Judge Julia Sebutinde’s decision regarding the International Court of Justice’s consideration of South Africa’s case versus the Israeli government alleging genocide in Gaza, is, prima facie (as she legalistically puts it) her own decision to exonerate Israel — and not a decision representing the state of Uganda. Er, well, ahem … at least not a Uganda governmental decision, according to Uganda’s ambassador to the UN, Adonia Ayebare. As Norman Finkelstein points out with Katie Halper, Sebutinde’s written decision has likely been written by someone else.
If written by someone else, then written by who? …or by whom?
Uganda has a rather dubious past in its dealings with Israel, even before the Entebbe affair of 1976. A brief outline of Israeli-Ugandan relations appears on the wiki, but the outline is vague and circumspect, as might be expected from such a contentious and viciously-edited / censored outlet as Wikipedia. However, it’s easy enough to scratch the nasty underbelly of the Vile Empire with a smidgeon of research. For example, as illustrated by Israel’s weapons deals with (allegedly) corrupt “wide boy” Boaz Badihi, who is linked to notorious weapons sales in Uganda and Equatorial Guinea; an example deal that involves Israel’s BIRD aerospace with Badihi, on behalf of Uganda.
Badihi is also linked to the shady Israeli NSO group and the occult-named Black Cube company as well, an Israeli company that supplied weapons to Equatorial Guinea as well as Sudan, Uganda, Ghana, Eritrea and Somalia under the umbrella of shell companies like IMS. IMS is a ‘health services’ provider company; coincidentally led by arms dealer Yardena Ovadia. Much as Sam Power’s USAID regime-change operation claims to provide US humanitarian aid, but in fact covertly supplies weapons and ammunition to some of the CIA’s worst Bad Actors worldwide. Israel has also brokered covert Ukrainian weapons deals through and to African states via covert operations, for years.
But of course Israel is a weapons clearing house for rogue states. Israel supplied weapons to US-backed South Sudan in its war with North Sudan, for many years. Today South Sudan is another NED/CIA-created failed-state basket case, as even the US Empire’s Time magazine acknowledges and reports.
But what’s of more interest is the Ugandan relationship with Israeli sycophant states, such as bin Zayed’s UAE and Saudi Arabia, both serious business partners of Israel, even if the UAE/ KSA attempt to hypocritically hide their relation to that business. bin Zayed’s UAE employs Ugandan mercenaries imported in its Yemen war, noting that bin Zayed wound down this activity some months ago. Even so, with the Axis of Evil’s $$ out to get the Ansarullah Houthis, that might be a huge motivation for the UAE to get interested again, in a new war versus Yemen. [Israeli-owned Delaware company SPEAR also operated mercenaries versus Yemen’s Ansarullah where one mercenary component originated from Uganda.]
Beyond Uganda’s penchant for mercenaries-to-hire to just about anyone willing to pay, is the availability of a scalable workforce. In Israel, Ugandan farm workers were recently employed to replace Palestinian workers, presumably on a cost-effective basis. Thus the writing is on the wall — and the labour trade between Uganda and Israel is likely to be a burgeoning one. (Saudi Arabia also employs large numbers of Ugandans as servants and laborers.)
Indeed, what Sebutinde’s ICJ decision truly represents, is the amorality and duplicity linked to political policy considerations by some of the world’s poorest states. That‘s an ultimate irony, when Sebutinde states that genocide allegations versus Israel are purely political.
Of course, this author cannot prove that historic dodgy weapons deals with Israel, and potential new human labour trade between Israel and Uganda have motivated Sebutinde’s ICJ decision …
But “prima facie“, that certainly does appear to be so..
Steve Brown