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Yup!!
A third arena where the Buganda question expressed itself was composed
of the national government's two main organizational arms, the central
government civil service and the armed forces (Army and Police). As was
mentioned, the Uganda civil service insofar as it contained any Africans at all
in its middle and upper reaches during the colonial period, contained mainly
Baganda. By the time Africanization of the higher civil service position began
in earnest, however, which was not untill independence was in offing, that is,
not until 1960-1961, non-Baganda were available in large enough numbers to
challenge the heretofore virtual Baganda monopoly. The non-Baganda, furthermore,
had behind them a powerful organisation, UPC. Given the prevalence of Baganda in
middle level positions, though, and their seniority, any attempt to make the
civil service regionally and more representative had to entail promoting some
non-Baganda who, in civil service terms, were less deserving than some Baganda.
And given the Baganda sense of superiority and their sensitivity to their
position in society, it is hardly surprising that in a very short time they came
to see the Africanisation program as an attack on them and to
protest against being 'victimized'. To some extent, they were probably
right: non-Baganda were given preference in several instances. Partly this
occurred because UPC wanted to redress the imbalance that grew up during the
colonial period, and partly because it needed to have the willing
co-operation of the civil service to implement its policies and was not at all
sure it could count on Baganda civil servants. As a result, a group of many
roamers circulated, and when the principal organ of the civil servants, The
Public Employees' union, was unable to obtain enforceable promises from the
government, Baganda middle and upper-level civil servants grew increasingly
resistive in their positions and increasingly apathetic about their
work.
In a new state in a developing country, the loyalty
of the civil service and its morale are critical. Both political stability and
economical development depend to a very large extent on the energies civil
servants are willing to expend in their jobs. Any substantial degree of
alienation among them is, in consequence, a serious matter. It is of cause
difficult to tell, but what seemed to have prevented demoralization from going
further than it did in the Uganda civil service at this time, and from seriously
impairing the day-to-day operation of the government, was not any reversal of
policy, but, rather, the election of Mutesa to the Presidency of the country.
For with that election, the national government no longer seemed to Baganda to
be composed mainly of "the other" -- on the contrary, it now obviously included
in a very key position their leading figure and the symbol of what some have
gone so far as to call the Buganda nation. in any event, in the period
following the Kabaka's election, their discontent appeared to lessen markedly.
The Uganda rifles (the army) and the Uganda Police stood in marked contrast to
the civil service, for both were predominantly manned not by Baganda, nor
even by non-Baganda Bantu, but by Northerners (Langi and Acholi) and Easterners
(Iteso) from Nilotic-and Nilo-Hermitic-speaking tribes. The predominance of
these men in these two forces, and the relative absence of Baganda, occasioned
considerable concern among Baganda politicians. For there was some fear that one
or another Northerner political leader might in a crisis try using tribal and
regional appeals to the Army and Police in order to resolve the Buganda question
by force. Owing to this concern, leading circles among the Baganda particularly,
but also among other southerners, continually encouraged young men in their
areas to join the armed forces. If the army and Police were more nearly
representative of the national population, they reasoned, the chances would be
less than any one would attempt to resolve the Buganda question, or any
communal tension, through an unconstitutional resort to force. They were only
partly successful in their efforts, however. By design the British had done most
of the recruiting for the Army and Police in the Northern districts and Teso.
Service in these forces had thus become an expected opportunity among many of
the younger men in these areas, and for this and other reasons those responsible
for these organisations were reluctant to change their recruiting patterns,
despite frequent appeals from Southerners to carry out more recruitment in the
Bantu-speaking areas. In addition, among virtually all Baganda (and to a less
extent among other Southerners as well), service in the Army and Police was not
generally viewed as a particularly worthy vocation. It was not clear whether
this view was a direct evaluation of the burdens of such service or derived from
the well known fact that these forces were manned mainly by Northerners.
But in any case the attitude existed and hindered the recruitment of Southerners
into the non-Commissioned ranks of the Army and Police.
