Transcript 0:00 [on-hold music] Welcome to Trend Lines, a podcast on global affairs brought to you by World Politics Review. My name is Peter Durrie. We will change things up a bit today. 0:14 Normally, I interview the author of this week's feature article on worldpoliticsreview.com, but this week I'm myself the author, so I'll be on the other side of the table today with WPR's associated editor, Karina Peiser, taking care of the questions. 0:30 But first, as always, your briefing on what was going on in the world this week with Judah Grunstein. So Judah, what do you have for us this week? 0:38 Well, we started out the week with a column by Jim Dellagiacoma, who's filling in for Richard Gowan this month. 0:45 And Jim looked at the United Nations Security Council's use of what he calls road trip diplomacy, where the members of the council travel to hotspots to pressure leaders to resolve crises. 1:00 And he, in particular, took a look at recent visits to Burundi in January and then this month in a, a tour of West Africa. 1:12 And he mentions how these kind of visits have increased since the end of the Cold War and talks about, uh, s- sort of the mixed bag of, of their results. 1:26 Uh, they have a lot of symbolic importance in terms of drawing attention to various crises that might not be getting the kind of, uh, news coverage that they warrant, and, and that kind of lack of attention, uh, means that there's less pressure on the various actors to resolve the, the conflict. 1:45 Um, and at the same time, uh, as illustrated by these recent visits by the UN Security Council, uh, even bringing that kind of attention to the various conflicts doesn't necessarily result in spectacular results. 2:02 And Jim contrasts these recent visits with one that the Security Council made in 1999, uh, to pressure Indonesia over the outbreak of violence in East Timor following that, at the time, province's, uh, independence referendum. 2:20 And he offers some ideas about how to make the trips, uh, these visits more effective in light of that, uh, that visit to Indonesia, which was, uh, an extremely successful one in terms of, uh, generating and mobilizing the, the, the council to intervene in, in that conflict. 2:39 Mm. I think that, uh, there's also... 2:41 I mean, we talked in our New Year's episode about the problems that the UN faces in these, uh, increasingly regionalized conflicts and the loss of influence, uh, of, of, uh, of, of the kind of top-tier countries in these kind of conflicts. 2:56 So maybe that's, uh, that's one of the underlying reasons of the mixed results of these trips as well. C- certainly, as, as in all things with the United Nations Security Council, 3:09 in, on topics and on issues or crises where the permanent five members with veto power are on the same page, there is usually a good deal of effectiveness, at least in terms of, uh, mobilizing United Nations action. 3:24 Afterwards, whether it's effective on the ground is another story. 3:28 But on issues where there's disagreement or sort of horse trading going on, uh, between conflicts, uh, obviously the council has less effectiveness to act. Mm. 3:41 And, uh, then you had a very interesting piece on the homepage, a very interesting briefing on, uh, strategies, uh, once a conflict bro- breaks out, not, not so much to, uh, tailor a diplomatic, uh, intervention, but, um, how to secure cultural artifacts, artifacts that might have been caught up. 4:01 Yes, this, this briefing by Sasan Aghlani, 4:05 and this has been an issue obviously throughout, uh, history and recent history, uh, with some progress that was made in terms of the norm of protecting cultural artifacts during war and conflict. 4:20 But it's come back into the spotlight in the, in the context of the civil war in Syria, where the so-called Islamic State has made a point to target cultural heritage and cultural artifacts for destruction, but also for looting, uh, where the black market trade in these kind of objects, uh, provides very lucrative funding for the, for militants and insurgencies and, in this case, the Islamic State. 4:51 And Sasan discusses a few recent developments, uh, including, uh, agreements between the Italian government and UNESCO, one of which would create a task force combining cultural heritage experts and the Italian Carabinieri, who have experience with recovering looted artwork. 5:10 And another where the British military is planning to train a unit on cultural protection with, uh, the obvious parallels to the, to the so-called Monuments Men from World War II, who were the subject of a, of a George Clooney movie. 