Uganda travel guide

For many centuries, the region now known as Uganda was divided into kingdoms, ruled by tribal chiefs. Kingdoms such as Buganda were highly organised, with powerful armies, walled cities and tax collection systems. Away from the coast, it remained unexplored by Europeans, Asians and Arabs until the mid-19th century, when ivory supplies along the coast became severely depleted, and Arab traders began to venture further inland. The Buganda traded their ivory for cloth and firearms, while in the north, the Achioli cattle herders sold their ivory to the Egyptians, and international trade began to spread. While the Arabs made attempts to introduce Islam, British explorers brought Protestantism, converting the Buganda king and establishing missions across the region. Soon after, the French brought Catholicism, and a religious civil war soon ensued, as Muslim, Protestant and Catholic converts all fought for control.

At the end of the 19th century, the Protestants wrested control, and the British began to lay claim to this land. Some tribes relinquished control through signed agreements, others were defeated by mercenaries, and the loyal Baganda people were rewarded with a doubling of their territory, heightening tribal frictions. Uganda became a British Protectorate, in which power was placed largely in the hands of local chiefs. This became a form of colonialism-within-colonialism, as these chiefs were almost all Baganda, and they imposed their language, Luganda, as well as their dress, traditions and religion on other tribes.

The Uganda Railway which stretched across Kenya to the Indian Ocean opened up the possibilities for exports. Cotton, and later sugarcane, were grown on vast plantations, money began to pour in and literacy rates soared with the increase in Christian missions. But while Ugandan peasants laboured in the fields, the colonial government favoured Indian intermediaries for processing and selling the crops, locking Africans out of any positions of management or control, and unrest grew.

Riots flared up in 1949, as the Ugandans demanded the removal of the Asian monopoly and the right to choose their own representatives in government. The British began to take steps towards planning for independence, but the still-tribal Ugandans were even less keen to be governed centrally by Buganda than they were by the British, especially given the disastrous transitions in Kenya and Rhodesia. Political and tribal factions argued and boycotted, but independence was pushed through and in 1962 Milton Obote, head of the Ugandan People’s Congress (UPC) was voted in, and became Prime Minister of the newly independent Uganda later that year.

It didn’t take him long to become power crazed. In 1966, he proclaimed Uganda a republic, abolished the tribal kingdoms and assumed total control of this new nation. Five years later, Obote’s former ally Idi Amin Dada mounted a military coup and overthrew Obote. Ruling the country alongside the military, he maintained power through force and terror, killing an anywhere between 100,000 and 300,000 Ugandans, and removing over half a million Indians from the country, destroying the economy. He persecuted the northern Acholi and Langi tribespeople in particular, due to their support for Obote. After eight years in power, during which time he virtually destroyed the country, Amin fled to Libya as Tanzanian troops – along with Ugandan exiles – fought a liberation war and captured Kampala. Obote returned to the presidency for a further six years – though his human rights record was barely any better than Amin’s, as he attempted to get rid of insurgencies led by Yoweri Museveni. Obote was once again overthrown, and Museveni seized power in 1986 – he remains president of Uganda to this day. Museveni’s presidency sparked armed resistance in the far north, however, with a 20-year civil war fought by the Lord’s Resistance Army, led by Joseph Kony, notorious for the horrific abduction of children from across the region, who were then forced into becoming guerrilla fighters for the LRA. But most of Uganda seems to have resigned itself to Museveni remaining in power until his death. While his presidency has been marred by corruption and living standards have improved little over the last three decades, many Ugandans have been content to have Museveni as their leader as he is not a bloodthirsty tyrant like Amin or Obote – the only other leaders most Ugandans have ever known. While there are problems with infrastructure, water supplies, electricity and education, it seems that most Ugandans have settled for peace over possible turmoil.