WHERE WE WORK

Uganda

THE HISTORY OF UGANDA (1870’s-to date) Uganda is located in the Eastern part of Africa and is the 3rd largest among the 5 East African countries: Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

Uganda’s history traces way back before the arrival of missionaries and colonialists. Societies existed as either centralized or segmented societies or tribes. The most recognized / powerful were the centralized kingdoms which were; Buganda, Bunyoro, Ankole, Toro, and Busoga. The king in each of these kingdoms had unquestionable powers.

Missionaries arrived between 1877-1925 and introduced formal education, civil development, and Christianity to Uganda. This produced the first elites ever like doctors, teachers, and catechists and by 1925 over 177,000 Ugandans were attending mission schools.

The British succeeded in colonizing Uganda in 1894-1962 through the use of collaboration and trading agreements with soft-hearted kings. These Agreements were binding and later led to the exploitation of Uganda having been signed by illiterate kings. This kind of exploitation stirred wide spread discontents in many Ugandans especially elites who had been shaped by missionary education hence forming different political parties. These parties spearheaded the attainment of independence through demonstrations, strikes and boycotts leading to the independence October 9th 1962.

The British appointed the king of Buganda, Sir Edward Mutesa II, as the first President with Dr. Milton Obote as the prime minister. Mutesa had big misunderstandings with Obote. Obote retaliated by sending government troops under the command of Idi Amin to crush the federal army of the King/President on May 24th 1966. The king’s army was defeated and he fled to Britain.

Obote became 2nd president in 1967. Under his new constitution a president was to rule for 2 terms of 5 years each. However, Obote was suppressing his political opponents by arresting and killing them especially those from a different tribe, the 1969 licensing act which increased taxes and the demotion of Amin in September 1970 made Obote unpopular. On January 25th 1971, the civilian government of Obote was toppled by Idi Amin. Amin claimed he was influenced by the Buganda tribe, people of the central region and kingdom Mutesa originated from.

Originally, Britain and Israel supported Amin since Obote used to threaten their interests in Uganda. Amin behaved well in the first 3 months, which increased his popularity. He released all political detainees on January 28th 1971 and signed his personal check that he handed to Obote’s parents. However, between March and April 1972 Amin started displaying his true character when he began by turning against the Israelites, terming them as exploitative and that they were collaborating with Obote. He continued abusing human rights, calling himself names of exhortation like, His Excellency President for Life, Lord of All Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas, and conqueror of the British Empire. It is asserted that he did this because of ignorance. He had only attended a few years of school and then joined the army.

Kampala suburbs became the scene of his torture and executions over the next several years. Many people were killed or jailed innocently. Most of these were religious leaders, journalists, judges, students, lawyers, intellectuals that were criminal suspects accused falsely or simply at will. His torture did not only affect citizens but also innocent foreigners. On August 4th 1972, Amin gave orders that all 80,000 Asians were to leave the country within only 90 days. He claimed that God had told him to give orders for the expulsion and that they were hoarding all the goods and riches, while “sabotaging” the economy for the Ugandans. They had to take nothing except a few shillings to facilitate them on their way. Many were raped and killed as they tried to leave. Some could not raise enough money to get out of the country and committed suicide in their own homes. A lot of Ugandan’s economic strife today is attributed to this incident as most Asians were business owners when they evacuated their businesses collapsed and so did the Ugandan economy.

Perhaps the most famous tragic incident during Amin’s rule was Entebbe airport incident. An Air France plane that was hijacked by Germans and Palestinean’s landed at Uganda’s Entebbe airport. The 156 hostages who did not hold Israel passports were released and flown to safety. While 83 Jews and Israel citizens as well as 20 other passengers and crew members who refused to abandon the Israelites were held hostage at Entebbe for days. In the subsequent Israel rescue operation code named; Operation Entebbe, nearly all hostages were freed, three hostages died and 10 were wounded, 45 Ugandan soldiers and 1 Israel soldier was killed.

This invoked Britain to close its High Commission in Uganda making Amin more erratic declaring that he had beaten Britain and gave a name to himself as C.B.E (Conqueror of the British Empire). At this point of time several rebel groups were laying strategies to sabotage Amin’s further aggressions and some of these groups were: - Obote with Guerrillas operating from Kenya, the then president of Tanzania gave training facilities to guerilla movements against Amin and all these led to the formation of the Uganda National Liberation Front that finally over threw Amin and which brought Yusuf Lule as the next president after Amin. He was sworn in on April 1979.

