Eyebrows are being raised around Uganda’s ‘Napoleonic military adventures,’ with over 15,000 troops in the Great Lakes Region and beyond, fighting in wars and battles whose mission, funding and benefits remain a mystery.

 

Officially, the government says it deploys in foreign countries to support pan-African stability and to pursue terrorist threats to Uganda, but security experts argue that the country is drawing on its “military machismo” to ring-fence its $20 billion oil infrastructure, while also securing trade routes and its economic sphere of influence.

For these missions, the Ugandan taxpayer is coughing up an estimated $0.5-$1 million per day on troop reimbursements and allowances for South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) operations, and a much larger cost on military hardware used in these missions.

At the same time, helicopters delivering body bags from war theatres keep coming.“Each time we hear the chopper landing, we know it is more coffins coming,” said Imelda Kekihembo, resident of Bweyogerere in Kira Municipality, where the helicopters often land. “It’s not something we want to see. I don’t sleep; my niece is in Somalia.”Since June, Uganda has lost at least 39 soldiers – most of them in battle in the Lower Shabelle region of Somalia. Recently, the army confirmed two soldiers were killed in a firefight at Apakwang, 40 kilometres north of Komanda in Mambasa territory, Ituri Province, DRC.

Footage of field combat showed more bodies, the Daily Monitor reported.

In July, a border clash between the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) and South Sudanese forces in Kajo Keji area also left six soldiers dead – one of them Ugandan.

Opposition lawmaker Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda says what is provided in the budget is a tiny fraction of the military spending on foreign deployments, often couched in classified expenditure.

This year’s paper trail is still under wraps, but last year, the classified expenditure component went up by Ush3 trillion ($846.8 million), driven by the army’s return to South Sudan’s capital and Upper Nile State in March, in addition to the mission in eastern Congo.“The taxpayer foots upkeep for our troops there, but those countries also pay money,” said Ssemujju. “For missions like Equatorial Guinea, where the deployment is not approved by parliament, that is somebody’s business,” he added, claiming that superpowers often count on the UPDF to do their “dirty work” in the region.

There are claims that the troops’ reimbursements in the South Sudan conflict are covered by the host government, while in the DRC, the bill for the country’s 6,000 soldiers in Ituri and North Kivu Provinces is borne by Ugandan taxpayers.

Uganda has an estimated 4,000 troops in South Sudan, and a further 4,500 in Somalia’s African Union and UN-authorised mission, and another 700 are in Equatorial Guinea on a special mission to protect the presidency.

Previously, Uganda had up to 3,000 soldiers in the Central African Republic.

Thus Uganda tops the charts of African nations with the largest deployments outside their borders.“We are persistently engaged around Africa to help shape the environment and prevent conflict in the future. The UPDF is currently deployed in five countries,” the UPDF website says.

In June, South Sudanese politician Dei Tut Weang Khor caused a stir, resigning from the Transitional National Legislative Assembly over the war in Upper Nile state, where he represented Nasir County – the epicentre of the conflict where bombs had been raining on civilians.

He also quit his position as a member of the Pan-African Parliament, citing a conflicted conscience of serving in a government “that bombed its own citizens,” as airstrikes by the South Sudan Peoples Defence Forces (SSPDF) and Ugandan Air Force intensified in Nasir.

But Uganda’s Minister of Defence Jacob Oboth told The EastAfrican that Kampala meets all the bills for its troops deployed in South Sudan, dismissing as “a misconception” reports that Juba “pays our troops in that country.”On March 11, Chief of Defence Forces Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba said on X that UPDF Commandos had arrived in Juba two days earlier to support the government forces in “the current crisis,” declaring that thus Mlinzi wa Kimya [the silent guardian] had begun.

In another post, he clarified that, “As of 2 days ago, our Special Forces units entered Juba to secure it” and keep South Sudan First Vice-President Riek Machar – President Kiir’s arch-enemy – in check after the opposition leader had been placed under house arrest.

After the Special Forces, Chief of Land Forces Lt-Gen Kayanja Muhanga flagged off military hardware and combined weapons – tanks mounted on wide-road carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, armoured personnel carriers -- and foot soldiers under the command of Brig-Gen Lukwago Mbuusi.

The crisis in Juba had been triggered by a new round of disagreements between President Salva Kiir and his nemesis, Machar, which prompted the Nuer-aligned White Army militia to occupy Nasir on March 4, threatening to march on Juba.

Machar maintained pressure on the government and its Ugandan backers, saying Ugandan air force was involved in airstrikes against civilians in the counties of Nasir, Longochuk and Ulang in Upper Nile state and Akobo County in Jonglei state.

Four weeks after dispatching his troops to South Sudan, President Yoweri Museveni flew to Juba and held discussions with President Salva Kiir on “regional peace and bilateral cooperation,” and later released a statement hailing the exploits of the joint forces.

