Uganda’s military has introduced the suspension of all navy cooperation with Germany after accusing its ambassador, Matthias Schauer, of being concerned in “subversive actions” and of being “wholly unqualified” to be within the East African state.
The military didn’t again up its declare however its determination indicators a pointy deterioration in relations between the 2 nations.
Rejecting the accusations, a German international ministry spokesperson known as them “absurd and with none benefit”, the Reuters information company studies.
The extremely uncommon assault on Schauer got here after he reportedly raised issues about military chief Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, who’s the president’s son, at a gathering final week.
On X lately, the overall threatened to behead opposition chief Robert Kyagulanyi, popularly often called Bobi Wine.
Gen Kainerugaba additionally boasted about torturing Wine’s bodyguard after detaining him.
Rights teams have lengthy accused the Ugandan authorities of concentrating on the opposition, particularly within the run-up to elections.
Wine is predicted to run towards President Yoweri Museveni, who has been in energy for practically 4 a long time, in an election due subsequent 12 months.
Museveni’s critics allege that the federal government is run by a household dynasty – his spouse, Janet Museveni is the minister of schooling, and his brother, Gen Salim Saleh, is the chief coordinator of a authorities programme often called Operation Wealth Creation.
Gen Saleh held a non-public assembly with European Union (EU) diplomats final week, the place Schauer – Germany’s ambassador to Uganda since 2020 – raised issues concerning the military chief’s controversial tweets, and the “reputational harm” it was inflicting to Uganda, native media reported.
Gen Kainerugaba hit again with a publish on Sunday, saying he was “having points” with the German ambassador “that has to do with him as an individual”.
“He’s wholly unqualified to be in Uganda. It has nothing to do with the nice German folks. Whom I like so much,” he posted.
In a separate assertion, military spokesman Col Chris Magezi stated Uganda was suspending with rapid impact all defence and navy cooperation with Germany due to “credible intelligence studies” that Schauer was concerned in “subversive actions”.
“The suspension will stay in drive till the total decision of the matter of the Ambassador’s involvement with pseudo political-military forces working within the nation towards the Ugandan authorities,” the assertion added, with out giving proof to substantiate its claims.
On its web site, Germany’s embassy in Uganda stated that bilateral commerce between the 2 nations was value round $335m (£247m) in 2024, and their relationship was primarily based on “stability and belief”.
It didn’t give particulars of navy cooperation between the 2 nations.
Uganda is closely concerned in peacekeeping operations, together with in Somalia the place it’s serving to to battle armed Islamist teams making an attempt to overthrow the federal government.
