Friends
This is where you get a real problem with Uganda issues. This is a part of a document written from a study that was funded by a Swedish NGO International IDEA, Strömsborg, 103 34 Stockholm, Sweden, on Northern Uganda. In chapter four they have a box listing the important episodes that happened in Uganda to build the Northern Uganda conflict. When you read it carefully, you realize that between 1980 and 1986 they list it a time of several upraising {not of significant scale} emerge involving various armed groups. Note that among those upraising that are listed to be very minor is the Luwero war. And in the entire study that is the only listing of Luwero war. But who made the study? James Ojera Latigo. That is how distanced are our Uganda friends from reality. The advent of manipulative politics paved the way for the rise of militarization and armed conflicts in the country. Box 4 gives a chronology of selected important episodes. Box 4: The background to the conflicts in Uganda since independence 1966: The first internal armed conflict occurs. General Idi Amin Dada, then an army commander during Milton Obotes first term as president, led a military operation on Lubiri Palace, the seat of the Kingdom of Buganda, sending King Frederick Edward Mutesa II fleeing into exile. This leads to the desecration of the Kingdom of Buganda and the subsequent dismantling of all the cultural institutions in the country. 1971: A military coup is staged by General Amin to topple the Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) government of Milton Obote, thus ushering in nine years of brutal military dictatorship, in which an estimated 500,000 people, mainly Acholi, were murdered. 1979: After Amin invades the Kagera region of neighbouring Tanzania in 1978, the Tanzanian Peoples Defence Forces (TPDF) together with Ugandans in exile (many of them, significantly, from northern Uganda) mount a liberation war which ousts the military regime of the self-proclaimed life president then Field Marshal Dr Idi Amin Dada VC DSO MC, conqueror of the British Empire. 197980: Administrative wrangles, contests over power and power shifts ensue after the fall of Amin, culminating finally in a general election in 1980, which was won by Obotes UPC party, ushering in his second term as president. The Democratic Party (DP) is alleged to have won, amid claims of massive vote-rigging which prompt other groups, led by Yoweri Museveni, to take up arms in the bush of Luwero to wage a protracted war on the elected UPC government. 19806: Several uprisings (not of a significant scale) emerge involving various armed groups, until 1985 when mutinying soldiers of the national army overthrow Obotes second (UPC) government and constitute a Military Commission, headed by General Tito Okello Lutwa (another northerner) to govern the country. The new de facto head of state immediately initiates comprehensive negotiations with the various conflicting groups in what become known as the Nairobi peace talks, and in December 1985 an agreement is reached and signed by all parties except Musevenis rebel National Resistance Army (NRA). The NRA tears up the agreement and breaches it with impunity. In January 1986 the NRA overthrows the government by force of arms, thus ushering in the National Resistance Movement (NRM), which has remained in power to this day. The new establishment initially introduces an ideology dogmatically referred to as the Ten Points Programme, ostensibly geared to bringing about a fundamental change in the governance of the country. A new era seems to open for the people of Uganda. However, seeming optimism hides increasing authoritarianism on the part of the NRM leadership. The situation is far from ideal today. >From 1987 to date, a series of rebellions and insurgencies (22 in number) have been waged against the NRM government by various actors. EM On the 49th Parallel Thé Mulindwas Communication Group "With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in anarchy" Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi "Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni katika machafuko"
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