XIII

THE MOLSON COMMISSION:

UGANDA AND THE LOST COUNTIES OF
BUNYORO: 1961

Soon after I left Ghana I found myself with another and much more
difficult and challenging assignment in Africa. This was a mission to
Uganda to sort out the differences between the Kingdoms of
Buganda and Bunyoro before the country became independent in
October .
The first attempt to solve this problem was made by the Uganda
Relationship Commission, chaired by Lord Munster, in . Lord
Munster was Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Colonial Office
when he was sent out by the Colonial Secretary, Mr MacLeod
[sic], to report on relationships between the peoples of Uganda.
He was accompanied by two officials from the Colonial Office, Mr
Marshall and Mr Wade. He himself paid short visits to Uganda
in  and  but went home sick in February, , while
remaining titular Chairman of the Commission. The Report was
therefore made de facto by the two officials. Their recommendation
about the so-called ‘lost counties of Bunyoro’ was to propose a refe-
rendum in the disputed areas as: – ‘this problem is in a class by itself.
The  Census shows a clear majority of Banyoro in two of the
counties claimed, and of Baganda in the remaining area. The figures
are thought to be reasonably accurate.’ These counties were lost to
Bunyoro in the wars which preceded the pacification of the
Protectorate and were incorporated in Buganda territory under the
 Uganda Agreement, to which the British Government was a
signatory.
However no referendum was held and, since that time, there had
been no less than five Petitions to the Secretary of State from the
Omukama of Bunyoro between  and , claiming territory
he had lost to Buganda. So the Prime Minister, Mr MacMillan,


Iain Macleod (–), Conservative MP and minister; secretary of the state for
the Colonies, – and chancellor of exchequer, .

H. William R. Wade (–), later Professor Sir H. William R. Wade,
Cambridge law don, not a colonial office official.

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decided to appoint a Commission of Privy Counsellors to visit the

country and report on the differences between the two Kingdoms,
and thereafter recommend what action should be taken to remove
these differences before independence. His concern was that: – ‘as
independence comes nearer, the tension has been rising, and the
Munster Commission … gave a warning that, with other areas tend-
ing to sympathise with Bunyoro, [the differences] might even lead to
a civil war’. We were given a free hand to find a solution by agree-
ment between the parties, or, failing this, by an imposed settlement.
We were appointed by the Prime Minister on December , .
‘Having regard’, as our terms of reference began,
to the paramount need for the people of Uganda, including Buganda, to
move together into independence in conditions which would ensure them
peace and contentment, to investigate allegations of discrimination of the
kind contained in the Omukama of Bunyoro’s petition and grievances
referred to in the Munster Report concerning areas in Buganda which are
named below … to advise whether, and if so, what measures should be
taken to deal with the situation.

The Commission was immunised against Party politics by including

one Labour member, myself, as well as two Conservatives, Lord
Molson and Lord Ward of Witley. Lord Molson, as a
Conservative and an ex-Minister, was Leader of the Party.
By a curious co-incidence I was already familiar with some of the
troubles in Uganda. In  the Buganda Parliament, called the
Lukiko, had demanded independence from the rest of Uganda.
The Governor, Sir Andrew Cohen, for many years the brains
behind the Colonial Office, now in the field something of an old
style paternal autocrat, promptly deposed the Kabaka, the King of
Buganda; and sent him into exile in the United Kingdom. He
lived in London in far from regal style, and I asked him to lunch
one day at the House of Lords. We had only reached the soup
stage of our meal when the tears started falling into the soup bowl
in front of him. I concluded that his undoubted sense of injury was

Letter from Mr MacMillan to me dated  December .

Hugh Molson (–), later Lord Molson, Conservative MP, peer and junior
minister.

George Ward (–), later Viscount Ward of Wiley, Conservative MP, peer
and minister; secretary of state for air, –.

Or Lukiiko, the parliament of the kingdom of Buganda.

Sir Andrew Cohen (–), Colonial Office and Service, governor of Uganda,
–.

Mutesa II of Buganda (–), Kabaka of Buganda, – and first presi-
dent of Uganda, –.