5:27 And Sasan discusses the symbolic significance of these moves in terms of establishing not just the norm of protecting cultural heritage and artifacts in conflicts, but a, a new norm of a responsibility to protect them by the international community. 5:46 And, uh, he goes on, however, to, to caution against too militarized an approach, especially if it comes after conflict has already broken out. 5:56 And he explains why strengthening local communities- capacities to prevent looting and destruction of cultural heritage. 6:05 Uh, strenghtening, strengthening those capacities before conflict breaks out is more effective than responding to, uh, the looting and, and sale of, uh, these kind of artifacts after conflict breaks out is a more effective approach, and he discusses some ways to go about doing that. 6:25 There really seems to be much more interest on, in this topic lately. 6:28 So in, in February, I think, late February, the International Criminal Court actually opened its first ever trial on invol- uh, in, in which the defendant, a Malian, was charged in the context of the destruction of cultural heritage in Timbuktu, um, in 2012. 6:47 So, uh, yeah, really, um, a lot of interesting stuff going on there in regarding this issue at the moment. Absolutely. 6:55 And then you had a, uh, very interesting briefing by Christine Wade, um, on Monday, I think, about, uh, how human rights activists, uh, who, who try to stand up for land rights for indigenous people or land rights in general get under attack in Latin America. 7:11 Yes, especially in, in Central America. And Christine 7:17 writes in the conce- in the context of a recent series of murders, actually, of human rights activists, the most prominent being Berta Cáceres in Honduras, but two other activists were also killed in the two weeks after her assassination. 7:32 And, uh, Christine makes the, the distinction between some progress that's actually been made in the region when it comes to addressing historical human rights abuses, particularly during the region's 1980s era civil wars. 7:48 Um, there was recently the arrest in El Salvador of military officers charged with involvement in the murder of six Jesuits in 1989, and also a, a conviction in Guatemala of two officers for crimes of sexual slavery and sexual violence against Indigenous women in that, during that country's civil war. 8:10 Uh, but as, as Christine points out, dealing with past human rights abuses, uh, is not the same thing as preventing current ones. 8:19 And she discusses, like you said, how among the very wide range of human rights abuses and violence and targeting of journalists and activists, uh, that's going on, that this nexus between Indigenous land rights, uh, the environment and development, particularly in terms of mining projects, uh, seems to be the, the most dangerous one for human rights activists. 8:48 And those are all the issues around which Cáceres and, was organizing, but also the more than 100 other activists that have been murdered in Honduras, uh, since 2009. Um, and so, 9:04 uh, the, it's a, it's a, a very alarming, uh, topic, especially because mining and development is so central to a lot of, uh, countries in the region's development strategy. 9:18 Um, so definitely something that, uh, that deserves a lot of attention and that we'll be watching pretty closely. Definitely. Thanks, uh, thanks, uh, thanks so much for coming on the show this week again. 9:30 Thanks very much for having me. My pleasure. 9:33 And if you, dear listener, are interested in reading not only the great stories we talked about today, but all of WPR's coverage of world affairs, I have a very special offer t- for you. 9:44 As a listener of the Trend Lines podcast, you get a 25% discount on WPR's yearly subscription. For instructions on how to activate the discount, go to about.worldpoliticsreview.com/podcast. 9:57 [Instrumental music] Uganda recently held elections, and one of Africa's longest-serving rulers, Yoweri Museveni, was confirmed as president. 10:09 I had the great opportunity of joining up with freelance journalist Simone Schlindwein, who is based in Kampala, to write an article about the consequences of this election for Uganda and the region at large. 10:20 And to mix things up a bit for you, I'm now interviewing by Carina Peiser to talk about this piece in more detail. 10:26 [Instrumental music] First of all, let, just let me say that, uh, a lot of the credit for the article and the resear- res- research that has gone into it is, uh, has to go to my co-author, um, Simone Schlindwein, who is a German, uh, journalist who lives in Uganda and, um, uh, has lived there for several years. 10:46 So we have worked toget- we have worked together on this. And, uh, I think the demographic question in Uganda, um, it, it has an incredibly young population. 