By April 21, SSPDF had regained control of Nasir from the White Army. Despite this, UPDF remains on the ground, engaging mostly in humanitarian work now, airdropping food aid and administering medical camps to the locals.

UPDF Spokesperson Maj-Gen Felix Kulayigye did not respond to our questions as to why the Ugandan military remains deployed in Upper Nile and Juba, five months after the White Army was defeated.

Export MarketAt the time of naming Operation Mlinzi wa Kimya in March, South Sudan had taken more economic significance for Uganda, having overtaken Kenya as Uganda’s top exports destination, according to data from Bank of Uganda (BoU).

It is a market Uganda cannot afford to lose or risk insecurity along its trade routes, according to Gen Kainerugaba, who says UPDF and its South Sudan counterpart will deploy pre-emptively to forestall these risks.“The enemy that entered Ugandan territory last month was not SSPDF. It was an assortment of terrorist groups opposed to Juba. We shall deal with them jointly with SSPDF!” he tweeted, referring to the deadly border clash between Uganda and South Sudan forces in July.

Besides South Sudan, the Ugandan military maintains its largest known external presence in eastern DRC, where, according to Congo Research Group, Ugandans own mining rights as Kampala builds roads to facilitate trade.

Overlapping interestsIn June, after US President Donald Trump facilitated a peace deal between DRC and Rwanda – over the latter’s support to M23 – Gen Kainerugaba took to X expressing frustration that Uganda – a lynchpin in the region’s security – was not involved in the Washington and Doha peace initiatives.

“The way in which these [peace deals] are conducted also do not seem to change the interests and actions of the Ugandan army. It remains to be seen if the current negotiations will have an impact on M23 and Rwanda,” Prof Titeca said.

Because of the Congo operation, defence budget this financial year went up by 3.2 percent, from Ush9.588 trillion to Ush9.9 trillion, to consolidate security through continued modernisation of the security agencies, improving welfare and strengthening border security, among other things.

The budget for the previous financial year aimed at strengthening the capacity of security agencies to address emerging threats, ensuring combat readiness, enhancing capability through acquisition of various assets and surveillance infrastructure.

Though delivered in official jargon to capture many facets of the army’s undertakings, the highlight in the defence budget was supporting joint military operations in the DRC, Ssemujju argues.

Legislator Betty Nambooze says the cost of maintaining a UPDF soldier in Juba or Ituri is between $50 and $100 per day, covering allowances, food and operation, while equipment, fuel, and logistics cost millions of dollars each month.

This is based on information Nambooze said she obtains “confidentially” from defence funding partners and security agencies, as well as government’s submissions to donors, particularly the US, to justify the expenditure of the money that Kampala gets in military aid.

Defence budgetA fierce critic of the regime, Nambooze, who is also shadow minister for defence and internal affairs, says military-industrial elites in Kampala, who profit from unregulated defence budgets, are the biggest beneficiaries of these foreign deployments.“The lack of financial oversight has made defence budgets a corruption hub, benefiting a few officers and politicians while draining national resources that could fund healthcare, education, and infrastructure,” she said.

Operations such as those in Equatorial Guinea and South Sudan, are in exchange for political alliances and financial incentives for “Museveni’s regional agenda”. For instance, in Equatorial Guinea, the government committed to pay a monthly wage of $450 to each soldier.

Personal agenda or not, experts argue that these deployments are set to continue, particularly in mineral-rich DRC, where Uganda – and Rwanda – have long-term security and economic interests that depend on the stability of eastern Congo, for which the national budgets will be tapped to fund.“Both see Kinshasa as unable to resolve the security crisis in eastern DRC, and therefore do see their engagements from a security perspective. For instance, Uganda wants to protect its oil infrastructure across the border,” said Prof Titeca, scholar and expert on governance and conflict in Eastern and Central Africa.“So, it would be simplistic to say that they’re there only for the minerals,” he added.

An attack on the oil projects by militia operating in eastern Congo, including the terrorist Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), would trigger a declaration of force majeure by the multinationals and jeopardise Uganda’s carefully choreographed journey towards an oil economy, raking in revenues of $1.5 billion-$2 billion annually.

Uganda’s flagship $6 billion upstream oilfield developments in the Lake Albert basin – which is shared with DR Congo – are due to start commercial production mid-2026, while a $5 billion export pipeline is at advanced construction and an upcoming $4 billion oil refinery under implementation.

Uganda has been an on-and-off actor in eastern Congo, but its current operation is the most substantial open foreign intervention in the DRC since the devastating Congolese wars ended in 2003, according to the International Crisis Group.

Rwanda, on the other hand, is reported to have its military in eastern Congo, backing the M23 rebels against the Kinshasa government.

According to Prof Titeca, the interests of Uganda and Rwanda are not about short-term economic gains. The economic profits involved are not what they were in the Second Congo War (1998-2003), which was about short-term profits for selected individuals, mainly within the army.“It now is instead about protecting long-term economic interests,” said Prof Titeca.

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