Uganda People’s Defence Forces Chief of Defense Forces (CDF) and first son, Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, on Tuesday said he has directed his forces to cease attacks on the White Army in South Sudan’s Upper Nile State.
The Uganda chief who doubles as his father, President Yoweri Museveni’s Senior Advisor on Special Operations, wrote on his X (formerly Twitter) handle that in the event the White Army does not make any offensives, the UPDF will stop their attacks. He stated that the instructions came from his father.
In another post, perhaps to placate the Nuer and South Sudanese who were angered by his writings about killing Nuer tribesmen, Kainerugaba said the Nuer are great people and that if they gave him 1,000 head of cattle and two wives, he would make peace with them.
On 11 March, Gen. Kainerugaba revealed on his X handle that Ugandan troops had been deployed in South Sudan to protect President Salva Kiir and secure the capital, Juba.
In the last few weeks, tensions have escalated between forces loyal to President Kiir and those of his First Vice President, Riek Machar, who leads the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army in Opposition (SPLM/A-IO). The latter is now under house arrest and being investigated for the fighting in Nasir, which resulted in the killing of Maj. David Majur, the then SSPDF base commander there, and scores of soldiers on 7 March during an evacuation attempt by UNMISS.
The government contends that the White Army, an armed Nuer youth group loyal to and on the instructions of Dr. Machar, overran the town of Nasir. The SPLM/A-IO, however, argues that their efforts to resolve the Nasir debacle peacefully were scuttled by President Kiir and the SSPDF.
The violence prompted Kiir’s administration to intensify a crackdown on Machar’s allies. Among those detained are the Petroleum Minister and several senior military officials aligned with the First Vice President.
These developments have raised renewed concerns about the stability of the fragile 2018 peace agreement, which ended a brutal five-year civil war.
On 11 March, Gen. Kainerugaba wrote that Ugandan troops are in South Sudan to protect President Salva Kiir and secure the capital, Juba.
Shortly before the disclosure to secure Juba, he wrote that the UPDF recognizes only Salva Kiir as the president of South Sudan and that any move against him is akin to a declaration of war against Uganda.
Observers and the SPLA-IO have accused the UPDF of carrying out indiscriminate aerial attacks on civilians in parts of Upper Nile and also targeting SPLA-IO bases around Juba and other parts of Central Equatoria State.
Known for his outbursts and controversial late-night and early-morning posts on X, the Ugandan president’s son has in the past often upset neighboring countries and created diplomatic spats.