On the waters: economic and political drivers of maritime conflicts between Uganda and its neighbors

Abstract

The Great Lakes region has, in the recent past, been awash with numerous border conflicts/or threats to conflict among the member states. Whereas various studies have endeavored to explain the emergence of such conflicts, many of them lay the blame on colonial cartographical errors and territorial hegemony that developed after independence. This article furthers the debate by examining why, in the recent past, there have been conflict/disputes on shared waters between Uganda and its neighbors. Escalating maritime border conflicts in the Great Lakes Region have been mainly due to the increasing need for both control and exploitation of key economic resources, leading to the struggle for control of these areas. The strategic importance of lakes such as Victoria, Albert and Edward will continue to make them sources of conflict among countries in the Great Lakes Region, as long as a proper resource-management mechanism under international protocol is not put in place.