Government of Uganda - Independence & Post Indepence
Era
Cabinet | Past
Leaders | Military | | Personalities
One of the thorniest problems that bedeviled the relationship
between Uganda's peoples was the dispute between Buganda and
Bunyoro, the largest of the western kingdoms, over the "Lost
counties". At the turn of the century the British, in
attempt to punish the Bunyoro King (Omukama Kabarega), ceded
some of the territories to Buganda. Omukama of Bunyoro had
revolted against the British in the 1890s.
At the London Constitutional Conference in 1961 it was agreed
that the fate of these "Lost Counties" would be
resolved by referendum two years after independence. In 1964
the Obote government went ahead with the referendum two years
after the independence, in the face of fierce opposition from
Buganda. The people of the "Lost Counties" voted
overwhelmingly to rejoin Bunyoro. The Kabaka of Buganda was
furious and in an unsuccessful attempt to reverse the decision,
he refused to ratify the results of the referendum.
Although this disagreement precipitated the collapse of the
UPC - Kabaka Yekka alliance, the UPC's parliamentary position
was in fact strengthened by defections to it from both the
KY and the DP. The defections from KY were calculated move
by Buganda politicians who were becoming increasingly disenchanted
by the obscurantism of the Buganda establishment and believed
that Buganda ought to be more outward looking in its national
politics.
A loose coalition led Uganda to independence in 1962 promising
that the Buganda would have autonomy. It wasn't a particularly
advantageous time for Uganda to come to grips with independence.
Civil wars were raging in neighbouring southern Sudan, Zaïre
(now Congo) and Rwanda, and refugees poured into the country.
It also soon became obvious that Obote had no intention of
sharing power with the kabaka (the Bugandan king). Obote ordered
his army chief of staff, Idi Amin, to storm the kabaka's palace.
Obote became president, the Bugandan monarchy was abolished
and Idi Amin's star was on the rise. But events soon started
to go seriously wrong. Obote rewrote the constitution to consolidate
virtually all powers in the presidency. He then began to nationalise,
without compensation, US$500 million worth of foreign assets.
In 1969, Amin was implicated in a financial scandal and he
responded to the bad press by staging a coup. Obote fled and
so began Uganda's first reign of terror.
The army was empowered to shoot on sight anyone suspected
of opposing the regime. Over the next eight years an estimated
300,000 Ugandans lost their lives. Amin's main targets were
the Acholi and Lango tribespeople, the professional classes
and the country's 70,000-strong Asian community. In 1972 the
Asians - many of whom had come from other British colonies
to work Uganda's plantations as far back as 1912 - were given
90 days to leave the country with nothing but the clothes
they wore.
Meanwhile the economy collapsed, infrastructure crumbled,
the country's prolific wildlife was machine-gunned by soldiers
for meat, ivory and skins, and the tourism industry evaporated.
The stream of refugees across the border became a flood. Inflation
hit 1000%, and towards the end the treasury was so bereft
of funds that it was unable to pay the soldiers. Faced with
a restless army wracked by intertribal fighting, Amin foolishly
chose to go to war with Tanzania. The Tanzanians rolled into
the heart of Uganda. Amin fled to Libya. The 12,000 or so
Tanzanian soldiers who remained in Uganda, supposedly to help
with the country's reconstruction and to maintain law and
order, turned on the Ugandans.
In 1980 the government was taken over by a military commission,
which set a presidential election date for Uganda later that
year. Obote returned from exile in Tanzania to an enthusiastic
welcome in many parts of the country and swept to victory
in a blatantly rigged election. Like Amin, Obote favoured
certain tribes. Large numbers of civil servants and army and
police commanders belonging to southern tribes were replaced
with Obote supporters from the north, and the prisons began
filling once more. Reports of atrocities leaked out of the
country and several mass graves were discovered. In mid-1985
Obote was overthrown in an army coup led by Tito Okello.
Shortly after Obote became president in 1980, a guerrilla
army opposed to his tribally biased government was formed
in western Uganda. It was led by Yoweri Museveni, who had
lived in exile in Tanzania during Amin's reign. From a group
of 27 grew a guerrilla force of about 20,000, many of them
orphaned teenagers. In the early days few gave the guerrillas,
known as the National Resistance Army (NRA), much of a chance,
but by the time Obote was ousted and Okello had taken over,
the NRA controlled a large slice of western Uganda. Fighting
proceeded in earnest between the NRA and Okello government
troops, and by January 1986 it was clear that Okello's days
were numbered. The NRA launched an all-out offensive and took
the capital.
Despite Museveni's Marxist leanings, he proved to be a pragmatic
leader, appointing several arch-conservatives to his cabinet
and making an effort to reassure the country's influential
Catholic community. Meanwhile, almost 300,000 Ugandan refugees
returned from across the Sudanese border. The economy took
a turn for the better and aid and investment began returning
to the country.
Museveni won democratic 'no-party' elections in 1994 and
again in 1996 and 2001. One of Museveni's major challenges
in the late 1990s was the north, which was plagued by various
anti-government rebel factions such as the bizarre Christian
group known as the Lords Resistance Army, allied with Sudan's
Islamic government, and the West Nile Bank Front, led by Idi
Amin's former minister. Today the country's levels of AIDS
and HIV infection are among the highest in the world, with
a conservative estimate of 1.5 million Ugandans infected;
in some villages the infection rate is as high as one person
in every four.
The 1996 elections were seen as Uganda's final step on the
road to rehabilitation and the country was rewarded by a visit
from US President Bill Clinton in 1998, despite its blemished
human rights record. In August 1999, Uganda signed onto the
Congo peace agreement.
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