{UAH} LUWERO WAR LISTED AS A NONE SIGNIFICANT WAR

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 Obote’s 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 People’s 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 People’s

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.

1979–80: 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 Obote’s 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.

1980–6: Several uprisings (not of a significant scale) emerge involving various armed groups, until

1985 when mutinying soldiers of the national army overthrow Obote’s 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 Museveni’s 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 49^th 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"