Uganda – Fifty Years of Independence

Peter Woodsford

U3AC Africa Forum

23rd November 2012.

Synopsis

• Uganda – basic facts

• Background – British rule

– Independence, 9th October 1962

• Obote I (1962-71)

• Amin (1971-79)

• Overthrow of Amin and Obote II (1979-85)

• The National Resistance Movement (NRM) and Museveni (1986 to date)

Uganda - Where

Uganda – What (adapted from BBC country profile)

• Full name: Republic of Uganda • Population: 34.5 million (UN, 2011), growth rate 3.2% pa. • Capital: Kampala • Area: 241,038 sq km (93,072 sq miles) • Major languages: English (official), Swahili (official), Luganda,

various Bantu and Nilotic languages • Major religions: Christianity, Islam • Life expectancy: 54 years (men), 55 years (women) (UN) • Monetary unit: Ugandan shilling (£1=UgShs 4,150, Nov 2012) • Main exports: Coffee, fish and fish products, tea; tobacco,

cotton, corn, beans, sesame, (remittances from Diaspora) • GNI per capita: US $510 (World Bank, 2011)

Uganda – ‘Pearl of Africa’

Uganda - Broken

Uganda – Mended?

Beginnings

• 1500 - Bito dynasties of Buganda, Bunyoro and Ankole founded by Nilotic-speaking immigrants from present-day southeastern Sudan.

• 1700 - Buganda begins to expand at the expense of Bunyoro.

• 1800 - Buganda controls territory bordering Lake Victoria from the Victoria Nile to the Kagera river.

• Summary – strong settled kingdoms in the South and West, loose settlements, migrations in the North

Forces from Outside

• 1840s - Muslim traders from the Indian Ocean coast exchange firearms, cloth and beads for the ivory and slaves of Buganda.

• 1862 - British explorer John Hanning Speke becomes the first European to visit Buganda.

• 1875 - Kabaka Mutesa I of Buganda allows Christian missionaries to enter his realm.

British influence

• 1877 - Members of the British Church Missionary Society arrive in Buganda.

• 1879 - Members of the French Roman Catholic White Fathers arrive.

• 1890 - Britain and Germany sign treaty giving Britain rights to what was to become Uganda.

• 1892 - Imperial British East Africa Company agent Frederick Lugard extends the company's control to southern Uganda and helps the Protestant missionaries to prevail over their Catholic counterparts in Buganda.

British Protectorate - 1894

1900 – The Buganda Agreement

• Between the Queen Victoria (Sir Harry Johnson) and the infant Kabaka Daudi Chwa (three regents Stanislas Mugwanya, Zacharia Kisingiri and Apollo Kaggwa)

• Delineated the boundaries of Buganda

• Distributed land among Baganda leaders (‘Mailo’ Land)

• The basis of Indirect Rule of Uganda Protectorate by the British

Crowning of Kabaka Mutesa II at Budo

Kiwanuka, Kabaka Mutesa, Martin Luther Nsibirwa, Denis Herbert

What the British Left • A sound economy (Cotton, Coffee,..) • Good national power supply from the Jinja Dam • Well established Protestant and Roman Catholic

churches – ‘Native Anglican Church’ => Church of Uganda

• Good medical services – Significant reliance on Christian missions, esp. rural areas – Mulago Hospital in Kampala first rate

• Good transport infrastructure, nationally and regionally • Good Education but for limited numbers

– Makerere University pretty well established

• No ‘settler problem’

Jinja Dam, completed 1954

Hidden behind ‘Pax Britannica’

• Tribal tensions, particularly between North of the Nile and South of the Nile – Linguistic divide

• Bantu v. Nilotic/Sudanic - (consonants v. vowels)

• Mutesa, Kiwanuka, Museveni, …v. Obote, Amin, Okello..

