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Uganda The United States
The United States has had no significant geopolitical,
business, or trading interests in Uganda, although a
number of
United States firms did a profitable business with Uganda,
particularly during the Amin period. For the most part,
the
United States government has maintained a low profile,
avoiding
involvement in domestic Ugandan political issues, while
administering a relatively small economic assistance
program and
seeking Uganda's support on several issues before the UN.
For
their part, the Ugandan authorities attempted to adhere to
a
policy of nonalignment that allowed them to criticize such
United
States policies as its intervention in Vietnam, while
persuading
the United States to expand its development assistance and
to
support an increase in Uganda's international coffee
quota. After
Uganda's break with Britain in 1973, the United States
became
Uganda's chief trading partner for a short time, but
relations
were nonetheless becoming strained. The United States
Embassy was
closed in November 1973 (although the Ugandan Embassy in
Washington remained open), while United States firms
supplied the
government with security equipment used by the army and
the
notorious Ugandan intelligence service. In October 1978,
the
United States Congress ended all trade with Uganda. With
Amin's
overthrow in 1979, the United States Embassy reopened and
provided emergency relief, particularly food, medical
supplies,
and small farm implements. When the second Obote regime
indicated
its pro-Western stance in 1980, the United States
government
responded with additional agricultural assistance.
The guerrilla struggle soon created new strains between
the
United States and Uganda, however, as the United States
Embassy
forthrightly reported to its Congress the pattern of
growing
human rights violations by government and army officials
(see Human Rights
, ch. 5). This issue came to a head in July
1984,
when the United States assistant secretary of state for
human
rights and humanitarian affairs testified that between
100,000
and 200,000 Ugandans had been killed in the Luwero
Triangle and
that Obote's forces behaved much like Amin's army. The
United
States ambassador publicly added that under the Obote
regime,
human rights were ignored with greater impunity than under
Amin.
The Ugandan government denied the accusation and withdrew
its
military officers who had been training in the United
States.
When the NRM came to power, friendly relations were
quickly
restored. The United States aid program was reoriented to
focus
on immediate rehabilitation priorities identified by the
Ugandan
government, particularly the war-damaged areas in the
Luwero
Triangle and in the matter of the resettlement of refugees
returning from Sudan and Zaire. Museveni visited
Washington in
October 1987 and February 1989 for consultations with the
president and members of Congress.
Data as of December 1990
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