10:56 It's the youngest in the world, um, with a lo- many, many people, uh, never having experienced another president than, uh, Museveni, so, who has been in power for over 30, for 30 years now. 11:09 And, uh, but he has, of course, his, um, his supporters. Um, and, uh, these-- I think there's-- You, you can make basically three, uh, three groups there. 11:21 It's, um, the rural population is more likely to be, have a favorable v- favorable v- view of Museveni than the urban population, especially in Kampala. 11:33 Uh, older people who still remember him as the freedom fighter that he was, um, against, uh, the, his, the former government, the former dictatorship, uh, they tend to, um, still give him credit for his role in the civil war that ended this dict- this dictatorship and, uh, ushered in multi-party democracy. 11:53 And you also have, um, maybe su-surprisingly, surprisingly to some people, uh, quite a few women who still, uh, really support him for his efforts to introduce, uh, gender equality in Uganda. 12:06 [Instrumental music]Wandigea, which is a Kampala suburb, turned into a battleground as the Uganda police clashed with supporters of Forum for Democratic Change presidential candidate Dr. Kizza Besigye. 12:20 This after the men in uniform blocked Dr. Besigye from proceeding to the city center to address a rally in Kafumbe Mukasa in downtown Kampala. 12:29 [upbeat music] Um, so yeah, Kizza Besigye, who is the, the kind of traditional opposition leader who once was the personal doctor of Museveni dur- during the civil war, um, he, he has a, he has a quite, uh, strong following. 12:48 In the official results of the election, he has garn- garnered, uh, thirty-five percent of the vote. 12:53 Um, and because there have been so many in- irregularities, we can assume that he actually got more votes, uh, than the official results reflect. So yes, he, he has a, he has a, 13:05 a sup- he has support, but I think the, the opposition's problem is that the support is very unevenly distributed. 13:12 So you have-- he-- the opposition has strong support, e- especially Bes- Besigye has strong support in Kampala, the capital, uh, which is a very big city and which is a very young city. 13:23 So young pe- young urban people, um, really tend to prefer the opposition over the, uh, government of Museveni. 13:31 But, um, the, the big problem for, for op- opposition candidates and the opposition movement in general is that, uh, Uganda is still a very rural country, and that in the rural areas, um, the ruling party is very well entrenched, and Museveni still has, um, 13:51 still has control over the ruling party. That it has b- it, it has suffered a bit, um, this, this control over the ruling party, but it is still there. 14:00 So, uh, as long as he keeps, keeps the, uh, in- the institutions of the ruling party on his side, more or less he has control over the countryside. 14:11 And also, and perhaps even more critically, um, the opposition has not a, not, not a lot of sway in the security forces. 14:20 So Besigye and other opposition candidates, even if they would be able to, uh, to get official election results that would confirm them as a president, there's really a big question if they could assume the office against the opposition of, um, the security forces. 14:40 And a- as we have f- as we have written in the article, the opposi- the, the security forces, the military is increasingly split 14:50 in its support for Museveni, but neither have they really decided to throw their weight behind another candidate. So as, as long as this situation persists, I think especially, um, the question with the security forces, 15:05 I think that nobody in the opposition really has any illusion that he just could waltz into the, in- into the state house and become the next president. 15:13 Museveni isn't a really popular pre- president, and the results reflect that, and he, he kind of-- he didn't went all the way in falsifying the results, getting like a eighty, ninety percent, uh, um, result out of, out of the elections. 15:29 He just kind of-- he, he made sure that it would come out in his favor, um, by, by a comfortable margin, and that he wouldn't have to go into a second round, um, of elections, so he won this in the first round. 15:42 Um, but he kind-- he, he still, uh, didn't go all the way and didn't make this a complete sham, uh, of an election. Maybe he is, he is too-- I, I'm not sure what it is. 15:54 Maybe it's, it's, it's kind of, uh, he tries to salvage his relations with the external donors. 