– Exacerbated by • Role of the Baganda as agents of the British in conquering

other areas

• Imbalance in Education

• Fundamentally different local structures – Role of kingdoms unresolved

– No chiefly systems north of the Nile

Hidden behind ‘Pax Britannica’

• Political parties drawn up on religious/tribal lines

– Democratic Party (DP)

• ‘Dini ya Papa’

– Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC)

• ‘United Protestants of Canterbury’

– Kabaka Yekka (KY – Kabaka Alone, Buganda separatist)

• ‘Kill Yourself’

Hidden behind ‘Pax Britannica’

• Economic dominance of the Asian community

– Brought in as indentured labourers to build the Uganda Railway (1900)

– Some stayed on. Many more joined them

• Dominated retail trade – ‘duka-wallahs’

• Controlled large sugar plantations – Madhvani, Mehta

– Separate communities

• An Army (and to a lesser extent a Police) dominated by Northerners

A Difficult Nation-building Task

• Fundamentally the boundary lines were in the wrong place

• The North and East of Uganda arguably had much more in common with the Southern Sudan than with the Bantu South and West

• A 1920’s report in the Colonial Government archives pointed this out (P. Mutibwa p. xx) but there was no way in which this could be acted upon

• Nonetheless, Independence was achieved with very high hopes on 9th October 1962.

Independence, 9th October 1962

The 1962 Constitution and the UPC/KY coalition

• A Compromise which provided for the existence of four kingdoms within an independent state, with Buganda in a privileged federal relationship and the rest of the country under local administrations

• UPC and KY entered into an uneasy coalition to keep out the Catholic DP (who had won the initial 1961 election)

• This coalition won the 1962 pre-independence election and formed a government with Milton Obote as Prime Minister. The British Governor stayed on for one year a titular head

An aside – Benedicto Kiwanuka

• The first Prime Minister of Uganda (internal self-government in March 1961

• Implacably opposed to/by the Buganda (Protestant) establishment

• Replaced by the UPC/KY coalition • Served briefly as Attorney-General under Amin

but was then murdered by the regime • His Grandson is a prominent American Football

player: – http://www.smh.co m.au/sport/american-hero-

whose-heart-lies-in-africa-20120204-1qynn.html

Milton Obote (1925-2005)

• Born in Lango, son of a minor chief

• Educated at Busoga College, Mwiri and Makerere University

• Involved in Kenyan trade union politics

• Elected to Uganda LegCo in 1957

• Became leader of UPC in 1959

1963 - Uganda becomes a Republic

• Kabaka Mutesa II becomes the first President – As per UPC/KY deal, but no resolution of role of Buganda

• Rapid Africanisation and expansion of government, services, education,…. – All the African staff at my school went off to jobs in

Government

• Apparent island of stability surrounded by Congo, Sudan, Rwanda

• Initially Obote was a ‘leader of leaders’ (UPC a coalition) but rapidly strengthened his position – N.B. no ‘leader of the Independence Struggle’

The 1966 Constitutional Crisis

• Obote and Kabaka Mutesa irreconcilable • Rumours of a plot to overthrow Obote

– ‘Congolese Gold’ charges – Five ministers arrested – Motion of censure on Obote

• Obote ordered Army, led by Amin, to attack the Bulange and arrest the Kabaka (President)

• Mutesa escaped from the ‘Battle of Mengo’ but civilians killed and Buganda government organs destroyed

Repercussions of the Battle of Mengo

• The Baganda never ever forgave Obote

– ‘The Desecration of my Kingdom’ was very deeply felt throughout Buganda, the central, most populous and economically advanced region of Uganda

• The real gainers were the Army (more equipment and pay rises, more promotions)

• KY had made a Faustian bargain with Obote, but so had he with Amin

1966 Constitution

• Largely written by Obote • Abolished the Kingdoms

– Buganda divided into four districts

• Strongly centralist with power vesting in the President – ‘state hegemony’

• Economy declined, ‘kondoism’ prevalent • General Service Unit (GSU) built up as rival to Army

– Obote and Amin more and more at odds

• The ‘Move to the Left’ in 1969 • Obote focussed increasingly on pan-African issues,

allied to Nkrumah, Nyerere

The 1971 Coup

• Obote went to the Singapore Commonwealth Conference – Felt obliged to support OAU against UK over South Africa

• His call to a lieutenant to arrest Amin went astray at the switchboard to Sergeant Musa

• Army took control in January 1971, largely Kakwa and Nubians

• Widely welcomed in Uganda especially in Buganda – A first act was to allow the Baganda a State Funeral for the

deceased Kabaka Mutesa

• Supported by UK and the West generally, as Obote had antagonised them

Amin Coup

Idi Amin Dada (mid-1920s –2003)

