The People of Uganda: A Social Perspective
Author: Godfrey Mwakikagile
Paperback: 230 pages
Publisher: New Africa Press (11 June 2012)
ISBN-10: 9987160336
ISBN-13: 978-9987160334
Uganda after Independence:
Obstacles to National Unity
AMONG the three East African countries of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika which united with Zanzibar in 1964 to form Tanzania, Uganda faced the biggest threat to national unity soon after independence.
The threat came from the Buganda kingdom which did not want to be an integral part of Uganda. It wanted to reclaim its status as an independent kingdom which it enjoyed before colonial rule. It was forcibly united with the other kingdoms and traditional centres of power by the British to form Uganda.
Dissatisfaction among the Baganda, under their king known as kabaka, led to demands for independence for the kingdom. The demands amounted to secessionist threats. Their complaint was simple. They did not want to be an integral part of Uganda. They wanted to have their own country.
The secessionist threats were swiftly neutralised by Uganda's first prime minister, Milton Obote, who led the country to independence. He was greatly resented by the Baganda because of his determination to assert control over their kingdom in order to maintain national unity at any cost.
Some people in Buganda wanted federation for Uganda instead of having a highly centralised state which almost had absolute control over the whole country because power was concentrated at the centre under the national government.
But this concession by some Baganda nationalists – who considered their kingdom to be a nation within a nation but who probably knew they would not succeed in seceding – was also rejected by the national leaders, especially Obote.
The national leaders felt that a federal form of government posed a threat to national unity in a country that was divided along ethnoregional lines with very strong traditional centres of power, especially the kingdoms of Buganda, Bunyoro, Ankole, Toro and the princedom of Busoga whose demands for autonomy could lead to demands for independence.
In fact, the first government formed at independence was no more than a coalition of these regional blocs and various interest groups including religious ones – Protestant, Catholic and Islamic – which did not even have a common nationalist agenda besides a few leaders who advocated unity at the national level transcending ethnicity and regionalism. All these divisions and rivalries persisted and became an enduring phenomenon of Ugandan national life years after independence even if in varying degrees of intensity.
Compromises to form the first government at independence entailed inclusion – in the cabinet – of some of the leading politicians from the kingdoms and other parts of the country to reflect ethnic and regional balance. Prime Minister Obote came from the north. His stronghold was among his fellow kinsmen, the Langi (also known as Lango) in Lango District. He was also supported by the Acholi, the dominant group in northern Uganda.
Mr. Grace Ibingira came from the Ankole kingdom and was also a member of parliament for Ankole West. He also served as justice minister and secretary-general of the ruling Uganda People's Congress which drew its greatest strength and support from different parts of the country – especially in the north and in the west – outside Buganda where the dominant party was the Kabaka Yekka whose membership and leadership was almost exclusively Bugandan; while that of the Democratic Party led by Benedicto Kiwanuka, who also came from the Buganda kingdom, was predominantly Catholic.
It was also Grace Ibingira who designed Uganda's national flag.
Other prominent members in the cabinet who came from different parts of the country included Felix Onama from the West Nile District – home of Idi Amin – in northwestern Uganda. Onama first served as interior minister and later as defence minister. As defence minister, both the military and the police were under his jurisdiction. He also once served as secretary-general of the Uganda People's Congress.
Others included George Magezi from Bunyoro kingdom, Dr. Emmanuel Lumu, Buganda kingdom, Cuthbert Obwangor from Iteso, Mathias Ngobi from Busoga, John Babiiha from Toro kingdom, John Lwamafa from Bukiga, Adoko Nekyon from Lango, Alex Ojera from Acholi, N. M. Patel, an Indian; Sam Odaka from Musamia, John Kakonge from Bunyoro, Shaban Nkutu from Busoga, Joshua Wakholi from Bugisu, Lameck Lubowa from Buganda, Max Choudry from Karamoja, and others.
They also represented all the major religious groups in Uganda: Protestant, Catholic, and Muslim.
Yet the cabinet was not a monolithic whole. Its composition was deliberately structured to represent competing and even conflicting interests, local and regional as well as religious, without a single unifying ideology. Its members ranged from the most reactionary to the most revolutionary; from idealists and visionaries to realists and pragmatists; from liberals to conservatives; tribalists to nationalists and pan-Africanists, and so on.
While some of the prominent politicians from the kingdoms sought to maintain the territorial integrity of Uganda even if under a highly decentralised federal structure, although they supported Obote in his determination to build a unitary state, the Buganda kingdom sought secession. The kingdom tried to secede even before independence and wanted to attain sovereign status separate from the rest of Uganda.
