The history of Uganda comprises the history of the people who inhabited the territory of present-day Uganda before the establishment of the Republic of Uganda, and the history of that country once it was established. Evidence from the Paleolithic era shows humans have inhabited Uganda for at least 50,000 years. The forests of Uganda were gradually cleared for agriculture by people who probably spoke Central Sudanic languages. The Empire of Kitara grew out of the Urewe culture in the 10th century. Following the migration and invasion of Luo peoples c. 15th century, Kitara would collapse, and from the ashes rose various Biito kingdoms such as Bunyoro alongside Buganda.[citation needed]
Paleolithic evidence of human activity in Uganda goes back to at least 50,000 years, and perhaps as far as 100,000 years, as shown by the Acheulean stone tools recovered from the former environs of Lake Victoria, which were exposed along the Kagera River valley, chiefly around Nsonezi.[1]
The cultivators who gradually cleared the forest were probably Bantu-speaking people, whose slow but inexorable expansion gradually took over most of sub-Saharan Africa. They also raised goats and chickens, and they probably kept some cattle by 400 BCE. Their knowledge of agriculture and use of iron-forging technology permitted them to clear the land and feed ever larger numbers of settlers. They displaced small bands of indigenoushunter-gatherers, who relocated to the less accessible mountains.[2]
Meanwhile, by the first century CE and possibly as early as the fourth century BCE in Western Tanzania, certain related Bantu-speaking metallurgists were perfecting iron smelting to produce medium grade carbon steel in pre-heated forced-draught furnaces. Although most of these developments were taking place southwest of modern Ugandan boundaries, iron was mined and smelted in many parts of the country not long afterward.[2]
From 1900 to 1920, a sleeping sicknessepidemic in the southern part of Uganda, along the north shores of Lake Victoria, killed more than 250,000 people.[6] British administrators like George Wilson CB attempted to address the serious scale of the public health crisis in the intervening years.
Uganda was granted its independence in 1962, although elections leading to internal self-governance were held on 1 March 1961. Benedicto Kiwanuka of the Democratic Party became the first chief minister. Milton Obote was elected Prime Minister in April 1962 and Uganda became a republic in October 1962, maintaining its Commonwealth membership.
In succeeding years, supporters of a centralized state vied with those in favor of a loose federation and a strong role for tribally-based local kingdoms. Political maneuvering climaxed in February 1966, when Milton Obote, the Prime Minister, suspended the constitution and assumed all government powers, removing the positions of president and vice president. In September 1967, a new constitution proclaimed Uganda a republic, gave the president even greater powers, and abolished the traditional kingdoms.
After a military coup on 25 January 1971, Obote was deposed from power and the dictator Idi Amin seized control of the country. Amin ruled Uganda with the military for the next eight years[7]
In 1972, under the so-called "Africanization" policy under Idi Amin, about 40,000 ethnic Indians with British passports were forced to leave Uganda. Approximately 7,000 were invited to settle in Canada; however, only a limited number accepted the offer, and the 2006 census reported 3,300 people of Ugandan origin in Canada. The loss of the entrepreneurial Indian minority left the country's economy in ruins.[8]
Amin's eight-year rule produced economic growth. The Acholi and Langiethnic groups in northern Uganda were particular objects of Amin's political persecution because they had supported Obote and made up a large part of the army.[9] In 1978, the International Commission of Jurists — a statistic cited at the end of the 2006 movie The Last King of Scotland, which chronicled part of Amin's dictatorship. Amin's atrocities were graphically recounted in the 1977 book, A State of Blood, written by one of his former ministers after he fled the country, Henry Kyemba.
Amin's rule ended after the Uganda-Tanzania War in which Tanzanian forces aided by Ugandan exiles invaded Uganda. The conflict started with a border altercation involving Ugandan exiles who had a camp close to the Ugandan border near Mutukula. This resulted in an attack by the Ugandan Army into Tanzania. In October 1978, the Tanzanian Armed Forces repulsed this incursion and, backed by Ugandan exiles, invaded Uganda. Amin's troops were assisted by Libyan soldiers. On 11 April 1979, the capital Kampala was captured and Amin fled with his remaining forces to Libya.
After Amin's removal, the Uganda National Liberation Front formed an interim government with Yusuf Lule as president and Jeremiah Lucas Opira as the Secretary-General of the UNLF. This government adopted a ministerial system of administration and created a quasi-parliamentary organ known as the National Consultative Commission (NCC). The NCC and the Lule cabinet reflected widely differing political views. In June 1979, following a dispute over the extent of presidential powers, the NCC replaced Lule with Godfrey Binaisa.
