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Uganda Conditions of Service
After independence, several national leaders relied on
ethnic
quotas or preferences to fill the security services with
those
they believed could be trusted. Thus, during the 1960s,
President
Obote recruited many Langi soldiers from his home area in
the
north. During the 1970s, recruits from Idi Amin Dada's
home
region of the northwest dominated the rank and file at the
expense of Acholi and Langi soldiers, many of whom were
purged.
In 1980 President Yusuf Lule, a Muganda, adopted a quota
system
to increase recruits from the south and allowed soldiers
from
Amin's home area to be harassed or expelled from the army.
In the
late 1980s, President Museveni attempted to halt this
cycle of
ethnic-based recruitment. He sought to recruit men from
all
regions, reduce the army's political role, and strengthen
its
image as a national security force. However, even this
program of
eliminating preferences created a backlash against
attempts to
achieve equitable regional and ethnic representation in
the
military.
Military pay, living conditions, and benefits varied
widely
under Uganda's diverse regimes. Under the British,
military pay
usually paralleled private-sector wages. After
independence,
however, life for the common soldier became desperate, and
increasingly so in the 1970s and 1980s. Soldiers sometimes
mutinied because of nondelivery of food and pay. Officers
and
enlisted personnel sometimes survived by relying on theft,
extortion, or bribery.
In 1986 the government vowed to improve living
conditions for
military personnel. Museveni instituted pay reforms and
punished
soldiers found guilty of theft or bribery, but in the late
1980s,
the common soldier's life remained difficult. Despite
claims of
high professional standards among government officials and
military officers, many soldiers were not being paid
regularly
and discontent in the military was growing.
Uganda's military justice system deteriorated during
the
1970s. The Code of Service Discipline, which was
incorporated
into the Armed Services Act of 1964, had defined offenses
and
punishments and upheld military standards. It also laid
down
regulations governing trial and court-martial procedures
in
military courts. During the 1970s, however, military
justice
became subject to the whims of the authorities. Military
personnel were often imprisoned or executed for poor
performance
or disloyalty, but in perhaps as many cases, military
misconduct
went unpunished. Conditions failed to improve during the
Lule and
Binaisa regimes of 1979 and 1980, respectively, nor did
they
improve during the second Obote regime from 1980 to 1985.
In the
late 1980s, Museveni tried to restore confidence in the
military
justice system among soldiers and civilians. Military
tribunals
tried members of the armed forces for crimes against
civilians,
and the government arrested and tried soldiers for thefts
and
assaults on civilians. In a few cases, soldiers were
executed for
these crimes.
Data as of December 1990
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