Prime
Museveni flies to Russia for security and oil talks
President Museveni with his Russian counterpart Vladmir Putin at the Africa-Russia summit in Sochi in 2019. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
- Moscow’s relationship with Kampala, like with most African nations, gained traction in joint anti-colonial struggles and it has in Uganda’s case morphed to hip-to-hip military cooperation under which Russia supplies a range of military arsenal, from fighter jets to attack helicopters and close-combat rifles.
- Russia, alongside other former Soviet countries, among them Belarus, are choice destinations for Uganda to train its military pilots or source military hardware spare parts.
President Museveni is flying to Moscow mid this week to join other African leaders for the second Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum.
The summit in St Petersburg will run on Thursday and Friday after which the Ugandan leader will head to the Serbian capital, Belgrade, to inaugurate a hub for promoting Uganda’s tourism, trade and investment potential in line with bolstering commercial diplomacy in Eastern Europe.
Uganda has, according to Foreign Affairs ministry, enjoyed warm historical ties with present-day Serbia from when it was part of former Yugoslavia that ethnic and nationalist wars disintegrated into seven independent states in the early 1990s.
Mr Henry Okello-Oryem, the state minister for International Affairs, told this publication by telephone from London yesterday that Uganda will at the convention amplify Africa’s voice on global affairs while pursuing its bilateral interests with Russia.
Top on the agenda of an expected tête-à-tête between President Museveni and his host, Russian President Vladimir Putin, will be security and technology transfer for across-the-board innovations and agricultural modernisation.
Uganda’s other main interests in the bilateral cooperation with Moscow, according to minister Okello-Oryem, are “development of the oil industry, securing fertiliser access, and promoting trade and investment”.
Whereas Moscow has centuries-old expertise under its belt in oil and gas extraction and export, Kampala by contrast has spent the past decade-and-a-half skilling human resource, enacting laws and establishing institutions in readiness for oil production planned to start in 2025.
A key supportive infrastructure that the country is grappling to put in place is a 60,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) refinery in Hoima in mid-western Uganda.
The government first gave the deal to RT Global Resources of Rostec, a Russian arms manufacturer, but financial handicaps linked to the West’s sanctions over the Crimean annexation in 2014 reportedly hamstrung the arrangement from going ahead.
It fell apart in July 2016 and an American-Italian special vehicle christened Albertine Graben Energy Consortium (AGEC) snapped up the deal when Kampala dangled it to other suitors.
Unable to close a Final Investment Decision – investors’ equity investment confirmation, AGEC’s Project Framework Agreement lapsed on June 30, this year, leaving Ugandan empty-handed and on fresh shopping errand for new investors for the $4.5b (Shs16.5trillion) refinery infrastructure.
It remained unclear if President Museveni will in his planned meeting with Putin woo Russian firms --- many now underwidened financial and economic sanctions by the West over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine --- to reconsider bankrolling the refinery.
Minister Okello-Oryem, however, made clear that “development of our oil industry” alongside security will headline bilateral talks and said Uganda will not capitulate to the West’s demand on other nations to isolate Russia over the Ukrainian war because they have committed similar or worse transgressions to destroy sovereign states.
Western leaders have baptised Russian invasion of its sovereign neighbour “unprovoked, barbaric and unjustified” and collectively continue to provide high-end weaponry for Volokdymyr Zelensky’s government to beat back Russians in a war without a clear winner a year later. They have demanded that Russia withdraw its troops to end senseless killings.
In yesterday’s telephone call, minister Okello-Oryem questioned the moral right of western countries to call out other aggressors.
He argued that the 2003 American-led invasion of Iraq on false weapons of mass destruction possession claims birthed the Islamic State terrorist group while foreign military onslaught, at the behest of France and the United Kingdom, on Libya and the killing of its strongman Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 continues to spread upheaval in the Sahel and a refugee crisis for Europe.
“Whenever they do their military adventures in the name of spreading democracy,” the minister said in reference to the West, “They should answer the question of where all the trained soldiers [of the toppled governments] go. The West’s mistakes of wars must stop.”
Mr Okello-Oryem said Uganda subscribes to the African Union position of resolving the Ukrainian through “political and diplomatic means” which a continental delegation led by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa articulated during a visit last month to both Ukraine and Russia.
Some analysts laughed off those proposals on grounds that AU has no capacity to support enforcement while the Urainian leader, by some accounts, vilified the African leaders as light weights to involve in resolution of the conflict that has killed thousands of soldiers and civilians.
President Museveni who was named onthe delegation comprising leaders of Senegal, Comoros, Egypt, Zambia and Congo Brazzaville pulled out at the last minute after announcing that he had gone down with Covid-19, and assigned Special Envoy and former Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda to represent him.
Dr Rugunda alongside another ex-premier Amama Mbabazi, who has been involved in another parallel initiative for peaceful resolution of the Ukrainian conflict, jointly briefed President Museveni on their errands a week ago, coinciding with a two-day visit by Senegalese President Macky Sall, who was part of the AU entourage to Kiev and Moscow.
It is against this background of shuttle diplomacy that minister Okello-Oryem, who is connecting from London to attend the second Russia-Africa Forum, said “Africa continues to seek peace around the world”.
He drew parallels between the upcoming high-level meeting in St Petersburg to the December 2022 US-Africa Leaders’ Summit in Washington DC, saying African nations should be unencumbered to engage with any country in pursuit of its interest and on its own terms.
Moscow’s relationship with Kampala, like with most African nations, gained traction in joint anti-colonial struggles and it has in Uganda’s case morphed to hip-to-hip military cooperation under which Russia supplies a range of military arsenal, from fighter jets to attack helicopters and close-combat rifles.
Russia, alongside other former Soviet countries, among them Belarus, are choice destinations for Uganda to train its military pilots or source military hardware spare parts.
In the latest symbol of strengthened ties, the government has hand-picked a Russian company to supply and instal digital and trackable registration plates for all cars in the country, although the firm is yet to start the exercise after being found unprepared by the July 1 commencement date.
This week’s forum in St Petersburg follows the Russia–Africa summit held on “peace, security and development” in the seaside Sochi resort in October 2019.
