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V. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Many current arguments advanced by Uganda's NRM government in favor of the movement government are based on its interpretation of Uganda's brutal post-colonial experience. As summarized in one recent account of Uganda's history:

The dream of Ugandan independence quickly became a nightmare from which the country has yet to emerge. Understanding the dimensions of this tragedy requires an appreciation of the interrelationship between Uganda's ethnic diversity, the central government's increasing ineffectiveness, the emergence of the military as a political actor, and the proliferation of weak, brutal, and incompetent leaders.44

The Colonial Period

Like nearly all countries in Africa, Uganda's borders were determined by colonial powers with little regard for the ethnic composition of the country. Uganda was created out of several historical kingdoms in the south, the most powerful being the Buganda kingdom, and the less organized ethnic groups in the north. Tensions between the Nilotic-speaking northerners and the Bantu-speaking southerners have been a dominant theme in Uganda's history. Tensions along religious lines, mostly among Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Muslims have at times flared into violent confrontation and competion for political dominance.45

British colonial rule in Uganda was consolidated by the 1890 treaty with Buganda, closely followed by the 1894 declaration of a British protectorate over Uganda. British efforts to assert control over what became Uganda focused initially on the centrally located and well-organized Buganda kingdom. A 1900 agreement between the British and Buganda chiefs acknowledged British sovereignty and gave a privileged status to the Buganda kingdom, dividing Buganda land equally between the British and the Buganda chiefs, many of whom held the land in private ownership and leased plots to tenants under a system calledmailo tenure.46 The British instituted a system of indirect governance in Uganda, often relying on Buganda proxies to conquer and administer other Ugandan kingdoms.47 The Baganda-the people of the kingdom of Buganda-played a central role in colonial administration until independence, and through their close association with the colonial power, were able to obtain a privileged position in Ugandan society as reflected in the name of the colony.48

The preferential treatment accorded the Baganda contrasted sharply with British policy towards the Nilotic and Sudanic tribes of northern Uganda, who lacked the centralized structure of the Baganda and were thus considered more "backward." The northern region was not developed during the colonial period, and served mainly as a reservoir for cheap labor to be deployed in the south. Not wishing to further bolster the already disproportionate power of the Baganda, Britain recruited its soldiers mostly from the northern region: "Recruitment was reserved for Northerners and people from the East-who, it was argued, were naturally martial-lest the Baganda became too strong and colonial rule was endangered. The army became a despised profession, suitable only for uneducated people."49 At the time of independence in 1962, the Ugandan army was predominantly northern, and the rapid expansion of the army during the firstgovernment of Milton Obote (1962-1971) continued to rely primarily on recruits from the northern regions of Acholi, Teso, Lango, and the West Nile.50

The legacy of these colonial policies continues to be felt in present day Uganda, and has played an important role in political developments since independence. The Independence Constitution of 1962 granted full federal status to the Buganda kingdom and semi-federal status to a number of other southern kingdoms (Ankole, Bunyoro, and Toro). The disposition of the 9,000 square miles of mailo land in Buganda remains a topic of significant controversy, as demonstrated by the 1998 debates about the proposed land bill which included threats of armed opposition by some Buganda leaders (discussed below). The tension between a developed center and underdeveloped north, northern dominance of the military, and inter-ethnic conflicts between different factions in the army, formed the basis for much of the instability that marked Uganda's post-independence experience.



Uganda's Independence and the First Obote Government

Uganda obtained independence in 1962 under a coalition government of Milton Obote's predominantly protestant Uganda People's Congress (UPC) and the Buganda traditionalist's political party Kabaka Yekka (KY, which translates as "The King Alone"). Milton Obote, a northerner, became prime minister and chose the Buganda's Kabaka (king) as his largely ceremonial president when Uganda became a republic in 1963. The ruling coalition soon broke up over disagreements about the "lost counties" issue-Bunyoro territory which was transferred to the Baganda by the British in reward for their loyalty-which Obote submitted to a referendum in November 1964.51 The referendum led to a return of some of the disputed territory to the Bunyoro, and led to increased discontent with the Obote administration in Buganda.

