Iranian President Raisi was a key ally - Minister Oryem

The government has described Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, announced dead on May 20 in a helicopter crash in the East Azerbaijan province, as a “true leader” and advocate of recalibration of multilateralism which is increasingly under strain as a result of competing interests of powerful countries.

Mr Henry Oryem Okello, the state minister for International Relations, told Monitor by telephone from the South Sudanese capital, Juba, on Monday evening that Uganda and Iran “have had historical relations” and described the death of President Raisi as “saddening.”

“Iran might be perceived in a different light elsewhere but we are a sovereign country that makes its own friends and enemies. So we extend our sympathies to the Iranian people about this loss,” he said, adding: “We urge the people of Iran to stay calm as they mourn during this five-day period and as they also work out a transition. As usual we shall be looking forward to working with the next President.”

President Raisi aged 63, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and six others were confirmed dead on Monday after their helicopter crashed due to bad weather.

Mr Raisi was seen as a hardliner and potential heir to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a key figure of the Iranian Revolution that marked the beginning of icy diplomatic relations with several Western powers including the US.

Mr Oryem also said the Kampala regime hoped that the Iranian leader’s death does not escalate the simmering tensions in the powder keg Middle East following Israel’s blitzkrieg of the Palestinian territory of Gaza to “demolish” the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) following its surprise attack on October 7, 2023, on a music festival, south of the country, killing 1,139 people, and taking more than 200 hostage.

President Raisi visited Uganda last year in July as part of his three-African country tour to strengthen bilateral relations. In Uganda, President Raisi rebuked Western powers, accusing them of “imposing and promoting homosexuality. ”  He added that “they are trying to end the generation of human beings.”

Iran is among the world’s most sanctioned countries by the US and European Union, alongside Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, Syria, Russia, and Myanmar.

Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea have through forums such as the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) continued to lash out at the West for their use of unilateral coercive measures, a form of economic sanctions taken by one state to compel a change in the policy of another state.

The Iranian government uses, among others, barter trade with friendly countries in Asia and Latin America to skirt around the thick layers of the US-led sanctions, especially after former US President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018.

During the 19th NAM summit in Kampala, Tehran dispatched Vice President Mohammad Mokhber who has since assumed the position of interim president pending elections in 50 days.

President Museveni routinely criticises the West, especially for pointing out his long stay in power and the government’s human rights records, but remains their key ally in the restive Great Lakes region.

Trade between Uganda and Iran is still low at around Shs12b annually. Iran exports mineral fuels and oil worth Shs10b while it imports coffee and tea to the tune of Shs2b annually.

Partnership
Iran has previously partnered with Uganda in the health and security sectors. Iranians trained Uganda Police Force officers and also built a hospital for the police. However, the completion of the police hospital project at Naguru was delayed because of international sanctions.

Iran’s developments in Uganda angered US diplomats.  Police sources during Gen Kale Kayihura’s leadership said at one point the US diplomats asked them to cancel the Iranian deal in exchange for the US providing funds for the construction and maintaining a hospital of the same level that Iran had planned. Gen Kayihura allegedly rejected the US proposal.

The WikiLeaks diplomatic cables released in 2011 revealed that President Museveni rubbed Washington the wrong way by visiting Tehran and cutting a deal with his counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to have Iran build Uganda’s oil refinery.

After the three-day call in May 2009, the cables detailed, Mr Museveni flew black with yet-to-materialise Iranian promises to fund the construction of oil-processing facilities here and train our oil scholars at its University of Petroleum Studies and other institutions.

“We remain concerned about the implications of Iran’s promised investment in the oil sector and for Uganda’s foreign policy decision-making,” Ms Kathleen FitzGibbon, the former Political/Economic chief at the US Mission in Kampala, wrote.

The Uganda-Iran deal to design, finance and construct an oil refinery suffered a stillbirth.

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