President Yoweri Museveni has announced that he will not be part of mediation mission consisting of African leaders who will travel to Kiev and Moscow to mediate between Russia and Ukraine as one way of seeking an end to the conflict that has lasted more than a year.
The President who is currently under self-Isolation after testing positive on June 7, 2023, said much as he is feeling better, the most recent tests show he is still positive.
In May, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa indicated that his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts, Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, had given their agreement to receive this peace mission composed of six African leaders.
The leaders include President of Comoros, Egypt, South Africa, Senegal, Congo- Brazzaville, Zambia and Uganda, who were, according to Museveni, supposed to arrive in Poland on Thursday to take the train trip to Kiev to mediate in the Russia-Ukraine war.
Now Museveni says due his situation, he will not physically participate but delegated former Prime Minister, Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, to represent him.
“I was supposed to have joined them tomorrow. I have now sent an official message that, on account of my continued corona status, I cannot join the group. Dr. Rugunda will represent us. He is already in Poland. From Poland, they will go to Russia to meet with the Russians. I wish the mission success,” Museveni said on Wednesday.
Rugunda is known for his diplomatic approach to resolving armed conflicts. In 2006, he led the Ugandan delegation for talks with the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) led by Joseph Kony who terrorised northern Uganda for over 20 years in a brutal war that left thousands dead and forced the Acholi people into internally displaced persons’ (IDP) camps.
Ramaphosa said in May that Africa yearns for peace and a commitment to the effect is what African leaders are seeking.
“Our mission is a mission of peace, and we want to call it a path to peace,” said the South African president, adding that African leaders would “seek to secure a commitment from both sides that they too should seek to end this conflict by peaceful means”.
The Russian and Ukrainian leaders “must explain to us their point of view on the war as well as their minimum requirements to end the conflict”, he also argued.
“We will be able to give our own point of view as Africans on how we perceive the impact of this war on Africa in terms of food prices, grain, and fuel prices, as well as on Europe and the rest of the world because it has become a rather globalized type of conflict,” Ramaphosa said.
Russia launched a Special Military Operation in Ukraine in February last year to demilitarize Ukraine so that there would be no weapons posing a threat to Russia, protect the people of Donetsk and Lugansk Republics and to denazify Ukraine.
The operation attracted the severest sanctions in modern history on Russia by the U.S and the West with attempts to isolate it as a ‘punishment’, even without considering its concerns.
Whereas the Biden administration and the West have been reaching out to countries around the World to gain their support for severe sanctions and export control packages against Russia, Uganda has consistently abstained in UN General Assembly votes regarding the same.
Some countries which have remained neutral say the Ukrainian conflict is a consequence of the mistakes of the international political elites who failed to create conditions for peace between the warring parties.