uganda

History

• Prehistory

  Uganda’s strategic position along the Great Rift Valley, its favorable climate at an altitude of 1,200 meters and above, and the 5 Uganda: A Country Study reliable rainfall in the Lake Victoria Basin made it attractive to African cultivators and herders as early as the fourth century B.C. Core samples from the bottom of Lake Victoria have revealed that dense rainforest once covered the land around the lake. Centuries of cultivation removed almost all the original tree cover.

  The cultivators who gradually cleared the forest were probably Bantu-speaking people, who, with their slow but inexorable expansion gradually populated most of Africa south of the Sahara Desert. Their knowledge of agriculture and use of iron technology permitted them to clear the land and feed ever larger numbers of setders. They displaced small bands of indigenous hunter-gatherers, who relocated to the less accessible mountains. Meanwhile, by the fourth century B.C., the Bantu-speaking metallurgists were perfecting iron smelting to produce medium-grade carbon steel in preheated forced draft furnaces. Although most of these developments were taking place southwest of modern Ugandan boundaries, iron was mined and smelted in many parts of the country not long afterward

  As the Bantu-speaking agriculturalists multiplied over the centuries, they evolved a form of government by clan (see Glossary) chiefs. This kinship-organized system was useful for coordinating work projects, settling internal disputes, and carrying out religious observances to clan deities, but it could effectively govern only a limited number of people. Larger polities began to form states by the end of the first millennium A.D., some of which would ultimately govern over a million subjects each.

  Nilotic-speaking pastorals were mobile and ready to resort to arms in defense of their own cattle or raids to appropriate the cattle of others. But their political organization was minimal, based on kinship and decision making by kin-group elders. In the meeting 6 Historical Setting of cultures, they may have acquired the ideas and symbols of the political chief ship from the Bantu-speakers, to whom they could offer military protection. A system of patron-client relationships developed, whereby a pastoral elite emerged, entrusting the care of cattle to subjects who used the manure to improve the fertility of their increasingly overworked gardens and fields.

• Early States

  The earliest of these states may have been established in the fifteenth century by a group of pastoral rulers called the Chwezi. Although legends depicted the Chwezi as supernatural beings, their material remains at the archaeological sites of Bigo and Mubende have shown that they were human and the probable ancestors of the modern Hima or Tutsi (Watutsi) pastorals of Rwanda and Burundi. During the fifteenth century, the Chwezi were displaced by a new Nilotic-speaking pastoral group called the Bito. The Chwezi appear to have moved south of present-day Uganda to establish kingdoms in northwest Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi.

  From this process of cultural contact and state formation, three different types of states emerged. The Hima type was later to be seen in Rwanda and Burundi. It preserved a caste system whereby the rulers and their pastoral relatives attempted to maintain strict separation from the agricultural subjects, called Hutu. The Hima rulers lost their Nilotic language and became Bantu-speakers, but they preserved an ideology of superiority in political and social life and attempted to monopolize high status and wealth. In the twentieth century, the Hutu revolt after independence led to the expulsion from Rwanda of the Hima elite, who became refugees in Uganda. A counterrevolution in Burundi secured power for the Hima through periodic massacres of the Hutu majority.

  The Bito type of state, in contrast with that of the Hima, was established in Bunyoro, which for several centuries was the dominant political power in the region. Bito immigrants displaced the influential Hima and secured power for themselves as a royal clan, ruling over Hima pastoralists and Hutu agriculturalists alike. Although some of these ambitions might be fulfilled by the Bunyoro king’s (omukamd) granting his kin offices as governors of districts, there was always the danger of a coup d’etat or secession by overambitious relatives. Thus, in Bunyoro periods of political stability and expansion were interrupted by civil wars and secession.

  The third type of state to emerge in Uganda was that of Buganda, on the northern shores of Lake Victoria. This area of swamp and hillside was not attractive to the rulers of pastoral states farther north and west. Kimera seized the initiative in this trend and became the first effective king (kabaka) of the fledgling state. Ganda (root word and adjective for Buganda) oral traditions later sought to disguise this intrusion from Bunyoro by claiming earlier, shadowy, quasi-supernatural kabakas.

• The Outside Contact

  Until the middle of the nineteenth century, Uganda remained relatively isolated from the outside world. The central African lake region was, after all, a world in miniature, with an internal trade system, a great power rivalry between Buganda and Bunyoro, and its own inland seas. When intrusion from the outside world finally came, it was in the form of long-distance trade for ivory.

  Ivory had been a staple trade item from the East Africa coast since before the Christian era. But growing world demand in the nineteenth century, together with the provision of increasingly efficient firearms to hunters, created a moving ” ivory frontier ” as elephant herds near the coast were nearly exterminated. Leading large caravans financed by Indian moneylenders, coastal Arab traders based on Zanzibar (united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form Tanzania) had reached Lake Victoria by 1844.