In 1964, anti-Obote elements, led by UPC Secretary-General Ibingira, attempted to push Obote out of power by accusing Obote and Deputy Army Commander Idi Amin of involvement in a gold and ivory scandal. Obote responded to the attempted putsch by arresting the main plotters, suspending the 1962 Constitution, promoting Idi Amin to army chief of staff, and deposing the Kabaka from the presidency. In April 1966, Obote convened the national assemblyto write a new republican constitution, entrenching a strong executive presidency and substantially reducing the powers of the traditional leaders. The new constitution led to increased tensions with the traditional Buganda legislature, the lukiko, which rejected the new constitution and the limitations it imposed on Buganda federal powers. Obote responded by declaring a state of emergency and ordering the army to attack and occupy the Kabaka's palace in Mengo. The palace attack is estimated to have cost more than one hundred lives. Kabaka Mutesa II managed to escape to exile in London, where he later died.52

Over the next years, Obote consolidated his powers by introducing a new constitution in 1967 which abolished the four kingdoms and further strengthened executive powers. Following an assassination attempt on Obote in 1969, the UPC banned all opposition groups and effectively created a one party state.

Idi Amin's Reign of Terror

While Obote was preoccupied with consolidating his political grip on Uganda, Idi Amin was simultaneously establishing effective control over a significant part of the Ugandan armed forces. Ethnic tensions between different northern groups in the army soon developed:

[F]rom the beginning of 1969, Obote had divided the army into two factions along ethnic lines. As President and the Chairman of the Defence Council, he relied on the Nilotic soldiers, largely from Acholi and Lango, while for his part Amin built his support on his fellow West Nilers, especially those who happened to be Sudanic people like himself.53

Tensions between Obote and Amin grew as Obote attempted to limit Amin's power base within the army, and Amin grew increasingly convinced that Obote was attempting to neutralize him. Just prior to leaving for Singapore in January 1971 to attend a summit conference of Commonwealth leaders, Obote asked Amin to account for 2.5 million pounds sterling spent by the army. With Obote away in Singapore, Amin responded by taking power on January 25, 1971.

Many Ugandans, especially those living in Buganda and other areas dissatisfied with Obote's increasingly oppresive government, initially welcomedAmin's military coup. The release of many detainees and Amin's decision to allow Kabaka Mutesa II's body to return from England for burial were popular measures. The initial euphoria soon turned to horror as the true nature of Amin's government became clear. Amin soon ordered the army's Acholi and Langi elements, whom he considered rivals for power, to return to the barracks and had hundreds of officers and enlisted men killed.54 Soon after, Amin created several new security organizations which reported directly to him, including the Public Safety Unit and the State Research Bureau:

Along with the Military Police, these two organizations wreaked havoc on Uganda. By the end of Amin's first year in office, these security forces had killed approximately 10,000 Ugandans. Over the next few years, tens of thousands of Ugandans fell prey to Amin's henchmen, sought sanctuary in neighboring countries, or went into hiding in Uganda.55

A report by the New York City Bar Association's Committee on International Human Rights estimated the number of victims of Amin's reign of terror between 100,000 and 500,000.56 Many prominent Ugandans lost their lives during Amin's reign of terror, including Chief Justice Benedicto Kiwanuka and Anglican archbishop Janani Luwuum.

In 1972, in an attempt to shore up domestic support, Amin ordered the expulsion of Uganda's 70,000 citizens of Asian origin and the expropriation oftheir extensive property holdings, including 5,655 firms, factories, and farms and U.S. $400 million in personal goods.57 Amin sought closer ties with radical governments such as Libya, and accused Israel of subverting Uganda: in March 1972 Amin ordered all Israelis to leave Uganda. The Asian expulsion order, Amin's nationalization of British companies in 1973, and the failure to explain the death of Dora Bloch, a British woman killed by the Ugandan army in apparent retaliation for the Israeli raid on Entebbe to rescue hostages held by Palestinian terrorists, led to a break in relations between Uganda and Britain.

