Why Uganda is having a meltdown over Germany’s ambassador

Uganda’s military announced on Sunday it’s cutting all ties with Germany! Why?

• Officially, it was “in response to credible intelligence reports that the current German Ambassador to Uganda His Excellency Mathias Schauer is actively engaged in subversive activities“.

Now, that is an incredibly spicy allegation to make against a foreign ambassador. In fact, we’d go so far as to liken it to the Merciless Pepper of Quetzlzacatenango.

So what exactly did ol’ Mathias get up to? Well, the generals won’t say, though the head of the armed forces (and the president’s son / heir) later argued it’s not a Germany thing. Rather, “it has to do with him as a person. He is wholly unqualified to be in Uganda.“

Unqualified. Did he forget to do his annual mandatory online training?

Nope. Rather, we can triangulate the ambassador’s sin from a few clues:

1. Earlier this month, he (and other EU ambassadors) met Uganda’s beleaguered opposition, now led by pop-star-turned-politician Bobi Wine. That’s kinda normal. But it’s spicy in Uganda’s authoritarian context, and the president’s son / top general later warned that the ambassadors were “playing with fire“
2. The same day, the EU ambassador reportedly called out Uganda’s pattern of arrests and torture of opposition figures ahead of next year’s elections, and
3. Then just on Friday, those two ambassadors met another top general (Saleh, the president’s brother — see a pattern here?), to push back on the presidential son’s fiery tweets against ambassadors.

And it was against that backdrop that the military announced it was cutting all ties with Germany, citing those allegations spicier than a chilli grown deep in the jungle by inmates of an insane asylum (sorry, another Simpsons reference).

So, what’s going on? The president’s son and others have tried to frame it all as…

• Anti-colonialism, pushing back on Europeans disrespecting locals, and
• National security, alleging foreign-backed plots to destabilise the country.

It’s also worth noting the president’s son / general (Kainerugaba) is what you might call a “loose unit” — he famously offered 100 cows as a bride price for Italian leader Giorgia Meloni (widely seen as a stunt, but it got him suspended by his dad).

Meanwhile, Germany is holding its tongue beyond rejecting the allegations as absurd, but the Germans are probably saying something like this behind the embassy gates:

• This is a familiar pattern, with the regime raising the spectre of a foreign-backed insurgency in the months before each election to justify targeting the opposition, criminalising dissent, and/or distracting from any domestic failings
• By calling-out an individual ambassador and circulating details of his private meeting, the regime is creating a pretext to declare his position untenable, and
• This all sends a signal to every other ambassador in town: speak up this election cycle, or even be seen around the president’s murky succession dynamics (Friday’s meeting with his brother), and you’ll be next.

Intrigue’s Take

So… who cares? There are a few reasons why it’s worth caring.

First, if a foreign ambassador isn’t safe in Uganda, then who is? Certainly not opposition voices, but as the net of alleged ‘foreign interference’ gets wider, it’ll rattle investors and tourists, too — both critical drivers for the country’s broader prosperity.

Second, it’s part of a broader trend in East Africa. Just in the past week, someone abducted yet another Kenyan opposition figure, while disturbing details have emerged about Tanzania’s treatment of supporters who tried to attend the opposition leader’s trial on bogus treason charges (both governments deny any role).

And third, it’s arguably part of a trend everywhere: paranoid authorities bristling at outside scrutiny, and sensing a distracted or diluted international community, now seem emboldened to steamroll any individual, business, or organisation who gets in their way.

Sound even smarter:

• It’s unclear how much military cooperation Germany actually has with Uganda, though the president’s son has told local outlets it includes “intelligence, training, Somalia” (the latter being a reference to Uganda’s participation in the African Union mission in Somalia, backed by the EU).
• The son seems to have just tweeted (then deleted) an apology to his uncle (General Saleh) that also pledged to halt online jabs at European diplomats. 🤷