Unfortunately, he lived for only 68 days and overthrown on grounds that he wanted to revive Obote’s type of rule. Godfrey Binaisa replaced him as president on June 20th 1979 and people with banners written on ”NO LULE, NO WORK”. Godfrey Binaisa attempted to make some changes for example transferred Oyite Ojok as ambassador to Algeria, Muwanga as UN ambassador in Geneva and Museveni from minister of Defence to minister of regional cooperation. Brigadier Oyite Ojok over threw him with his men taking over power on May 11th 1980 since all these appointments were not accepted. Binaisa was put under house arrest. The commission headed by Paulo Muwanga and Yoweri Museveni controlled power from May to December 1980. These men revived political party politics and prepared the 1980 elections which were won by UPC whose leader was Obote. Obote became president for the second time which was known as the Obote II period. He was said to have rigged votes which led Museveni and his men to base troops in Tanzania, fought Obote for 6 years. Their success came on January 26th 1986. Museveni became president with only 26 guns and his army, the National Resistance Army (NRA) which has since changed its name to Uganda People Defense Force (UPDF).

Unlike the other presidents, Museveni managed to create peace in the country. He achieved by, reconciling people of different tribes who were divided during the past regimes, which ended the vicious circle of vengeance. He managed the soldiers and eliminated rampart cases of raping innocent women that existed. Uganda was lead back to the constitutional road by instituting a constitutional commission that gathered views from Ugandans throughout the entire country, opened a constitutional assembly on May 8th 1994 that led to a new constitution on October 8th 1995. When Museveni stood in an election with others in 1996 he won the presidency.

However, much as 1986 is a period which was welcomed by many Ugandans as a period of restoration it, came with some other problems. The HIV/AIDS epidemic, that is still one of Uganda’s biggest problems, was believed to start around that same time frame. Research has shown that the first case was recognized around Lake Victoria region and in 1986 the country was in amidst of major prevalence rates of up to 29% in urban areas. By the 1990s more than 100,000 people were dying of AIDS each year, a figure that is highly deflated due to the stigma of AIDS. AIDS caused much suffering, especially to children who lost their parents and elderly who lost their sons and daughters in big numbers leaving behind grandchildren with them. This hourglass effect in the population led to increased poverty in most families since productive, strong members no longer exist. Most children of the affected homes couldn’t go to school and had to stay home to help the grandparents with work on the land and to raise the little money they can. For example, making pancakes and roasting ears of corn selling them on busy roads, which still exist up to today.

Another mark of instability in 1986 was the raise of the Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA, of the rebels in northern Uganda, primarily based in the district of Gulu. Basing on the defeat of Obote, the remnants of the defeated forces fled north to their home with fear of being tortured by the new government hence forming the LRA to resist the new government. Joseph Kony, who is now top on the international warrant list with 33 accounts of war crimes against humanity along with others, took lead of the rebels. He uses Biblical references to torture his own tribe saying that he is cleansing Acholi land, northern Uganda, basing on his slogans like “if the Acholi don’t support us, they must be finished”. The LRA effects have been more towards people and less on property that one cannot easily notice for the first time of his arrival in Gulu. Many men have been killed, women are raped, children abducted, girls are made sex slaves and boys are indoctrinated into the rebel army, forced to commit murder against parents, family members, and neighbors.

In 1996 the government created “protected villages” and forced all civilians into these villages, more commonly known as internally displaced camps. The UPDF was having trouble discerning who was a rebel and who was a civilian. By creating these camps the army could protect the citizens, leaving most of the northern part unpopulated and easier to spot the rebel army. At the peak of the war nearly 2 million people lived side by side in these camps suffering from disease, malnutrition, and unsanitary, abject poverty living conditions. Many international organizations have claimed the situation in Uganda as the worst humanitarian crisis.

Every night, up until December 2006, Uganda children of the north, known as night commuters walked for miles into town centers from their villages seeking refugee. They slept under trucks, business verandas, hospitals floors and many other places because its more risky outside town in their own homes fearing night attacks and abductions by the LRA.

Through international efforts Uganda’s army forced the LRA into Sudan and has held tight security on the border since the summer of 2006. Slowly, peace has returned to the region and nearly half those living in the camps have returned home. Rebuilding from this war has barely begun. Those who’ve returned home are starting over with no home, no infrastructure, just their land and painful memories. Many in the camps fear returning home as Kony and the LRA refused to sign a peace agreement in 2008 and fled to Congo and is believed to be building back his army. Many children are still held captive and need to be rescued, while those who have escaped face years of psychological and emotional re-building.

In conclusion, Uganda’s history of suffering can be attributed to the endless wars and AIDS that have led to rampart poverty throughout the country.