• A Kakwa from NW Uganda/Congo/Sudan

• Poor peasant family • Served in King’s African

Rifles, by 1959 an Afande, highest African rank

• 6 ft 4 in tall and powerfully built, Ugandan light heavyweight boxing champion (1951 to 1960)

• Liked by British officers but allegations of brutality on operations

Amin Consolidates Power (1971-3)

• An initial Cabinet of Technocrats but real power moved to Army Council

• Elimination of Acholi and Langi tribesmen from the Army, largely in secret

• Botched invasion attempts gave pretext for massacres of prominent civilians – Vice-chancellor of Makerere,

Mayor of Masaka, Attorney-General Kiwanuka, Headmaster of Busoga College, Mwiri

Expulsion of the Asians, 1972

• Uganda was broke – Israel wanted repayment of

a loan

• Wealth was largely in Asian hands

• 60,000 expelled and their property expropriated – Included Ugandan citizens

– 3 month deadline

• Popular in East Africa, very damaging internationally

A Brutal Regime

• A vicious Police State – The State Research Bureau (SRB) behind a rule of terror

• Uneducated and brutal fellow-tribesmen of Amin • Pogroms against educated elements, judiciary, Bantu-speakers,

Luo-speakers, non-Muslims • Breakdown of law and order

• Very erratic foreign policy – "His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji

Doctor Idi Amin, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular."

• Libya became major external sponsor • Murder of Archbishop Jani Luwum

Janani Jakaliya Luwum (c. 1922 –1977)

• An Acholi, born in Kitgum district

• Educated at Buwalasi Theological College

• 1974, second African Archbishop of Uganda

• a leading critic of the excesses of the Idi Amin regime

• Accused of treason, arrested and murdered

• His statue is among the Twentieth Century Martyrs on the front of Westminster Abbey in London.

Amin Overthrown - 1979

• Amin and Nyerere bitter enemies

• Amin ordered invasion of Kagera Salient in Northern Tanzania in 1978

• Tanzanian Army with various anti-Amin forces under the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF) invade Uganda in 1979, take Kampala, – Amin driven out, finally found refuge in Saudi

Arabia

• Cost to Tanzania estimated at £1 billion

Instability and the 1980 Election

• No clear ‘winner’ => jockeying for power – Short-lived Presidents Lule and Binaisa, deposed by

the Army Council

• Old political parties reinstated for hurriedly convened national elections in December 1980 – One significant newly formed party – Uganda Patriotic

Movement (UPM), Yoweri Museveni – It is widely believed that the Democratic Party (DP)

won, but UPC/Obote controlled the Electoral Commission and UPC were declared the victors

– Paulo Wangola and Daudi Magezi and Southampton

• Obote installed as President – ‘Obote 2’

Obote 2 and the Bush War (1981-5)

• 28 members of the National Resistance Army (NRA), led by Yoweri Museveni took to the Bush on 8th February 1981 – Mainly Baganda and Westerners, from UPM – Increasingly effective guerrilla campaign

• Obote packed Army with Langi and Acholi and clung to power – Luwero Triangle scene of widespread, ongoing atrocities

against civil population

• Obote replaced by Acholi generals in 1985 • NRA entered Kampala and installed Museveni as

President in January 1986

Yoweri Kaguta Museveni (born 1944)

• A Munyankole from the South West, son of a cattle herder (7th KAR)

• Educated at Ntare School and University of Dar (Political Science, Marxist)

• Born Again ‘Balokole’ upbringing but concluded that ‘turning the other cheek’ was not always right

• Thesis on relevance of Fanon’s ideas on revolutionary violence to post-colonial Africa

Initial Achievements of NRM Government

• National Resistance Movement (NRM) is the political non-party organ (NRA is the Army)

• As the NRA took over areas, relative peaceful conditions were imposed – NO looting, offenders shot – Very little vengeance taken

• NRM set up Resistance Councils (RC’s) elected from ground level up – Effective representation of the people – ‘Sensitisation’ campaigns – Members of previous regimes not excluded

• Remarkably free media

But a Huge Task

• Economy in ruins

• Human casualties of ‘the Troubles’ at least 0.5 million – Many refugees, especially the well-qualified

• Social Fabric disrupted – No trust or harmony, survival mentality, many betrayals

– ‘Mafuta Mingi’, Get rich quick

– Tensions between Bush Warriors, Stayers, Returnees

• AIDS epidemic

AIDS and Uganda

• In the chaotic conditions of Uganda in the 1980’s, AIDS spread rapidly

• High profile and ‘in your face’ campaigning by Government and social leaders

• Contained at least as well as anywhere else in Africa

Philly Bongoley Lutaaya (1951 –89)

• Musician who was the first prominent Ugandan to give a human face to HIV/AIDS.

