The oil and gas industry may be wondering about US President Barack Obama's decision to send troops to Uganda and neighboring states to combat the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and kill or capture its leader, Joseph Kony.
But there is an oil connection. Last March, Uganda and neighboring Congo (former Zaire) were discussing ways of jointly increasing security along the Albertine Graben where more than 2 billion bbl of oil have been discovered.
Uganda's army spokesman Felix Kulaigye told state television that the two countries had agreed to cooperate in wiping out remnants of the LRA and rebels of the Allied Democratic Front who were regrouping to disrupt oil exploration activities.
Big problem
However, the LRA problem is bigger than either Uganda or Congo had imagined. Indeed, rising conflict in neighboring South Sudan, which recently won independence from the North, is part of Washington's concern, too.
Alarm bells really rang last week when South Sudan's Interior Minister Alison Manani Magaya said North Sudan was providing support and training camps for the LRA to mount cross-border attacks from Uganda into South Sudan.
"They have a training camp at the border between Western Bahr el Ghazal and Darfur, where they are being trained and supplied," said Magaya who added that 27 entry points along the Uganda-South Sudan border will be "reinforced" against the threat posed by the LRA.
Magaya's comments echoed remarks by Hilde Johnson—the United Nations' secretary general's special representative and the top UN official in South Sudan—who said the LRA is moving to the North Sudan-South Sudan border.
This wider area is of considerable concern to Washington. In fact, the emergence of South Sudan just across the border from Uganda has made the area highly desirable, with talk of a new oil pipeline southward in addition to a 600-km tarmac road now under construction by USAid.
US sanctions
Sudan remains under US sanctions, complicating any prospects of American companies getting into the South Sudan market, at least for the moment. But US officials are working to change that status, according to Princeton Lyman, Washington's special envoy to Sudan.
"I'm sure we're going to open that door, but the rules of the game are still being worked out, and that is very frustrating to the South because they want American oil companies there," Lyman said last month.
In a word, there's much at stake in East Africa these days, and the US clearly wants a chance at helping the region's economic development to stay on track.
The LRA, designated by the UN as a terrorist organization, is no less clearly a destabilizing influence that needs removing.
More Oil & Gas Journal Current Issue Articles
More Oil & Gas Journal Archives Issue Articles
View Oil and Gas Articles on PennEnergy.com