ugnet_: BUGANDA IN UGANDA (Uganda People's Congress)

[Mulindwa Edward]

I told you !!                  Prior to this forceful resolution, however, opposition to Obote's leadership arose and became organised within UPC its self. The growing conflict after 1963 between Obote and Mutesa symbolized the shakeness of the 1961-1962 compromise arrangements. A less symbolic but in some ways more significant tensions developed between Obote and Ibingira, the two men initially most responsible for UPC policy. At first, it appears, the Buganda question played but a small part in their disagreement. Subsequently, however, it loomed large, and there is little reason to doubt that when matters came to a head in February 1966, and obote had Ibingira and four other ministers arrested and detained in remote parts of the country, one of the issues on which the two men held markedly different views was on whether and to what extent to maintain the compromise arrangement intact. Following the 1962 elections, Obote and Ibingira worked together closely consolidating their power with UPC. To this end, Ibingira challenged the incumbent Secretary-General of the party, John Kakonge, in the election for that post at the annual delegates'conference in 1964, and in a bitterly fought contest managed to win. Obote supported ibingira at this time, as did Nadiope and Obwangor. Mainly at issue, it seems, was control of the party organization. But kakonge was, and is, an articulate spokesman for the left in Uganda, and he was strongly supported by Godfrey Binaisa, the Attorney General, also of the left, and not unnaturally many participants and observers defined the out come semi-ideologically, as a victory of 'moderates' over 'radicals' or 'militants'.   These terms gained currency over the succeeding two years as the groups associated with the labels became increasingly well-defined. For in this period both the alignments on various issues and the kinds of issues on which people aligned them selves took on definite patterns. During 1964, Tshombe's mercenaries were operating in the North eastern part of Congo, in the thenStanleyville-area, against the Gbenye-led national liberation forces, and the question arose as to how much assistance Uganda should render Stnleyville government. Obote it appears, wanted  Uganda to commit itself to give as much support as it could reasonably afford, while Ibingira, for a variety of reasons, favoured less involvement. Among those in the cabinet who it seems supported Obote's position were Adoko Nekyon, mentioned earlier; Felix Onama, a Northerner, from Madi and Minister of Defence; Alex Ojera, also a Northerner, from Acholi, and then Minister of community development and labour; and Sam Odaka, from Bukedi in Eastern Uganda, Minister of Foreign Affairs. Their view prevailed, and a decision was taken to give a substantial aid. Subsequently, in January 1965, Gbenye and the three East African Leaders, Obote, Nyerere and Kenyatta met at Mbale in Eastern Uganda. Detailing arrangements regarding Uganda's program  of support were worked out there, Colonel Idi Amin, a Northerner from Lango "That should have read West Nile" was put in charge of the Uganda part of the operations. Ibingira, it now seems reasonable to infer, remained opposed to the degree of commitment assumed by Uganda, but at that time little was known of this, or of the rift between him and Obote which the decision apparently occasioned, since Uganda's participation remained a state secret until an out line of its role was made public in 1966, What was public instead was the continuing dispute between Ibingira and Kakonge, which on at least two additional occasions after the 1964 UPC conference became a matter of general interest. On one of these, some supporters of kakonge attacked Ibingira during a demonstration, and for this the latter brought a case before the UPC executive committee and obtained their suspension from the party. On the other occasion, Kakonge, this time supported by Obote, was nominated to fill a vacancy in the national assembly, and ibingira was among those who led the nearly successful fight to block his election. It was not to be long, however, before the ibingira-Obote dispute would come into the open and overshadow all others.   In the middle of 1965, Obote went on a several week tour of China and Eastern Europe, and various debates over the merits of the trips occurred both while he was away and after his return. These exacerbated the division within UPC in two ways. In the course of the debates various UPC leaders were charged with being "agents" for one or another of the great Powers, rumours of plots and counter-plots spread, and the labels "Pro-East" and "Pro-West" came into regular use, in addition to "militant" and "Moderate". Moreover, in the fore front of those attacking "Communism in Uganda" and, in a more veiled fashion, Uganda's newly formed ties with the socialist countries, were several spokesmen for the Buganda establishment. Perhaps foremost among those was Daudi Ocheng, who, although a Northerner from Acholi, was chosen by the Lukiiko in 1962 to be one of Buganda's representatives in the national Assembly and in time he became the Secretary General of KY. Diffrences on the Buganda question thus became inextricably bound up with differences on matters of foreign policy, on the other hand, and of internal security, on the other. This multiplication of the differences between what were becoming two camps deepened the rift between Obote and ibingira at the same time that the language used had the effect of partially obscuring the basic issues involved. Indeed, by late 1965, observers and participants alike were speaking freely of two groups within UPC, an "Ibingira group" and an "Obote group", and were describing the former as specifically opposed to Obote continuing to be a president of UPC and Prime Minister of the country. Included among the Ibingira's supporters in the cabinet were by this time Kirya, Lumu, Magezi and Mathias Ngobi, from Busoga (an Easterner) then Minister of Agriculture, included in Obote's supporters were as mentioned, Nekyon, Onama, Ojera, and Odaka. Out side of the cabinet, in the functional divisions of the national party organisations and in the various district organisations, each group had its adherents, so that to come there appeared to be not one UPC but two. One stood for maintaining intact, for as long as possible,  the basic compromise arrangements which had so far provided the frame work for Uganda's politics even if this required changes in the UPC leadership. The other stood for maintaining Obote's leadership in the party and the country, even if this required ending the compromise arrangements and developing a new set of rules for Uganda's politics.   As the regional  composition of the two groups in the cabinet might suggest, still another set of categories were sometimes used to describe the division. Uganda a scarce fifty years ago was little more than a British-Baganda imposed framework of overrule, a country in name only, in which the colonial power, as a matter of policy, kept the contracts among people from different areas  to the minimum required  by the colony's economy and administrative system. When independence was won, the various tribal communities were therefore necessarily still quite strong. Despite some inroads on their strength, they also remained quite strong in the post independence-period, for the processes of modernization-- The formation of the national state, the creation of a national economy, the raise of an urban-based class structure-- are in general slow process, and pre-existing, locally based, ethnic and linguistic communities dissolve only gradually. At the national level, though, loyalty to one or another particular tribe was not especially apparent. Instead there occurred the loose three way grouping described earlier --Northerners (Or loosely "Nilotics") Baganda, and non-Baganda Bantu. As was also mentioned before, when UPC was formed it had virtually no Baganda among its leading members and, in regional terms, was there fore essentially a coalition of Northerners and non-Baganda Southerners. Just as the reasons for KY's existence became to be questioned after independence, however,  so too did the reasons for the existence of this collation, and UPC tended in time to dissolve into its two main regional elements. In addition, the Baganda who joined UPC after independence tended to associate them selves with the Bantu or Southern grouping. The division that was developing with in the party thus came to have a regional cast, and the two wings, acquired the labels "Southerners" and "Northerners" or "Bantus" or "Nilotics". In addition to the other terms used to refer to them.     To be continued Don't call us we will call you                    The Mulindwas Communication Group "With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"             Groupe de communication Mulindwas "avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie"