Official Kampala has denied the story every time it has come up over the past two years. But the story will not go away.
Israel is reportedly rounding up unwanted immigrants from places such as Sudan and Eritrea and dumping them quietly on Ugandan territory. In return, Uganda gets to pocket something.
The immigrants are abandoned without anything like a sensible travel or identification document. They are on their scary own. Some find their way out of Uganda, possibly heading to Europe and dying unlamented inside the dark bowels of the Mediterranean.
Israeli media and reports by independent researchers confirm it. Uganda says no such thing is happening. That is puzzling.
Uganda has a generous refugee policy. Why would it be coy about explaining itself? Is it because it is benefiting from the sorry plight of other Africans? Gee, we are supposed to be a vanguard pan-Africanist country that does not do such unseemly things – cut a deal with the Jewish State to do in fellow Africans. By the look of things, not even a word from President Yoweri Museveni will settle the matter. But why?
Well, Israel trains many of our young people in specialised military skills. It also provides matériel. It further refurbishes equipment that the UPDF cannot fix from here. (Apart from crack units, the UPDF’s growing engineering capabilities will be a surprise to some.)
President Museveni and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu have something serious going. Evidence? When is the last time the PLO, or is it the Palestinian Authority, had open and meaningful representation in Kampala? There were reports years ago of the prime minister wishing to build a memorial at the spot where his brother Yoni was killed during the raid on Entebbe in 1976.
Why should all this stuff matter? It is human beings we are talking about. That is one. Two, if foreigners are going to be dumped here by a foreign government, surely, Ugandans ought to know about it in detail. Otherwise our government may well be engaged in illegal acts by settling foreigners here without the endorsement of Parliament.
It is a mystery to me why MPs have not asked questions of the Executive to get comprehensive answers on this issue. The ministers of Foreign and Internal Affairs need to testify under oath before Parliament.
Just because the Executive is denying it doesn’t mean it is not happening. In fact, the incessant denials sound like a coordinated cover up conducted by top government officials. MPs may want to know what the deal is exactly, who negotiated it, when it was signed, who signed it, what is in it for Uganda, for how long it is running. You may easily find only a few individuals are benefiting. In which case this whole thing would smell like human trafficking. That would be a matter for the courts, both local and international.
If, as some government officers have suggested, the Israelis are dumping here unwanted immigrants without the knowledge of Ugandan authorities (I would have to die before I believe that), then key managers concerned with immigration, refugees, internal security, foreign affairs, should pack and go. We don’t need them.
That said, it is time the MPs got interested in Uganda’s foreign policy. For so long they have left everything to two men: Yoweri Museveni and Sam Kutesa, the Foreign minister now enjoying a stint as president of the UN General Assembly.
This is not right.
If MPs won’t move because they are better off spending their time shopping votes, some journalist needs to get on to this story. This one is bound to be big.
A journalist who cracks it would potentially thrive. That would very much be in the spirit of the theme of today – World Press Freedom Day. Let journalism thrive!
Mr Tabaire is the co-founder and director of programmes at African Centre for Media Excellence in Kampala.
bernard.tabaire@gmail.com
Twitter:@btabaire
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