Uganda: Counterterrorism in Museveni’s Uganda

Abstract

Ugandan security concerns throughout the Museveni era have centered round terrorism, both domestic and international. Internationally, there is evidence to suggest, Ugandan intelligence services foiled attempts by Al Qaeda to bomb the US Embassy in Kampala, at the time of the Dar Es-Salaam and Nairobi Embassy bombings. In 2010, Kampala suffered from Al Qaeda-inspired bombings carried out by the Somali group Al Shabaab, in retaliation for sending peacekeepers to Somalia. Domestically, Uganda has also experienced attacks deemed to be terrorism from the Allied Democratic Front and the Lord’s Resistance Army. This chapter demonstrates how the term ‘terrorism’ has been used by the Ugandan government in many different ways and how the expansive use of this term has been critiqued. I argue that the key to understanding the Ugandan government’s response to these disparate threats is through understanding how Museveni has used these crises to become a key US ally in the War on Terror and to position himself as a regional leader in East Africa.

Assessing threatening uncertainties: Counterterrorism and everyday practices of preemptive policing in Ghana

“…While much literature within the field of terrorism studies has been concerned with security governance in the USA and Europe, our knowledge of the dynamics of preemptive politics outside a Western context is highly limited. An important exception here is a recent collection of studies on non-Western responses to terrorism (Boyle, 2019), exploring how governments and security forces in countries such as Japan, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and Nigeria engage in counterterrorism. With a focus on responses to the threat of domestic and international terrorism, these studies direct attention toward the complex historical, political, cultural, and religious developments and dynamics that shape diverse counterterrorism measures and effects.…”