Of Uganda’s neocolonial dependency and the price of regime political survival

Uganda stands at a critical juncture regarding the independence of its foreign policy.

Are our international positions guided by a coherent assessment of national interests, constitutional values and international obligations, or is the desire to remain in Washington’s good books increasingly determining Kampala’s decisions?

Recent developments suggest a disturbing pattern. Uganda appears increasingly willing to accommodate American strategic demands, even where the benefits to the country are questionable. The danger is that the political survival interests of the government may be displacing the enduring national interests of the country.

This is the familiar anatomy of neocolonial dependency. A country may possess a flag, constitution, elected government and diplomatic missions while exercising diminishing independence over decisions affecting its security, resources and international obligations.

President Donald Trump’s America First doctrine has sharpened this contradiction. Washington increasingly approaches international cooperation through transactional arrangements designed to advance American interests.

African governments must therefore negotiate with particular vigilance, especially where economic vulnerability or domestic political legitimacy weakens their bargaining position.

For Uganda, one question is becoming unavoidable: are we negotiating as a sovereign partner or accommodating the demands of a powerful patron?

The ICC Controversy: Following Washington’s Lead?

The latest manifestation came on 9 October 2026, when US Secretary of State Marco Rubio intensified Washington’s confrontation with the International Criminal Court (ICC), defending sanctions against the institution.

Within hours, Uganda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Adonia Ayebare, launched his own denunciation, describing the ICC as an increasingly rogue institution and warning that Uganda could withdraw if the Court investigated or indicted Ugandan citizens.

The coincidence was extraordinary, particularly because there was no publicly announced ICC initiative to indict Ugandan officials. Curiously, it was the United States itself that had imposed sanctions on Ugandan security personnel over alleged human rights abuses and on former Speaker Anita Among over corruption allegations.

Uganda has legitimate grounds to criticise the ICC, particularly its historical concentration on African situations and the perceived selectivity of international criminal justice. But the striking convergence in timing, language and political objectives between Rubio and Ayebare is difficult to dismiss as accidental.

Ayebare insists that his views are longstanding and independent of Washington. That may explain his reservations about the Court, but it does not adequately explain the timing of his intervention. His pronouncements appear indicative of Uganda increasingly toeing the American line, even where that position undermines Uganda’s own diplomatic interests.

Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Norbert Mao publicly challenged the intervention, initially accusing Ayebare of parroting Rubio. Although Mao subsequently withdrew that expression, he maintained his substantive concerns and called for serious internal consultation on Uganda’s position.

Mao’s public rebuke exposed deep divisions within the government. When two Cabinet ministers publicly contradict each other on a matter of such international significance, and no authoritative clarification follows, it becomes difficult to identify a settled collective government position.

This contradiction is particularly serious because Uganda voluntarily joined the Rome Statute, unlike the United States. It ratified the treaty in 2002 and became the first country to refer a situation to the ICC when it referred the Lord’s Resistance Army conflict in 2004.

Uganda now seeks international diplomatic influence through the candidature of Olara Otunnu for United Nations Secretary-General and Rosette Muzigo-Morrison for election to the ICC bench. Promoting candidates for influential international offices while threatening an institution central to international criminal justice sends a contradictory message to the international community.

Mao identified the potential diplomatic consequences for Otunnu’s candidature, whose appeal rests substantially on his international experience and commitment to multilateral institutions. The implications for Morrison’s ICC candidature are equally troubling.

The issue is therefore not merely that Ayebare’s pronouncements resemble Washington’s position. They potentially prejudice Uganda’s own diplomatic objectives while advancing an American campaign against an institution to which Uganda remains legally committed.

That combination strengthens the inference that Kampala is increasingly following Washington’s lead rather than independently weighing its national interests. No authoritative government clarification has resolved whether withdrawal from the ICC is an adopted government policy or an impulsive reaction.

America First and the Architecture of Dependency

The ICC controversy cannot be considered in isolation. It forms part of a wider relationship in which diplomatic alignment, immigration policy, public health and military commitments increasingly reflect American priorities.

An investigation by Emmanuel Mutaizibwa, published in The Observer on 14 October 2026, reveals disturbing details of Uganda’s agreement to receive third-country nationals deported from the United States.

Under an Asylum Cooperative Agreement concluded in July 2025, eight deportees arrived in Uganda in April 2026 amid serious uncertainty about their legal status, limited resources and difficulties communicating with relatives. The Uganda Law Society and East African Law Society have challenged the arrangement over constitutional and refugee-protection concerns.