In a continuing dispute over the powers of the interim presidency, Binaisa was removed in May 1980. Thereafter, Uganda was ruled by a military commission chaired by Paulo Muwanga. The December 1980 elections returned the UPC to power under Milton Obote's leadership, with Muwanga serving as vice president. Under Obote, the security forces had one of the world's worst human rights records. In their efforts to stamp out an insurgency led by Yoweri Museveni, they laid waste to a substantial section of the country, especially in the Luwero area north of Kampala.
The insurgency, the so-called "bush war", was conducted by the National Resistance Army (NRA), under the leadership of Yoweri Museveni, and other rebel groups including the Federal Democratic Movement led by Andrew Kayiira and another led by John Nkwaanga. During the conflict the army carried out mass killings of non-combatants.[10]
Obote was overthrown on 27 July 1985, when an army brigade, composed mostly of ethnic Acholi troops and commanded by Lt. Gen. Bazilio Olara-Okello, took Kampala and proclaimed a military government. Obote fled to exile in Zambia. The new regime, headed by former defense force commander Gen. Tito Okello (no relation to Lt. Gen. Olara-Okello), opened negotiations with Museveni's insurgent forces and pledged to improve respect for human rights, end tribal rivalry, and conduct free and fair elections. In the meantime, massive human rights violations continued as the Okello government carried out a brutal counter-insurgency in an attempt to destroy the NRA's support.
Negotiations between the Okello government and the NRA were conducted in Nairobi in the fall of 1985, with Kenyan PresidentDaniel arap Moi seeking a ceasefire and a coalition government in Uganda. Although agreeing in late 1985 to a ceasefire, the NRA continued fighting and seized Kampala and the country in late January 1986, forcing Okello's forces to flee north into Sudan. Museveni's forces organized a government with Museveni as president.
After assuming power, the government dominated by the political grouping created by Museveni and his followers, the National Resistance Movement (NRM or the "Movement"), largely put an end to the human rights abuses of earlier governments, initiated substantial political liberalization and general press freedom, and instituted broad economic reforms after consultation with the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and donor governments......
However, from 1986 to 1994, a variety of rebel groups waged a civil war against the Ugandan government of President Museveni. Most of the fighting took place in the country's north and east, although the western and central regions were also affected. The most important insurgent factions were the Uganda People's Democratic Army (UPDA), the Uganda People's Army (UPA), Alice Auma's Holy Spirit Movement (HSM), and Joseph Kony's army (which later became the Lord's Resistance Army). For further details see War in Uganda (1986-1994).
August 2005, Parliament voted to change the constitution to lift presidential term limits, allowing Museveni to run for a third term if he wished to do so. In a referendum in July 2005, 92.5 percent of voters supported the restoration of multiparty politics, thereby scrapping the no-party or "movement" system. Kizza Besigye, Museveni's political rival, returned from exile in October 2005 and was a presidential candidate during the 2006 elections. In the same month, Obote died in South Africa. Museveni won the February 2006 presidential election.
The 2016 Ugandan general election was held in Uganda on 18 February 2016 to elect the president and parliament. Polling day was declared a national holiday.[17][18] Ahead of the election, Museveni described the formation of an East African Federation uniting Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and South Sudan as "the number one target that we should aim at."[19] In September 2018 a committee was formed to begin the process of drafting a regional constitution,[20] and a draft constitution for a confederation is set to be written by 2021, with implementation of the confederacy by 2023.[21]
The 2021 Ugandan general election re-elected president Museveni to a sixth term, but international observers complained of government violence and disinformation, suppression of independent media and opposition campaigning, the arrest of opposition leaders, the shutdown of the Internet, and harassment of observers. According to official results, Museveni won the elections with 58% of the vote while popstar-turned-politician Bobi Wine had 35%. The opposition challenged the result because of allegations of widespread fraud and irregularities.[22][23]
Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The southern part includes a substantial portion of Lake Victoria, shared with Kenya and Tanzania. Uganda is in the African Great Lakes region, it lies within the Nile basin, and has a varied equatorial climate. As of 2024, it has a population of over 49 million, of which 8.5 million live in the capital and largest city, Kampala.
Apollo Milton Obote was a Ugandan politician who served as the second prime minister of Uganda from 1962 to 1966 and the second president of Uganda from 1966 to 1971 and later from 1980 to 1985.
