Prime
Biden taps Popp as next envoy to Uganda
Mr William W Popp has been nominated as the next US envoy to Uganda. PHOTO | COURTESY
What you need to know:
- Mr Popp, a career member of the senior foreign service, is currently the US ambassador to Guatemala in Central America where he assumed duty in August 2020. Prior to this, he served as the deputy chief of mission of the US embassy in Brazil until March 2020.
US President Joe Biden on February 27 nominated Mr William W Popp as the next envoy to Uganda.
Mr Popp, a career member of the senior foreign service, is currently the US ambassador to Guatemala in Central America where he assumed duty in August 2020. Prior to this, he served as the deputy chief of mission of the US embassy in Brazil until March 2020.
Previously, according to the US State Department, Mr Popp served as the political counsellor at the US embassy next door in Nairobi, Kenya. Before that, he served as director of the office of regional economic policy and summit coordination in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, and deputy principal officer at the US Consulate General in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
His nomination is currently before the US Senate foreign relations committee for vetting. He is expected to replace Ms Natalie E. Brown, who was tapped by former US president Donald Trump’s administration as ambassador to Uganda in November 2019.
Washington is a key ally of Uganda. The US gives Uganda nearly $1 billion dollars (Shs3.7 trillion) each year, mainly for health and security support.
In return, Uganda runs security errands in the region on the premise of Pan-Africanism, more significantly fighting al-Shabaab in Somalia, interceding between warring neighbours, and playing its diplomatic power favourably at international fora.
During the just concluded US-African summit last December, President Museveni was among the few African leaders hosted by President Biden at the White House, which underscored the former’s favourable standing in Washington’s calculus in the Great Lakes region.
Uganda was also among the few countries, alongside North Macedonia, Kosovo, and Albania, the Biden administration turned to in August 2021 to provide temporary safe haven for Afghan asylum seekers following the US tumultuous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
It was widely thought that the 2021 General Elections, in which President Museveni polled a sixth electoral term in office, would puncture the Washington-Kampala relations
The mess in the election campaigns—unprecedented violence, killings, egregious human rights violations, and abductions of Opposition supporters— set tongues wagging between Washington and Brussels, seat of the European Union across the Atlantic Ocean, and Kampala which accused the former of trying to engineer regime change.
Washington would later take a wide range of actions including a blanket travel ban on government officials—politicians, police, and army brass— accused of being involved in human rights violations and undermining democracy during and after the January 14 elections.
A February 17 report by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), a Washington-backed think-tank, delved into the centrality of Washington’s support in the Kampala regime survival and noted that as long as Uganda’s military interventions are seen to contribute to regional peace and security, international attention is diverted from the domestic sphere and donors apply less pressure in regard to constitutional and democratic backsliding even though Uganda’s regionalised militarism serves the regime rather than the region.