Amin finally overreached himself when he ordered the annexation of 1,800 square miles of Tanzanian territory known as the Kagera salient. President Nyerere of Tanzania, already a vocal critic of Amin's government, responded by ordering his troops-joined by various anti-Amin Ugandan militias under the rubric of the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA)-to invade Uganda and oust Amin. On April 10, 1979, Amin's government fell. Idi Amin is still alive, living in Saudi Arabia, and has never been called to account for the human rights abuses which took place during his rule.

The Second Obote Government and the "Bush War"

Several short-lived civilian administrations followed the overthrow of the Amin government, culminating in a return to power by Obote in a disputed election in 1980. The sixty-eight-day Lule government, headed by former Makerere University vice chancellor and chairperson of the UNLA's political arm Yusef Lule, soon faltered because of Lule's perceived pro-Buganda slant and tensions between the UNLA's military and political wings.58

The UNLA ousted Yusef Lule and installed Godfrey Binaisa, the attorney general during Obote's first government, as president. Infighting within the UNLA prevented Binaisa from restoring stability in Uganda. In August 1979, Binaisa's government imposed a ban on political parties, believing that with such a ban Uganda would avoid "the politics of religion, sectarianism, rivalry and hatred, and be able to work for and even achieve the politics of consensus"59-an argument similar to the one made by President Museveni today. Pro-Obote forces within the military structures of the UNLA removed Binaisa from power on May 13, 1980,placing Binaisa under house arrest and scheduling an election for December 10, 1980.

The election of December 1980 proved to be a watershed event in Uganda's political history. Four parties-Obote's UPC, the predominantly Catholic Democratic Party (DP), the Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM) of Yoweri Museveni, and the Buganda-dominated Conservative Party (CP)-took part in the elections. The election results gave the victory to Obote's UPC, and Obote returned to head Uganda for a second time. However, most international observers as well as the DP and UPM accused the pro-Obote military commission of rigging the election. The rigged elections may have stolen victory from the Democratic Party, but Museveni's UPM was only a minor player at the time of the elections and won only a single seat. Museveni himself was narrowly defeated in his Mbarara home district by a DP candidate.

Museveni has stated that these rigged elections and the corrupt and military-dominated system which returned Obote to power caused him to form the National Resistance Army (NRA) and wage a guerrilla war, with the aim not only of obtaining power but of causing a radical change in Uganda's system of governance. Museveni argued that his call to arms was a legitimate response to undemocratic practices: "Once again, a minority, unpopular clique was imposed on the people of Uganda, leaving them with no option but to take up arms in defense of their democratic rights."60

Museveni perceived his struggle against Obote as more than a struggle for power, describing it as a struggle to free Uganda from the political manipulations of elitist and nonrepresentative political parties and to create a more democratic and representative system of governance. The NRM's ten-point program blamed Uganda's woes on political manipulation, and urged the elimination of all forms of sectarianism (defined loosely as the ethnic, religious, regional and other divisions which according to the NRM have had a negative impact on political life in Uganda).

The period of civil war which followed was characterized by a wanton disregard for human rights by government troops and a massive loss of human lives, especially in the Buganda "Luwero triangle," the area of central Uganda near the capital Kampala:

This period was characterized by military excesses against civilians which are believed to have exceeded the brutality of the Amin era. The worst assaults on civilians took place in an area of Buganda known as the Luwero triangle formed by roads leading north and northwest out of Kampala. By 1984, the U.S. State Department estimated that between 100,000 and 200,000 civilians were slaughtered in the Luwero triangle by the Obote regime, and by 1985, the number was believed to be far higher.61

Despite the repressive measures of the UNLA, the NRA/M continued to make significant progress in its guerrilla campaign against the Obote government. The strong anti-Obote sentiments in Buganda, where the bad memories of Obote's first government remained strong, ensured NRA/M support in the region. Other rebel groups, including the pro-Amin Uganda National Army (UNA) and the west-nile based Uganda National Rescue Front (UNRF), prevented the UNLA from focusing its resources against the NRA/M. In May 1985, interethnic tensions between Acholi and Langi (two neighboring northern ethnic groups) UNLA troops led Brigadier Basilio Okello and General Tito Lutwa Okello (unrelated Acholis) to depose Obote (a Langi) in a coup. Milton Obote currently lives in Zambia, and was never called to account for the human rights abuses committed during his rule.

The Okello government seized power on a platform of national reconciliation, urging all political parties and insurgent groups to join the new government. Although many insurgent groups joined the Okellos, the NRA/M refused to join partly because Museveni was dissatisfied with the number of seats on the ruling Military Council which were offered to the NRA/M. Between August and December 1985, the Okellos and the NRA/M engaged in talks in Nairobi, whichended in the Nairobi peace accord between Museveni and the Okello government.62 However, the Nairobi peace accord was never implemented and Museveni continued his guerilla campaign against the Okello government. On the 26th of January 1986, Museveni's NRA/M defeated the Okello government and took Kampala, effectively establishing itself as the government of Uganda.

The Early NRM Period: Administrative Bans and Military Control

Almost immediately upon taking power, President Museveni announced that political party activity would be suspended during the transition period, which he pledged would not last more than four years. This ban on political activity was formalized by the first official act of the NRM government, Legal Notice No. 1 of 1986, which established the unelected National Resistance Council (NRC) to govern during the interim period. Many political forces in Uganda, including the Democratic Party, initially accepted the restrictions on political parties, assuming them to be an interim arrangement, and accepted the NRM's invitation to form a broad coalition government. Paul Ssemogerere, president of the DP, told Human Rights Watch:

Despite our opposition to armed solutions, we accepted the moral cause of Museveni. When he eventually captured power, there was lots of sympathy for him. He fought a good cause and promised the necessary constitutional reforms to restore democracy. When he wanted us to join him, we accepted to work with him as an interim arrangement. So the Democratic Party's National Executive Committee accepted to work with Museveni.63

Although dominated by the NRM/A representatives, Museveni's coalition government initially included members of the DP, the UPC, the pro-Amin Uganda National Rescue Front (UNRF), as well as two Buganda-based rebel groups, theFederal Democratic Movement of Uganda (FEDEMU) and the Uganda Freedom Movement/Army (UFM/A).64 However, the coalition grew narrower over time: "All these groups eventually withdrew from the coalition, citing the government's complicity in human rights violations, official corruption, continuing instability in northern and eastern Uganda, the creation of tribal animosities, and communist and Libyan infiltration of Uganda."65 Despite promises in 1986 that the NRC would hold office for a period "not exceeding four years," Museveni extended the interim period for another five year period in 1989, claiming that continued insurgency in the country had prevented the NRM administration from reaching its original objectives in the initial four year period.66 The membership of the NRC was expanded through an indirect election in 1989.

During the first years of the NRM administration, the government faced armed opposition in the north, east, and southwest. During the course of its anti-insurgency operations, the NRA detained thousands of civilians suspected of supporting the rebels, holding them unlawfully without charges at military barracks as "lodgers." In July 1989, sixty-nine persons in NRA custody died at Mukuru, Soroti district, after suffocating in a locked train compartment. Opponents and critics of the NRM government faced harassment and arrest by the government. Lance Seera Muwanga, secretary-general of the Uganda Human Rights Activists group, at the time the only human rights NGO in Uganda, was arrested in February 1987 after giving an interview to the Africa Concord magazine in which he criticized the NRM's human rights record. He was released in March 1988, and went into exile to Sweden soon thereafter. Cecilia Ogwal, a leading member of the UPC, gave Human Rights Watch details of ten incidents in which she was arrested and briefly detained but never charged between 1991 and 1993, mostly after attempts to hold meetings with fellow UPC leaders.67

The tactics used to repress political activity during the period of the administrative ban on political activities revealed a readiness to resort to strong shows of force, and had a lasting chilling effect on the willingness of Ugandans to challenge restrictions on political activity which remain in effect today. Many of the persons interviewed by Human Rights Watch described one particularly well known incident in Kampala in May 1993. The Democratic Party (DP) Mobilizers,an offshoot of the Democratic Party under the leadership of Michael Kaggwa, attempted to hold a public rally in Kampala to openly challenge the ban on political activity. According to international press reports, Museveni responded to the planned rally by stating in parliament that those who attended the rally would be killed: "I have told the police to stop political gatherings using force. Tell your supporters that they will be killed if they attend political rallies."68 Police effectively sealed off the city and army helicopters were brought in to intimidate party supporters.69 DP-Mobilizer officials called off the planned rally to prevent bloodshed.

