Wear the Flag: Bear the Expectations

Last week my 5-person U.S. Army Reserve team arrived at the site of a devastating landslide in Bududa, Uganda. At the request of the Ugandan Government, we were diverted from our normal mission in the northern Karamoja region (where we have worked for 6 months) to respond to the disaster. While the U.S. Embassy had allocated $50,000 to the Ugandan Red Cross for relief efforts, we ourselves had no resources or funding as such to contribute upon arrival. Our mission would be a limited one: we were to support our counterparts, the Ugandan People’s Defense Force, in our capacity as civil-military relations specialists, and to determine opportunities for future military-to-military disaster support.

But if there is one thing that we have learned in Uganda, it is that it is difficult to limit expectations or manage perceptions – especially in uniform. This is not Iraq or Afghanistan: our ACU uniform does not help us blend in with the landscape or with thousands of other soldiers. We are often the sole representatives of the U.S. government (and certainly the powerful U.S military) in the areas where we work – and by this virtue and others, we are a spectacle everywhere we go. This does not put us in danger, but it means that we must limit the time we spend on the ground assessing a potential project, for example, so that our presence does not start to raise expectations as well as eyebrows.

This is just what we did in Bududa. Alongside our Uganda People’s Defense Force partners, we traveled to the disaster site and the IDP camps, where we briefly observed the goings-on, and spoke exclusively with military and government officials. In the end, our mission consisted of very few hours actually spent on the ground.

Still, we should not have been surprised to find ourselves on the cover of the New Vision – one of the main national newspapers – the following day.  Indeed, the story about us even overshadowed the story about the Pope’s response to the disaster – and this in a country with a largely Christian, and substantial Catholic, population.

Sunday Vision 07MAR2010

According to the article, we had arrived at Bududa to, “assess the situation and coordinate support.” The words are modest enough, but pictures sometimes speak louder than words – especially large, color, front-page type pictures.  As the UPDF Major General in charge of the disaster relief effort told us again and again, whatever we might do, “Expectations from the U.S. Army are very great.”

He mentioned something else too about our presence, and about expectations.  He said that our response was making people think: If the US Army can coordinate a response to Bududa, why isn’t this or that local or national official doing more?  Indeed, with the election year 2011 around the corner, the pressure is on for politicians to respond powerfully and publicly to the Bududa disaster.  In fact, the politicization of the disaster has gotten to the point where local politicians have been barred from the IDP camps so they can’t stir up conflict.

President Museveni himself has flown to the site, and earlier this week he ordered the UPDF to continue digging until all the bodies had been recovered.  All 250+ of them.  Most of them already decayed to the point where they are unrecognizable to their own relatives.  Most of them simply inaccessible to the hundreds of soldiers who have been digging away at the layers of soil and mud for days with a few dozen shovels and wooden stakes.  In fact, local officials and disaster managers had already met last week and agreed that the site should be declared a mass grave, and that focus should be shifted to the IDP camps. Whether any of this informed President Museveni’s decision, I cannot say.

What I can say is that ultimately we came to support the Ugandan government in whatever course of action they deemed appropriate.  Our mission did generate some thoughts on how US military assets might be of service in the short, medium, and long terms: lending immediate airlift support was initially considered, but the focus now will likely be on planning future joint disaster training or medical military-to-military training.  But here I must limit my own expectations.  The military is not the lead actor in the Horn of Africa theater, and our actions must be vetted through the U.S. Country Team (State Department, USAID, etc.), our Ugandan partners, and our chain of command before they gain approval. It is a cautious process.

Whatever the outcome, a cartoon from page two of a recent newspaper seems to signify that our side-mission to Bududa has become part of the national dialogue on the disaster:

New Vision 09MAR2010, p.2. Caption reads: "A team of officers from the US Reserve force on Saturday visited the scene of the tragic landslide that buried three villages in Bududa District."

Becoming a headline is one thing, but certainly none of us were expecting to get spoofed ! – especially in the context of such a tragedy.  It is hard to say whether the cartoonist is questioning our motives for being in Bududa – or in Uganda more generally – or whether his humor is simply motivated by convenient wordplay.  Regardless, it is clear that the Ugandan public has kept an eye on us, and will likely continue to do so as we continue our mission in Karamoja.

At the end of the day though, our objective is not to generate positive publicity for ourselves, but rather to strengthen the capabilities of our military partners.  For their rapid and dedicated response to the Bududa disaster, the UPDF are really the ones who should be enjoying the spotlight, anyway.