Uganda
Landlocked country in E Africa, bounded N by Sudan, E by Kenya, S
by Tanzania and Rwanda, and W by the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly
Zaire).
History
Uganda was a British protectorate 1894-1962. It became an independent
member of the Commonwealth 1962, with Dr Milton Obote, leader of the
Uganda People's Congress (UPC), as prime minister. In 1963 it was proclaimed
a federal republic; King Mutesa II became president, ruling through
a cabinet. King Mutesa was deposed in a coup 1966, and Obote became
executive president. One of his first acts was to end the federal status.
After an attempt to assassinate him 1969, Obote banned all opposition
and established what was effectively a one-party state.
The East African Community consisting of Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda,
formed 1967, collapsed 1977.
In 1978, when Idi Amin annexed the Kagera area of Tanzania, near the
Uganda border, the Tanzanian president, Julius Nyerere, sent troops
to support the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA), which had been
formed to fight Amin. Within five months Tanzanian troops had entered
the Uganda capital, Kampala, forcing Amin to flee, first to Libya and
then to Saudi Arabia. A provisional government, drawn from a cross-section
of exiled groups, was set up, with Dr Yusuf Lule as president. Two months
later Lule was replaced by Godfrey Binaisa who, in turn, was overthrown
by the army. A military commission made arrangements for national elections,
which were won by the UPC, and Milton Obote came back to power.
Obote's government was soon under pressure from a range of exiled
groups operating outside the country and guerrilla forces inside, and
he was only kept in office by the presence of Tanzanian troops. When
they were withdrawn June 1982 a major offensive was launched against
the Obote government by the National Resistance Movement (NRM) and the
National Resistance Army (NRA), led by Dr Lule and Yoweri Museveni.
By 1985 Obote was unable to control the army, which had been involved
in indiscriminate killings, and he was ousted in July in a coup led
by General Tito Okello. Obote fled to Kenya and then Zambia, where he
was given political asylum.
National reconciliation Okello had little more success in controlling
the army and, after a brief period of power-sharing with the NRA, fled
to Sudan Jan 1986. Museveni was sworn in as president and announced
a policy of national reconciliation, promising a return to normal parliamentary
government within three to five years. He formed a cabinet in which
most of Uganda's political parties were represented and worked at consolidating
his hold domestically, reviving the economy, and improving African relations,
as in the nonaggression treaty signed with Sudan 1990. Ugandan Asians
were encouraged to return and reclaim their businesses, and in 1993
the Baganda monarchy was reinstated, in the person of Ronald Muwenda
Mutebi II. A draft multiparty constitution was published March 1993
and twelve months later Museveni's supporters won the majority of seats
in elections to a constituent assembly, which was to review the proposed
new constitution. In May 1996 Yoweri Museveni had a landslide victory
in the country's first direct presidential elections.
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