Uganda’s foreign policy and human rights in the Great Lakes Region

Abstract

The study focuses on Uganda’s foreign policy and human rights in the Great Lakes region of Africa. It examines the nature of Uganda’s foreign policy and whether it promotes human rights.

The study utilized qualitative research design, specially the case of study of Uganda-Rwanda relation, Uganda-Congo relation, Uganda-Sudan relation. In this research, primary and secondary data were used. The primary data included interviews focused group discussion and official documents. The secondary data were gathered from newspapers, books, journals, internet and articles. The result of the research is presented mainly in the descriptive form.

The population of the study included foreign affair officials, the ex-SPLA/M soldiers, members of parliament, UPDF and other locals including Rwandese. These were key informants and were selected randomly so as to get a variety of views.

The study found out that the promotion of human rights in foreign policy is a very complex and goes beyond a country’s decision in practice. A country cannot single handedly decide to intervene in the affairs of another country unless it has express mandate from governing bodies like AU and UN in case there is gross violation of human rights. However, Uganda’s foreign policy with its neighbouring countries like Sudan in the north shows that it was aimed at marginalized southerners getting their self-governance as evidenced in the signing of the Comprehensive peace agreement (CPA). Though credit was registered in Sudan and Rwanda, there is evidence of gross violation of human rights in Congo.