The History of Uganda from 1979 to 1986 comprises the history of Uganda since the end of the dictatorship of Idi Amin. This period has seen the second rule of Milton Obote and the presidency of Yoweri Museveni since 1986, in which Ugandan politics have been dominated by the National Resistance Movement.
Tito Lutwa Okello was a Ugandan military officer and politician who served as the eighth president of Uganda from 29 July 1985 until 26 January 1986.
The National Resistance Army (NRA) was a guerilla army and the military wing of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) that fought in the Ugandan Bush War against the government of Milton Obote, and later the government of Tito Okello. NRA was supported by Muammar Gaddafi.
The Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF) was a political group formed by exiled Ugandans opposed to the rule of military dictator Idi Amin. The UNLF had an accompanying military wing, the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA). UNLA fought alongside Tanzanian forces in the Uganda–Tanzania War that led to the overthrow of Amin's regime. The group ruled Uganda from the overthrow of Amin in April 1979 until the disputed national elections in December 1980.
Yusuf Kironde Lule was a Ugandan professor and politician who served as the fourth president of Uganda between 13 April and 20 June 1979.
The Forum for Democratic Change, founded on 16 December 2004, is the main opposition party in Uganda. The FDC was founded as an umbrella body called Reform Agenda, mostly for disenchanted former members and followers of President Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Movement (NRM). Party president Kizza Besigye, formerly a close ally of Museveni, was a candidate in 2001, 2006, 2011 and 2016 presidential elections. In November 2012, Mugisha Muntu was elected as President of the FDC until November 2017 when he was defeated by Patrick Oboi Amuriat the current party President until 2022.
The Uganda People's Congress is a political party in Uganda.
Salim Saleh is a retired Ugandan military officer who served in the Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF), the armed forces of Uganda. He is a brother to the President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, and an adviser to the President on military matters. He served as Minister of State for microfinance from 2006 to 2008. Saleh's name has surfaced in controversies regarding corruption, including being implicated by the UN Security Council for plundering natural resources in Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Nairobi Agreement was a peace deal between the Ugandan government of Tito Okello and the National Resistance Army (NRA) rebel group led by Yoweri Museveni. The accords were signed in Nairobi, Kenya in December 1985.
Akena p'Ojok is a former influential Ugandan politician who held various government positions in the 1980s, including Minister of Power, Posts and Telecommunications. He was a prominent figure of Uganda National Liberation Front/Army that helped remove Idi Amin and was involved in the power struggles that followed.
David Oyite Ojok was a Ugandan military officer who held a leadership position in the coalition of Uganda National Liberation Army and Tanzania People's Defence Force which removed military dictator Idi Amin in 1979 and, until his death in a helicopter crash, served as the national army chief of staff with the rank of major general.
The Ugandan Bush War was a civil war fought in Uganda by the official Ugandan government and its armed wing, the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA), against a number of rebel groups, most importantly the National Resistance Army (NRA), from 1980 to 1986.
Kikosi Maalum, also known as the Special Battalion or the grand coalition, was a militia of Ugandan exiles formed in Tanzania to fight against the regime of Idi Amin. The unit was founded by and loyal to former Ugandan President Milton Obote, and served as his de facto private army. It was commanded by former army officers David Oyite-Ojok, and Tito Okello. Kikosi Maalum took part in the Uganda–Tanzania War, fighting alongside the Tanzanian military against Amin's forces. In course of this conflict, the militia was nominally unified with other Ugandan rebel groups, forming the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA) in 1979. After the fall of Amin's regime and Obote's return to power, Kikosi Maalum became the core of Uganda's new national army.
The military history of Uganda begins with actions before the conquest of the country by the British Empire. After the British conquered the country, there were various actions, including in 1887, and independence was granted in 1962. After independence, Uganda was plagued with a series of conflicts, most rooted in the problems caused by colonialism. Like many African nations, Uganda endured a series of civil wars and coup d'états. Since the 2000s in particular, the Uganda People's Defence Force has been active in peacekeeping operations for the African Union and the United Nations.
The 1985 Ugandan coup d'état was an ethnically motivated military takeover in Uganda involving dissident Acholi elements within the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA), led by Brigadier Basilio Olara Okello, which successfully ousted the second Milton Obote government. The army promptly named General Tito Okello Lutwa as President of the Military Council, only for him to be ousted six months later by Yoweri Museveni and his National Resistance Army (NRA).