  By the 1860s, Buganda was the destination of ever more caravans, and the Kabaka and his chiefs began to dress in cloth called mericani, which was woven in Massachusetts and carried to Zanzibar by American traders. It was judged finer in quality than European or Indian cloth, and increasing numbers of ivory tusks were collected to pay for it. Bunyoro sought to attract foreign trade as well, in an effort to keep up with Buganda in the burgeoning arms race.

  Bunyoro also found itself threatened from the north by Egyptian- sponsored agents who sought ivory and slaves but who, unlike the Arab traders from Zanzibar, were also promoting foreign conquest. Khedive Ismail of Egypt aspired to build an empire on the Upper Nile; by the 1870s, his motley band of ivory traders and slave raiders had reached the frontiers of Bunyoro. The khedive sent a British explorer, Samuel Baker, to raise the Egyptian flag over Bunyoro. The Banyoro (people of Bunyoro) resisted this attempt, and Baker had to fight a desperate battle to secure his retreat. Baker regarded the resistance as an act of treachery, and he denounced the Banyoro in a book that was widely read in Britain. Later British empire builders arrived in Uganda with a predisposition against Bunyoro, which eventually would cost the kingdom half its territory until the ” lost counties ” were restored to Bunyoro after independence.

• Colonial British

  Although momentous change occurred during the colonial era in Uganda, some characteristics of late-nineteenth-century African society survived to reemerge at the time of independence. Colonial rule affected local economic systems dramatically, in part because the first concern of the British was financial. Quelling the 1897 mutiny had been costly units of the Indian army had been transported to Uganda at considerable expense.
  Johnston ‘s Buganda Agreement of 1900 imposed a tax on huts and guns, designated the chiefs as tax collectors, and testified to the continued alliance of British and Baganda interests. The British signed much less generous treaties with the other kingdoms without the provision of large-scale private land tenure. The smaller chiefdoms of Busoga were ignored.

  The Baganda immediately offered their services to the British as administrators over their recently conquered neighbors, an offer that was attractive to the economy-minded colonial administration. Baganda agents fanned out as local tax collectors and labor organizers in areas such as Kigezi, Mbale, and, significantly, Bunyoro. This sub-imperialism and Ganda cultural chauvinism were resent- ed by the people being administered. Wherever they went, Baganda insisted on the exclusive use of their language, Luganda, and they planted bananas as the only proper food worth eating.

  Two important principles of precolonial political life carried over into the colonial era: clientage, whereby ambitious younger office holders attached themselves to older high-ranking chiefs, and generational conflict, which resulted when the younger generation sought to expel their elders from office in order to replace them. After World War I, the younger aspirants to high office in Buganda became impatient with the seemingly perpetual tenure of Sir Apolo and his contemporaries, who lacked many of the skills that members of the younger generation had acquired through schooling. Calling themselves the Young Baganda Association, members of the new generation attached themselves to the young kabaka, Daudi Chwa, who was the figurehead ruler of Buganda under indirect rule. But Kabaka Daudi never gained real political power, and after a short and frustrating reign, he died at the relatively young age of forty- three.

• Nationalism Movement

  Two issues continued to create grievances through the 1930s and 1940s. The colonial government strictly regulated the buying and processing of cash crops, setting prices and reserving the role of intermediary for Asians, who were thought to be more efficient. The British and Asians firmly repelled African attempts to break into cotton ginning. In addition, on the Asian-owned sugar plantations established in the 1920s, labor for sugarcane and other cash crops was increasingly provided by migrants from peripheral areas of Uganda and even from outside Uganda.

  In 1949 discontented Baganda rioted and burned down the houses of pro-government chiefs. The rioters had three demands: the right to bypass government price controls on the export sales of cotton, the removal of the Asian monopoly over cotton ginning, and the right to have their own representatives in local government replace chiefs appointed by the British. They were critical as well of the young kabaka, Frederick Walugembe Mutesa II (also known as Kabaka Freddie), for his inattention to the needs of his people. The British governor, Sir John Hall, regarded the riots as the work of communist- inspired agitators and rejected the suggested reforms.

  Far from leading the people into a confrontation, Uganda ‘s would be agitators were slow to respond to popular discontent. Nevertheless, the Uganda African Farmers Union, founded by I.K. Musazi in 1947, was blamed for the riots and was banned by the British. Musazi ‘s Uganda National Congress replaced the farmers union in 1952, but because the Congress remained a casual discussion group more than an organized political party, it stagnated and came to an end just two years after its inception.

  Meanwhile, the British began to move ahead of the Ugandans in preparing for independence. The effects of Britain ‘s postwar withdrawal from India, the march of nationalism in West Africa, and a more liberal philosophy in the Colonial Office geared toward future self-rule all began to be felt in Uganda. The embodiment of these issues arrived in 1952 in the person of a new and energetic reformist governor, Sir Andrew Cohen. Cohen set about preparing Uganda for independence. On the economic side, he removed obstacles to African cotton ginning, rescinded price discrimination against African- grown coffee, encouraged cooperatives, and established the Uganda Development Corporation to promote and finance new projects.

