Why is North Korea here to train Ugandan police? On Friday, October 31, I was supposed to join the BBC World Service “News Day” morning programme to discuss the visit by a senior North Korean government official to Uganda. There was a problem getting a clear phone line from London to me, so the discussion was called off. I have decided to explain to Sunday Monitor readers what that BBC discussion would have been about had it taken place. Kim Yong Nam is the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly of North Korea. By that title, he is officially the Head of State of the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea. Of course, the substantive state power is in the hands of Kim Jong-Un, grandson of Kim Ill Sung, but Kim Jong-Nam still remains a notable government official and that is what makes his visit to Uganda significant. One of the main reasons for the visit, if not the main reason, was to discuss the training of the Uganda police by North Korea. It is this training that drew the BBC’s attention and about which they sought a local analyst. Closely tied with the West Over the last decade at least, the Ugandan army and police have either been trained or equipped by the United States or Britain. Uganda’s security and foreign policies have been closely tied with those of the West. Where the West has not been Uganda’s main benefactor, the next most visible partner has been China. Most of the heavy public infrastructure works in Uganda today are being worked on by China, as well as the sale or donation of military equipment to Uganda by Beijing. Given all this, it is interesting that training of the police force is given to North Korea to handle, a country that is widely viewed as either in a state of economic stagnation or the last one in a position to offer aid to Uganda when Uganda already has much bigger and much wealthier allies. Also, North Korea’s political leaders do not tend to travel much outside the country. When they do, it is usually within the region either to China or their rival neighbour, South Korea. An official at the level of chairman of the Presidium of the people’s assembly will certainly not visit an African country out of the blue, for four days, unless there is a really important or urgent matter to discuss. In other words, the idea of North Korea being asked to train the Ugandan police is an interesting one and raises several eyebrows, including the BBC’s. The question then is, why North Korea, why train the Ugandan police and why now? In 1984, the then vice president and minister of Defence, Paulo Muwanga, paid a visit to North Korea. At the time, the NRA guerrillas lead by Yoweri Museveni had made major gains in territory and the UPC government was no longer sure of its hold on power or ability to turn the tide of the war back in the government’s favour. Apart from the familiar platitudes usually contained in official communiqués about the warm bilateral relations between the two sister states, the main reason for Muwanga’s visit was to seek urgent North Korean assistance in equipping the government army, the UNLA, and training it in counterinsurgency operations. North Korea sent artillery pieces to Uganda, accompanied by North Korean soldiers to man them and train the army. Many North Korean instructors were based in Entebbe. The artillery pieces were, in fact, assembled by North Korean university students. This, then, is what makes the visit by Kim Jong-Nam significant, especially when the main reason is reported to be the training of the police, which since the 2011 general elections has taken on a larger and more visible role in crowd control, public order management and efforts to contain anti-government protests. Why does the Uganda police need more training from North Korea than it already has been getting from Britain? If the Western powers of Britain and the United States are not the first choice to train the police, how about China? Why not turn to China, a rising global economic and military power and already heavily involved in Uganda, to train the police instead of the much poorer North Korea? The reason for China not training the Uganda police would be China’s strict policy of not involving itself in the internal political affairs of countries it deals with. This would once again raise the question of what it is, exactly, this training of the police is for, that China cannot offer or be asked to undertake. Could it be that President Museveni knows something the Ugandan public does not and is moving quickly to act on a reality that will soon come upon us in the near future? Does Museveni, a staunch ally of the West since 1986, now no longer feel he can rely on the West for critical support? Has the West signalled that it is no longer willing to support Museveni and is this Museveni’s way of turning to Plan B? Ever since the defection to London by the former minister of State for Defence and later coordinator of the intelligence agencies, Gen David Sejusa (or Tinyefuza) last year, there have been persistent rumours and suggestions among some government officials that the West or Britain in particular are behind Gen Sejusa. And ever since the start of 2014, there has been equally persistent talk within the government that the West or some Western nations are or might be behind the rumoured presidential ambitions of the former prime minister Amama Mbabazi. The constant here is that the government, or some officials within the government, believe or suspect that there is a Western plan or interest in seeking alternatives to Museveni as president in the near future. Aware of this or suspicious of this, Museveni could have decided that rather than await the fate of the Libyan strongman Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who after renouncing his nuclear ambitions and support of international terrorism became a Western ally before being suddenly turned on by the West and ousted in 2011, it might be better to seek support elsewhere. It is quite possible that should the training of the police begin, some units within the elite Special Forces Command will be deployed for the training disguised as policemen and by that, receive this specialist training. Or if that does not happen, there would be advance knowledge by the government that some form of major unrest, probably much more serious than the walk-to-work protests of 2011, could be about to erupt, or even something of the kind of mass uprising that we have witnessed in Burkina Faso that resulted in the overthrow of president Blaise Campaore’s regime. monitor.co.ug/Magazines/PeoplePower/Why-is-North-Korea-here-to-train-Ugandan-police-/-/689844/2507020/-/item/1/-/ee35p0/-/index.html
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 10:42:53 +0000
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