.
The tools, alongside travel bans, are mostly employed by Washington and its key allies across the Atlantic, Brussels in the EU and the UK, in response to egregious human rights violations, governance deficits, and economic crimes on rogue governments and individuals around the world.
Several developing and poor countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America have been affected by these measures.
The UN also lists “smart” or “targeted” sanctions such as asset freezing and travel bans have been employed by individual states in order to influence persons who are perceived to have political influence in another state as part of the measures.
Fightback
In the 416-page Outcome Document of the 19th NAM summit in Kampala in mid-January, the heads of state decried the continued denial and delay in issuance of entry visas to representatives of NAM states by US embassies around the world to access the UN headquarters in New York where the alliance’s main activities are coordinated.
Separately, the G77+China leaders in the outcome document of the Third South Summit in Kampala expressed “strongest rejection of the implementation of unilateral coercive measures and reiterate our solidarity with Cuba”.
The Caribbean country alongside North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, Syria, and Myanmar, and their key ally Russia, are among the world’s most sanctioned countries by the West.
Uganda’s junior Foreign Affairs minister says the unilateral sanctions “are now a targeted weapon”.
“For instance, if the US says that it will not deal in arms trade with Uganda, who are they then to dictate and punish Serbia, Cuba or any other country for dealing with Uganda on the same? US issues with any party should be limited to that scope. If they are UN [Security Council] sanctions, that is a different case because then all countries are required to abide,” Mr Oryem said.
The resolutions, including sanctions, of the UN Security Council (UNSC), the world’s most powerful exclusive organ charged with ensuring global security, are legally binding on all countries.
The UNSC, one of the six principal organs of the UN, comprises five permanent members—China, UK, Russia, US, and France, each with veto powers—and 10 non-permanent members: Algeria, Ecuador, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, South Korea, Slovenia, and Switzerland voted by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on rotational basis.
Double standards?
Highly placed sources intimated that “it is likely” the British government used the iron sheet scandal as a cover to go after Speaker Among.
“The saga involved several ministers, three of whom were indicted by the DPP and arrested but the UK went after two. Yes, there was the issue of the Anti-Homosexuality Act and then her [Speaker’s] sustained calling homosexuals as bum-shafters. But when controversy broke out in Parliament; that provided the perfect cover,” one senior diplomat surmised, adding, “If it was about mabati in the true sense they would have gone for everyone who was named after all they were all caught flat-footed.”
Parliament was in early March thrust into the spotlight through the #UgandaParliamentExhibition spearheaded by the activism group Agora Discourse.
The exhibition lifted the lid on several issues from illegal staff recruitment and dubious payouts, some of which border on criminal conduct.
The unsigned documents which Agora says are excerpts from the Integrated Financial Management and Information System (IFMIS), which tracks public sector financial management and accounting, detail the top leadership of the House receiving per diems approved for travels some of which do not appear to have taken place.
Parliament discounted the revelations of mismanagement as “exaggerations propelled by political schemers”.
Speaker of Parliament Anita Among.
During a plenary sitting in March, Speaker Among blocked debate about the revelations, saying she will not run the August House based on rumours fuelled by people she termed as bum-shafters [homosexuals].
Another senior official described the unilateral coercive measures as another testament of “Western double standards and hypocrisy”.
“They have sanctioned so many people here over human rights violations, corruption, name it, giving the impression that everything here is bad. But they are the same people pushing their companies to get business deals. When the contracts go to the Chinese, they still complain, warning us about our dealings with China,” the official said.
The official cited the ongoing jostling between American and Chinese companies for the mining license over the 3.4 billion tonnes of the graphite ore discovered in Orom Sub-county in Kitgum District.
The US itself has been severally accused by Beijing of “unilateral hegemony, economic coercion”, following sanctions on Chinese companies.
Washington has also accused China of economic coercion, including “debt-trap diplomacy” on poor countries in Africa and Southeast Asia.
Mr Oryem described unilateral coercive measures as “punishment beyond required”, adding that they need to be reviewed.
