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Uganda The Rise of the National Resistance Army
On December 17, 1985, after more than four months of
negotiations, the NRA and the Military Council signed a
peace
accord in Nairobi. But then, on January 26, 1986, using
Swedish
and Libyan military assistance, the NRA abandoned the
accord and
seized control of the government. The new regime won some
popular
support by pledging it would end human rights violations,
improve
military discipline, and restore stability. Many UNLA
personnel
retreated into Sudan, regrouped, and reentered Uganda in
August
1986, and Uganda was once again gripped by civil war.
From 1986 to 1990, the Museveni regime tried to end
various
insurgencies and to establish control over the army.
Despite
repeated government claims that the NRA had defeated the
UNLA and
other rebel groups, insurgent activity continued,
especially in
the northern, eastern, and western regions. In April 1988,
3,000
former Uganda People's Army (UPA) fighters and members of
several
other small rebel groups accepted a government amnesty by
surrendering and declaring their support for Museveni's
regime.
In June 1988, the president concluded a peace agreement
with
Uganda People's Democratic Army (UPDA) commander
Lieutenant
Colonel John Angelo Okello. Although the NRA subsequently
integrated many UPA and UPDA personnel into its ranks,
thousands
of others rejected the peace accord and continued to fight
against the NRA.
Throughout most of the late 1980s, Museveni pursued a
dual
policy of offering rebels unconditional amnesties and
intensifying military operations. In 1988 the government
promised
to pardon rebels who lacked criminal records if they
surrendered;
those who refused would be tried as "bandits" before
special
courts designated to deal with insurgents.
In February 1989, Museveni declared a three-month
moratorium
on military operations against rebels near Gulu. Army
officers
sought to improve political communication with the
regime's
opponents; as a result, a few rebels relinquished their
arms.
Once the moratorium expired, however, the NRA intensified
assaults on rebel bases, and in mid-1989 the NRA
implemented a
"scorched earth" policy in the area. Troops moved several
thousand civilians to government-run camps, and they
burned
houses, crops, and granaries in these depopulated areas.
In early
February 1990, the NRA tried to isolate rebel forces by
rounding
up some 200,000 civilians and placing them in guarded
camps in
eastern and western Uganda. This counterinsurgency
strategy
enabled the NRA to establish control over some areas, but
it also
eroded the government's domestic and international
support,
largely because of the high number of deaths resulting
from
inadequate food, water, shelter, and medical care in the
camps.
By late 1990, despite these harsh measures, a large number
of
rebels remained committed to the war against the NRM
regime.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, one of the most
active
antigovernment rebel groups was the Holy Spirit Movement
(HSM) in
north central Uganda. Alice Lakwena, a self-proclaimed
mystic who
persuaded her followers that she could turn bullets into
water,
led the HSM from its formation in April 1987 until
mid-1988, when
she fled to Kenya. Her successor was Joseph Kony, also a
mystic
who claimed to be in communication with a number of
spiritual
forces. The government-owned newspaper, The New
Vision,
reported that three HSM brigades operated around the
northern
town of Kitgum and that a mobile brigade of 700 soldiers
operated
southwest of Kitgum, near Gulu. In mid-1989, government
sources
reported that an NRA preemptive strike against the HSM-UPA
alliance near Soroti resulted in one of the largest
confrontations the NRA had encountered since 1985. More
than 400
people died, about 180 were captured, and more than 500
HSM-UPA
fighters surrendered; the government did not report NRA
losses.
HSM tactics then switched from battlefield confrontations
to
kidnapping citizens, attacking hospitals, and ambushing
vehicles
to erode popular support for Museveni. By January 1990,
however,
the HSM, which then called itself the United Democratic
Christian
Movement (UDCM), had reverted to traditional insurgent
tactics by
launching a series of attacks in Kitgum, Lira, and Apac
districts. Later in the year, the HSM mounted operations
in Gulu
and Soroti districts. Although it enjoyed some local
battlefield
successes, the NRA failed to destroy the HSM.
An NRA counterinsurgency campaign in eastern Uganda had
similarly mixed results. Shortly after coming to power,
Museveni
disarmed and disbanded local militias that had been
organized to
protect the region against cattle rustlers. The NRA also
absorbed
militia units, such as the FUNA and former members of the
UNLA,
into its ranks. Museveni deployed some of these fighters
in the
east, and although this tactic succeeded in extending
government
control into some unsettled areas, in many cases it also
left
these groups outside government control and weakened
discipline
within NRA ranks. As a result of the presence of these
loosely
affiliated NRA troops and other groups that remained
outside
government control, crimes against the civilian population
increased. Much of the subsequent "insurgent" activity in
eastern
Uganda was little more than organized banditry as many
former
members of the militia--nearly all of whom lacked a
credible
political agenda--had decided that life in the bush was
preferable to joining the NRA. Continued rebel activity,
largely
by the UPA, and well-established patterns of cattle
raiding
prevented the NRA from pacifying eastern Uganda in its
first five
years in power.
Museveni established good relations with Buganda by
offering
to reinstitute the office of the kabaka. Instead of
taking
this step, however, he referred the question to a
constitutional
commission, which, by the end of 1990, had failed to rule
on the
matter. Meanwhile, a number of Baganda reportedly took up
arms to
press the regime on this issue. By mid-1989, most rebel
operations in Buganda supposedly had been confined to
Mpigi, the
district that surrounds Kampala, and Entebbe, the site of
the
nation's largest airport. The government deployed only
small
numbers of troops to confront the Baganda rebels,
confirming the
view held by many Western observers that the opposition in
Buganda was more political than military.
Museveni tried to consolidate support within the army
by
filling key NRA positions with his supporters and by
punishing
soldiers found guilty of committing crimes against the
civilian
population
(see Human Rights
, this ch.). Nevertheless,
there have
been several coup attempts against Museveni. The
government has
suppressed information about these incidents; however, on
February 17, 1989, The Guide published reports of
five
coup attempts since 1986. Among these was an incident in
April
1988, when the NRA detained a senior army officer and more
than
seventy of his personnel for conspiring against the
government.
Other reports indicated that in September 1988 the NRA
arrested
and charged twenty-four people suspected of subversion and
inciting soldiers to mutiny. Reports of factional
opposition to
Museveni within the NRA continued into the early 1990s.
Data as of December 1990
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