By Black Star News
Photos: YouTube Screenshots
The Uganda government is confirming what it was denying up until Wednesday: Uganda is making a deal with Trump to take deported migrants into the East African country.
The announcement comes one day after Ugandan officials were denying that any such deal was in the works.
On Wednesday, Uganda’s state minister for foreign affairs, Henry Oryem Okello, said, “To the best of my knowledge we have not reached such an agreement. We do not have the facilities and infrastructure to accommodate such illegal immigrants in Uganda. So, we cannot take in such illegal immigrants.” Okello also said, “We are talking about cartels: people who are unwanted in their own countries. How can we integrate them into local communities in Uganda?”
But on Thursday, Ugandan officials were saying something quite different.
Ugandan foreign ministry Permanent Secretary Minister, Bagiire Vincent Waiswa, in a statement said, “As part of the bilateral cooperation between Uganda and the United States, an Agreement for cooperation in the examination of protection requests was concluded.
“The Agreement is in respect of Third Country Nationals who may not be granted asylum in the United States but are reluctant to or may have concerns about returning to their countries of origin.
“This is a temporary arrangement with conditions including that individuals with criminal records and unaccompanied minors will not be accepted. Uganda also prefers that individuals from African countries shall be the ones transferred to Uganda. The two parties are working out the detailed modalities on how the agreement shall be implemented.”
Uganda is an ally of the United States. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, 80, has been in power for four decades. Museveni is known for jailing—and torturing political dissidents.
Some human rights advocates are now worried that African deportees (who may have fled political persecution in their home countries) if sent to Uganda, maybe turned over, by Ugandan authorities, back to the very governments who previously threatened their lives.
Godwin Toko, the deputy executive director of Agora, a Ugandan thinktank expressed this concern: “God forbid that among the people being brought to Uganda there is a Kenyan dissident. I think Uganda will have no problem whatsoever handing that dissident over to the Kenyan government the next day. Or a South Sudanese dissident or any country that has a good relationship with Uganda.”
Toko also said this, regarding the motives of Uganda in reaching this agreement: “Uganda doesn’t have the cards, economically … in terms of military power or in any other sense. But Uganda can then play a good boy for the US and this is one of the avenues that the Ugandan government uses to gain leverage.”
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