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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