Kampala, Uganda | TASS | The United States and the United Kingdom proposed deploying their military contingents to Uganda but were refused, Yoweri Museveni, president of the East African nation, said.
“We are very confident. That is why, for instance, the Americans came here and the British, and they said we want to help you build your army. We said but we have already built the army,” the Ugandan leader said, as quoted by the local news outlet Chimp Reports.
No foreign bases exist in the country because they are unnecessary, he emphasized. “Foreign armies for what? We can defend ourselves, we don’t need anything from anybody,” the president said.
Museveni also addressed the proposed Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), a treaty that defines the legal status of one country’s military contingents stationed abroad. According to the head of state, the UK and the US offered him to sign it but requested that their servicemen face trial in their own countries in the event of any crime, rather than in Uganda. In response, Museveni asked that any Ugandans who break the law be returned to Uganda for trial, but London and Washington rejected the request.
“I have never signed any single SOFA with anybody in all the time I have been here,” he added. Museveni, who has been in office since 1986, did not specify the period he was referring to. According to the Africa Intelligence news website, in 2003, Museveni himself proposed to allow the US Air Force to use Entebbe International Airport as a support base.
