kampala, uganda | When the Palestinians and their allies bring forth anti-Israel resolutions in the United Nations, they know they can count on the support of countries in the developing world, and certainly in Africa.
But that support is no longer unanimous: On July 20, when the U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to order Israel to tear down its West Bank security barrier, one African country — Uganda — challenged expectations and abstained.
The move defied Uganda’s decades of support for the Palestinians and ran counter to the traditional regional embrace of so-called liberation movements.
Yet it didn’t mark the first time Uganda had abandoned the General Assembly consensus to carve out a new attitude toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: It began abstaining from or voting against several pro-Palestinian resolutions in December 2003.
Several factors underlie the shift. One is Uganda’s view of its own 18-year civil war against the Lord’s Resistance Army through the same lens as Israel’s struggle against the Palestinians.
Another is the Palestinians’ continuing resort to terrorism.
The Palestinians “may have legitimate grievances; they are occupied territory, but their methods — Uganda does not believe that is the approach,” Onapito Ekomoloit, an adviser to President Yoweri Museveni, said. “You can be a freedom fighter without being a terrorist.”
Uganda’s new diplomatic posture hasn’t necessarily trickled down to the public.
Mohammad Mahfudh, 27, a Ugandan Muslim of Yemeni origin, said he does not understand why Israelis and Palestinians can’t get along together in one binational state. Neither can Mahfudh comprehend Israel’s hesitation to leave the West Bank and Gaza Strip, nor the army’s policy of assassinating Palestinian terrorist leaders.
Still, he saw no problem with the Ugandan government’s deepening diplomatic and business ties with Israel, whose achievements he admired.
“In the modern world, we need symbiotic relationships,” he said.
He remembered how Israeli contractors built Uganda’s Entebbe Airport, along with office buildings and apartment blocks in Kampala, before the late dictator Idi Amin severed relations with Jerusalem in 1972, kicking Israelis out of the country.
Formal diplomatic ties were re-established in 1994. Today, Israeli companies do business here in agriculture, construction, road paving and water supply.
Israeli government experts in agriculture, biotech and dairy products are holding training courses in Kampala later this month. Meanwhile, more than 50 Ugandans are on various kinds of training programs in Israel.
This fall, Israel will extend a Foreign Ministry cooperation program to Uganda, making it the third country in Africa, after Ethiopia and Rwanda, to have the opportunity to learn about personnel and training for its own diplomatic staff.
A former British protectorate of about 23 million people, Uganda is a place where deep faith and post-colonial ideology intersect. It’s home to tens of millions of Catholics, Anglicans and evangelical Christians, along with more than 2 million Muslims. There is also a community of about 600 Ugandans, the Abayudaya, who practice Judaism and underwent conversion by Reform and Conservative rabbis.
Despite its Christian majority, Uganda is a member of the 53-country Organization of the Islamic Conference — which, according to officials, it joined to give its Muslims a platform and a voice.
“In principle, Uganda wants a balanced view of the situation in the Middle East,” said Ambassador J.B. Onen, the top bureaucrat in the Ugandan Foreign Ministry.
To that end, it maintains relationships with all the players in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Uganda’s Museveni has seen the conflict up close: He made a state visit to Israel in January 2003, and also has spent time in the West Bank.
Museveni’s attempt to take a balanced approach to the Middle East crisis resonates with the public, said Andrew Mwenda, a political analyst and radio host.
“You should remember that Ugandans, having a Christian background, very strongly believe in the existence of the state of Israel,” he said.
But, Mwenda added, because Ugandans belong “to the wide Third World struggle against colonialism, and it appears to me the Israeli state appears like a colonial power over Palestine, Ugandans are also interested in seeing the emergence of an independent Palestinian state. And I do not think that those two interests are contradictory.”