Uganda: Uganda after Amin

Uganda after Amin

Tanzania left an occupation force in Uganda that participated in the looting of Kampala. Yusufu Lule was installed as president but was quickly replaced by Godfrey Binaisa. The UNLF, suffering from internal strife, was swept out of power by Milton Obote and his party, the Uganda People's Congress. The National Resistance Army (NRA) conducted guerrilla campaigns throughout the country and, following the withdrawal of Tanzanian troops in 1981, attacked former Amin supporters. In the early 1980s, approximately 200,000 Ugandans sought refuge in neighboring Rwanda, Congo, and Sudan. In 1985, a military coup deposed Obote, and Lt. Gen. Tito Okello became head of state.

When it was not given a role in the new regime, the NRA continued its guerrilla campaign and took Kampala in 1986, and its leader, Yoweri Museveni, became the new president. He instituted a series of measures, including cutbacks in the civil service and army and privatization of state-owned companies, in a generally successful effort to rebuild the shattered economy. Many former government soldiers who had fled to the north when Museveni came to power formed a rebel force there, and in 1987 they mounted an unsuccessful attack on the new government. The rebels, however, were not crushed. AIDS became a serious health problem during the 1980s and has continued to claim many lives in Uganda; at the same time, however, the country has had greater success than many other African nations in slowing the spread of the disease.

In 1993, Museveni permitted the restoration of traditional kings, including King Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II, the kabaka of the Baganda people, but did not grant the kings political power. In 1994 a constituent assembly was elected; the resulting constitution, promulgated in 1995, legalized and extended a ban on political party activity, although allowing party members to run as independents. In May, 1996, Museveni was easily returned to office in the country's first direct presidential elections. A new parliament, chosen in nonpartisan elections in June of the same year, was dominated by Museveni supporters.

In the late 1980s and 90s rebel militias based in Sudan and Congo (Kinshasa) staged intermittent attacks on border areas of Uganda. Fighting with northern rebels, mainly the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), continued into the next decade. In 2002, after Sudanese officials permitted Ugandan forces to attack rebels bases in Sudan, the conflict intensified, but the army failed to achieve any significant success.

Ugandan troops also became involved in ongoing civil unrest in the Congo (then called Zaïre), first (1997) helping rebel groups to oust Mobutu Sese Seko and install Laurent Kabila as president, and then (1998) backing groups who sought to overthrow Kabila. Conflicts also erupted with Rwandan troops in the Congo in 1999. Uganda claimed its only interest was in securing its own borders. In early 2000, Ugandan officials discovered the bodies of nearly 800 people who had died by mass murder and mass suicide; they had been members of the Ugandan millennialist Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God. In May, 2000, new fighting between Rwandan and Ugandan forces in the Congo led to tense relations with Rwanda.

In June a referendum was held in which Ugandans could vote for Museveni's “no-party” system or a multiparty democracy. Museveni argued that Uganda was not ready for political parties, which he said had divided the nation by tribe and religion. Opposition leaders, calling Museveni's system a one-party state, called for a boycott of the referendum. Museveni secured the voters' approval, but by a narrower margin than in 1996; although 88% voted yes, the turnout was only 51%.

In the presidential election in Mar., 2001, Museveni was reelected, but his margin of victory was inflated by apparent vote fraud. His popularity was, in part, diminished by discontent with Uganda's intervention in Congo's civil war and signs of corruption in the government. Uganda's forces were largely withdrawn from Congo by the end of 2002, but there was fighting in 2003 between the remaining Ugandan forces and Congolese rebels allied with Rwanda shortly before the last Ugandan troops withdrew. In 2005 the International Court of Justice ruled that Uganda had engaged in human rights abuses while in Congo, and had to pay compensation to Congo for looting by its forces.

Early in 2004 LRA rebels massacred perhaps as many as 200 civilians in N Uganda. The attack prompted a renewed government offensive that achieved some successes against the LRA; late in 2004 there was a brief truce with the LRA. In Oct., 2005, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for LRA leader Joseph Kony in connection with atrocities committed by the LRA. Meanwhile, in July, 2005, voters approved a return to a multiparty system, This time Museveni supported the abandonment of Uganda's “no-party” politics, in part because of international and internal pressure for the change. He also subsequently signed into law a constitutional amendment that eliminated the presidential term limit.

In Oct., 2005, Kizza Besigye, a former colonel who had been Museveni's doctor and confidant and who had run against the president in the 2001 election and received almost 30% of the vote, returned to Uganda from self-imposed exile to challenge Museveni again for the presidency. In November Besigye was arrested on treason and rape charges that his supporters denounced as trumped up to keep him for running against Museveni, who subsequently announced he would seek a third term. The arrest sparked riots and was criticized internationally, including by the African Union's fledgling Pan-African parliament. (Besigye was acquitted of the rape charge in Mar., 2006, and the constitutional court ordered the treason charges dismissed in Oct., 2010.) The campaign was also marred by army attempts to influence the vote in favor of Museveni and other irregularities. Museveni was reelected in Feb., 2006, with 59% of the vote. The results, which were challenged by Besigye's party, were upheld (April) by Uganda's supreme court, which said that the irregularities were not significant enough to have affected the outcome.