16:00 So Uganda is still very heavily reliant on, on Western money and, uh, uh, and, and, and in-- and, uh, money from, from international institutions. So maybe just, just going all, all out and, uh, 16:14 banning basically votes to opposition candidates weren- wasn't really on the table because of that. Um, maybe he's, he's just too pragmatic. 16:22 He just has-- he invested just enough to, to get it, to get the job done and, um. And I, I think the sixty-one percent is also really interesting in the, in the context of what the ruling party invested in that election. 16:36 So it, it had-- it was by far the most expensive campaign that Uganda has ever seen, with like, with millions of US dollars spent, especially by, uh, most- mostly by the ruling party, and mostly fr- from basically malappropriate government funds. 16:54 As I said, he still has support, so e-- I mean, the, the ironic thing with all these kind of presidents for life is that many of them actually would win in a free and fair election. 17:05 And I, I think that there's a real possibility that Museveni would win a free, a free and fairly contested election in the second round against an opposition candidate. 17:15 But we will never know because he, of course, he, he doesn't take the chance. 17:19 I, I think that many Ugandan journalists, especially the kind of younger generation, um, they are quite open and aggressive when it comes to c-- to, to, uh, saying what they think. 17:32 Um, I-- the U- Uganda is a bit special in that regard that there's, that there's real public debate about politics in public spaces. So, um, e- even though it is an, 17:45 it is an authoritarian government, I would say, it's not an all-out, uh, dictatorship that would ban all public expression of, of opinion that doesn't conform to the, um, official line. 17:59 Um, so I, I think there is, there is still room in the media for, for public debate and so on. 18:04 But I, I, I think the election was in, in, in so far quite interesting and, uh, worrying because you really had efforts made by the government and the security forces to, to make- People think twice about what they will say and what they will vote. 18:20 So you had army officials or military officials go on record making public statements to the effect that they wouldn't allow another president to take office and that this would threaten the peace in Uganda basically. 18:36 You had party officials of the ruling party 18:40 go to campaign rallies and say that if people would make trouble, if the opposition would try to take this victory from them, that they would kill people and that they would harm people. And I think that 18:53 this is kind of a bit of a new quality in Uganda, this kind of aggressiveness. And I think that not necessarily many-- I don't think that this has had a huge impact on the voting, but I think that it has 19:11 gained the attention of the voters and the press and that there may-- definitely some people really got worried and may have voted for the ruling party or stayed at home because they didn't want to risk any instability. 19:24 Because you still have to take into account that Uganda has undergone a very brutal civil war and several in-- 19:34 against the Lord Resistance Army in the northern part of the country and before that the civil war that brought Museveni to power. 19:40 And so people who have lived through that, they have no appetite at all for violence and they-- if in doubt, they will vote or they will behave in a way to avoid further violence. 19:58 Just who would be best placed to take over from President Museveni should he decide to call it a day? It appears that the long-serving president may have already decided for the people of Uganda. 20:09 Also, it would seem speculation has been growing that President Museveni, who has been in office since 1986, is lining up his son, Brigadier Kainero Bagamuhozi, to take over power, a move that would most likely test loyalties in Uganda's ruling elite. 20:31 The time plays against Museveni in one very fundamental sense. He's getting older. He is, for the length of his stay in power, he isn't that old. He is 70-something. 20:42 And at the moment, at least, he seems to be somewhat healthy for a man of his age. But of course, he's still an old man and you never know. 20:52 So there's this aspect there, definitely, that he's just getting older and may be less capable physically and mentally to fulfill the role he has fulfilled so far and keep everything together. And with 21:10 the more time passes, also the younger the population becomes, older legion, old allies will just basically die on a personal level as well as on a demographic level. 21:23 Because we talked about older people being more inclined to like or view Museveni favorably. That will change over time, of course. 