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The Uganda Coup—Class Action by the Military

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Michael F. Lofchie
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Extract

There will undoubtedly be many interpretations of the Uganda coup. The purpose of this article is merely to suggest one and, on the basis of available, though admittedly incomplete evidence, to outline a case for its plausibility. The central argument is as follows. The Uganda army can be best understood as a kind of economic class, an élite stratum with a set of economic interests to protect. The coup of January 1971 was the army's political response to an increasingly socialist régime whose equalitarian domestic policies posed more and more of a threat to the military's economic privileges.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , May 1972 , pp. 19 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

Page 19 note 1 Lee, J. M., African Armies and Civil Order (New York, 1969), p. 22.Google Scholar

Page 22 note 1 This table is extracted from Lee, op. cit. p. 94, and shows the annual starting salaries for each rank without allowances.

Page 22 note 2 Ibid. p. 126.

Page 24 note 1 B.B.C. News Monitoring Service, 26 Jaunary 1971.

Page 25 note 1 The Public Accounts of the Republic of Uganda for the Year ended 30th June 1969, together with the Report thereon by the Auditor General (Entebbe, 1970), pp. 26–8.

Page 27 note 1 For an account of this movement, see Doornbos, Martin R., ‘Kumanyana and Rwenzururu: two responses to ethnic inequality,’ in Rotberg, Robert I. and Mazrui, Ali (eds.), Protest and Power in Black Africa (New York, 1970), pp. 1088–136.Google Scholar

Page 31 note 1 Leys, Colin, Politicians and Policies: an essay on politics in Acholi, Uganda, 1962–65 (Nairobi, 1967), p. 10.Google Scholar

Page 31 note 2 Young, M. Crawford, ‘The Obote Revolution’, in Africa Report (Washington), 06 1966, p. 12.Google Scholar

page 32 note 1 Obote, A. Milton, Proposals for New Methods of Election of Representatives of the People to Parliament (Kampala, 1970),Google Scholar Document No. 5 on ‘The Move To The Left’.