By John Stephen Katende

15^th Nov 2010

Thomas Harding

A British Journalist has predicted that Uganda will be engulfed in a serious political crisis that will force the army to overthrow the government.

Sounding very much like Ugandan Journalist Timothy Kalyegira and his ‘seer’ stories, The Telegraph’s defence correspondent Thomas Harding envisages a situation where both British commercial interests in Uganda and the insurgency in volatile DRC will spill over into Uganda to force impoverished Ugandans into an uprising.

In Thomas Harding’s rather rich imaginative mind, the crisis will come in 2023.  “…Britain has developed increasingly close links with Uganda for its copper and cobalt, also huge land deals for guaranteed supplies of wheat as climate-related food shortages hit European markets”, Harding imagines.

And he continues:  “…Chinese land deals in Africa have also reduced cultivated land for hire. The insurgency from neighbouring Congo spills over into Uganda and foments an uprising among impoverished people who believe the insurgents’ propaganda that the British are stealing their food and riches”, Harding predicts.

During the ensuing peasant uprising, Harding imagines, “…two large mines are overrun, along with a large number of farms. Scores of British citizens are taken hostage. The British embassy in Kampala is set alight and the government declares a state of emergency with a promise that it will renege on the British land deal”.

Having set the scene for “The 2023 Uganda Crisis”, Harding then turns his imagination to possible foreign responses to the crisis and says:  “…The UN condemns Kampala, as does the US, which offers Britain only intelligence and surveillance. The Government secures the cooperation of Kenya to use its airspace and an airfield to use as a forward staging base. A company of paratroopers training near Entebbe is ordered to deploy to the nearby airport and take it using armed force”.

And Harding has not finished yet.  He says thereafter, “…Government forces are sent against Entebbe; a battalion of infantry and a squadron of light armoured vehicles from the new Immediate Action Force arrive in relays of Royal Air Force [RAF] C17 and A400M transporters”.

For the first time, Harding adds, “…the new A400M aircraft does a daylight drop of a company of paratroopers as a “show of force”. Helicopters and armed drones flown from Britain in C17s launch an SAS-led raid to recover hostages”.

The finally, Harding says, “…the government is toppled by military officers who invite the British force to support their regime as a stabilisation force. It [the new military regime] routs the insurgents and retakes the mines”. END. Please log into www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories and anytime mid-week for our news updates.