Uganda

Neil Edwards is the volunteer intern for CFR's Africa Program in Washington, DC. He is a master's candidate at the School of International Service at American University and a returned Peace Corps Rwanda volunteer. On November 11, police in Uganda arrested 125 members of the LGBT community. The Kampala police assert that the Ram Bar, which is frequented by the LGBT community, is a hot spot for smoking opium and shisha. Although reports suggest that only a few were smoking, those arrested were charged with violating the Tobacco Control Act, which outlaws smoking with a shisha water pipe, among other things. They face imprisonment for up to six months. Those arrested deny the charges, claiming that they were distributing condoms and anti-retroviral drugs to prevent the spread of HIV. The raid is the second of this month—part of a renewed crackdown on the LGBT community. In February 2014, Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, signed into law the Anti-Homosexuality Act. Under the law, those convicted of “homosexual acts” faced seven years to life in prison. The law also included provisions that extradite Ugandan nationals living outside of the country and extradite them back to Uganda to receive sentencing. The law elicited international outrage and governments withheld aid to Uganda. In part due to this international pressure, in August 2014, the Constitutional Court of Uganda ruled the act invalid on procedural grounds.   Even without the draconian legislation, homosexuality is still illegal in Uganda under the penal code established by the British during colonial rule. According to that law, “whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment…for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall be liable to fine.” The current penal code, established in 1990, punishes intercourse with “any person against the order of nature.”    In 2007, the Ugandan LGBT community was estimated to be 500,000 people, about 1.6 percent of the population. More recent data are difficult to gather because many Ugandans are scared to identify as a member of the LGBT community. Members face frequent harassment, sometimes violent and often by state officials. This makes it difficult for them to make use of government services, find employment, and access healthcare. In politically repressive and authoritarian Uganda, citizens face limitations to their freedom of speech, making it difficult to educate the LGBT community about health, let alone host a gay pride parade.  Reports indicate that there have been recent increased levels of violence and discrimination against the LGBT community. Human Rights Watch reported that sixteen detainees were forced to undergo anal examinations following a raid in October. Police have also searched the houses of suspected members of the LGBT community, confiscating condoms, lubricant, and anti-retroviral medicine, and charged them with “carnal knowledge against the order of nature.”  Weeks before this latest crackdown, MPs introduced new legislation similar to the 2014 Anti-Homosexuality Act. In this newer version, the death penalty was reintroduced (it had been scrapped from earlier versions) and extended to those supporting the LGBT community. International pressure is again needed to protect the legal and social rights of the LGBT community and stop this bill from becoming law.   

Neil Edwards is the volunteer intern for CFR's Africa Program in Washington, DC. He is a master's candidate at the School of International Service at American University and a returned Peace Corps Rwanda volunteer. On November 10, Rwandan security forces shot dead two Ugandan nationals accused of smuggling tobacco across the border. Smuggling has become more common after Rwanda closed its border with Uganda in late February amid a dispute between Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Rwandan President Paul Kagame. The deterioration of Kagame’s and Museveni’s relationship has led to job losses among traders, higher commodity prices, and has left communities with few option other than to turn to the risky business of smuggling. For decades, Kagame and Museveni fought side by side, toppling Ugandan dictator Milton Obote via military coup in 1986 and overthrowing Mobutu Seko in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997. Kagame, who trained in Tanzania as a spy, became Museveni’s head of military intelligence and close confidant. In return, Museveni aided Kagame’s rise to power, incubating Rwandan refugees that eventually formed the Rwanda Patriotic Front. With the backing of Museveni, Kagame invaded Rwanda, ending the 1994 genocide.  A quarter century later, the relationship between these erstwhile allies has deteriorated. In October 2017, the Ugandan government initiated a crackdown on Ugandan police officials, accusing them of being Rwandan spies. The latest spat is driven by Kagame, who has accused Uganda of arresting and torturing Rwandan nationals. Kagame also asserts that Museveni is supporting the Rwandan National Congress and the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, whom Kagame perceives are intent on overthrowing his regime. If the relationship does not improve, analysts fear that this feud could result in proxy conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has sprung up previously as a result of private disagreements.  Though the two leaders agreed to reopen their borders in August, Rwanda has effectively kept it closed, citing construction work. Further, the Rwandan government has issued a travel advisory strongly recommended that Rwandan nations not travel to Uganda. Reports suggest that that licit trade is nearly non-existent, and Uganda has accused Rwanda of implementing a trade embargo.  The border closure has compromised tens of millions of dollars in trade between the two countries. The immediate victims are small-scale and wholesale traders, who rely on buying items at cheaper prices on one side of the border and making a profit by selling them at a higher price on the other. Without these intermediaries, the comparative advantage of each country’s product pricing is lost, hurting both the national economies and the consumers who rely on those price points.  According to each country’s Consumer Price Index reports, prices in Rwanda, especially in rural areas, have risen more than in Uganda. They have risen about 1.5 percent each month in Rwanda, totaling over seven percent since February, when the border was closed. In rural areas, prices have risen ten percent over that period. These rising prices have taken a toll, especially for those living in rural poverty. In contrast, food prices in Uganda have only increased by four percent and overall prices by only two percent. Rwanda’s decision to close its border has hurt its own people more than Ugandans. Kagame’s leadership has resulted in remarkable development feats since the 1994 genocide. However, his current decision to keep the borders closed is a blemish on his development record—costing the country jobs and inflating prices. If Kagame’s and Museveni’s relationship continues to deteriorate, prices will continue to rise, further hurting the purchasing power of Rwandans. 

