Uganda

Landlocked country in East Africa, bounded north by Sudan, east by Kenya, south by Tanzania and Rwanda, and west by the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire).

Government

Uganda has a political system dominated by the ruling party, with a presidential executive but with restrictions on opposition party activities. The president is elected by popular vote for a five-year term and is head of state, government, and the armed forces. The legislature is the 292-member National Assembly, comprising 214 members elected without party labels in single-member constituencies and 78 elected from ‘special interest groups’, who include one women's delegate from each of the country's 53 districts, ten army representatives, five youth representatives, five representatives from the disabled and five from trade unions. In a 2005 referendum, voters supported a return to multiparty politics.

History

Uganda was a British protectorate 1894–1962. It became an independent member of the Commonwealth in 1962, with Dr Milton Obote, leader of the Uganda People's Congress (UPC), as prime minister. In 1963 it was proclaimed a federal republic; King Mutesa II became president, ruling through a cabinet. King Mutesa was deposed in a coup in 1966, and Obote became executive president. One of his first acts was to end the federal status. After an attempt to assassinate him in 1969, Obote banned all opposition and established what was effectively a one-party state.

Idi Amin's regime

In 1971 Obote was overthrown in an army coup led by Maj-Gen Idi Amin Dada, who suspended the constitution and all political activity and took legislative and executive powers into his own hands. Obote fled to Tanzania. Amin proceeded to wage what he called an ‘economic war’ against foreign domination, resulting in the mass expulsion of 50,000 people of Asian ancestry in 1972. Many of this entrepreneurial community settled in Britain.

Amin's behaviour became increasingly eccentric and his regime carried out a widespread campaign against perceived opponents, resulting in deaths, torture, and imprisonment of many thousands. An estimate from the International Commission of Jurists after the fall of the regime was that between 80,000 and 300,000 were killed.

Amin's actions damaged relations with neighbours and the international community. In 1976 he claimed that large tracts of Kenya historically belonged to Uganda and accused Kenya of cooperating with the Israeli government in a raid on Entebbe airport to free hostages held in a hijacked aircraft. Relations with Kenya became strained, and diplomatic links with Britain were severed. The East African Community consisting of Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda, formed in 1967, collapsed in 1977.

Removal of Amin

In October 1978, Amin, with the help of Libyan troops, invaded Tanzania and annexed the Kagera area, near the Ugandan border. Tanzanian president, Julius Nyerere, declared war on Uganda and sent Tanzanian troops to support the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA), formed of Ugandan opponents of Amin who had been exiled to Tanzania. Within five months Tanzanian troops had entered the Uganda capital, Kampala, forcing Amin to flee, first to Libya and then to Saudi Arabia, where he later died in 2003. A provisional government, drawn from a cross-section of exiled groups, was set up, with Dr Yusuf Lule as president. Two months later Lule was replaced by Godfrey Binaisa who, in turn, was overthrown by the army. A military commission held power from May 1980 and arranged national elections. These were held in December 1980 and were won by the UPC and Milton Obote, who returned to power.

Resistance to Obote

Obote's government was soon under pressure from a range of exiled groups operating outside the country and guerrilla forces inside, and he was only kept in office by the presence of Tanzanian troops. When they were withdrawn in June 1982 a guerrilla war offensive, known as the ‘bush war’, was launched against the Obote government by the National Resistance Movement (NRM) and the National Resistance Army (NRA), led by Dr Lule and Yoweri Museveni. By 1985 Obote was unable to control the army, which had been involved in indiscriminate killings, and he was ousted in July in a coup led by Gen Tito Okello. Obote fled to Kenya and then Zambia, where he was given political asylum. He later died in exile in 2005.

Museveni in power

Okello had little more success in controlling the army and withstanding the NRA. After a brief period of power-sharing with the NRA, he fled to Sudan in January 1986. The NRA's leader Museveni was sworn in as president and the NRA renamed itself the Uganda People's Defence Force and became the national army.

Museveni announced a policy of national reconciliation, promising a return to normal parliamentary government within three to five years. He formed a cabinet in which most of Uganda's political parties were represented and worked at consolidating his hold domestically, reviving the economy, and improving African relations, as in the nonaggression treaty signed with Sudan in 1990. Ugandan Asians were encouraged to return and reclaim their businesses, and in 1993 the Baganda monarchy was reinstated, in the person of Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II.

A draft multiparty constitution was published in March 1993, and in March 1994 Museveni's supporters won the majority of seats in elections to a constituent assembly, which was to review the proposed new constitution. In May 1996 Yoweri Museveni had a landslide victory in the country's first direct presidential elections. The new constitution provided for a ‘no party’ system, in which parties were allowed to exist, but were unable to support candidates in elections. In a June 2000 referendum, voters chose to remain with this system.

In 1999 Musaveni reached agreement with Tanzania and Kenya to establish an East African Community, to create a future East African common market and political federation.

Rebel groups

From the mid 1990s Uganda became affected by civil wars in neighbouring Congo and Sudan, and by rebel activity in border areas. Many thousands were displaced by the fighting and, in 1999, the wave of violence was such that the United Nations (UN) had to halt deliveries of food to the displaced people. Musaveni's regime and soldiers provided support to rebels fighting in the civil war in Congo, but, faced with the threat of UN sanctions, it withdrew its troops from Congo in 2001 and also signed a peace agreement with Rwanda, aimed at both sides halting cross-border support for dissidents.

Musaveni also faced an ongoing rebellion, which had started in 1987, by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a paramilitary group which operated in northern Uganda and in Sudan. The LRA was led by Joseph Kony, a self-proclaimed spirit medium who sought to establish a state based on his unique syncretic religion. The LRA was involved in torture, rape, abductions, and the use of, often kidnapped, child soldiers. In March 2002, the Ugandan army launched a major offensive against the LRA bases in southern Sudan, with the Sudan's agreement. The LRA responded by carrying out a series of atrocities in Uganda, but by 2005 the Ugandan army had reduced their threat.

Ebola outbreak

In Uganda's first recorded outbreak of the ebola virus, over 160 people were known to have died from the deadly and highly contagious virus between September and December 2000, with a further 405 confirmed cases of the disease.

Presidential elections and return of multiparty politics

Museveni was re-elected with 69% of the vote in the presidential elections of March 2001. The main challenger, Col Kizza Besigye, leader of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), claimed voting irregularities and petitioned (without success) the Supreme Court to annul the poll.

In July 2005 voters supported a referendum to restore multiparty elections and the constitution was amended to lift presidential term limits. This was followed in February 2006 by a more democratic than usual presidential election. Once again Musaveni defeated Besigye, this time by 59% to 37% of the vote. International observers considered the elections technically democratic, but during the campaign period there had been harassment of opposition activists. Besigye, who had been living in exile in the USA from 2001, had also faced charges of treason and rape when he returned to Uganda in October 2005. Musaveni's National Resistance Movement also won the February 2006 legislative elections, winning 67% of the seats.

In August 2006, Joseph Krony, leader of the rebel LRA held peace talks with the Ugandan government, mediated by Sudan. He was granted an amnesty and the LRA declared a unilateral ceasefire.

Uganda (redirected from Republic of Uganda)