21:34 So I think that this really contributes to the sense in Uganda that this really has been the last election where he could wiggle through in that sense. 21:48 So there's very few Ugandans really think that in five years we will have a repeat of the situation where he will somehow just falsify just enough to get over the next election cycle and use the party apparatus. 22:05 And I think if you look at the opposition candidates in this round, there was, apart from Kisa Besigye, there was also Mr. Mbabasi, who was a high-ranking member of the ruling party 22:23 and who left the ruling party or was thrown out more or less in the run-up to this election. Because basically he said that, so his wife told us, told Simone that 22:40 they had a deal, Museveni and Mbabasi, that Mbabasi would become the next presidential candidate in 2016 and that Museveni went back on this deal. So 22:53 that this was an example for his increasing lust for power and his overstaying his time in office. And so you begin to see fractures in the kind of ruling coalition 23:10 of the ruling party and the military. You have some high-profile military commanders who have gone against him in recent years. And these tendencies will only get stronger 23:26 the longer Museveni stays in power and the longer he refuses to make clear what his successor strategy is. And there seems to be his, 23:41 he seems to favor his son at the moment to succeed him, whom he has made into the commander of the special forces, an elite unit of 15,000 soldiers and who is definitely the strongest combat unit in the Ugandan army. 24:00 And he seems to go out of his way to give his son a military power base from which to then claim the political power. So this is the most popular theory about how the next election will basically go 24:17 That he will, uh, turn over power to his son or another family member. 24:23 Um, but there's the really open question if, if that is, if he will succeed in that, uh, because there's these people around him, especially his family members, they have very little, uh, legitimacy in the eye of other people in Uganda because they don't have this history of as, as a freedom fighter, as a, as a civil war hero. 24:42 So there's a real question there. 24:44 And if y- you, you mentioned the regional politicals, politics, um, there, uh, and this is where it gets really hairy, uh, because, uh, Uganda is an incredible important player in regional, uh, politics, especially in regional conflicts. 24:59 They have intervened militarily in basically every country in the region at one time or another. 25:05 They have a very strong military, um, and, uh, Museveni has played, ha- has really attempted to insert Uganda in as many, uh, conflicts as possible. So they are in South Sudan propping up the South Sudanese government. 25:22 They are in Somalia, uh, fighting against Al-Shabaab under an international mandate. 25:28 Um, they, they, they intervene, they have intervened in the, uh, in the, uh, Democratic Republic of the Congo and, uh, are, are still very active politically there. 25:39 So, um, any instability in Uganda will have enormous consequences for, for the region in one way or the other. 25:49 And yeah, I think this is-- But, but the problem is you can't really bank on Museveni just staying in power and keeping everything stable because he will have to go at one point or another, and y- the longer he stays, um, the, the higher the risk for complete crash really becomes at in the end. 26:07 [Instrumental music] My thanks to Carina for taking over interviewing duty, duties this week and to Simone for partnering for this article. 26:17 You can find the article on worldpoliticsreview.com, where it is titled Catastrophic Victory: Museveni's Re-election and Uganda's Future. 26:26 If you're interested in the Great Lakes region, please make sure to find Simone on Twitter. 26:30 And remember that you can get a twenty-five percent discount on a subscription to WPR, which will bring you many more excellent feature stories like this at about.worldpoliticsreview.com/podcast. 26:43 Many thanks as well to you for tuning in again this week. If you haven't done so already, ple- please make sure to subscribe to Trend Lines to get your weekly fix of world politics. 26:53 Just, just search for Trend Lines in your podcast app of choice or in iTunes. Trend Lines is produced and edited by me, Peter Durie. 27:01 You can follow me and World Politics Review on Twitter, and you can find links to pieces covering the issues we talked about in the show notes on worldpoliticsreview.com. 27:10 The additional audio used in the report was sourced from KTN News Kenya and NTV Kenya. Have a fantastic weekend and see you next week for a new episode of Trend Lines. 27:20 [Instrumental music]