Neil Edwards is the volunteer intern for CFR's Africa Program in Washington, DC. He is a master's candidate at the School of International Service at American University and is a returned Peace Corps Rwanda volunteer. Uganda is heading toward a debt crisis. According to a senior official at the Bank of Uganda, unless the country is able to sustain a growth rate of at least 7 percent—which economic projections show Uganda will not do—the country will default on its payments. As is the case for many African countries, China is Uganda’s largest creditor, making up 39 percent of total debt this past fiscal year. If Uganda defaults, it is unclear how China will react. Will China flex its muscles and negotiate for the rights to Uganda’s sovereign assets like it did in Sri Lanka, or ease the debt pressure, by restructuring Uganda’s loans over a longer time period as it did in Ethiopia?   Generally speaking, foreign governments and international financial institutions are hesitant to make loans to Uganda. They remain skeptical that Uganda will be able to honor them—except, apparently, China. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni recently admitted that China is the only partner that would agree to lend Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya $3.5 billion to construct a series of railways and roads. In addition, China is financing a $4 billion oil pipeline, currently under construction, that will connect the western region of Uganda to the port in Tanga, Tanzania—giving the landlocked country access to the Indian Ocean. Many of China’s loans to Sub-Saharan Africa can be seen in the context of China’s belt and road initiative.  China has reacted differently to each country’s individual debt crisis. At one end of the spectrum, China allegedly uses its leverage to gain strategic and material concessions if a debtor country is unable to pay their debts, exemplified by Sri Lanka handing over control of the Hambantota Port to China for ninety-nine years. China's alleged practice of debt-trap diplomacy, as it has been dubbed, has been hotly debated, though there seems to be a consensus that their lending practices are problematic. At the other end, China works with governments to restructure loans over a longer time period—often forgiving past interest payments—as illustrated by China’s twenty-year-loan extension to Ethiopia.  Completed in 2010, the Hambantota port did not draw enough ships to make the operations economically feasible. By July 2015, Sri Lanka could not service its payments. Consequently, in order to avoid defaulting on its debt, the government relinquished control of the port to China for nearly a century. Uganda’s auditor general report warns that the conditions of their loans similarly threaten the country’s sovereign assets. If the economic predictions hold and the country defaults on its payments to China, Uganda’s infrastructure projects might face a similar fate.  Ethiopia faces a similar debt crisis, linked in large part to the Chinese-financed, $4 billion Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway. Opened in January 2018, the railway intended to expand Ethiopia’s export market by connecting its capital to the sea via Djibouti. But Ethiopia is importing more than it is exporting via the railway, not generating the revenue needed to service its debt to China. In response, China renegotiated the terms of the loan with Ethiopia to extend the payments over a longer period of time.  Based on China’s approach to Ethiopia and the similarity of its infrastructure projects connecting Uganda to the sea, it is more likely that China will work with Uganda to extend the repayment terms of the loans. There is speculation that China sought control of the Hambantota port because it is strategically important. According to some analysts, the port should be thought of as part of a string of pearls—China’s plan to have a line of ports stretching from Beijing to the Persian Gulf. Viewed this way, the Hambantota port is of much more strategic significance to China than Ethiopia’s and Uganda’s railways. Finally, internal and external criticism of China's lending practices are likely to encourage a more constructive approach to debtor countries.