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genuine, but that of a rather weak character. My embarrassment was
much enhanced when I saw, striding past my table, but fortunately
without noticing my guest, the Governor himself, in the company
of one of my colleagues. The Kabaka was allowed to return to his
Kingdom two years later, but only on condition that he would
become a constitutional monarch, taking no part in politics, and
that Buganda would remain part of Uganda.
Now let me return to the actual business of the Molson
Commission. Our purpose was to persuade the Kingdoms to settle
their differences by agreement and, failing this, to recommend to
Her Majesty’s Government the terms of an equitable settlement it
would then be obliged to impose before independence, while
Uganda was still a Protectorate. We were keenly aware that the
United Kingdom was responsible for averting the risk of serious dis-
turbances or even a civil war after the country had become
independent.
We arrived in Uganda on January ,  and spent most of
January in Uganda, hearing evidence from the Kabaka, and the
Omukama, each represented by Counsel. One of them was John
Foster Q.C., an old friend and Fellow of All Souls, who had
been attached to the Washington Embassy during the war. There
was a very large number of witnesses. As we drove through the dis-
puted areas it was rather amusing to see posters along the roadside
with the biblical flavour of the injunction ‘Oh Lords Deliver Us!’
My short stay in Uganda was not confined to sessions of the
Commissioners. We found time in the early morning to watch the
processions of wild animals in the game park that came down to
the drinking holes in one of the rivers at dawn. This was a special
pleasure for me, as there had been little wildlife in Ghana, and
apart from some bird watching in the vicinity of Accra, I saw almost
no wild animals. In those days at any rate in Uganda, unlike Kenya,
where the tourists from Nairobi had turned the game park into some-
thing more like a zoo, with lions lying by the roadside as the cars
drove past, the game park was a place where you could still enjoy
the wildlife of Africa unspoilt by European or American intruders.
I must not fail to put on record the unfailing kindness of the
Governor, Sir Walter Coutts, or the benefit we derived from his
wide advice during the talks we had with him at Government
House before and after our official duties. I shall never forget the
beauty of the rugged countryside, the pleasure of working in a


John Foster (–), later Sir John Foster, Conservative MP and barrister.

Sir Walter Coutts (–), Colonial Service; governor, –, and governor
general of Uganda, –.

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tropical climate tempered by its altitude, or the friendliness and help-

fulness of the many Ugandans and Europeans we met as we travelled
about the country.
We decided that the only way to achieve a just and lasting settle-
ment of the dispute would be by a limited transfer of territory. We
therefore recommended that the lost counties of Buyaga and
Bugangazzi should be transferred to Bunyoro, but there should be
no change in the status of the territory to the East of these counties,
where the Bagandas were in a majority. The town of Mabende,
where there was a predominantly Baganda population, should be
administered by the central Government. The main reason for the
transfer of territory was an overwhelming majority of Banyoro inhab-
itants. In Buyaga there were , Banyoro against , Bagandas.
While in Bugangazzi there were , Banyoros against ,
Bagandas. We did not take a plebiscite because there had already
been a recent count.
Our Report was signed and presented to the Prime Minister on
March , . I have never been able to understand why Mr
MacMillan and the Cabinet, having asked us to recommend a solu-
tion of the problem, immediately refused to give it a reasonable
chance of success. In June  the then Colonial Secretary, Mr
Maudling, announced in the House of Commons that he had
decided that there would be no immediate transfer of territory. In
other words, Uganda would be left to decide after independence,
which was exactly what we wanted to avoid. I agree with the views
expressed by Mr Kirkman in his excellent book on ‘Unscrambling
an Empire’ : –

The Cabinet decision to allow Mr Maudling to ignore the solemn recommen-

dations of a Commission appointed by the British Prime Minister specifically
to make recommendations, was an act of cynical irresponsibility, a gamble
that came off but ought never to have been made.

The gamble came off, in spite of the pusillanimous indecision of the

British Government, because of the statesmanship of Dr. Obote
after Uganda had become an independent country. In  his
Government put forward a Bill providing for a referendum in the
lost counties in the same year, in which the vote went overwhelmingly

Reginald Maudling (–), Conservative MP and minister; secretary of state for
the Colonies, –; chancellor of the exchequer, –; and home secretary,
–.

Bill Kirkman (b.), journalist and writer, author of Unscrambling an Empire ().

Milton Obote (–), Ugandan politician; prime minister, –, and pres-
ident of Uganda, – and –.

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to Bunyoro. He softened the blow for the Kabaka by making him
Head of State of the new country of Uganda. Our Commission
had at any rate pointed the way to what successive British regimes
had failed to achieve, and left our African successor to bring about
the agreed peaceful conclusion for which we had always hoped.

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0960116319000186 Published online by Cambridge University Press