{UAH} THE MULINDWA NOTES ON VIOLENCE IN UGANDA {--- Series two-Hundred-but sixty four}

Friends

 

As the series on Acholi violence continues, it is always imperative/important for one to use a glass of an out sider to reflect on what is happening in life but in your own house. There are many scholars that have written about Acholi with their greed and murder tendencies, Janne Savolainen Master’s thesis February 2008 University of Jyväskylä Social and Public Policy Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy is among such, a people that went to Uganda to study how Acholi are stuck into we must be in power always, but we must have a right to murder any one that stops us from such. This organization is not Ugandan and has absolutely no interest in Uganda politics, but they are leaving all Ugandan tribes to go after Acholi. The thesis is called  A DIVIDED COUNTRY – MICROHISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE TO THE PRESIDENTS AND AUTHORITY IN UGANDA and we are posting from page 67, under a sub-heading Position of the Acholi in the Ugandan polity during second term of Obote

 

Friends we so need to discuss Acholi violence and I again repeat myself, over but over, very candidly.

 

9.2 Position of the Acholi in the Ugandan polity during second term of Obote

 

Obote had tremendous problems of controlling the UNLA’s soldiers. To defend Obote, Ingham states that Obote had inherited the UNLA army that had been created during Lule’s and Binaisa’s terms (Ingham 1994, 186). This is certainly true, and we have to remember that Lule first tried to stabilize the ethnic balance in the army by favoring educated soldiers. This was one reason why Lule was dismissed from presidency. After Lule, Binaisa tried to increase his influence in the army by dismissing Oyite-Ojok and Tito Okello, and this lead to a military takeover. These events show how important the army was for the Acholi. Ugandan society continued to be highly fractioned. In the north, there were some supporters of Amin. In the southern and in the eastern districts, Museveni was collecting his own rebel army mainly from Banyoro soldiers. Lastly, there was the government’s army which mainly consisted of the Acholi and the Lango soldiers. The success of the UNLA very much depended on Major-General Ojok who was alone very much responsible for commanding the army. Ojok was Acholi and he worked closely with Obote. Obote’s regime faced severe losses when Ojok died in a helicopter crash. These problems followed because Ojok had not nominated a suitable candidate to take his place. The Acholi, together with the Langi, had gained a strong role in the UNLA. However, after the death of Ojok, it proved to be difficult to find a suitable follower to fill his post. General Tito Okello recommended two candidates to the defence council. They were Smith Opon Acak and Basilio Okello, both Acholi. Eventually, Opon was chosen to be the commander.

 

The death of Ojok had driven the army into factions: the Acholi on one side and the Langi on the other (Ngoga 1998, 103). Opon turned out in many ways to be an incapable leader and he could not keep the army united. While the army was getting fractured and lacking a suitable leader, the rebels kept committing strikes to “hard” and “soft” targets. Soldiers responded by attacking as well as revenging on the civilians and basically on anyone suspected of supporting the rebels. Even though many soldiers were imprisoned, civilians could no longer trust the army. At this time, Obote had lost the last means to control the actions of the government army. Also, the northern parts of the country were drawn to this conflict when the NRA opened a campaign of terror in the north-west district in 1984. A rumor was spread that the government was planning a massacre of the Acholi soldiers. This rumor was indented to enforce the Acholi suspicions towards the government. During Amin’s regime, the Acholi soldiers were massacred in two separate occasions and this was one reason that developed what Boås has called, an Acholi meta-narrative of the government destroying the Acholi (Boås 2004, 284). Here, we can see that in some occasions it was possible to hide one’s ethnic background. At the same time when UNLA’s soldiers were robbing and killing civilians while fighting the rebels, the rebels could increase the fear among the civilians by wearing UNLA’s uniforms which had been easy to obtain after Amin’s troops withdrew to Sudan. Only by changing uniform, one was able to change his ethnicity. At the same time when the rumors of mass murders were being spread, the army lead by Basilio Okello marched from Gulu towards Kampala. It is hard to say who were behind the killings of the Acholi soldiers because the Acholi were the largest ethnic group of the UNLA, and therefore, they also suffered the hardest casualties. Whatever the truth was, the experiences from Amin’s era of the Acholi being murdered by the government were used to legitimize the forth-coming military coup d’etat. During Obote’s second regime, the Acholi were in a central position because of forming the bulk of the government’s army

 