Recently, Ugandan civil society organizations warned about the likelihood of increasing political violence leading up to the country’s 2021 general elections. Disturbing incidents of opposition figures like Bobi Wine being arrested and beaten, journalists being punished for covering those who challenge the state, and people associated with the new political opposition, like Michael Kalinda, being abducted, tortured, and even killed certainly support the case for sounding the alarm.  Uganda is not doomed; it’s an impressive country in many respects and countless Ugandans are interested in working together to build a peaceful, more democratic, and prosperous future. But over the course of Museveni’s 33-year governing tenure, clientelism and intolerance for political challenges that resist co-option have become prominent features of the state. Realistic plans for the future have to grapple with the possibility that instability will grow, and that the end of 75-year-old President Museveni’s tenure, however it comes, will be a catalyst for violent competition as entrenched interests resist change. It is not at all clear that the United States is prepared for the possibility of a Ugandan unraveling. As the largest troop contributing country to the African Union Mission in Somalia, or AMISOM, Uganda has been a critically important partner in combating al-Shabab and supporting the fragile government in Mogadishu. Uganda also currently hosts over a million refugees, more than any other African state. If Uganda is destabilized, the potential for contagion in an already volatile region is substantial, particularly for neighbors like South Sudan, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. One hopes a range of contingencies are being thought out, and that energetic diplomacy is working to tip the scales towards peaceful, positive outcomes for Uganda and the region. The worst thing the United States could do would be to assume the status quo will persist.

Recent events have shone an international spotlight on Uganda, where the government’s treatment of parliamentarian and musician Robert Kyagulanyi, better known by his stage name, Bobi Wine, is bringing new attention to the repressive nature of Ugandan politics, and new energy to those resisting the status quo. He recently arrived in the United States to seek medical treatment for injuries allegedly sustained while in government custody. A by-election held on August 15 in volatile northwestern Uganda to replace a member of parliament who had been assassinated in June triggered the current crisis. Campaigning had been contentious, and Ugandan authorities deployed a heavy security presence to the area in the immediate preelection period. President Museveni traveled to the region to support the ruling party candidate, while Kyagulanyi and others were in the area to stump for their preferred choices. On August 13, rock-throwing demonstrators triggered a violent reaction from security forces, leading to beatings, the fatal shooting of Kyagulanyi’s driver, and the arrest of Kyagulanyi and other opposition figures. Thus far, the case does not inspire great confidence in the Ugandan judicial system. First, Kyagulanyi and others were charged by a military tribunal with illegal possession of weapons. Their court appearances have been harrowing, as many appear to have been mistreated in detention, a charge the government denies. When the military charges were dropped, they were immediately replaced by charges of treason in civilian court. Within Uganda, demonstrations and riots erupted in protest, and journalists covering them have been beaten along with participants. While Kyagulanyi and others were granted bail on August 27, they remain in legal jeopardy.  Kyagulanyi’s treatment once again exposes the Ugandan government’s intolerance of dissent and its tendency to conflate political opposition and challenges to the status quo with threats to state security. Of course, this is not a new development; opposition politicians in Uganda have routinely been arrested on highly questionable charges, as the many legal trials of opposition leader Kizza Besigye demonstrate.  But two factors make the Bobi Wine crisis different from what Uganda has seen before. First, Kyagulanyi’s relatively youthful thirty-six-years of age make for a pointed contrast with Museveni, who, at seventy-four, has been leading Uganda since Kyagulanyi was about four. The frustrations of Uganda’s tremendously youthful population are easily channeled into anger over the persecution of the young MP. Moreover, his status as a pop culture influencer and artist brings the realities of Uganda’s authoritarian politics to a much wider and different domestic and international constituency than those who have traditionally followed Ugandan politics. He has triggered interest and activism from other musicians and creative professionals beyond Uganda’s borders, not least through the #freebobiwine social media campaign.  In Uganda, new influencers are emerging and inserting themselves into a previously predictable political dynamic. President Museveni seems to be betting he can maintain control until oil revenues come online and make it easier for the government to deliver more to its frustrated young people. Whether or not he is right bears close watching.  

