Uganda’s army chief broke ties with the United States on Friday, accusing its embassy of helping missing opposition leader Bobi Wine, then reversed his stance an hour later.
“I want to apologize to our great friends the United States for my earlier tweets that I have now deleted,” army chief Muhoozi Kainerugaba, who is also the son of the president, wrote on X.
“I was being fed with wrong information. I have spoken with the US Ambassador to our country and everything is okay,” he added.
He had previously posted on X that he was cutting ties with the embassy, accusing it of helping to hide Wine, who has been on the run since elections this month.
As well as leading the Uganda People’s Defense Force (UPDF), Kainerugaba is the son of President Yoweri Museveni, 81, who has ruled the country for 40 years and this month won a seventh term.
Wine accused the government of “blatant theft” in the January 15 election and fled into hiding, saying the army had raided his home to take him into custody.
Kainerugaba, who many see as likely to succeed his father as president, is known for prolific and provocative posts on X.
He had earlier posted: “Because of the present situation where an opposition leader kidnapped himself and is missing; and according to our best intelligence did all this in co-ordination with the current administration at the US Embassy in our country (…) we as UPDF suspend ALL cooperation with the current administration at the US Embassy in Kampala.”
He added that this would include its work in Somalia, where Uganda provides the main contingent of forces to the international coalition against insurgents.
The post was later deleted.
Last week, Kainerugaba threatened to hunt down and kill Wine, and boasted that his forces had killed 30 of his supporters, and arrested 2,000 more since the election.
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