|
Yayix!!!!
In April 1966, four years to the month after the KY-UPC coalition came to power,
Uganda received a new constitution which both reflected the changes in the
balance of power since independence and offered a new frame work for its
politics. The event was preceded by the preventive detention of Ibingira and
four of his associates in February, and followed by Mutesa's exiling him self in
London in June after the army had attacked and destroyed his Palace. At the time
of Pre-Independence constitutional negotiations, power in Uganda, insofar as it
was held by Africans, was almost entirely locally based power and thus was
dispersed among the nearly dozen and a half territorial administrative
divisions. Some of these local units had relatively large populations, some
rather small; and within some, power was relatively centralized, while with in
others it was still further diffused among even smaller units. Buganda stood out
in this situation because it was very much larger and very much more centralized
than any of the other units. In opposition to the centrifugal forces of these
local centres stood only the protectorate government and the force of overrule.
But both were about to depart, and those who would succeed to the central
government positions, the leaders of the political parties, were, with few
exceptions, men on the periphery of their area's local power structure. Thus,
when Buganda protracted the constitution negotiations in its successful fight
for a decentralized or federal kind of state, in which local units could have
considerable measure of vested autonomy, it spoke to actual distribution of
power at that time. And the constitution which Uganda secured reflected, more or
less accurately, not only Buganda's bargaining strength, but, more generally,
that distribution as well.
As the preceding section suggests, however, a
double-or triple level redistribution of power began with independence. Power
with in the various district units, including the Western Kingdoms, was, at
first slowly and later more rapidly, taken away from the specifically local
notables by the national politicians, who used the resources of both the
national party and national government to mobilize and retain substantial local
followings. In a few instances men highly placed or in control of a local power
structure were able to use their position in the local structure to secure for
them selves an important place in national politics. Mutesa and Nadiope are the
prime examples. But for the most part local notables were only indirectly
involved in the national arena. And they found their power and influence
slipping into the hands of those more directly involved. Even in Buganda, it
will be recalled, a national politician, Mayanja-Nkangi, replaced the highly
respected but also specifically local political leader, Kintu, as Katikiro. At
the same time, many of the legal and constitutional powers of various local
units, which had seemed considerable at the time of independence, turned out not
to be so vested as was thought and were increasingly circumscribed in principle
by court decisions or in practice by the national government's financial
controls. so, again, the locus of power was shifting away from the local
level and to the national level. Finally, at the national level its self,
centralization also occurred as a consequence of the defection from DP and KY
and the corresponding growth of UPC: In time Uganda became a one party system,
in sense that the UPC executive and the cabinet came to be the sole effective
centres of decision making. UPC its self, however, proved unable to withstand
the strains from such a rapid and substantial concentration of power. It was not
only that the leadership began to split. Also, and at first quite independently
of his development , factional disputes, both with in the UPC-organized local
governments and the functional arms of the party (Labour, Youth, etc,), grew
increasingly frequent and increasingly violent. Moreover, in several
instances the party executive found its efforts to mediate between factions , or
its attempts to enforce decisions from above, simply rebuffed, and it begun to
be apparent that it was incapable of resolving some intra-party disputes. This
failure of the party's leaders to maintain control over the organization
contributed to the growing tension among them. But of more importance, as
the divisions evolved, the leadership virtually ceased making efforts to settle
intra-party faction fights. Instead its two wings began taking opposite sides in
the disputes, and as a result local-level tensions increased the division with
in the leadership, while a division along lines paralleling the division among
the leaders developed in practically every one of the party's branches and
arms.
The gradual removal of power from local groups, and
in time from the other political parties and other national organizations (Such
as trade Unions) as well, and its concentration within UPC were thus
parallel by the progressive disorganisation and divisions of UPC. A simple
inverse function virtually describes the relationship between these two
developments, the party's growing power in this period and its declining
capacity to react. It was almost as if the more power UPC acquired, relative to
other collective units, the less it was able to take collective actions and the
more it became simply an arena or context in which various contending groups
carried on their fights. The sequence of events in the first six
months of 1966 resulted directly from this double, contradictory movement,
and the actions taken in this period were designed not only to anchor the degree
of centralization that had occurred by then, and to provide for further
development in that direction, but also to arrest and reverse the process of
dissolution within UPC. Whichever wing had won out in this struggle-- and at the
end of 1965 and beginning of 1966 few observers were willing to place bets-- it
would have had to take actions along both these lines. This much seems clear.