A similar rally organized by the DP-Mobilizers in November 1993 was called off after hundreds of riot police wielding batons and teargas canisters sealed off the proposed venue of the rally in Kampala.70

The Odoki Commission

The Uganda Constitutional Commission, known popularly as the Odoki Commission after its chairperson Justice Ben Odoki, was appointed in March 1989 to draft a new constitution for Uganda. Dean of Makerere Law School Joe Oloka-Onyango is among those who has questioned the make-up of the Odoki Commission, claiming that "almost to a person, it comprised strong adherents of the Movement system, incorporating therein both the Political Commissar of the NRM as well as his counterpart in the NRA."71 The Odoki Commission conducted an impressive campaign to reach out to the Ugandan public and get their views on a new constitutional order, conducting seminars in all 870 subcounties of Uganda and collecting a total of more than 25,000 submissions, including over 800 submissions from religious, political, and other civil society groups.72

The Odoki Commission's final report, which included a proposed outline for the constitution, essentially adopted the restrictive political party system which currently operates in Uganda, claiming that this is what the population wanted. Recognizing that the question of Uganda's future political system was "one of the most controversial at all levels of society," the Odoki Commission suggested that the one party option should be rejected but that Ugandans should be allowed to choose through periodic referendums whether they would like to be governed through the movement system or the multiparty system. The Odoki Commission's recommendations also set out a number of principles which should guide the movement, as well as a set of guiding principles for political parties. The detailed proposals of the Odoki Commission largely set the framework for the debates that followed in the constituent assembly.

The Constituent Assembly and the Making of the Constitution

Many of the debates which ultimately led to today's legal restrictions on civil and political rights took place in the Constituent Assembly in 1994-95. The original statute of the Odoki Commission envisioned a situation wherein the last stage of constitutional reform would be "the discussion and adoption of the draft constitution by a Constituent Assembly consisting of the National Resistance Council, the Army Council and other delegates."73 However, in what has been described as "a rare democratic sentiment from a military source in Africa," the commander of the National Resistance Army, Major General Mugisha Muntu, chastised the members of the NRC for "fearing to face the electorate," and called for a renewed mandate from the people prior to the adoption of the constitution.74

The Constituent Assembly Election Act of 1993 provided the first opportunity for the NRM government to translate its administrative ban on political party activity into a legal ban. The election rules provided that candidates would "stand and be voted for...upon personal merit," and that any candidate who used or attempted to use any political party, tribal or religious affiliations or other "sectarian" grounds for purposes of the election would be disqualified.75 Candidates were only allowed to campaign at rallies or meetings organized by the government, and no other "public rallies and any form of public demonstration in support of or against any candidate" were allowed.76

Despite the severe restrictions on political party activity, a significant number of opposition politicians decided to participate in the constituent assembly elections of March 1994. The decision by a UPC faction led by Cecilia Ogwal to participatein the elections led to an as yet unresolved split with their exiled leader Milton Obote, who advocated a complete rejection of the constitution-making exercise.77 Despite a secret ballot and a universal franchise, the election restrictions put the political opposition at a disadvantage. However, many opposition politicians managed to be elected to the constituent assembly, although an exact count is difficult to reach because candidates could not state their party affiliation.78

As was expected, the issue of the future political system was one of the most controversial issues in the constituent assembly, together with the debates on Buganda's proposals for a decentralized federal system and the hotly debated issue of land reform. Considerable confusion ensued when high-ranking NRA officials, including Lieutenant Colonel Serwanga Lwanga, chief political commissar for the NRA, and Major General David Tinyefuza, an influential and high-ranking NRA delegate, put forth proposals for a rapid return to multiparty politics. Lwanga argued that the Odoki Commission was not representative of the views of all Ugandans, and suggested that many Ugandans might have changed their minds about supporting the NRM since being asked about the system by the Odoki Commission almost five years prior.79 Major General Tinyefuza was more direct in his criticism of the proposed five-year extension of the movement system prior to the referendum:

NRM has been in power for ten years. It did influence events even between 1981 to 1985. That makes it fifteen years. It is almost immoral to want another free extension of five years to make it twenty.80

The NRM responded by organizing a movement caucus to push through its views and to force adherence to its positions. Major General Tinyefuza was forced by the NRA's high command to make a humiliating apology, retracting his comments andpromising "henceforth before expressing any opinion on any constitutional or political matter, I shall seek the guidance and authority of the appropriate organs of the army."81 Ultimately the constituent assembly adopted a constitution on September 22, 1995, which placed severe restrictions on political party activity (see below).

