Uganda

UGANDAN POLITICS OFTEN follow ethnic, regional, and tribal lines with ideological differences being secondary. The country is roughly divided between two major peoples. In the north are the Nilotic; in the south are the Bantu, who have traditionally dominated the country and controlled the military. Uganda is landlocked in east-central Africa and was first populated by Bantu-speaking peoples more than 2,500 years ago. By the 1300s, three tribal kingdoms had emerged, but one dominated, Buganda. In 1862, John Hanning Speke, a British explorer searching for the source of the Nile, became the first recorded European to visit and by 1894 Uganda had been declared a British protectorate. A clerical error is blamed for dropping the “B” of Buganda and renaming the country, but the name stuck.

In 1962, Uganda became independent with the left-leaning Milton Obote as head of state. He was deposed in 1971 by Idi Amin, whose military rule was eccentric and brutal with an estimated 300,000 Ugandans killed for political reasons during the 1970s. He aligned the nation with some left-wing causes, making overtures to the Soviet Union and Communist China, but he did not follow a consistent ideological philosophy. In 1976, Amin declared himself President for Life and attempted to annex western Kenya and the Kagera region of Tanzania. That led to a series of military defeats and Amin fleeing into exile, where he died in 2001. What followed was a struggle for power among varied political and ethnic rivals. One of the main contenders was the left-wing Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA), which was successful in putting former President Obote back into power from 1980 until 1985. Repression continued during that period with an estimated 100,000 Ugandans killed and another 200,000 fleeing to political exile.

Despite the dangers of attempting political opposition during that time, the left-to-centrist Democratic Party (DP) decided to keep working within the system, while the more militant and leftist-radical Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM) refused to accept the Obote government and left the political scene for guerrilla warfare. The UPM later developed a political wing, the National Resistance Movement (NRM), as well as a military wing, the National Resistance Army (NRA).

In 1985, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni became the sole leader of both the NRM and the NRA. Dissatisfaction with Obote's government grew amid political repression and nationwide economic hardship and instability. In 1985, a faction of Obote's military junta seized power and ousted Obote, who fled to Zambia. A military council was headed by General Tito Okello, but was deposed when Museveni refused to join the government and continued guerrilla warfare, capturing much of the countryside, then the capital—deposing Okello. [Page 462]Museveni put into place a National Resistance Council (NRC), which named him as president. Under Museveni, political opposition was outlawed. Opposition political parties were allowed to exist, but were banned from supporting candidates.

Museveni's political ideology evolved into a pragmatic mix of state run economics and free-market capitalism, particularly as he sought development loans. A period of relative prosperity and security ensued. Because political parties were not allowed to operate actively, election candidates had to stand as independents, even though they might belong to a registered political party. Museveni argued that what Uganda needed was stability and peace, not political division. Museveni was also strongly opposed to official corruption. Museveni won an easy victory in the presidential election held under this system, but voices started to be heard from the middle class about obtaining greater political liberty and power.

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