Lately, the news from Uganda has been troubling. Rising crime rates have come to dominate the national narrative, as murders, robberies, and kidnappings have raised alarm among average citizens and elites alike. In the middle of this general insecurity, a number of apparent, targeted assassinations of prominent figures in politics and the security services are fodder for the rumors about motives, plots, and intrigues that swirl around social media. The realities of the violence, commentaries, and theories have all prompted concerns about an unraveling of the country’s relative stability in the midst of a troubled region. On June 20, President Yoweri Museveni, who has led Uganda since 1986, delivered an address to Parliament billed as a strategic plan to bring an end to criminality and violence. His ten proposals were heavy on technological solutions and increased state surveillance, but it remains to be seen how practical and effective they will be. Interestingly, President Museveni chose to deliver a lengthy, historical prologue to his contemporary policy prescriptions. Presenting this juxtaposition, he paternalistically told the assembled members of Parliament that, “you know about everybody else but know nothing about yourselves” as he asserted that his government had delivered peace to Uganda for the first time in five-hundred years. The tone of the address served as a captivating snapshot of the political climate in Uganda. Museveni has maintained his grip on power for thirty-two years by pitting potential successors against each other, ensuring that security services are loyal to him above all else, and reminding the people of his country that he delivered them from a chaotic and brutally violent past. These tactics point to the all-but-explicit message that he alone can prevent a return to bedlam. However, these very methods have played a role in enabling the current crisis, as powerful factions jostle for the sources of patronage that sustain them. These latest waves of crime undercut Museveni’s claim that he is capable of providing the stabilizing force the country requires. With roughly seventy percent of Ugandans under the age of twenty-five, the vast youthful population may not be able to imagine another leader of their country just yet, but they may begin to question whether the septuagenarian in charge is really a bulwark against disorder when disorder continues to rise all around them. 

Ned Dalby is a senior research analyst with International Crisis Group and lead contributor to the new report, Double-Edged Sword: Vigilantes in African Counterinsurgencies. He joins me to discuss the origin, operation, and demobilization of these groups, their role in counterinsurgency, and ultimately, what makes the reliance on vigilante groups by the government successful in some cases and not in others. Vigilante groups usually arise in weak states with deteriorating security situations in which locals feel compelled to take their security into their own hands. The state will often try to co-opt these militias, who are afforded a level of legitimacy in their communities that the military is not, at least initially, and thus have a distinct advantage in counterinsurgency operations. The reliance on vigilantes presents interesting questions for a state's sovereignty and their legitimate monopoly on the use of force. How the military and the state treat these groups will help determine both the success of the counterinsurgency and the prospects for the eventual demobilization of the vigilantes. You can listen to my conversation with Ned here.

Travis Bias, DO, MPH, DTM&H, is a family medicine physician in California and former visiting lecturer at Kabarak University and Busitema University Faculty of Health Sciences. He blogs at The Global Table.  Fred Bisso, MMed, MBCHb, is an otorhinolaryngology consultant at the Mbale Regional Referral Hospital, part-time lecturer at the Busitema University Faculty of Health Sciences, and the immediate past president of the Uganda Medical Association.  Healthcare in Uganda, as well as in many other low-income countries, fails to meet the basic needs of its population. A lack of essential medications, supplies, and nurses are the more obvious causes of inadequate healthcare delivery. Less visible, but perhaps more fundamental, is the problem of leadership: the medical officer on staff at the regional hospital who does not show up for work, and the effects this has on support staff. Leadership failures including poor supervision, limited human resources planning, low or delayed wages, and difficult working conditions result in such absenteeism. Consider also the effect this absent medical officer has on impressionable medical students learning in that facility in which the faculty is already stretched thin. The students are demoralized by the noticeable increase in preventable deaths and the lack of adequate mentorship. As a result, newly graduated doctors commonly seek work or further study outside Uganda, never to return. The sequelae of poor leadership percolate down to trainees and the cycle of shortages of healthcare workers continues. We have witnessed this as physician educators and practitioners in East Africa. While only one of six essential building blocks of any healthcare system, improving leadership amongst senior Ministry of Health (MOH) officials is paramount. Improvement would produce a ripple effect throughout the public health sector, creating positive incentives for recruitment and retention in areas where health workers are most needed. Inspiring nurses and medical staff to commit to quality healthcare delivery and retaining Ugandan medical students once they graduate requires a culture of accountability at the top, both at the local hospital level and within the MOH. Elections often do not result in meaningful changes of leadership in many countries, including Uganda. Accordingly, medical professionals have taken to the streets to have their voices heard. Medical officer interns went on strike across Uganda in mid-2016 in response to a rushed MOH plan that would have substantially changed the educational path to becoming a doctor. More recently, doctors in Kenya went on strike in early 2017. It was only after the imprisonment of the medical society leadership and three months of many avoidable deaths in hospitals throughout the country that these professionals and the MOH agreed to resolve the crisis. Failure of policymakers to effectively engage with those they lead was arguably the primary cause of this unrest.  The President of Uganda is aiming for his country to achieve lower-middle income status by 2020. It is in all of our interests for Uganda to reach this benchmark in order to strengthen our collective global health and improve the lives of many Ugandans. Uganda, however, is being held back by its own leadership failures, which push medical professionals away from practicing in Uganda. Without adequate human resources for health to direct and dispense its existing healthcare resources, the Ugandan health system will go nowhere.

