Is West grooming Ugandan media, NGOs to promote anti-Russia propaganda?

In Uganda, the geopolitical rivalry between the West on one hand, and Russia plus China on the other, is threatening to spill full-blown into the media if recent reports are anything to go by.

For decades, it has always been known that the geopolitics is mostly related to access to Uganda’s natural resources, but now, recent developments indicate that it has been elevated to influence politics and the economy through the media strategies.

A few days ago, an online publication called West Africa Weekly outed a story exposing how the US embassy in Uganda funded a clandestine foreign interference program targeting East African journalists.

The story, which has not been officially refuted by the organizers African Institute for Investigative Journalism (AIIJ), reports that several journalists were taken to a secret location around greater Kampala between May 19 and May 23 and trained on countering ‘Russian propaganda and disinformation’ under the theme “Understanding and Countering Russian Propaganda and Disinformation in Uganda.”

In the geopolitics language, such maneuvers are often referred to as Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) activities. During the program, Solomon Serwanjja, the AIIJ executive director, presented a paper on his experience on Russian propaganda and disinformation in newsrooms.

Meanwhile, his deputy, Raymond Mujuni, seized the occasion to define Russian propaganda and disinformation and how it manifests. Meanwhile, Haggai Matsiko, the head of investigations at Agora, gave a historical context of Russian ‘propaganda and disinformation’ and its manifestation in Africa.

Finally, media scholar Dr Prever Mukasa examined the impact of Russian disinformation in Ugandan media by analyzing how Russia is carrying out a disinformation campaign in Uganda and its impact.

At the program, some of the non-Ugandan speakers and facilitators at the week-long event included Ellen B Masi, the public affairs counsellor at the US embassy Uganda, research fellow at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, Mark Duerksen, director at the International Republic Institute Caitlin Dearing Scott, and Anna Reismann, the country director at Konrad Adenauer Stiftung.

Some of the topics and themes of the workshop included the historical context of Russian propaganda as well as the manifestation of Russian disinformation and propaganda in Africa.

CONTEXT

Recently, there have been simmering tensions between the Ugandan government and several top Western diplomats over ‘interference’ in Ugandan affairs. At the centre of this is Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the chief of defense forces (CDF), who has clashed with a number of envoys, including the US ambassador William Popp and his German counterpart Mathias Schauer.

Late last year, the Ugandan government, through the Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control (DCIC), deported three workers of Konrad Adenauer Stiftung on propaganda and espionage suspicions.

They reportedly entered Uganda on tourist and student visas but ended up on the payroll. Before their deportation, the trio was fined $650 each. According to the West Africa Weekly, “the ‘training’ was highly secretive and had a clear political agenda – to get participants into a habit of labelling any deviation from the preferred American narrative as ‘Russian disinformation’.

“Participants were warned not to reveal anything discussed during the sessions, and all mobile phones and devices were “monitored with gadgets” to make sure that no videos or recordings were captured,” claims the report.

In fact, one of the participants revealed that they were warned to not in any way disclose the information or what happened at the training.

“Some of us were promised goodies and that we will be given trips to the US soon,” revealed the participant.

The sessions, according to the West Africa Weekly, focused heavily on Russian news platform RT and how to identify and oppose its narratives in Africa. According to David Hundeyin, the West Africa Weekly editor-in-chief, the repeated use of secretive ‘media trainings’ by Western embassies is raising concerns across the continent about foreign control of African narratives.

Laying credence to this notion, it is intriguing that Serwanjja did not mention or share any information about the event as he normally does on his social media handles.

The West Africa Weekly concludes by noting that while benignly presented, these programs are actually about shaping what African journalists are allowed to believe and report.