Muhumuza was contributing to the overriding role of geopolitics in history and current world affairs at the seventh edition of the Kampala Geopolitics Conference 2024, held at Yusuf Lule CTF auditorium, Makerere University on October 23 and 24, and convened under a partnership of the French embassy in Uganda, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Makerere University and Alliance Francaise de Kampala.
With the theme, ‘The African dimensions in international debates’, the conference attracted students from many Ugandan universities and several experts that were mainly online.
It comprised six panels that tackled climate change and environmental stability, the armed conflict in Sudan, Jihadism and its global networks, oil’s impact on Uganda’s future, Africa’s balancing of old and new alliances in the evolving multipolar world, and peacebuilding and reconciliation regarding war crimes and gender-based violence in armed conflicts.
Many examples were mentioned in different panels, such as the coming in of Egypt and Eritrea to arm Somalia after Somalia applied to join the East African Community. The duo’s concerns regarding Ethiopia were at play in this decision.
Participants candidly touched on dilemmas and opportunities of African countries’ individual and collective participation in the global economy and power relations touching on trade, political and military alliances with traditional and new powers, and the now regular summits where a single country invites the entire continent.
The rise of the BRICS bloc and its ensuing struggle against the Bretton Woods institutions, the global dominance of the USA dollar and criticism of United Nations structures came up. Participants noted how formation of the European Union put off intra-European wars for many decades, ensuring steady economic growth and development, but the short period of the war in Ukraine has already destabilized European economies.
It was noted that even when Islamist groups start as local resistance movements, they sooner or later enlist even more radical foreign nationals and get influenced by global Jihadist networks.
ARMED CONFLICTS
Scott Bartell, attorney and programme manager at Trust Fund for Victims at the International Criminal Court, Uganda, called for attention to changing technological realities. He noted how civilian casualties in armed conflicts have continued to escalate. While civilian casualties during First World War were 10 per cent, today the figure is at 85%.
He stressed that justice cannot take place only in courts; much of it has to be in the communities. Dr Irene Winnie Anying, country director, Avocats sans Frontieres, Uganda, said holistic justice must incorporate both formal and informal justice systems, well considering the specifics of social, cultural and geopolitical realities.
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