United States Hunts Stolen Uzbek Assets The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is having a hard time collecting foreign officials’ ill-gotten gains. After finding evidence of bribery, the DOJ still needs to physically seize assets. The latest setback comes in the case against the Uzbek president’s daughter, Gulnara Karimova, for accepting bribes from Russian telecoms company VimpelCom. In the current round the DOJ and Uzbekistan are vying for some $114 million stashed in Karimova’s Irish bank accounts. This is just a small part of the $850 million the DOJ believes Karimova hid in accounts across Belgium, Luxembourg, and Ireland. If they get the money the Uzbek government, led by Karimova’s father, is already demanding its “rightful” return to Uzbekistan, the “victim” of corruption. OECD Finds Bribery Still Pays An Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) study shows in many places bribery still pays—the risk remains worth the reward. In part this is because countries don’t enforce their rules. Even if they do, the penalties are small. When maximum fines are $10 million for commercial advantages that could bring in billions, bribes remain good investments. To change these calculations, countries need to up fines and confiscate corruption proceeds—a difficult task where rule of law remains weak. Uganda’s Democracy Backtracks  Since his February election to a fifth term, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has jailed opposition supporters, shut down social media, and censored journalists. This week he arrested dozens of military officers for ‘coup plotting.’ All have ties to Kizza Besigye, the opposition leader awaiting trial for trumped-up treason charges who faces the death penalty. Unable to stomach the abuses of longtime western ally Museveni, EU and U.S. delegates walked out of his inauguration after he mocked the International Criminal Court, and the United States called Uganda’s post-election environment “unacceptable.” So far neither have stopped the abuses.

Can India Avoid Emerging Market Slump? India outpaced China as the world’s fastest growing economy in 2015, with gross domestic product (GDP) rising 7.5 percent. Consumption by the nation’s 1.3 billion citizens drove the gains, along with public infrastructure spending to upgrade the nation’s roads, railways, ports, and power grids. India’s government is on track to spend over a trillion dollars on infrastructure as part of a 2012-2017 five year plan, as one of the emerging markets able to borrow at low international rates (debt to GDP is for now a manageable 50 percent). Yet private sector investment hasn’t followed suit. Bureaucratic difficulties in acquiring land and permits and financing snafus show how difficult it is to do business – India is ranked 130 of 189 in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Report. A tough external environment led to a decline in exports and an outflow of portfolio investments. To attract the private investment needed for long term growth, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will have to tackle issues including labor regulations, taxes, and onerous import and export documentation. U.S. Development Seeks Private Investment President Obama asked for $23 billion for development projects in the 2017 budget–roughly one half of a percent of the proposed $4 trillion in spending. A good portion of this amount focuses on stimulating private investment, for instance backing loans and providing guarantees to private companies investing in Sub-Saharan Africa’s power grid through the Power Africa program or funding  Overseas Private Investment Corporation’s (OPIC) development loans. Market trends may undercut this ongoing turn to private capital flows to lead development goals: last year over $700 billion fled emerging markets. Familiar Result in Ugandan Elections Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni looks to extend his thirty year presidential reign in next week’s election. The campaign has been marred by political intimidation, opposition arrests, and press censorship. In the face of threats of violence and even lethal force against potential protests, many young voters–those hit hardest by poverty and unemployment–are responding virtually, galvanizing support through the hasthtag #IChoosePeaceUG. But the United States may remain silent, as Museveni remains a long-standing if flawed ally in this unstable region.

