HISTORY OF UGANDA

HISTORY OF UGANDA
Buganda
British East Africa Company
Uganda Protectorate
Obote and Amin
Museveni

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Buganda: 19th century AD

Uganda, on the equator and surrounded by the great lakes

of central Africa, is one of the last parts of the continent to
be reached by outsiders. Arab traders in search of slaves
and ivory arrive in the 1840s, soon followed by two British
explorers. Speke is here in 1862. Stanley follows in 1875.

The ruler visited by both Speke and Stanley is Mutesa, the

king (or kabaka) of Buganda. His kingdom is one of four in
this region which have become firmly established by the
mid-nineteenth century. The others, lying to the west, are
Ankole, Toro and Bunyoro.

The existence of these African kingdoms has a profound

influence on the development of Uganda during the
colonial period. But when the scramble for Africa begins,
in the 1880s, this remote interior region is not immediately
in the sights of any of the colonial predators.

It is seen at the time merely as a distant place lying beyond

the territories of the sultan of Zanzibar, which are in dispute
between Britain and Germany. When separate spheres of
interest are agreed, in 1886, the area of modern Kenya falls
to Britain. Beyond it, round the north shore of Lake
Victoria, lies Buganda. Britain expects this to be little more
than the far corner of its new colony. Events prove
otherwise.
British East Africa Company: AD 1888-1895

As with the areas being colonized by Rhodes at this same

period in southern Africa, the British government is
reluctant to take active responsibility for the region of east
Africa which is now its acknowledged sphere of interest.
Instead it assigns to a commercial company the right to
administer and develop the territory. The Imperial British
East Africa Company is set up for the purpose in 1888, a
year ahead of Rhodes's British South Africa Company.

The region given into the company's care stretches all the
way from the east coast to the kingdom of Buganda, on the
northwest shore of Lake Victoria.

It is evident to all that the development of this region

depends on the construction of a railway from the coast to
Lake Victoria, but circumstances conspire to make this task
far beyond the abilities of the East Africa Company. The
running sore which saps their energy and their funds is
Buganda.

Being in a sense beyond Lake Victoria, Germany is able to

argue that this region (the most powerful kingdom within
the territory of Uganda) is not covered by the territorial
agreement with Britain. Moreover the irrepressible Karl
Peters now forces the issue. In 1890 he arrives at Kampala
and persuades the kabaka (the king of Buganda) to sign a
treaty accepting a German protectorate over his kingdom.

A possibly dangerous confrontation between the imperial

powers is averted when the British prime minister, Lord
Salisbury, proposes a deal which Berlin, remarkably,
accepts. Salisbury offers the tiny and apparently useless
island of Heligoland (in British possession since 1814) in
return for German recognition of British protectorates in
Zanzibar, Uganda and Equatoria (the southern province of
Sudan). But Germany derives her own benefit from the
deal. Heligoland subsequently proves an invaluable naval
base in two world wars.

Meanwhile the East Africa Company faces further

problems in Buganda, where civil war breaks out between
factions led by British Protestant missionaries and their
French Catholic rivals.

In January 1892 there is heavy gunfire between and among

the four hills which form Kampala. On the top of one hill is
the palace of the kabaka. On another the French have
completed a Catholic cathedral of wooden poles and reeds.
On a third the Protestants are building their church. On the
fourth is the fort established for the company by Frederick
Lugard, who is the only combatant with the advantage of a
Maxim machine gun.

Lugard prevails. But the loss of life and destruction of

property in this unseemly European squabble makes it plain
that the East Africa Company is incapable of fulfilling its
duties.

In 1894 the British government declares a protectorate over

Buganda. Two years later British control is extended to
cover the western kingdoms of Ankole, Toro and Bunyoro -
to form, together with Buganda, the Uganda Protectorate.

Meanwhile the much larger region of Kenya has been

relatively calm, even if the East Africa Company has
achieved little of value there. But in taking responsibility
for Uganda, the British government needs to be sure of the
new protectorate's access to the sea. So in 1895 the
company's charter is revoked (with compensation of
£250,000). Kenya becomes another new responsibility of
the British government, as the East Africa Protectorate.
The Uganda Protectorate: AD 1896-1962

Recent events in Uganda have made evident the difficulties

likely to be faced by any colonial power. As a result the
British government appoints in 1899 a seasoned
administrator, Harry Johnston, as special commissioner to
Uganda. His brief is to recommend the most effective form
of administration.

The evident power of the local African kings convinces

Johnston that control must be exercised through them.
Buganda is by far the most significant of the kingdoms. The
Johnston policy becomes effective with the Buganda
Agreement of 1900.

Under the terms of this agreement the kabaka's status is

recognized by Britain, as is the authority of his council of
chiefs. The chiefs' collective approval of the British
protectorate over the region is eased by Johnston's
acknowledgement of their freehold right to their lands (a
concept alien to African tribal traditions, but nevertheless
extremely welcome to the chiefs themselves).

Johnston subsequently makes similar agreements with the

rulers of Toro (in 1900) and of Ankole (in 1901). With this
much achieved, and a clear pattern set for the Uganda
Protectorate, Johnston returns to Britain.

Later commissioners develop Johnston's solution for

Uganda into a clear-cut distinction between it and
neighbouring Kenya. White settlers are actively encouraged
to move into Kenya's highlands, a region to the immediate
southeast of Uganda. But Johnston's successor declares that
Uganda is not suitable for European settlement.

Many disagree, and pressure builds to allow the

establishment of European farms and plantations - until
another commissioner, still in the years before World War
I, makes it a point of principle that Uganda is to be an
African state. The economics of the protectorate support
this policy. Uganda grows prosperous as cotton, introduced
by the British, is grown with great success by African
peasant farmers.

