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Neutralising the Use of Force in Uganda: the Rôle of the Military in Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

E. A. Brett
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Extract

Bullets rather than ballots have dominated politics in Uganda since independence, where two governments have been removed by coups, one by a foreign invasion, and another by an armed rebellion. Force has not only dominated the formal political system, but also threatened the economic and social basis on which democratic processes and progressive development depends. For 25 years predatory military rule and civil war have destroyed lives, skills, and assets, undermined institutional competence and accountability, caused widespread per sonal trauma, suppressed autonomous organisations in civil society, and intensified ethnic hostility and conflict. And Uganda is not alone in this – the middle of the twentieth century was dominated by fascism and war, while sectarian or ethnic conflicts in Bosnia, Ulster, Sri Lanka, Somalia, the Sudan, Angola, Liberia, Zaï, Burundi, and Rwanda have inflicted untold damage on people and property.1

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , March 1995 , pp. 129 - 152
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

1 See Luckham, Robin, ‘The Military, Militarization and Democratization in Africa: a survey of literature and issues’, in African Studies Review (Atlanta), 37, 2, 1994, pp. 13–75.Google Scholar According to The Sunday Telegraph (London), 1 06 1994, by 1989 there had been 72 violent changes of leadership by coups, purges, or military interventions, and 21 assassinations of Presidents or Prime Ministers in 51 African states.Google Scholar

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6 The short preliminary version of this study that appears in Hansen, Holger and Twaddle, Michael (eds.), From Chaos to Order: the politics of constitution-making in Uganda (London, 1995), pp. 78–89, includes a section on ‘Theorising civil–military relations’.Google Scholar

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16 These events are covered in Sathyamurthy, op. cit. ch. 8.

17 I owe much of this analysis to Major-General David Tinyafunsa, Presidential Defence Adviser, Lieutenant-Colonel Serwanga Lwanga, Chief Political Commissar, and Augustine Ruzindana, Inspector-General of Government. Interviews, April–May 1994.

18 Omara-Otunnu, op. cit. pp. 89–91.

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31 Cited in Mutibwa, op. cit. p. 130.

32 Interview, Major-General Eli Timwine, April 1994.

33 Ibid. Saleh's memoir provides a graphic account of beatings, imprisonment, and attempted murder.

34 Interview, Lwanga.

35 According to Major-General Emilio Mondo, local people believed that Obote had given orders to ‘turn the area into a game park’. Interview, November 1993.

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44 Confirmed by Muntu, interview.

45 The National Movement for the Liberation of Uganda (Nalu), led by Amin Bazira, a former Deputy Minister under Obote, emerged in Kasese District in the West in June 1989, and was active for a few years. See The Guide (Kampala), 28 06 1989,Google Scholar and The New Vision (Kampala), 21 09 1992.Google Scholar

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74 ‘Memorandum of Constitutional Proposals on the New National Constitution from the National Resistance Army’, Office of the Chief of Staff, Kampala, 4 11, 1991.

75 Report of the Uganda Constitutional Commission.

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77 Interview, Muntu.

78 This issue was pressed very strongly by Major-General Tinyafunsa.

79 Lieutenant-Colonel Serwanga Lwanga, ‘The Role of the Army in Uganda's Politics Since Independence’, seminar paper for the Uganda Constitutional Commission, 20 July 1989.