The Kony Question: Is it War, Oil, or Water?

I haven’t been here in a while but now it seems like I am back. A lot of things have gone down which did not allow me to pay attention to this blog. Hopefully this time it will last.  

A couple of weeks back, an article surfaced in Uganda’s newspapers that The president of the United States of America H.E. Barack Hussein Obama had sent 100 special forces troops to Uganda to help in the elimination of the LRA (The Lord’s Resistance Army) as part of the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act. One, I didn’t know this Act even existed. Two, upon finding out, I couldn’t but help asking myself: “I know the Americans are strong and all but really?! Fighting rebels in the North of Uganda? ” As I read through the rest of the article is when I dawned on me that if you looked at it that way, it did not make sense, it would never makes sense as Jackee Batanda wrote in her article this morning; a country fraught with in-fighting in the ruling party, government officials under indictment for corruption, a nascent oil industry, and a war that’s gone on for way too long.

However if you like the Big Bang Theory episode (The Zazzy Substitution) where Amy Farrah Fowler and Sheldon Cooper are playing a game called Counterfactuals – a game in which by postulating a fundamental change in one fact, how the world would then look like. The discussion asks if rhinos had become domesticated pets who would win World War II? And the answer, well you’ve just go t to read it yourself:

Amy (reads from a card): In a world where rhinoceroses are domesticated pets, who wins the second world war?

(Leonard is in the kitchen making a sandwich and suddenly looks on, curious and confused.)

Sheldon (after a short thought): Uganda.

Amy: Defend.

Sheldon: Kenya rises to power on the export of rhinoceroses, a Central African Power block is formed, colonising North Africa and Europe. When war, breaks out, no one can afford the luxury of a rhino; Kenya withers, Uganda triumphs.

The syllogistic thinking is quite impressive on the surface of it but I got to thinking and digging. 

 And this is a post of what I postulate what all this is about:

1. 100 Special Forces troops come to Kampala, Uganda to train and work with local efforts to curb the LRA incursion. Even though the LRA haven’t struck within the border in over a year (some people at the state department feel otherwise). I don’t mean they shouldn’t be made to pay for their crimes but the involvement of the US now is suspicious, a bit late, and therefore appears rather sinister. Others have argued that the forces are even a reward for Uganda’s efforts to fight the Al-Shabab in the horn of Africa.
2. The troops move into DRC to attack Kony with our country’s new jet fighters and army tanks with our finest commandos led by the first son. However as the incursion progresses, the attacking forces encounter enemy hostiles who threaten the peace those forces are trying to bring to the region. They must be eliminated. The “insurgents” (probably belonging to a local militia) are reported by local intelligence to have their base and supply channels based in Darfur. At this point Kony has been killed like the rebel dog that he is, and the remnants are soon to follow.
3. They move to Darfur to neutralize the insurgents who are perpetrating terror on the people of northern Uganda. This is already over 1,000 miles. South Sudan will naturally give them safe passage through its territories because they are happy with someone fighting their war for them. In Darfur, in a bed-ragged, shabby, moth-eaten tent, they find that they were actually fighting a splinter group of about 50 or so rebels, now decimated to within 10 members. One of the 10 is found with a torn uniform of the Sudan army. He is asked, and he says, well he is a deserter. Is he? After water boarding the guy with waragi, he relents and signs a confession that he is actually a terrorist for the North and that they have been supplying the insurgents with arms. 
4. On to Khartoum then to depose the despotic regime there, calling them funders of terrorism, and oppressors of all their neighbours. The Ethiopians are happy to see it go, the Egyptians are too busy picking up the pieces of their country, Eritrea will not raise a finger, and Chad is dealing with famine, drought, and its own instabilities.



What the Check Mate in 5 moves looks like

5. With a “people’s” government now in place, the construction of the oil pipeline starts connecting the South Sudan oil fields to the Mediterranean Sea through Egypt and without the 20% levy Bashir wanted to put on the pipelines going through Khartoum. Once the pipeline hits the Med. it is plugged into the world’s energy pipeline, the dependency on Russia, the Balkans, and Ukraine is broken, and the result is relaxed prices and pressure on Europe.

Am I wrong? Most likely. But then again, these are my speculations. From a strategic point of view, a chess player would view that as the most likely way to go about securing the economic and political interests of a country that is in massive need of energy and resources but without the wherewithal to just grab it; literally the iron fist in the velvet glove.

The China Question:

Whilst the tiger of the east has slumbered long and hard, its aggressive and renewed interest in the last resource frontier [read Africa] would give some cause for worry. Why? Because as many have argued, China will take the resources without a worry about the politics of a country. For them, it will matter less about who rules the country, and whether they are in the business of good politics. Good news for dictators, bad news for the west. With China funding the construction of a railway line South Sudan down through Kenya, the inevitability of a clash for resources looms over South Sudan.

All this seems a little too much ado about nothing for just a few million barrels of oil, one would ask. After all, with the moratorium on US off shore drilling soon to be lifted, and a renewed sense of urgency in the search for green energy, an uncomfortable yet solid relationship with Venezuela, things don’t look so bad for the US. Which then raises the question, is it more than just oil?

I think it is more than just oil. I think that that world’s next big resources are water and just like in Afganistan, there is more to it than meets the eye. More than 80% of Afghanistan’s water supply is from the Hindu Kush mountain range, from melting snow formed in the winter which melts in the summer. Another coincidence is that the Blue Nile flows from Ethiopia into Sudan before heading out to Egypt. Controlling natural resources is critical to controlling stability in a region. If you take over the Panama Canal, then you protect “strategic interests”.

According to the National defense magazine, “A US Defense Department study shows the cost of delivering bottled water to troops in Afghanistan to be $4.69 per gallon. With a daily water demand of 5.2 gallons per marine per day (the amount for all uses), just supplying water to approximately 20,000 troops costs nearly $500,000 a day.” Which brings all the water drank by army, foreign government officials, and aid workers’ annual consumption of bottled water at a staggering $100 million a year!! On just water.

So, the world’s largest economies are not just looking for who will power the world’s next 7 wonders, they are looking for who will quench the world’s next big thirst. With melting ice caps, the battle will not be won by the strong and brave but the bold and strategic. 

Someone else will argue that it is a bit simplistic for a country to go war over water as a resource. It is frivolous and a nuisance to even debate. It is, I agree. But how well does that argument hold up against the war of Troy, the Falklands war, the wars of Europe throughout the 19^th century, the LRA war, the fight for Arian supremacy, or even the NRM liberation movement? It’s always something that will be frivolous when juxtaposed with the greater good of the community it is purporting to liberate, even though it will be masked in grande and illustrious intentions. 

I am open to a different opinion on the geo-politics of the interlacustrine region but I doubt that the story will very much change from where its already at, and what seems like small action might have far greater repercussions than were ever imagined. Some might even say, one big splash.