After senior U.S. lawmakers called for an urgent review of bilateral security cooperation, tensions between the United States and Uganda reached a new level of intensity. This escalation followed General Muhoozi Kainerugaba’s violent social media posts, which he made as Uganda’s Chief of Defence Forces and President Yoweri Museveni’s son. The controversy has thrust long-standing military ties between the two nations into crisis.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch rejected General Muhoozi’s public apology through formal statements that he made during this week. Risch warned that the U.S. must reconsider its security and defense collaboration with Kampala unless concrete corrective measures are undertaken.
The general’s posts about the U.S. Embassy in Kampala led to backlash because he accused embassy officials of working with opposition leader Robert “Bobi Wine” Kyagulanyi, who has been in hiding since the election violence began. The now-deleted tweets from Muhoozi claimed embassy staff helped Wine perform his alleged self-abduction, which resulted in broken security cooperation, so he declared military collaboration would stop.
The United States made an immediate response to the situation. Risch has urged the administration of President Donald Trump to impose sanctions on Ugandan security officials involved in human rights abuses and to reevaluate the cooperative security arrangements that have long supported regional counterterrorism efforts. He stressed that unfiltered threats and unverified allegations risk destabilizing an important alliance.
General Muhoozi deleted his posts after he apologized to the public and declared that military ties with the United States would continue because he had received incorrect information. The incident had destroyed Risch’s trust, according to him, but he needed a complete investigation to treat it as an acceptable matter.
Diplomatic sources suggest the fallout has already influenced discussions within the U.S. State Department and Pentagon, where officials are weighing options ranging from tighter conditions on aid and training programs to targeted sanctions against senior Ugandan military figures.
The analysts indicate that the incident will create multiple security problems that will affect both East Africa joint operations and the counterterrorism operations that use Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) forces.
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