COFFEE WITH THE AFRICA

SALIM SALEH

BROTHER IN ARMS

Uganda’s veteran military commander [and presidential sibling] holds forth on the youth challenge to the Museveni regime, growing coffee and regional diplomacy

By PATRICK SMITH

A phone alarm sounds and, with military precision, Lieutenant General Salim Saleh logs onto the video conference call at the top of the hour. Sporting an open-necked shirt and cradling a largemug of coffee, Saleh is ready for combat – of the verbal kind, he assuresme.More gentlemanfarmer than security hegemon today, Saleh is speaking from his house in Gulu, the city in northern Uganda that became the epicentre of the Lord’s Resistance Army insurgency three decades ago. Now he is leading a national project there to boost coffee production.

East African coffeesare thriving.To mark the occasion, I brewedapot with beans from the grassy slopes of the Rwenzori mountains, which straddle Uganda and the DRC. In demand in Europe and the US, these light, fragrant beans are shipped from both countries. Another reason to find a way to cooperate in the regional economy.

Two points dominate Saleh’s biography. His older brother is Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, to whom he has been a long-time adviser on all matters military. The second is more contentious. Saleh is widely said to be one of Uganda’s richest businessmen, with interests in gold and private security companies, as well as extensive land holdings.

Cue for the first rebuttal. All that, insists Saleh, is a gross exaggeration. “For starters, I’m not a greedy person. I don’t have money like all those other leaders who keep money abroad. I don’t have a foreign account. My account in Uganda is overdrawn.” A polite chuckle hangs in the air for a few moments, on both ends of the line.

Saleh is not your regular businessman.Born Caleb Akandwanaho, heleft school at 16 to join a Tanzania-based

‘I’m not a greedy person. [I’m not] like all those leaders who keep money abroad’

rebelgroup fighting Idi Amin’sregime, led by his brother, Museveni. When therebels sent him to Mozambiquefor military training, he adopted the nom de guerre Salim Saleh. When, in 1986, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) launched their final assault on Kampala, bringing Museveni to power, it was Saleh who commanded the operation.

As commander of the National ResistanceArmy, Saleh led the fight againstsundry insurgents in the north, some backed by Amin’s erstwhile allies, some by Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir. He again emerged as a key player in Uganda’s bid, with regional allies, to oust Mobutu Sese Seko in Congo – this time in a less flattering light. He was named in a UN experts’ report as one of an ‘elite network’ of military officers and businessmen involved in the gold trade in the DRC.

Not so, says Saleh. “It looks as if I own companies there […] when I don’t have a single company there.” He adds that he has barely set foot in the country, despite his role as a point man for all matters Congo.

In April, Kinshasa told the InternationalCourt of Justice itwas seeking $4.3bn in reparations against Uganda for illicitgoldexports. A judgement on the long-running dispute is due in November. What are the chances that Kinshasa will win its claim? “Zero, in my opinion,” says Saleh.

Also in April, Uganda offered to send its soldiers to help the DRC government with security on its eastern flank. Military cooperation might encourage a legal settlement or trigger new ructions.

The rift between Rwanda and Uganda is yet to heal fully after their two armies clashed in Kisangani two decades ago. Rwanda followed the

Museveni-Salehregional security playbook and then challengedit, whichled to the flare-ups. “Our disagreements with Rwanda will not lead to war,” asserts Saleh, who was close to the RwandanPatrioticFront’scharismatic founder, Fred Rwigyema.

Saleh’s private security company, Saracen, sends security guards to Somalia aswell as to someGulf States. He and his brother have been close to the leaders in South Sudan but powerless to prevent the recurring clashes between the two main factions there. On retiring as Lieutenant General in 2005, Saleh stayed on as security adviser to Museveni and as a peripatetic businessman. Now his focus is the political economy. “Between 2003 and 2005 we carried out a defence review and we determined that [in 15 years’ time], of the 134 threats facing the country, only four will be of a military nature. The threats we are facing are mainly to do with unemployment, poverty, climate change […] the security around us, not within us.”

For the NRM, it seems the political expression of these threats is the presidential challenger in the disputed January elections, Bobi Wine, who won 37% of votes. Saleh says: “The young people in Uganda have spoken. They have not been in politics a long time but the success they have achieved is phenomenal.” After the security crackdown for Museveni’s inauguration, when Wine was confined to his house, Saleh offered a minimalist olive branch to

TAR U FOR PA JEAN-MARC

‘The generational divide has been hyped up. […] My generation is almost out’

the National Unity Platform. “All we are asking them is to institutionalise their capacity,gointoparliament where they have got a huge representation. […] Let them exercise that mandate that they have been given by their fellow youth to bring up issues for discussion and execution.”

How could that work after months of violence before the elections, and reports of abduction and torture by security agents? Saleh says: “Violence is a two-way traffic. If they are violent, the state will be violent. If they are non-violent, the state will not be violent.” It is a line that has failed to convince. The US and the EU have imposed visa restrictions on senior officials in Kampala.

Some see Saleh’s calls for a closer working relationship with the opposition youth groups as a blatant bid to co-opt, or divide, the growing ranks of youthful dissidents. “The generational divide has been hyped up,” he argues. “If you look at all the managers in charge of corporations and organisations, they’re aged between 35 and 45.” Saleh detected my scepticism. “No, we’re almost out. My generation is almost out.”

On his way to the metaphorical exit, Saleh offered another message to Bobi Wine, whom he used to meet informally. “He should discipline himself […]. There’s a budget for the leader of the opposition. If he manages that, he can project the youth agenda.” Then, in case that seemed too indulgent: “Although we, the NRM, are already handling the youth agenda.”