44 Thomas P. Ofcansky, Uganda: Tarnished Pearl of Africa (Boulder: Westview Press 1996), p. 39.

45 See generally, Holger Bernt Hansen and Michael Twaddle (eds.), Religion and Politics in East Africa: The Period Since Independence (London: James Currey, 1995). Some academics have argued that political parties exacerbated these ethnic and religious divides. See Dan M. Mudoola, Religion, Ethnicity and Politics in Uganda (Kampala: Fountain Publishers, 1996).

46 Ofcansky, Uganda, p. 22. On mailo land tenure, see generally W. Kisamba-Mugerwa, "Institutional Dimensions of Land Tenure Reform," in Holger Bernt Hansen and Michael Twaddle, Changing Uganda: The Dilemmas of Structural Adjustment and Revolutionary Change (London: James Currey, 1991), pp. 311-21.

47 Indirect governance refers to the colonial practice of using local chiefs to extend colonial rule and the practice of using certain ethnic groups to assist in pacifying and ruling over others. Indirect governance through local intermediaries allowed the colonial powers to control the colony with a small number of expatriate officials.

48 According to one authority:

Inevitably, Buganda became the hub of the economic activity of the protectorate: after all, Kampala and Entebbe, respectively its commercial and administrative capitals, were located in Buganda. . . . Nowhere was the disparity of development emphasised more than in education; it was the means by which southerners, especially Baganda, came to dominate the affairs of the country.

Phares Mutibwa, Uganda Since Independence: A Story of Unfulfilled Hopes (Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1992), pp. 8-9.

49 Ibid., p. 6. See also Samwiri Lwanga-Lunyiigo, "The Colonial Roots of Internal Conflict," in Kumar Rupesinghe (ed.), Conflict Resolution in Uganda (Oslo: International Peace Research Institute, 1989); and Amii Omara-Otunnu, Politics and the Military in Uganda (London: Macmillan, 1987).

50 E.A. Brett, "Neutralising the Use of Force in Uganda: The Role of the Military in Politics," Journal of Modern African Studies, vol. 33 no. 1 (1995), p. 135.

51 The referendum allowed the residents of the lost counties to decide whether they wanted to remain part of the autonomous Buganda, return to Bunyoro district, or become an independent district.

52 On this chapter of Uganda's history, see I.K.K. Lukwago, The Politics of National Integration in Uganda (Nairobi: Coign Publications, 1982); and I.V. Satyamurthy, The Political Development of Uganda (1900-1986) (Aldershot: Gower, 1986).

53 Mutibwa, Uganda Since Independence, pp. 8-9.

54 Robert Gersony, The Anguish of Northern Uganda: Results of a Field-Based Assessment of the Civil Conflicts in Northern Uganda (Kampala: U.S. Agency for International Development, August 1997), p. 7.

55 Ofcansky, Uganda, p. 44.

56 According to the report:

Within three months after he took power . . . Amin suspended all democratic rights, gave the army dictatorial powers of arrest and punishment, and set up a military tribunal to try political offenders. A period of terror administered by the Army (now dominated by Kakwa and Nubian ethnic groups from Amin's West Nile region) and the security services followed. It is estimated that between 100,000 and 500,000 Ugandans lost their lives or disappeared during Amin's eight-year rule. These included a large number of Langi and Acholi, the northern groups which had formed the backbone of the Obote government, as well as many Baganda intellectuals.

James J. Busuttil et al., "Uganda at the Crossroads-A Report on Current Human Rights Conditions," The Record, October 1991.

