Parliament has approved the deployment of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) as part of the proposed international stabilisation force in Gaza. Government presents this as another chapter in Uganda’s proud history of international peacekeeping.
Uganda has indeed carried significant security burdens in Somalia, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. But history alone is not a foreign-policy doctrine. The question is not whether peace in Gaza is desirable. Of course it is. The question is simpler and harder: What exactly is Uganda’s national interest in putting Ugandan soldiers in the middle of one of the world’s most politically, religiously and militarily explosive conflicts?
This is not an ordinary peacekeeping mission. The proposed force is expected to monitor the ceasefire, support security arrangements, facilitate humanitarian operations and help establish stability. But Gaza is not a conventional peacekeeping environment. What happens when armed groups refuse to disarm?
What happens when the force is attacked? What happens when its mandate conflicts with the security objectives of Israel or the political aspirations of Palestinians? At that point, Ugandan soldiers could move very quickly from peacekeepers to peace enforcers. And once soldiers begin using force, neutrality becomes considerably harder to maintain.
Uganda should therefore be cautious about entering a mission whose political end-state remains complicated and uncertain. Who commands our soldiers? Who defines the enemy? Who decides when force is necessary? Who pays for the mission? And who decides when Uganda comes home?
Our troops have spent years fighting al-Shabaab in Somalia, paying a significant price in blood and resources. Uganda has also intervened militarily in South Sudan and participated in operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo. These interventions demonstrate Uganda’s willingness to contribute to continental security, but they also demonstrate how easily military missions become prolonged, expensive and politically complicated. Gaza is arguably even more complex.
This is not simply an insurgency threatening a neighbouring government. It is a decades-old conflict involving competing national claims, territorial disputes, armed groups and powerful regional and international actors.
Israel, Palestine, Iran, the United States and several Arab states all have strategic interests in its outcome. Uganda risks importing that geopolitical complexity into its own foreign policy.
There is also a broader African question. Why must African armies continually become the infantry of international crises while Africa itself struggles to resolve conflicts on its own soil? Sudan remains at war. Eastern Congo remains unstable. South Sudan remains fragile. The Sahel continues to experience insecurity. Somalia still requires international military assistance. Uganda itself has security responsibilities in its immediate neighbourhood.
Sending scarce military resources to Gaza therefore requires more than an appeal to Uganda’s proud peacekeeping tradition. It requires a convincing explanation of Uganda’s national interest. There is nothing wrong with Uganda helping Gaza. But Uganda can contribute in ways that do not unnecessarily expose its soldiers to a highly volatile conflict.
Uganda could offer diplomatic support, humanitarian assistance, medical personnel, reconstruction expertise and political backing for a durable settlement. A Ugandan doctor treating a wounded Palestinian is a symbol of compassion. A Ugandan soldier shooting at an armed Palestinian is something altogether different. That distinction should not disappear beneath the comforting language of “peacekeeping.”
Soldiers are not diplomatic currency. Their lives belong neither to presidents nor foreign powers. They belong to their families and, ultimately, to the Ugandan people. Uganda can be a force for peace without becoming a force in someone else’s war.
Our foreign policy should therefore begin with a brutally simple question: Does this serve Uganda? If the answer is unclear, then the gun should stay in the barracks.
Uganda has enough unfinished wars it can assist with closer to home. We should not be searching for another one thousands of kilometres away.