Uganda opposition worried by Museveni military service proposal

Uganda's President Museveni arrives to attend the Africa Union Peace and Security Council Summit on Terrorism at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre in Nairobi. Photo: Reuters

By Michel Arseneault
Wednesday, April 29, 2015

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President Yoweri Museveni is calling for a "universal" military service to confront the Al-Shebab rebel threat at home, raising fears in opposition circles that he wants to militarise Ugandan society with combat readiness and intelligence-gathering classes.

The government is set to reintroduce a three-month "universal security and military training" for high school graduates before they attend university.

An initial group of about 1,200 students, both male and female, is expected to report this week for a training package that includes basic combat readiness, intelligence-gathering skills and a course on the "political and strategic interests of Uganda".

Former MP Beatrice Byenkya welcomed news that the service would start in May.

"The students themselves have been requesting it," she said in a phone interview. "It's not completely military. It's also about life skills. Patriotism should be the key word."

Under this non-compulsory service the security forces also hope to identify and mentor promising students, according to government spokesperson Ofwono Opondo.

"Part of the problem in Africa and in Uganda in particular is that we have had rogues joining the military and intelligence services," he said. "If a student has gone through our screening [eventually] when they join the military and the intelligence services, you are sure of their character."

The training scheme is necessary in light of attacks launched by Somalia'sAl-Shebab on Ugandan "soft targets", Museveni wrote in a New Vision newspaper column published earlier this week.

The Ugandan president, who first came to power as the leader of the rebel National Resistance Movement in 1985, explained that he had "already given confidential instructions to the [security forces] to re-activate" what he described as the povo armado (people in arms) "strategy", which he attributed to Frelimo, the former Marxist-Leninist rebels now in power in Mozambique.

There are reportedly no plans to arm the population, however, according to the Ugandan People's Defense Force.

The training scheme is reminiscent of a similar programme, Mchakamchaka, which was run by the army and the ruling National Resistance Movement before Uganda adopted multi-party rule in 2005.

"The idea was that you would learn how to shoot, get some training military, but part of it included training on Uganda's problems, where they come, the contribution of past regimes," explained Richard Ssewakiryanga, executive director of Uganda's National NGO Forum. "That was the part that was contested. Some of the political actors in the country felt that the reading of the history was a selective history."

Some opposition lawmakers are opposed to the idea, arguing that the president is militarising Ugandan society. Independent MP Gerald Karuhanga says he is not opposed to military service as such but he fears that this scheme is part of Museveni's plan to tighten his grip on power.

"We need a more pro-people government that can be trusted with such a programme," he observed. "He can recruit soldiers. You don't force every young person in the country to undergo military training."

Critics have already expressed their discontent with the appointment of General Aronda Nyakairima, the former chief of defense forces, as internal affairs minister in 2013. His appointment of a general raised a political storm and a legal challenge that the Constitutional Court has yet to rule on.

This training, remarked government spokesperson Opondo, is needed because Uganda's school system is "inadequate to prepare our university graduates to see the world as they should see it".

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