In November during a Nairobi, Kenya slum visit, Pope Francis used plain language to express home truths about African elites. According to UK media the Pope ascribed the “injustices” suffered by the slum residents to “wounds inflicted by minorities who cling to power and wealth, who selfishly squander while a growing majority is forced to flee to abandoned, filthy, and rundown peripheries.” He also talked about the unjust distribution of land, a particularly sensitive issue among Kenya’s poor, where the perception is that the elites have helped themselves to the most productive land. The elites, he said, have established “new forms of colonialism.” He urged them to be more responsive to the peoples they rule. Indeed, the indigenous “colonialism” described by the Pope is to be found throughout Africa, not least in Kenya and Uganda, two of the three countries he visited. President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda has ruled for 24 years and estimates of his net worth range from $1.1 to $11 billion. (According to the UN Development Program gross national income in Uganda is $1,335 a year). Uhuru Kenyatta, has been president of Kenya for less than two years. However, he is the son of Jomo Kenyatta, who ruled Kenya from 1964 to 1978. The son’s estimated net worth is $500 million. (Gross national income in Kenya is $2,158 a year). Gross inequality of income, with links between power and money, is to be found elsewhere: by comparison, Donald Trump’s estimated net worth is $4.5 billion according to Forbes. But, the direct relationship between the poverty of most and wealth of the few is particularly stark in Africa. The celebrated Nigerian author, Chinua Achebe, wrote that there is nothing wrong with the Nigerian character. Instead, he wrote, “The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, the challenge of the personal example, which are the hallmarks of true leadership.” In Nairobi, the Pope was describing something of the same reality.

This is a guest post by Cheryl Strauss Einhorn, a journalist and adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. They’ve got him, but can they get him? That’s the question before the International Criminal Court (ICC) as it finally confronts Dominic Ongwen, the number two commander in Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The Court has been after him for a decade, almost as long as it has been in existence. So can it bring Ongwen to justice? The dilemma: Ongwen is not only a perpetrator; he is also a victim of the LRA. A group that must also be brought to justice, the LRA is blamed for killing over 100,000 people and kidnapping some 60,000 children across 5 central African nations during the past 25 years. Ongwen himself was one of those stolen children. Kidnapped at the age of 14 on his way to school in 1988, Ongwen allegedly shed his childhood for murder and mayhem, quickly rising through the ranks. This raises an important issue for a Court that has shed a spotlight on the problem of child soldiers, but must recognize that Ongwen is charged with crimes he committed as an adult. Ongwen, the first Ugandan rebel to face the Court, is not going to make it easy for the Court to bring him to justice. For example, when asked by a judge what his job is he replied “I am unemployed, and that is all.” While Ongwen later admitted “Prior to my arrival at the court I was a soldier in the LRA,” it is his right to try to defend himself and dodge incriminating questions; it is the Court’s obligation to effectively mete out justice. Will the Court consider his personal history as a mitigating factor in his confirmation hearings in April that provide the preliminary step to decide whether a case will be referred for trial? Certainly, these facts could be relevant to his legal defense. In fact, in his home country of Uganda, Ongwen was banking on returning home a free man. Back in 2000, the Ugandan government passed an Amnesty Act allowing thousands of former LRA combatants, including those who willingly joined the rebels, to qualify for a full pardon. The reason: an effort to enable communities to sidestep the murky issue of culpability stemming from being, like Ongwen, both a perpetrator and a victim. In a videotaped interview with the Ugandan Army Ongwen said “I have shown my true character by coming out. I don’t want to die in the wilderness. If the call for amnesty is mere politicking, then I leave it in the hands of the authorities holding me.” The Ugandan authorities chose to turn him in to the Court. Uganda’s state minister for foreign affairs, Henry Oryem Okello, told the press that President Museveni was compelled to send Ongwen to the Court because his alleged crimes extended beyond Uganda’s borders and into other countries where the LRA was active, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and South Sudan. Specifically, the Court alleges that in 2005 Dominic Ongwen was the LRA’s commander of the Sinia Brigade and accuses him of three counts of crimes against humanity, as well as four counts of war crimes, including murder and the cruel treatment of civilians. As recently as a month ago Ongwen told the Ugandan Army, “Even up to now, I dream about war every night.” So what will happen? The Court will again have to forge new ground. It will have to show that it can prove its charges against Ongwen and it must push the conversation of child soldiers forward, not by accepting a false choice between clemency and sanction, but instead by showing that understanding and compassion are not at odds with justice.