More revealingly, a Human Rights Watch investigation published on 8 October reported that American immigration courts had issued 2,914 removal orders designating Uganda as a third-country destination between January 2025 and July 2026.

The significance lies not merely in the number eventually transferred, but in Uganda’s designation as a destination within Washington’s deportation machinery. Why should Uganda, already accommodating a substantial refugee population and struggling to meet its citizens’ basic needs, assume additional responsibilities arising from America’s domestic immigration policies? What precisely did Uganda negotiate in return?

This arrangement illustrates the asymmetry of America First diplomacy: Washington seeks to externalise difficult domestic responsibilities, while economically vulnerable partner states assume the resulting administrative burdens.

The same questions arise in the health sector. In September 2026, Uganda formalised arrangements involving approximately $1.7 billion in American health cooperation through 2030, alongside Uganda’s undertaking to increase domestic health expenditure by roughly $577 million.

Combating infectious diseases undoubtedly serves vital national interests. But the Trump administration’s America First Global Health Strategy has generated controversy over domestic co-financing requirements, sensitive health data and access to biological pathogen samples.

Other African governments have demonstrated that Washington’s proposed terms are negotiable. Ghana resisted provisions concerning sensitive health information; Zambia challenged contentious requirements and subsequently negotiated revisions; while Zimbabwe objected to arrangements involving biological resources and access to resulting medical innovations.

These experiences raise an uncomfortable question: did Uganda negotiate with comparable determination? Where other countries resisted objectionable provisions, Uganda’s apparent willingness to proceed without comparable public controversy invites an inference of political accommodation rather than unavoidable economic necessity.

The same questions about independent judgment arise in the military sphere. Parliament’s August 2026 authorisation of a proposed Ugandan deployment to Gaza followed an American-backed initiative associated with President Trump.

As I have argued previously, Uganda must establish a clear national security justification, lawful mandate, command structure, commitment to Palestinian self-determination and exit strategy before committing its soldiers to another complex foreign conflict.

Our experience in Somalia demonstrates that overseas military engagements impose enduring human and financial costs. Uganda must not expose its soldiers to additional risks merely to demonstrate its usefulness to an influential patron.

Regime Survival Versus National Interest

This pattern of external accommodation must be examined against Uganda’s domestic political circumstances. The New York Times investigation of 8 October 2026, examining Uganda’s authoritarian trajectory and allegations of security-service abuses, provides important context.

While allegations of Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba’s personal involvement remain contested, judicial findings concerning Kakwenza Rukirabashaija’s unlawful detention and torture demonstrate that serious human rights violations cannot simply be dismissed as foreign propaganda.

Uganda’s Constitution prohibits torture absolutely. Its enforcement cannot depend upon the political status of alleged perpetrators. The concern to note here is that an administration facing growing scrutiny over domestic repression may become increasingly anxious to preserve the goodwill of a powerful foreign government less inclined to insist upon democratic accountability.

Political analyst Nicholas Sengoba, quoted in The Observer investigation, advances a similar interpretation: cooperation with Washington may help secure American accommodation of the Museveni administration’s domestic political practices.

An explicit bargain has not been established. Nevertheless, the cumulative pattern of diplomatic alignment and strategic concessions raises serious questions about the relationship between foreign policy and political survival.

However, the distinction between national interest and regime survival is fundamental. Uganda’s sovereignty belongs to its people, not to the government temporarily exercising authority on their behalf.

Foreign policy becomes dangerously distorted when securing external political backing assumes greater importance than protecting national resources, constitutional rights and independent strategic judgment.

Conclusion

None of this requires hostility towards the United States. Uganda needs constructive international partnerships, including American investment, medical cooperation and regional security assistance. But partnership is not subservience. Cooperation does not require automatic diplomatic alignment, acceptance of questionable contractual terms or participation in military undertakings whose national benefits remain uncertain.

African independence was intended to secure the right of our peoples to determine their political and economic destinies. That aspiration loses meaning when formal sovereignty conceals continuing dependence upon external centres of power.

Uganda must neither surrender its independent judgment to Washington nor invoke sovereignty merely to shield domestic abuses from scrutiny.

The true test of independence is whether our government can accept beneficial cooperation, negotiate firmly against unfair demands and decline arrangements inconsistent with Uganda’s national interests.

The question is not whether Uganda should cooperate with America. It is whether Uganda is still prepared to think for itself.

The writer is a senior advocate, former Member of Parliament and former Minister of State for Foreign Affairs.