Talks with the LRA that began in July, 2006, led to an August agreement that called for a cease-fire, for rebels to assemble at camps in S Sudan, and subsequent peace negotiations. Kony and other LRA leaders, fearing ICC warrants for their arrest, remained in Congo along the Sudan border, and in late September the LRA pulled out of the talks, accusing the Ugandan army of trying to surround the camps. Uganda, on its part, accused LRA forces of violating the agreement by leaving the camps. In late October, Museveni won Congo's agreement to oust the LRA from its camps there, and subsequently Uganda and the LRA signed a new cease-fire agreement that called for buffer zones around the assembly camps. The cease-fire was extended several times, but otherwise the negotiations progressed with difficulty, and the cease-fire was marred by occasional violence.

In Feb., 2008, a peace agreement, including a permanent cease-fire, was finally reached with the LRA. It was scheduled to be signed in early April, but a number of issues, including the nature of procedures for trying rebels accused of crimes and whether ICC warrants against LRA leaders would be dismissed, led Kony (who had moved from Congo to the Central African Republic in March) to fail to sign the accord as planned. Subsequently there were signs that the LRA was rearming and recruiting. In June Uganda, Sudan, and Congo (Kinshasa) agreed to mount a joint offensive against the LRA if the talks failed, while Kony said that he would engage in further negotiations. The ICC warrants remained a sticking point, however. In Sept.–Oct., 2008, there were LRA attacks against villages in NE Congo that led the ICC's prosecutor to once again demand Kony's arrest.

In Dec., 2008, after Ugandan rebels based in Congo failed in November to sign a peace agreement with Uganda, Ugandan, Congolese, and South Sudanese forces mounted a joint campaign against the rebels' Congolese bases that lasted until Mar., 2009. Subsequently, Ugandan forces fought LRA forces that had moved into the Central African Republic, and Ugandan forces continued small-scale anti-LRA operations in the three neighboring countries in subsequent years. In 2012 the African Union announced plans for a regional military force led by Uganda and including Central African, Congolese, and South Sudanese troops to capture Kony. In 2014 Ugandan forces operating in the Central African Republic against the LRA clashed with Seleka rebels there and accused them of collaborating with the LRA. Uganda ended its efforts to capture Kony in 2017.

In Sept., 2009, some of the worst riots in more than two decades occurred in Kampala when the government refused to allow the Baganda king to visit Kayunga, a district that had declared its secession from Buganda, the traditional Baganda kingdom. In November, passage of a land law that strengthened tenants rights was denounced by Bagandan traditional chiefs, who control large tracts of land. Tensions between the government and the Baganda continued into 2010, and were aggravated in March when a fire destroyed the tombs of the Buganda kings.

In June, 2010, Kampala suffered two suicide-bomb attacks; mounted by hardline Somali Islamists, they were in retaliation for the presence of Ugandan peacekeeping troops in Somalia. In the Feb., 2011, presidential election Museveni's primary challenger was again Besigye. The president was reelected with 68% of the vote in an election marred by some irregularities; Besigye again accused the ruling party of fraud, and subsequently mounted recurring protests against Museveni's government.

In 2013, the parliament enacted legislation that gave officials increased powers to limit and disperse public political gatherings. Ugandan forces were sent in Dec., 2013, into South Sudan in support of the country's president after the outbreak of fighting; they remained there into 2015. More than 800,000 of the 1.6 million refugees that have fled the conflict in South Sudan are in Uganda; their numbers increased significantly from July, 2016, and at one time exceeded 1 million. The country also is host to some 400,000 refugees from Congo-Kinshasa.

The Feb., 2016, presidential election was in large part of replay of the 2011 contest between Museveni and Besigye, though Besigye won an increased percentage of the vote. The campaign was marred by intimidation of the opposition and the the vote by irregularities, and the opposition again accused the government of fraud. Besigye was subsequently arrested, and then charged with treason for demanding an independent audit of the results and declaring himself the true winner of the election.

In 2017, age restrictions on presidential candidates were scrapped, permitting Museveni to run yet again. In the Jan., 2021, elections, Museveni's main challenger was Bobi Wine (Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu), a popular singer and legislator; Museveni and the National Resistance Movement again won, but Wine secured 34% of the vote and his party became the largest opposition party. The weeks leading up to the election were the most turbulent since Museveni first became president, and Wine accused Museveni of fraud.

Sections in this article:

Introduction
Uganda after Amin
Amin's Reign of Terror
An Independent Nation
The Colonial Era
European Contacts and Religious Conflicts
Early History
Government
Economy
Land and People
Bibliography

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