Uganda - Military Personnel
Changes in Ethnic Composition
Protectorate officials posted most military recruits away from their home areas and among people of different ethnic, linguistic, and religious backgrounds. This practice was intended to ensure loyalty to military commanders and reduce military sympathies for local citizens.
During the Colonial period, the British Government recruited heavily among the Acholi for the uniformed services (army, police and prison guards). The African sector of the colonial Army was not very representative of the ethnic composition of the country as a whole. The largest contingent was recruited from the north, especially from the people of Acholi. By 1914, Acholi had become the main recruiting ground for the KAR King's Africa Rifles, a pattern which was continued in the post-colonial period. Acholi soldiers participated with the British in World War II in combat theaters throughout the world.
Army Commander Col. Idi Amin – an ethnic Kakwa and a Muslim who claimed to be from Koboko County in the West Nile's Arua District – overthrew Obote in January 1971. The army changed composition under Amin's rule. Fearing the army’s Acholi and Langi elements, he ordered them to the barracks, and early in his regime had many hundreds of their officers and enlisted men killed. The Amin regime was characterized by the elimination of many prominent, educated or prosperous Acholi in Kampala as well as in the north, including in 1977 the Anglican Archbishop of Uganda. Some Acholi assert that an entire generation of Acholi leaders was eliminated or forced into exile during these years.
Amin replaced the Acholi in the army with West Nilers, especially Kakwa and Aringa people from northern Arua and with a group many Ugandans refer to as “Sudanese.” The term “Sudanese” apparently refers to Sudanese migrant laborers long settled in Uganda and their descendants, who resided around the Jinja area near Kampala; or their relatives from southern Sudan (and some from northeastern Zaire) who were invited to join the Amin forces. That is, the “Sudanese” may have simply been Sudanese.
By 1977 the Army had grown to 21,000 personnel, almost twice the 1971 level. Amin killed many of its more experienced officers and imprisoned others for plotting to weaken or overthrow his regime. A few fled the country rather than face the mounting danger. Amin also increased the number of military recruits from other countries, especially Sudan, Zaire, and Rwanda. By one account by 1979 foreigners accounted for nearly 75 percent of the army, exacerbating problems of communication, training, and discipline. The government barely controlled some army units. A few became quasi-independent occupation garrisons, headed by violence-prone warlords who lived off the land by brutalizing the local population.
As national and international disaffection with Amin increased, anti-Government elements (including the current president, Yoweri Museveni) coalesced in Tanzania during the late 1970s, and organized to overthrow him. According to some northerners, Ugandan Acholis residing as refugees in Sudan as well as Acholi in Gulu and Kitgum living in their home areas were recruited for this purpose. In Tanzania, they organized and trained to participate in the Ugandan National Liberation Army (UNLA). The Tanzanian Army and the UNLA invaded Uganda and in April 1979 overthrew the Amin forces, many of whom retreated to Sudan.
In 1981 Yoweri Kaguta Museveni organized the Popular Resistance Army (PRA), and a year later negotiated a merger with Yusuf Lule, the first president of Uganda after the fall of Amin, and incorporating the guerrillas Lule had recruited. The new organization was named the NRA; Lule became chair and Museveni became deputy chair and army commander. This arrangement enabled Museveni to recruit and train Baganda (people of Buganda; sing., Muganda) men and women to fight for the NRA, even though he was a Muhima from Mbarara District. When Lule died in 1985, Museveni became chair of the NRA.
Following three brief interim presidencies (Lule, Binaisa and Muwanga), and an election whose integrity was widely questioned, President Obote was returned to power in 1980. The “Obote II” Ugandan army, now the UNLA, again included a predominant Acholi element. Its proportion was estimated by some Acholi sources as about 30% to 40% of the approximately 35,000-person force. A larger proportion of officers than enlisted men may have been Acholis. The army, often perceived by the public as largely of Acholi origin, was used by the government for the unenviable job of settling power disputes and carrying out unpopular government orders, gaining for it the enmity of many Ugandans.
In July 1985, Acholi elements in the UNLA, led by Lieutenant General Basilio Olara-Okello, himself an Acholi, overthrew the Obote government. General Tito Okello Lutwa (not related to Basilio), himself an Acholi from Namuokora (Kitgum District), became President. President Obote and most of the Langi in the military were expelled and a predominantly Acholi government took power.
Incidents of looting and rape of northern civilians by recently recruited southern NRA soldiers, who had replaced better disciplined but battle-weary troops, intensified northerners' belief that southerners would take revenge for earlier atrocities and that the government would not stop them. In this atmosphere, the NRA order in early August 1986 for all soldiers in the former army, the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA), to report to local police stations gave rise to panic. These soldiers knew that during the Obote and Amin governments such an order was likely to have been a prelude to execution. Instead of reporting, many soldiers joined rebel movements, and a new round of civil wars began in earnest.
In the late 1980s, President Museveni attempted to halt this cycle of ethnic-based recruitment. He sought to recruit personnel from all regions, reduce the army's political role, and strengthen its image as a national security force. However, even this program of eliminating preferences created a backlash against attempts to achieve equitable regional and ethnic representation in the military.
As recently as 2012 one senior officer lamented that Buganda had very few generals in the UDPF, despite the numerous highly qualified Baganda in the army. However, Maj Gen Kayemba, a former chief of training and operations, vehemently challenged this claim. Kayemba said there are many senior officers in the national army who hail from Buganda, including himself.
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