This is a guest post by Jim Sanders, a career, now retired, West Africa watcher for various federal agencies. The views expressed below are his personal views and do not reflect those of his former employers. While parts of the world rush forward toward ‘convergence’ and ‘singularity’, spurred by Silicon Valley’s technological advances and anticipated by its intellectual visionaries, other parts of the world are doing exactly the opposite—returning to earlier technologies that better suit their current circumstances. One example is Detroit, Michigan. Long the epicenter of automobile production in the United States, Detroit, having suffered a severe recessionary decline, owing to changes in that industry, is pinning its future on the humble bicycle. Poverty and unemployment appear to “encourage biking as a more affordable alternative to driving,” writes Jen Wieczner in Fortune Magazine, and the city enjoys a reservoir of skilled workers able to transition from building cars to the manufacture of bikes. In Uganda, bicycles are also making a difference. “Pedaling Out of Poverty,” by Douglas Cruickshank, in the Fall 2014 issue of Bucknell Magazine, tells the story of the efforts of Bucknell alumni Muyambi Muyambi and Molly Burke to establish Bicycles Against Poverty (BAP) in Gulu, in Uganda’s war-ravaged north. Says Burke, “It’s an area that didn’t have development, didn’t have much infrastructure being built for 20 years, and 95 percent of our participants lived in refugee camps.” Peoples’ lives were “put on pause for 20 years.” A tough environment in which to prosper, “it made sense to house BAP headquarters right in the heart of the district, increasing accessibility to critical resources—water, clinics, markets—and building financial management skills among low-income entrepreneurs through a micro-financing model,” observes Cruickshank. From one hundred bicycles distributed in northern Uganda in July 2009, the number has increased to one thousand to date. “An income jump of 68 percent is not uncommon for families who own bikes, and that can help spur the local economy.” Successful economic experiences in two very different areas such as Detroit and Gulu with bicycles probably could not have been imagined. That the ‘experiment’ is working in both parts of the world appears to confirm that viable (and often disruptive) innovation tends to emerge from the “low end” of the economic spectrum, where it is least expected. It confirms, too, William Easterly’s view that in a world where western development elites exhibit “rich-world vanity,” it is usually ordinary people who can help humanity the most. That such people are active in Africa, helping to improve lives, is an example of engagement with the world that current apostles of U.S. isolation should remember.

Ebola and Marburg are both hemorrhagic fevers and belong to the same family of viruses. The hosts for both are identified as animals, especially fruit bats—both diseases cross over from animals to humans. Incubation periods are around twenty-one days. The two diseases have similar symptoms and similarly high mortality rates. Both diseases spread through contact with bodily fluids, making family members and health care workers especially vulnerable. There is no pharmaceutical that cures either disease, and patients are treated in much the same way. The ill are isolated and medically supported until they recover or die. Efforts must be made to trace all those who came into contact with the ill. Ebola at present is centered in west Africa, but it was first publicized in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Marburg is also found in the Congo, where between 1998 and 2000 it is reported that there were 154 cases and 128 deaths attributed to the disease. In Angola in 2005, there were 374 cases of Marburg, and 329 deaths. In 2007, 2008, 2012 and 2014, in Uganda there were cases of Marburg in the single digits with very high mortality rates, ranging from 50 to 100 percent. When Ebola first appeared in west Africa, it was an unfamiliar disease, one reason among many why the response to it was slow. In east Africa, however, there is greater familiarity with Marburg, and officials move quickly to respond to the threat of an outbreak. Accordingly, officials in Rwanda and Uganda are closely monitoring their common border for a possible outbreak of Marburg after a confirmed case in Kampala, Uganda. As a safety precaution the Ugandan government has isolated ninety-nine people, none of whom have tested positive. The World Health Organization is saying that Ebola is now “entrenched” in Conakry, Monrovia, and Freetown – it has become an “urban” disease. Marburg, however, appears to remain primarily in rural areas. West Africa’s high rate of urbanization has helped facilitate the rapid spread of Ebola, especially in urban slums. Urbanization in east Africa could have a similar impact.