57 Ofcansky, Uganda, p. 44.

58 Two years later, Lule would join his Uganda Freedom Fighters (UFF) with Museveni's Popular Resistance Army (PRA) to form the National Resistance Army (NRA) which ultimately took power in 1986, although Lule himself would die in exile in January 1985.

59 Mutibwa, Uganda Since Independence, p. 134.

60 Yoweri Museveni, "Theoretical Justification of NRM Struggle," in Mission to Freedom: Uganda Resistance News 1981-85 (Kampala: Directorate of Information and Mass Mobilization, NRM Secretariat, 1990), p. 3.

61 Busuttil et al., "Uganda at the Crossroads-A Report on Current Human Rights Conditions." See also Ofcansky, Uganda, p. 54:

In January 1983, Obote launched "Operation Bonanza" in [the Luwero triangle], during which UNLA troops destroyed small towns, villages, and farms and killed or displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians. The carnage eventually attracted the world's attention, and several governments and humanitarian organizations condemned the Obote regime. According to Amnesty International, there were reports of at least thirty-six mass grave sites in the Luwero triangle. The Banyarwanda community, much of which had supported Amin, lost 45,000 to 60,000 people. After the war ended in 1986, the International Committee of the Red Cross claimed that at least 300,000 people had died in the Luwero triangle and that officials had failed to account for half to a third of the region's population.

62 Museveni's own writings suggest that the NRA/M never seriously considered that the adversaries would abide by the terms of the peace agreement: "[E]ven while we signed the agreement...we knew that the provisions would not work as long as the Okellos were motivated by power and nobody was fully in control of the army. The UNLA's massacre of civilians continued even after we had signed the peace accord and we knew we had no option but to continue with the war against them." Museveni, Sowing the Mustard Seed, p. 169.

63 Human Rights Watch interview with Paul Ssemogerere, President, Democratic Party, Mengo, May 7, 1998.

64 Ofcansky, Uganda, pp. 53, 60.

65 Ibid., p. 60.

66 Major Ondoga ori Amaza, Museveni's Long March: From Guerrilla to Statesman (Kampala: Fountain Publishers, 1998), pp. 155-56.

67 Human Rights Watch interview with Cecilia Ogwal, Chairperson, Interim Executive Committee of the UPC, Kampala, April 13, 1998.

68 "Uganda's Museveni clamps down on political rally," Agence France Presse, May 8, 1993.

69 Ibid.

70 "Police Stop Opposition Rally in Kampala," Agence France Presse, November 13, 1993.

71 Joe Oloka-Onyango, "Governance, State Structures and Constitutionalism in Contemporary Uganda," (Kampala: Centre for Basic Research, May 1998), p. 21.

72 John M. Waliggo, "Constitution-making and the politics of democratisation in Uganda," in Holger Bernt Hansen and Michael Twaddle, From Chaos to Order: The Politics of Constitution-Making in Uganda (Kampala: Fountain Publishers, 1995), pp. 27-28.

73 Amaza, Museveni's Long March, p. 179.

74 James Katorobo, "Electoral Choices in the Constituent Assembly elections of March 1994," in Hansen and Twaddle, From Chaos to Order, p. 119.

75 Constituent Assembly Election Rules, Rule 11.

76 Ibid., Rule 12.

77 After the participation by the Ogwal faction in the 1996 presidential and parliamentary elections, the UPC split into the Interim Executive Committee (IEC) faction headed by Cecilia Ogwal and the pro-Obote Presidential Policy Commission (PPC).

78 Cecilia Ogwal of the UPC/IEC claims that 66 of the 214 elected seats were filled by opposition candidates, representing nearly one-third of the elected representatives. The multipartyists (i.e. those advocating an immediate return to a pluralist political system) formed the National Caucus for Democracy (NCD) in the assembly, ultimately walking out when it became clear that the NRM caucus would not negotiate over Uganda's future political system.

79 Lieutenant Colonel Serwanga Lwanga, "Towards Stable and Orderly Governance" (dated May 19, 1995).

80 Amaza, Museveni's Long March, p. 203.

81 Oloka-Onyango, "Governance, State Structures and Constitutionalism in Contemporary Uganda," p. 16.

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