• Independent Uganda

  Uganda ‘s approach to independence was unlike that of most other Obote ‘s long-term goal was to build a strong central government at the expense of entrenched local interests, especially those of Buganda. The first major challenge to the Obote government came not from the kingdoms, nor the regional interests, but from the military. In January 1964, units of the Ugandan army mutinied, demanding higher pay and more rapid promotions. The military then began to assume a more prominent role in Ugandan life. Obote selected a popular junior officer with minimal education, Idi Amin Dada, and promoted him rapidly through the ranks as a personal protege.

  Later in 1964, Obote felt strong enough to address the critical issue of the ” lost counties, ” which the British had conveniently postponed until after independence. The combination of patronage offers and the promise of future rewards within the ruling coalition gradually thinned opposition party ranks, as members of parliament ” crossed the floor ” to join the government benches. After two years of independence, Obote finally acquired enough votes to give the UPC a majority and free himself of the KY coalition.

  The turning point came when several DP members of parliament (MPs) from Bunyoro agreed to join the government side if Obote would undertake a popular referendum to restore the ” lost counties ” to Bunyoro. The Kabaka, naturally, opposed the plebiscite. Unable to prevent it, he sent 300 armed Baganda veterans to the area to intimidate Banyoro voters. In turn, 2,000 veterans from Bunyoro massed on the frontier. The civil war was averted, and the referendum was held.

  This triumph for Obote and the UPC strengthened the central government and threw Buganda into disarray. KY unity was weakened by internal recriminations, after which some KY stalwarts, too, began to ” cross the floor ” to join Obote ‘s victorious government. Paradoxically, however, as the perceived threat from Buganda diminished, many non-Baganda alliances weakened. And as the possibility of an opposition DP victory faded, the UPC coalition itself began to come apart. The one-party state did not signal the end of the political conflict, however; it merely relocated and intensified that conflict within the party. The issue that brought the UPC disharmony to a crisis involved Obote ‘s military protege, Idi Amin.

• Idi Amin Dada

  Amin was born either in Koboko or Kampala to a Kakwa father and Lugbara mother. In 1946 he joined the King’s African Rifles (KAR) of the British Colonial Army. Initially a cook, he rose to the position of lieutenant, taking part in British actions against Somali rebels in the Shifta War and then the Mau Mau rebels in Kenya. Following Uganda’s independence from the United Kingdom in 1962, Amin remained in the armed forces, rising to the position of major and being appointed Commander of the Army in 1965. Aware that Ugandan President Milton Obote was planning to arrest him for misappropriating army funds, Amin launched a 1971 military coup and declared himself President.

  By January 1971, Obote was prepared to rid himself of the potential threat posed by Amin. In the early morning hours of January 25, 1971, mechanized units loyal to him attacked strategic targets in Kampala and the airport at Entebbe, where the first shell fired by a pro-Amin tank commander killed two Roman Catholic priests in the airport waiting room. Amin ‘s troops easily overcame the disorganized opposition to the coup, and Amin almost immediately initiated mass executions of Acholi and Langi troops, whom he believed to be pro-Obote.
  The Amin coup was warmly welcomed by most of the people of the Buganda kingdom, which Obote had attempted to dismantle. They seemed willing to forget that their new president, Idi Amin, had been the tool of that military suppression.

  During his years in power, Amin shifted from being a pro-western ruler, enjoying considerable Israeli support to being backed by Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko, the Soviet Union, and East Germany. In 1975, Amin became the chairman of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), a Pan-Africanist group designed to promote solidarity among African states.

  When Amin attempted to annex Tanzania’s Kagera Region in 1978, Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere had his troops invade Uganda; they captured Kampala and ousted Amin from power. Amin then went into exile, first in Libya and then in Saudi Arabia, where he lived until his death on 16 August 2003. Amin’s rule was characterized by rampant human rights abuses, political repression, ethnic persecution, extrajudicial killings, nepotism, corruption, and gross economic mismanagement. The number of people killed as a result of his regime is estimated by international observers and human rights groups to range from 100,000 to 500,000.

• Source:

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda

  https://www.theguardian.com/katine/2010/feb/08/education-system-explainer

  https://theodora.com/wfbcurrent/uganda/uganda_economy.html

  http://www.new-ag.info/en/country/profile.php?a=2414

  https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ug.html

  https://www.atta.travel/members/uganda-tourism-board/

  https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/uganda-bounces-back/index.html

  https://www.loc.gov/resource/frdcstdy.ugandacountrystu00byrn_0/?sp=58&st=text

  https://www.encyclopedia.com/places/africa/uganda-political-geography/uganda#HISTORY