The Battle of Kampala was a battle of the Ugandan Bush War that took place from 17 to 26 January 1986 in which forces of the National Resistance Army (NRA) attacked and captured the Ugandan capital, Kampala, from the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA). As a result, the Ugandan government was deposed and replaced by a new one under NRA leader Yoweri Museveni.
Turkey has an embassy in Kampala. Uganda has an embassy in Ankara.
The 1972 invasion of Uganda was an armed attempt by Ugandan insurgents, supported by Tanzania, to overthrow the regime of Idi Amin. Under the orders of former Ugandan President Milton Obote, insurgents launched an invasion of southern Uganda with limited Tanzanian support in September 1972. The rebel force mostly consisted of the "People's Army" whose forces were mainly loyal to Obote, but also included guerillas led by Yoweri Museveni. The operation was hampered by problems from the start, as a planned rebel commando raid had to be aborted, Amin was warned of the impending invasion, and the rebels lacked numbers, training, and equipment. Regardless, the militants occupied a few towns in southern Uganda at the invasion's start. However, no major popular uprising erupted as Obote had hoped.
Phyllis Martin and Patrick O'Meara (1995), Africa. 3rd edition, Indiana University Press
Further reading
Amone, Charles, and Okullu Muura. "British Colonialism and the Creation of Acholi Ethnic Identity in Uganda, 1894 to 1962." Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 42.2 (2014): 239–257.
Clarke, Ian, ed. Uganda - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture (2014) excerpt
Griffiths, Tudor. “Bishop Alfred Tucker and the Establishment of a British Protectorate in Uganda 1890-94.” Journal of Religion in Africa 31#1 2001, pp.92–114. online.
Hansen, Holger Bernt. "Uganda in the 1970s: a decade of paradoxes and ambiguities". Journal of Eastern African Studies (2013) 7#1: 83–103. doi:10.1080/17531055.2012.755315.
Hansen, H. B., and M. Twaddle, eds. Developing Uganda (Ohio University Press, 1998).
Ibingira, G. S. The Forging of an African Nation: The Political and Constitutional Evolution of Uganda from Colonial Rule to Independence, 1894–1962 (Viking, 1980)
Jørgensen, Jan Jelmert, Uganda: a modern history (1981) online
Karugire, S. R. The History of Nkore - A History of the Kingdom of Nkore in Western Uganda to 1896. (Clarendon Press, 1971).
Kasozi, A. B. K. The Social Origins of Violence in Uganda (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1994)
Martel, Gordon. "Cabinet politics and African partition: The Uganda debate reconsidered." Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 13.1 (1984): 5-24.
Mutibwa, Phares Mukasa. Uganda since independence: a story of unfulfilled hopes (Africa World Press, 1992).
Ofcansky, Thomas P. Uganda: tarnished pearl of Africa (Westview press, 1999).
Omara-Otunnu, Amii. Politics and the Military in Uganda, 1890–1985 (Springer, 1987).
Reid, Richard J. A history of modern Uganda (Cambridge University Press, 2017), the standard scholarly history. online
Reid, Andrew. "Constructing history in Uganda." Journal of African History 57.2 (2016): 195–207. online, focus on Historical Archaeology
Reuss, Anna. "Forever vanguards of the revolution: the Uganda People's Defence Forces’ liberation legacy, 30 years on." Journal of Eastern African Studies 14.2 (2020): 250-269.
Sejjaaka, Samuel. "A political and economic history of Uganda, 1962–2002." in International Businesses and the Challenges of Poverty in the Developing World (Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2004) pp.98–110. online
Ssekamwa, J.C. History and Development of Education in Uganda (Fountain Publishers, 1997).
Stephens, Rhiannon. A history of African motherhood: The case of Uganda, 700-1900 (Cambridge University Press, 2013).
Thompson, G. Governing Uganda: British Colonial Rule and Its Legacy (Kampala: Fountain Publishers, 2003).
Twaddle, Michael. "The Bakungu chiefs of Buganda under British colonial rule, 1900–1930." Journal of African History 10#2 (1969): 309–322.
Ward, Kevin. "A history of Christianity in Uganda." in From mission to church: A handbook of Christianity in East Africa (1991): 81-112 online.
Willis, J. "Killing Bwana: peasant revenge and political panic in Early Colonial Ankole" Journal of African History, 35 (1994), 379–400.
Wrigley, C. Kingship and State: the Buganda dynasty (Cambridge UP, 1996),
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