• Before dying of AIDS, Lutaaya spent his remaining healthy time writing songs about his battle with AIDS, touring churches and schools to spread a message of prevention and hope.

• ‘Born in Africa’ top hit

• ‘People are Dying’ another

Recovery Commences

• 1990 onwards, significant level of returnees from the Diaspora, economy picks up slowly

• 1993 - Museveni restores the traditional kings, including the Kabaka of Buganda, but without political power.

Constitutional Progress

• 1995 - New constitution legalises political parties but maintains the ban on political activity.

– Produced by a consultative process, the source of much pride

• 1996 - Museveni returned to office in Uganda's first direct presidential election.

• 2000 - Ugandans vote to reject multi-party politics in favour of continuing Museveni's "no-party" system.

Failure in the North

• The Acholi were on the losing side, with much to fear in 1986

• The Holy Spirit Movement. Led by the Prophetess Alice Lakwena, invaded and got as far as Busoga

• Joseph Kony and his Lords Resistance Movement (LRA) have waged an ongoing bloody guerilla war – Child soldiers – Abduction of girls as sex

slaves – Mutilations

Failure in the North

• During a November 2003 field visit to Uganda, United Nations Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland stated, "I cannot find any other part of the world that is having an emergency on the scale of Uganda, that is getting such little international attention”.

• Kony still at large, but outside Uganda

Corruption and Constitutional issues

• July 2005 - Parliament approves a constitutional amendment which scraps presidential term limits – Many misgivings amongst loyal NRM members

• December 2005 - International Court in The Hague rules that Uganda must compensate DR Congo for rights abuses and the plundering of resources in the five years leading to 2003.

• February 2011 - Museveni wins his fourth presidential election. Challenger Kizza Besigye alleges vote-rigging and dismisses the result as a sham.

• Transparency International rates currently rates Uganda as the most corrupt country in East Africa

The NRM achievement

• Since the NRM took over Uganda has enjoyed peace and relative stability – an amazing achievement given the starting point.

• Substantial economic growth, eg GDP: – 6.7% (2011 est.) , 5.9% (2010 est.) , 7.2% (2009 est.)

• International recognition – Hosted Commonwealth Heads of Government

meeting in 2007

– Bill Clinton visits, including July 2012

Uganda in the Ibrahim Governance Index (www.moibrahimfoundation.org)

• The Ibrahim Index of African Governance is a comprehensive ranking of African countries according to governance quality.

• Funded and led by an African institution, the Ibrahim Index aims to be Africa’s leading assessment of governance that informs and empowers citizens to hold their governments and public institutions to account.

• Published annually, based on the performance over the previous two years

• Uganda currently rates 19th out of 52 countries

Rhoda Kalema (born 1929)

• Daughter of Katikiro Nsibirwa • Educated Kings College Budo

and Edinburgh • Widow of Minister W Kalema • Key figure in Women’s

Movement, Mothers’ Union, Scripture Union

• Founder member UPM • MP and Minister in NRM

govt, • 1985 Constitution • ‘Mother of Parliament’

Current Challenges • The Succession

– Worries about a ‘Museveni Dynasty’

• Land and the Environment – Land Reform is an increasingly burning issue

– And so is environmental degradation • Kampala traffic is horrendous

• Population Explosion continues – The country’s current population is projected to

explode to 130 million by 2050 according to a recent study –(www.worldwatch.org/node/4525)

Oil – a Blessing or a Curse?

• January 2009, the UK oil explorer Heritage Oil made a major oil find in Uganda.

• Exploitation now with Tullow Oil, Total and CNOOC

• Uganda seeks to control more of the wealth creation from the Oil but the key agreements are obscure

Uganda National Anthem

Oh Uganda! may God uphold thee, We lay our future in thy hand.

United, free, for liberty Together we'll always stand.

Oh Uganda! the land that feeds us

By sun and fertile soil grown. For our own dear land,

We'll always stand:

The Pearl of Africa's Crown.