Uganda

F

Uganda After Amin

Three provisional presidents served before elections under a new constitution were held in December 1980. Obote’s party won amid widespread reports of electoral fraud, and he became the president once again. Uganda, however, had changed fundamentally. Once thriving, the nation had suffered prolonged economic disaster, with an inflation rate of more than 200 per cent, no consumer goods, few jobs, rampant crime, famine in the north, and no effective government in the countryside.

In 1982, after Tanzanian troops had been withdrawn, anti-government guerrillas became active, bloody internecine feuds (a legacy of the Amin period) flourished, and thousands of young men were arrested, suspected of being guerrillas. Thereafter, Obote’s regime became as murderous and autocratic as Amin’s. More than 100,000 Ugandans were killed or starved to death over the next three years.

G

The Museveni Government

In July 1985 a coup overthrew the government; Obote fled the country and settled in Zambia. The National Resistance Army, led by Yoweri Museveni, formerly a Marxist, which had been fighting to overthrow Obote since 1981, continued the fight against the military regime which ousted him, and after four days of fighting in Kampala took over the country in January 1986. Among its first priorities was the re-building of a nation state from a country reduced after 15 years of misrule and violence into feuding factions. By involving all ethnic groups in the government, as well as most of the main political parties, the pragmatic Museveni largely succeeded in this. Peace was restored to almost all the country, except the northern border area near Sudan, where small rebel groups concentrated, and where arms were readily available from the civil war in Sudan. Uganda’s relationship with Rwanda, which had been strained in the late 1980s, improved after the introduction of a cooperation agreement between the two countries in August 1992, which sought to improve border security.

With the assistance of large-scale foreign aid, efforts were made to rebuild the economy and infrastructure. Former Asian residents were invited to return, and a programme of economic liberalization introduced to bring the budget under control, encourage agricultural production, and attract foreign investors. During 1993 and 1994 debate began on a new constitution, as the first stage in a process of returning the country to a democratic government.

A new constitution came into force in 1995, which made provision for a referendum in 2000 on the introduction of a multi-party system. It also legalized political parties although still banned them from any activity. In the 1996 presidential election Museveni was returned to power, having won 74 per cent of the popular vote. In the 1990s Museveni grew in prestige as an African statesman.

Tensions between Uganda and Kenya, and between Uganda and Sudan, regarding the sheltering of each country’s rebel forces resulted in continued border raids and invasion threats. In March 1997 the matter reached crisis levels when the northern border with Sudan was closed. Sudanese support for Ugandan extremist Christian rebels in the north displaced some 200,000 people. In November floods in eastern Uganda made hundreds homeless.

Prime Minister Kintu Msoke retired in April 1999. President Museveni appointed in his place the former minister of education and sports, Apolo Nsimbabi. In an effort to curb the epidemic spread of AIDS, the government initiated a voluntary Human Immunodeficiency Virus screening programme. According to 1997 data, as many as 11 per cent of children in Uganda were orphaned by Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, part of a widespread orphan crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa. As a result of the policies adopted by the government, the growth of the epidemic was showing signs of slowing by the end of the century.

H

Into the New Millennium

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Development Association announced, in February 2000, a plan of substantial debt reduction for Uganda. This recognized progress made by the government in combating poverty and in improving the economic picture generally.

In March 2000 international public opinion was shocked by the death of over 1,000 members of a millennial cult in the south-western area of the country, in one of the worst mass murder-suicides in history. Over 500 members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God were found in the burned-down remains of their church; hundreds more bodies were discovered in mass graves on property belonging to cult leaders Joseph Kibwetere, a former Roman Catholic priest, and Cledonia Mwerinde, a former prostitute. Ugandan authorities issued arrest warrants for the cult leaders, who were believed to be in hiding.

The main political event of 2000 was the referendum promised by the 1995 constitution, which took place in June. Ugandans voted to maintain the status quo by rejecting multi-party politics and keeping Museveni and his NRM in power. Museveni’s position was further upheld in the elections of March 2001 when he was returned to office with almost 70 per cent of the vote. His nearest rival, Dr Kizza Bisegye, who received 28 per cent, immediately mounted a challenge on the grounds that the vote was rigged, but most observers were satisfied that Museveni was the true winner.

In April 2001, Uganda announced that it would finally be withdrawing its troops from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where they had been deployed in backing the rebels against the government since 1998. Uganda’s intervention in the conflict had received international condemnation, and had led to battles with Rwandan forces, also in the country. Troops were pulled out of the DRC in May 2001. Uganda and Rwanda signed a peace agreement in November 2001, brokered by British minister Claire Short.

In legislative elections held in June, marred by violence and deaths, the “no party movement” of the president secured a majority by winning more than 230 seats, according to government results. Otherwise, the result of the voting remained inconclusive. Museveni appointed a new Cabinet following the election but retained Apolo Nsibanbi as prime minister. A conclusive peace deal was signed with the DRC in September 2002 as troop withdrawals from that country continued. Meanwhile, there was also conclusion to the internal war with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda. The rebels had been fighting against government forces for more than 15 years. In December 2002 President Museveni signed a peace deal with rebels of the Uganda National Rescue Front (UNRF).

The Red Cross brought to an end its work in northern areas of the country in February 2003 after one of its convoys was attacked by LRA rebels. Despite LRA’s announcement in March 2003 of a ceasefire and an end to abductions and ambushes, attacks continued, as did the government’s military operations to counter the insurgency.

With the failure of attempts to broker talks following a temporary cessation of hostilities in April, the government announced its intention to conduct an all-out offensive against the LRA in the north. The government’s continued failure to quell the LRA rebellion led 34 MPs from the north to boycott the legislature, accusing the government of not taking the conflict seriously enough.

In March 2003 a national conference of the ruling party, the NRM, demanded that political parties be granted freedom to operate. The conference also called for the scrapping of the law restricting the country’s president to serving only two terms.

In May 2003 Uganda pulled out its last remaining troops from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Former president Idi Amin died in exile in Saudi Arabia in August 2003.

The massacre of more than 200 civilians by LRA rebels at Belona Camp north of Lira in northern Uganda in February 2004 brought fresh criticism against the government for its failure to defeat the LRA. Human rights campaigners abroad had also criticized the tactics of the Ugandan armed forces.

In March 2004 the presidents of Uganda and the neighbouring Kenya and Tanzania signed a protocol for the introduction of a customs union between the three countries. A constitutional amendment was approved in 2005 that paved the way for President Museveni to stand for a third term. He duly won the election held in February 2006 by gaining 59 per cent of the vote.