Whether the particular actions in fact actually taken were equally necessary, or
since this article is being written in the summer of 1966 will provide viable,
is difficult to say. In the event, Obote moved first and blocked the other wing
from acting, and it is there fore the actions he and his associates took that
actually matter. The new constitution he introduced does essentially three
things. One, it vests all power in the national state: districts or regional
governments, including Buganda, have no constitutionally defined powers and may
exercise only powers explicitly delegated to them by the National Assembly. Two,
it vests all executive power at the national level in a single office,
that of the executive President, and makes the Abakama of Ankole, Buganda,
Bunyoro and Toro ineligible for this office by making them ineligible for any
public office. And three, the constitution specifically both divests Buganda of
its autonomy and alters its internal power structure. It may no longer elect its
members to the national assembly indirectly, have an independent civil service
establishment. Furthermore, its administrative chiefs no longer have control
over certain official lands (nor may they receive the rent from the
land), and they no longer have the right have the right to sit as voting members
in the Buganda Lukiiko (assembly). Finally, in a later action, the central
government divided Buganda into four districts for administrative purposes and
put each under the direct supervision of a team of its own civil
servants.
The way for this radical reorganization of
Uganda's political frame work was prepared in february when, in rapid
succession, Obote had the leading members of the ibingira-group arrested,
declared he was assuming emergency powers, suspended sections of the
constitution-- notably those defining the offices of president and Vice
president-- removed the commander of the army, Brigadier General Saban O.
Opolot, an Itesot (Eastern) married to a daughter of a former Katikiro of
Buganda, replacing him with Iddi Amin, like himself a Langi, (For
the record Iddi Amin was not a Langi so this statement is
untrue) and charged the Kabaka with having secretly
negotiated to bring foreign troops into Uganda. Then, on April 5th, the
existence of a new constitution was announced to an abruptly convened national
assembly, and after its contents were outlined, the assembled members voted
their approval, including their approval of Obote as the first Executive
President. Buganda refused to accept the new constitution, tension built up, and
in May its Lukiiko resolved that the central government should remove its
self with in ten days from its offices in Entebbe and Kampala, the
country's main administrative cities, both of which lie geographically
within Buganda boundaries. The central government, assuming that the resolution
probably prefigured a rebellion, moved quickly and arrested three key
administrative chiefs. The baganda country side, on hearing of the arrests, then
did infact revolt, but in apparently unco-ordinated fashion; some Police posts
were attacked and over run, some telephone wires were cut, some roads to
Kampala blocked off, and so forth. The government's response was swift and
drastic. The government went directly to the Kabaka's Palace in Mengo,
adjacent to Kampala, and after what most reports describe as a fierce day long
battle, in which, according to several estimates, several hundreds
from both sides were killed, it succeeded by night fall in reducing the
buildings to rubble and scattering the remaining defenders. Organised resistance
was thus rapidly crushed, but the Buganda country side continued to be
seen of sporadic incidents, and mobile army units had to patrol most parts of
the Kingdom for some time, while the state of emergency, declared at the time
the three chiefs were arrested, stayed in effect for several months. Mutesa and
his Katikiro, Mayanja Nkangi, were at first believed killed in the siege, but
each eventually made his way to exile in London. Their absence, the
state of emergency, and the complete break down of the administration in
the Kingdom led the government to attempt to restore order by dividing it
into the four administrative areas mentioned earlier and assigning central
government civil servants supervise the work in these divisions. There matters
stood, in the summer of 1966.
To be continued.
As we end the first phase, we are going
to do some concluding reflections next, Phase 2 after? You bet.
(Like I said
Yayix!!!)
The Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy" Groupe de communication Mulindwas "avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie" |