As Lule had not succeeded making reforms for balancing the ethnic representation in the army, the uneducated Acholi and Langi remained as a majority in the army. The uneducated and unqualified soldiers were not easy to control, and while Obote had to keep his focus in the district of Buganda where Kampala is situated, the rest of the country was a battlefield between the UNLA and the different rebel groups. The government soldiers did not handle well the situation and, while they were frustrated because of the continuous rebel activity, the soldiers begun to revenge their frustration on the civil population. In the worst case, civilians had to fear government soldiers as much as rebels. This proved to be important after Museveni took over from Tito Okello in 1986. According to Ingham (1994), there were three main factions which Obote had to keep an eye on. Firstly, the opposition party, DP, which wanted to take Obote's UPC party's place. Secondly, threat to Obote was posed by the UPC party itself as some of the more radical groups disliked Obote's moderate policies. Thirdly, there was Museveni who, with his rebels, caused much trouble in Luwero district. (Ingham 1994, 205) The army had gained importance as a tool for internal politics, and it was impossible that one of the factions could have overthrown the government without the support of the army. This raised the Acholi to a central position in the Ugandan polity, because they were in the majority and had the command of the army. It is highly likely that high ranking Acholi officers saw that their time had came to take control over Uganda. The army did not have difficulties to gain support from these three factions and it is highly likely that the army was encouraged to take action by these political actors. We can see how the neo-patrimonial authority practiced by Obote gave the motivation for different factions to unite for a moment in order to oust the president and the government. Obote had favored his own kind in nominating his cabinet. This gave the DP the motivation to co-operate with the army. The UNLA was given motivation by the fact that the army had no official political power and, on the other hand, Obote had lost his control of the armed forces when Ojok had died. And there had also been the rumors of mass murders of the Acholi. The Acholi had gained their position in the polity by participating in the military actions, and they certainly wanted more power in Ugandan politics.

 

10. REGIME OF OKELLO’S MILITARY GOVERNMENT

 

Tito Okello’s time in power turned out to be short. Obote was overthrown in July 1985 and Tito Okello was chosen as president. Okello's regime collapsed as early as January 1986 when Museveni committed a successful coup d'etat. This short time period will be analyzed in this chapter and the focus will be in the status of the Acholi in the polity. The new government did not enjoy wide support among the Ugandans but it had control of the armed forces (Ingham 1994, 208). The support of Okello was deteriorated by Museveni, who effectively used his protracted people’s war to turn different ethnic groups against each other to his own advantage. For example, Obote had noted that “Museveni terrorized and brutalized the people of Luwero and in order to win the sympathies of the Baganda; he made such terror and violence to appear as having been wholly the misdeeds of the UNLA” (Obote 1990). This was the only time in Uganda’s history when the government was fully in the hands of the Acholi. The root causes of the coup came from the internal fractioning of the UNLA, which started after the death of Major-General Ojok. During Obote’s regime, the position of the Acholi in the Ugandan polity was determined by the army in which the Acholi and the Langi formed the majority. All three factions: the DP, radicals of the UPC and the NRA (Museveni), were gaining from the coup of Okello. Despite the common enemy, Obote, it was not enough to unite these actors for a long time.

 

The coup started when Museveni was in Sweden to collect international support for his "mission" (Ingham 1994, 206). When all the strategic targets of Kampala had been sieged and all main streets barred, the soldiers begun to rob the civilians. Tito Okello had made his decision and withdrew to Acholi land. There he collected supporters and formed an army of his own. Ingham describes these events in a following way: "Too late, Obote began to get an inkling of the plotting that had been going on. While working in his office at 1 a.m. he was informed by a close associate, Dr. Opiote, that the army in Gulu was marching on Kampala under the leadership of Basilio Okello [Tito Okello’s army General]" (Ingham 1994, 206). With this army, Basilio Okello started to march towards Kampala. At this point, Obote still had a grip of his office, although Kampala was under a siege. The fact that Okello gathered 71 a new army from the Acholi district, and not from those who were pillaging the capital, shows how fractioned the UNLA was at the time. Soldiers had multiple subloyalties. Some were loyal to Paulo Muwanga (Vice President), some to the commanders working under Obote, and, lastly some were loyal to Tito Okello. When Obote noticed that the troops loyal to him were rapidly decreasing in numbers, he escaped to Kenya where his wife already was. After Obote was gone, the formation of the new government proved to be difficult. Okello’s regime was short-lived.

 

The events during his time mostly relate to his problematic relations with Museveni. In sum, Okello’s rise to presidency was the culmination to the mutual beneficial relations between the army and the Acholi. The division between the north and the south remained in the same position as during Obote’s regime. The only exception was that, for a very short period of time, Kampala can be partly classified as belonging to the same side as northern Uganda: This was because the Acholi army was in control of the capital Tito Okello was shown to be an incapable leader and he did not enjoy widespread support. During Okello’s regime, politicians held on to their subloyalties. Some were loyal to Muwanga, some to the UPC and others to Okello, or even to Obote. The fractioned government could not stabilize its power. This opened new possibilities for Museveni who had not participated in the government. Okello, leading a paralyzed government, contacted Museveni and tried to negotiate for support. At this point, the UNLA was too fractioned and undisciplined to form a real obstacle for Museveni's plans. In January 1986, Okello escaped from Kampala and Museveni took his place as a head of the state.

 

Stay in the forum for Series two hundred and sixty five is on the way   ------>

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"