But a federal system of semi-independent monarchies

proves less appropriate in the years after World War II,
when all African colonies are moving towards
independence. Young educated Africans, the likely leaders
of the future, are out of sympathy with feudal Uganda. And
the dominant position of Buganda, by far the most powerful
of the kingdoms, causes an imbalance in Ugandan politics -
with much talk of possible secession by the kabaka and his
council of chiefs.

By the early 1960s the leading Ugandan politician is Milton

Obote, founder of the UPC (Uganda People's Congress), a
party drawing its support from the northern regions of the
country. Its main political platform is opposition to the
hegemony of the southern kingdom of Buganda.

Britain grants Uganda full internal self-government in

March 1962. In the following month Obote is elected prime
minister. It is he who negotiates the terms of the
constitution under which Uganda becomes independent in
October 1962.
Confronted by the problem of Buganda, Obote accepts a
constitution which gives federal status and a degree of
autonomy to four traditional kingdoms, of which Buganda
is by far the most powerful. In the same spirit Obote
approves the election in 1963 of the kabaka, Mutesa II, to
the largely ceremonial role of president and head of state. It
proves to be a short-lived collaboration.
Obote and Amin: AD 1962-1985

By 1966 the deteriorating relationship between Obote and

Mutesa comes to an abrupt end. Obote sends a force, led by
his newly appointed army commander Idi Amin, to attack
the kabaka's palace. Mutesa flees to exile in Britain.

Obote immediately introduces a new constitution. This

abolishes the hereditary kingdoms, ends the nation's federal
structure and provides for an executive president - a post
taken by Obote himself in addition to his role as prime
minister. With the help of army and police he terrorizes any
remaining political opponents. But meanwhile an ostensible
ally, more ruthless even than himself, is making good use
of the widespread discontent.

In 1971, when Obote is abroad, his regime is toppled in a

coup led by Idi Amin. Obote settles just over the border
from Uganda in neighbouring Tanzania, where he
maintains a small army of Ugandan exiles under the
command of Tito Okello.

Here Obote bides his time while the unbalanced Idi Amin
subjects Uganda to a regime of arbitrary terror. The
country's economy is severely damaged when he suddenly
expels in 1972 all Uganda's Asians, a mainstay of the
nation's trading middle class. His obsessions take more
local form in the persecution of tribes other than his own.
Between 100,000 and 500,000 Ugandans are reported to be
murdered or tortured during Amin's seven years in power.

In 1978 Amin takes one unbalanced step too far. He

invades Tanzania. Julius Nyerere, the Tanzanian president,
takes the opportunity not only to repel Amin's army but
also to topple his grotesque neighbour. Tanzanian troops,
joining forces with Obote's private army, reach Kampala in
April 1979. Amin flees (and lives on, to the century's end
and beyond, as an exile in Saudi Arabia).
During the following twelve months there are two interim
governments led by returning Ugandan exiles. But in May
1980 a Ugandan general, Tito Okello, organizes a coup
which brings Obote back into power. He is confirmed as
president in a general election six months later. Uganda
lurches back from a mad dictatorship to a repressive regime
held in check only by anarchy.

During the 1980s Obote uses violent means to reimpose his

rule, while the country continues to suffer economic chaos
and tribal massacres carried out by armed factions beyond
anyone's control. In 1985 Tito Okello intervenes once
more, driving Obote back into exile (eventually in Zambia).

But both Obote and Okello are already peripheral figures.

The only well organized faction in these years of chaos is a
guerrilla army led by Yoweri Museveni.
Museveni: from AD 1986

Yoweri Museveni was briefly Uganda's minister of defence

during the interim government after the fall of Amin. When
Obote returns to power as president in 1980, and his party
(the UPC) wins a majority in elections widely regarded as
fraudulent, Museveni refuses to accept this turning back of
the clock. He withdraws into the bush and forms a guerrilla
group, subsequently known as the National Resistance
Army (NRA).

During the 1980s the NRA steadily extends the area of

southern and western Uganda under its control. And
Okello, after toppling Obote in 1985, proves no match for
Museveni.

By January 1986 the NRA is in control of the capital,

Kampala. Museveni proclaims a government of national
unity, with himself as president. It is a turning point in
Uganda's history.

A decade later the country is back under the rule of law

(apart from some northern regions, where rebellion rumbles
on). The economy is making vast strides (an annual growth
rate of 5% in the early 1990s and of more than 8% in
1996). There are improvements in education, health and
transport. International approval brings a willingness to
invest and to lend. The nation, emerging from two decades
of appalling chaos, is suddenly almost a model for Africa.
The only flaw, to western eyes, is that this remains one-
party rule. It is an essentially pragmatic state in which good
ideas from any part of the political spectrum are welcome
(even Uganda's kings now have a role restored to them).
But the new constitution of 1995 limits executive power to
the National Resistance Movement, the party emerging
from Museveni's guerrilla army.

Democracy is a subject on which Museveni has strong and

interesting views. He criticizes western insistence on the
multiparty model, seeing it as simplistic to assume that a
single pattern can be appropriate in every circumstance. In
his view parties in Africa, often based on tribal allegiances,
are often likely to frustrate democracy.

Museveni argues instead that the important elements are the

benefits taken for granted in a functioning multiparty
democracy - universal suffrage, the secret ballot, a free
press and the separation of executive, legislative and
judicial powers. He describes his Uganda as a 'no-party
democracy', claiming that people of widely differing views
can argue their case to the electorate as competing
individuals (it is campaigning as a party that is banned).

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