As it happened, force was used eventually, and it
was used against the Baganda. Whether it would have been, had the army been
differently constituted, it is impossible to tell. One thing it is possible to
say, however, that the role of the Army and Police in the events of 1966 has
irrevocably altered their place in Uganda's politics and society. It will take
time for the implications of this change to become clear, but the adjustment is
unlikely to be without incidence, particularly in the light of the attitudes
towards the Armed Forces that had been prevalent among Southerners. For a
situation in which an organisation is at once powerful and not particularly
prestigious is an inherently unstable situation, and civil-military relations
are likely to become a major source of politically relevant strains in Uganda in
the not too distant future. Even before the most recent events there were
signs of discontent in the armed forces. Through-out the entire
post-independence period they have been called upon to perform a number of
taxing and rather frustrating Police actions. In Rwanda, to the South Western of
Uganda, a tribally inspired revolution in which the once dominant but
numerically much smaller Batutsi were overthrown by the Bahutu shortly before
Uganda's independence, resulting in a large number of refugees settling in
Uganda along the boarder. From there they regularly engaged in hit-and-run
attacks, which provoked retaliatory raids from Rwanda, and The Uganda Riffles on
several occasions had to patrol the boarder in a UN-like peace-keeping
operation. In the North, and smouldering war fare in Sudan, between the more or
less Christian Negroes of the Southern part of the country and the ruling Moslem
Arabs of the Northern part, also continually sent refugees into Uganda, and
similar across the boarder raids have from time to time required the
army's presence there as well. Internally, too, the Army and Special
Police detachments have had to carry out a number of Police actions. For
example, their presence has been necessary not only in the "Lost" counties,
owing to the Baganda Banyoro dispute, but also in a district in the far north
east, Karamoja where cattle-raiding and related marauding have remained popular
past times, particularly raids across the Kenyan boarder, and in the
kingdom district of Toro, in the West, where a potion of the population has
been threatening to secede if they can not form a separate district. In the last
case, the army as well as the Police have been employed under emergency
regulations to maintain some semblance of order in the area, but as the
rebellious tribes live on the slopes of the Rwenzori mountains, they can and do
fade with easy into the Congo and thus out of reach entirely. In all
these instances, skirmishes have occurred, men have been wounded, on
occasion killed, yet there has been no enemy who can be property defeated. The
army's tasks have thus been trying and frustrating, and although it has not been
entirely successful in carrying them out, it has been fairly clear to every one
that its presence has been a condition of such order as has been obtained in
these areas.
Yet, despite the significance of their functions,
the Army and Police have not been particularly esteemed, as was said, and until
a mild mutiny occurred in 1964, this attitude received concrete _expression_ in a
system of remuneration that put soldiers and Police (but the officers of the
either) among the lowest paid people on the national government's pay rolls.
Partially in response to this, possibly partly for other reasons, some Uganda
Army units, like their counter parts in Tanganyika and Kenya, struck for higher
pay and better conditions, among other things. In Uganda it was not serious
matter and was quickly settled, but on terms rather favourable to the soldiers.
Whether their success at that time, coupled with their increased power in
Uganda's politics, will feed their ambition or slave it, remains to be seen.
Similarly, only one clash had occurred between off duty soldiers and civilians
in the first two years of independence. But then the army was doubled in size in
1964, to about 4,000 men (In response to the fighting in the then Stanleyville
area of Congo, not far from the boarder with Uganda) new military posts were
constructed in the Southern, Bantu speaking part of the country, and existing
posts were expanded, and in 1965 several incidents occurred-- at least partly,
it would seem, because the nearly universal civilian soldier tension was
in these areas compounded by the specifically Ugandan North-South tribal
tension. The local authorities in the areas involved subsequently tried to have
the posts removed, but their efforts were unsuccessful. In the light of the
army's actions in Buganda in 1966, such incidents may well continue to increase,
thus making even more salient and pressing the question of the army's place
in society.
To be continued
What did the religious bodies have to do
with this relationship if at all? (Don't go
yet)
The Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy" Groupe de communication Mulindwas "avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie" |
