Articles about enforced disappearances fill the pages of Ugandan newspapers these days, with many of the victims opposition supporters. Though few doubt that Ugandan security forces are behind the abductions, uncertainty about what is driving them abounds. As a result, a sense of fear hangs over the streets of the capital.
The beginning of a new year always provides an opportunity to reflect on the events of the previous year. While 2022 doesn’t have a flagship event that resonates quite like some years in the recent past, it nonetheless featured or foreshadowed a number of trends and developments that will likely have an impact in 2023 and beyond.
It’s hard not to see 2022 as a “year that changed everything.” The war in Ukraine and other developments certainly represented shocks to the international system. But rather than a year that has changed everything, I see a year that has made everything more possible, at times for the worse but also for the better.
