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Uganda The Second Obote Regime: 1981-85
In February 1981, shortly after the new Obote
government took
office, with Paulo Muwanga as vice president and minister
of
defense, a former Military Commission member, Yoweri
Museveni,
and his armed supporters declared themselves the National
Resistance Army (NRA). Museveni vowed to overthrow Obote
by means
of a popular rebellion, and what became known as "the war
in the
bush" began. Several other underground groups also emerged
to
attempt to sabotage the new regime, but they were
eventually
crushed. Museveni, who had guerrilla war experience with
the
Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frente de
Libertaçâo de
Moçambique--Frelimo), campaigned in rural areas hostile to
Obote's government, especially central and western Buganda
and
the western regions of Ankole and Bunyoro.
The Obote government's four-year military effort to
destroy
its challengers resulted in vast areas of devastation and
greater
loss of life than during the eight years of Amin's rule.
UNLA's
many Acholi and Langi had been hastily enrolled with
minimal
training and little sense of discipline. Although they
were
survivors of Amin's genocidal purges of northeast Uganda,
in the
1980s they were armed and in uniform, conducting similar
actions
against Bantu-speaking Ugandans in the south, with whom
they
appeared to feel no empathy or even pity. In early 1983,
to
eliminate rural support for Museveni's guerrillas the area
of
Luwero District, north of Kampala, was targeted for a
massive
population removal affecting almost 750,000 people. These
artificially created refugees were packed into several
internment
camps subject to military control, which in reality meant
military abuse. Civilians outside the camps, in what came
to be
known as the "Luwero Triangle," were presumed to be
guerrillas or
guerrilla sympathizers and were treated accordingly. The
farms of
this highly productive agricultural area were
looted--roofs,
doors, and even door frames were stolen by UNLA troops.
Civilian
loss of life was extensive, as evidenced some years later
by
piles of human skulls in bush clearings and alongside
rural
roads.
The army also concentrated on the northwestern corner
of
Uganda, in what was then West Nile District. Bordering
Sudan,
West Nile had provided the ethnic base for much of Idi
Amin's
earlier support and had enjoyed relative prosperity under
his
rule. Having born the brunt of Amin's anti-Acholi
massacres in
previous years, Acholi soldiers avenged themselves on
inhabitants
of Amin's home region, whom they blamed for their losses.
In one
famous incident in June 1981, Ugandan Army soldiers
attacked a
Catholic mission where local refugees had sought
sanctuary. When
the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
reported a
subsequent massacre, the government expelled it from
Uganda.
Despite these activities, Obote's government, unlike
Amin's
regime, was sensitive to its international image and
realized the
importance of securing foreign aid for the nation's
economic
recovery. Obote had sought and followed the advice of the
International Monetary Fund
(
IMF--see Glossary), even though the
austerity measures ran counter to his own ideology. He
devalued
the Uganda shilling by 100 percent, attempted to
facilitate the
export of cash crops, and postponed any plans he may once
have
entertained for reestablishing one-party rule. The
continued
sufferance of the DP, although much harried and abused by
UPC
stalwarts, became an important symbol to international
donors.
The government's inability to eliminate Museveni and win
the
civil war, however, sapped its economic strength, and the
occupation of a large part of the country by an army
hostile to
the Ugandans living there furthered discontent with the
regime.
Abductions by the police, as well as the detentions and
disappearances so characteristic of the Amin period,
recurred. In
place of torture at the infamous State Research Bureau at
Nakasero, victims met the same fate at so-called "Nile
Mansions."
Amnesty International, a human rights organization, issued
a
chilling report of routine torture of civilian detainees
at
military barracks scattered across southern Uganda. The
overall
death toll from 1981 to 1985 was estimated as high as
500,000.
Obote, once seen by the donor community as the one man
with the
experience and will to restore Uganda's fortunes, now
appeared to
be a liability to recovery.
In this deteriorating military and economic situation,
Obote
subordinated other matters to a military victory over
Museveni.
North Korean military advisers were invited to take part
against
the NRA rebels in what was to be a final campaign that won
neither British nor United States approval. But the army
was warweary , and after the death of the highly capable General
Oyite
Ojok in a helicopter accident at the end of 1983, it began
to
split along ethnic lines. Acholi soldiers complained that
they
were given too much frontline action and too few rewards
for
their services. Obote delayed appointing a successor to
Oyite
Ojok for as long as possible. In the end, he appointed a
Langi to
the post and attempted to counter the objection of Acholi
officers by spying on them, reviving his old paramilitary
counterweight, the mostly Langi Special Force Units, and
thus
repeating some of the actions that led to his overthrow by
Amin.
As if determined to replay the January 1971 events, Obote
once
again left the capital after giving orders for the arrest
of a
leading Acholi commander, Brigadier (later Lieutenant
General)
Basilio Olara Okello, who mobilized troops and entered
Kampala on
July 27, 1985. Obote, together with a large entourage,
fled the
country for Zambia. This time, unlike the last, Obote
allegedly
took much of the national treasury with him.
Data as of December 1990
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