Uganda Halts Military Ties With Turkey
Uganda’s army suspended all defence cooperation with Turkey on Saturday after Ankara again refused to hand over Fred Lumbuye, an exiled blogger facing 15 charges at home, army spokesman Chris Magezi said.
The Uganda People’s Defence Forces order takes effect at once and lasts “until outstanding issues of mutual defence and military cooperation between the two countries are resolved.” Magezi gave no list of those issues. Army chief Muhoozi Kainerugaba, President Yoweri Museveni’s son and the man widely tipped to succeed him, reposted the statement.
Lumbuye lives in Turkey and runs posts and a YouTube channel on Ugandan politics that draw thousands of views, leading Kampala to charge him with incitement to violence, spreading false information and computer misuse. A Turkish court rejected a formal extradition request in July 2022 and his exact status in Turkey is unclear.
Hundreds of Patriotic League of Uganda members, a group tied to Kainerugaba, demonstrated at the Turkish embassy in Kampala on Friday; Africanews put the crowd in the thousands. Secretary-general Fadil Twalla said they were “not enemies of Turkish people” but patriots “deeply disappointed” that Lumbuye “continued to use the territory to attack our national leadership.” Kainerugaba thanked them on social media for showing “the spirit of lions” and wrote: “The Turks will comply with all our demands. If they don’t, life will become untenable for them in Uganda.”
The two states have worked together since a 2016 defence-industry pact, widened by a 2022 training accord, covering instruction, weapons, surveillance kit, technology transfer and counter-terrorism. The freeze follows threats to cancel a $3 billion standard-gauge railway contract with Yapı Merkezi and to expel Turkish nationals. Turkish media reported in June that Kainerugaba had already cancelled that contract.
Museveni won a seventh term in May. Informed observers describe a tightening grip on critics, with the president’s son now the dominant security figure. Turkey has not publicly answered the Saturday order.
