Sometimes he declares war on Kenya and Sudan. At other times he declares that he is praying for the death of the leader of the opposition or proposes a dowry for Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Now, Muhuzi Kainerugamba, a general and potential successor to the presidency of Uganda, is coming to confirm the strong ties between Kampala and , in his own, special way.
Historical ties
The latest intervention by the 51-year-old Kainerugamba, son of Uganda’s president of forty years, Yoweri Museveni, and head of the country’s Armed Forces, concerned the US-Israeli war against Iran, which is raging with unpredictable consequences for the Middle East and the global economy. “We want the war in the Middle East to end now. The world is tired of him,” he wrote on the social networking platform X, which he uses regularly (his ex has given him the nickname “General X”).
In another post, which has since been deleted, he added that any talk of Israel’s destruction or defeat would bring Uganda to war. “On the side of Israel!”, he declared while he did not hesitate to claim that with the help of the armed forces of the African country “Tehran could be captured in 72 hours”.
This is probably a bigotry, but it is based on the close relationship between the two countries, which maintain strong diplomatic ties. Ties built with Museveni’s rise to power in 1986 and culminated in his 2003 visit to Israel, and his meeting with then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and then-Foreign Minister and current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The latter has visited Uganda twice, in 2016 and 2020.
Before Museveni, bilateral relations were cast a heavy shadow by Operation Lightning (also known as Operation Embede), when Israeli army forces invaded Ugandan territory to free 106 prisoners who had been hijacked by Palestinian members of the PFLP-EO and two German members of the Revolutionary Cores. The involvement of the African country’s forces, a result of the ardent support provided by then President Idi Amin Dada to the terrorists, resulted in the international airport becoming a battlefield.
The result was a triumph for the Israeli side, which neutralized 45 soldiers and all the terrorists. The only victim, in an irony of fate that partly explains Netanyahu’s warm interest in Uganda, was his then 30-year-old brother Yonatan, a lieutenant colonel in the Israeli army. It is worth noting that at the beginning of February, Kainerugamba – of course through X – announced that the authorities of his country intend to build a statue in honor of the dead brother of the Israeli prime minister, a statement, however, that has not been officially confirmed.
The multifaceted collaboration between Kampala and Tel Aviv
Returning to the present, Kampala maintains a multifaceted partnership with Tel Aviv. In 2022, a memorandum of cooperation was signed in the fields of defense and security, which, among other things, provided for the training of Ugandan soldiers by the Directorate of International Defense Cooperation of the Israeli Ministry of Defense (SIBAT) and the provision of modern operational equipment.
In 2024, imports of military equipment from Israel to Uganda reached $4.16 million, while the Israeli digital services company Cellebrite in 2022 entered into an agreement with police authorities to provide surveillance software. The government claimed that the purpose was to effectively prevent criminal acts and to deal with the local branch of the jihadist Islamic State, which has been active in the western part of the country since the middle of the last decade. Opposition and human rights organizations speak of targeting anti-government activists.
Humor or ambition?
Beyond the special relationship that Uganda and Israel maintain, the general’s interventions should be interpreted in the context of a peculiar intra-family competition for power in the country.
Kainerugamba holds one of the country’s most important offices and is the eldest son of the 81-year-old Museveni, making him an expected successor in a country that has unceremoniously abandoned the rules of liberal democracy (Musveni has been re-elected seven times with votes usually around 70%). However, he does not hide his displeasure at the delay in the succession.
In 2023 Kainerugamba had announced his decision to run for the presidency, with the MK Project movement (his initials MK) as the main weapon, which he renamed the Patriotic Union of Uganda (PLU). “We are tired of waiting” he had written in one of his hundreds of posts. A year later he would announce his withdrawal from the electoral race, supporting his father in the 2026 presidential election.
The 100 cows dowry in Meloni
The expressions of sympathy for Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, whom he singles out for their courage in his posts, should also be seen as his attempt to gain recognition on the international stage. “He is absolutely right” he wrote in 2022 about the Russian president’s decision to invade Ukraine, while about the American president he noted at the same time: “He is the only white man I have ever respected.”
There is no lack of comic moments, since in the past the Ugandan general has offered 100 cows as a wedding gift to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, warning that a possible refusal would mean a military campaign to capture Rome! Museveni apologized to the Italian government for his son’s comments, while he made similar remarks about his son’s intentions to occupy Kenya and Sudan.
In the antithesis of all comedy, however, in the opposition demonstrations that followed the presidential election in January and referring to members of an opposition party, Kainerugamba boasted that his armed forces had killed 22 “terrorists”, threatening his father’s main rival, Bob Wine, that “if he does not surrender he will be next”.
His statements last May that an opposition activist was imprisoned in his basement also caused consternation. Opposition politicians and even the Museveni-appointed Uganda Human Rights Commission called for the release of the activist, who was charged with robbery months later.