But that was not the kind of political arrangement Ugandan leaders who led their country to independence wanted to have. They did not want any part of Uganda to secede. And they did not want the country to have a weak government. What was needed, according to Obote and other national leaders, was a strong central government which could keep the country together. As Professor Saadia Touval states in his book The Boundary Politics of Independent Africa:
“Uganda's unity has been threatened both before and after independence by separatist sentiments among the important Baganda people who possessed, until 1966, a measure of autonomy in their Buganda kingdom.” – (Saadia Touval, The Boundary Politics of Independent Africa, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA: Harvard College, 1972, 1999, p. 30).
Buganda threatened to secede in the fifties. And about two years before independence, it again threatened to secede. That was in 1960. Other kingdoms in Uganda also posed a threat to national unity, only in varying degrees.
Secessionist sentiments among the Banyoro of Bunyoro kingdom were partly fuelled by the Baganda who had territorial disputes with them. What are known as “the lost counties” were transferred from the Bunyoro kingdom to the Buganda kingdom by the British during the advent of colonial rule.
Also, the fact that Buganda was the most powerful kingdom in Uganda played a role in encouraging the Banyoro in their quest for greater autonomy and even for independence to avoid being dominated by the Baganda if they remained an integral part of Uganda. They believed that after independence, Uganda would be dominated by the Baganda.
Their quest for autonomy was also compounded by nationalism among the Banyoro themselves who did not consider themselves to be a part of Uganda. As James Minahan states in his work, Encyclopedia of The Stateless Nations: Ethnic and National Groups Around the World:
“Ganda domination and the Lost Counties controversy initiated the growth of modern Nyoro nationalism.
The movement began as an anti-Ganda popular movement. The Nyoro also saw the British as their enemies, powerful protectors of their ancient rivals in Buganda.
In 1921 Nyoro nationalists formed a political group called Mubende-Bunyoro, which quickly became the kingdom's most popular political party; its demands included the return of the Lost Counties and secession from British Buganda. The British treated the kingdom as conquered territory until 1933, when the king (omukama) finally signed a protectorate agreement.
The territorial dispute between Bunyoro and Buganda acquired renewed importance when Britain prepared Uganda for independence. In 1961 the omukama refused to attend a constitutional conference until the British authorities resolved the conflict.
The Ganda refused to negotiate, setting off a serious crisis as Bunyoro moved toward secession and prepared for war.
British mediation produced an agreement to hold a plebiscite in the disputed area, finally allowing Uganda to achieve independence in 1962. The Kingdom of Bunyoro reluctantly agreed to accept autonomy and a semifederal status within Uganda.
In 1964 the inhabitants of the Lost Counties voted to return to Bunyoro. The conflict again became a crisis when the Ganda government refused to accept the results of the plebiscite.
Nyoro soldiers gathered in Hoima and prepared for war, but the dispute quickly lost importance as even more serious threats menaced the kingdoms. The Ugandan government, dominated by non-Bantu northern tribes, instituted laws to curtail the kingdoms' autonomy. In 1966 the government abrogated the autonomy statutes and in 1967 abolished the kingdoms as administrative units.” – (James Minahan, Encyclopedia of The Stateless Nations: Ethnic and National Groups Around the World, Westport, Connecticut, USA: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002, p. 1429. See also, cited by James Minahan, V.W. Nyakatura, Anatomy of an African Kingdom: A History of Bunyoro-Kitara, 1973; Clarence Apuuli, A Thousand Years of the Bunyoro-Kitara Kingdom, 1981; and Phares Mutibwa, Lawrenceville, New Jersey, USA: Uganda Since Independence: A Story of Unfulfilled Hopes, Africa World Press, 1992).
Minahan goes on to state:
“Nyoro nationalists enthusiastically supported the overthrow of the hated government (of President Milton Obote) in 1971 by a young army colonel, Idi Amin Dada.
Amin's new government, a brutal dictatorship dominated by Amin's small northern Muslim tribe, soon lost all support in Bunyoro. In 1972, Nyoro leaders, sickened by the excesses of the Amin regime, called for Bunyoro secession, but the movement lost momentum as Amin's henchmen systematically eliminated its leaders.
The infamous Amin regime, finally overthrown in 1979, gave way to a series of weak, unstable Ugandan governments. A large resistance movement arose among the southern Bantu peoples of the former kingdoms of the southwest, led by Yoweri Museveni, an ethnic Ankole. After years of bush warfare, Museveni took control of Uganda in 1986 and created the country's first Bantu-dominated government.
Relative peace and democracy permitted the rebirth of Nyoro nationalism, based on demands for the restoration of the kingdom. A more radical minority advocated the secession of Bunyoro from Uganda, arguing that the kingdom's inclusion in the multi-ethnic state had brought it only terror, death, and destruction.
In July 1993 the government allowed the partial restoration of the kingdom and the enthronement of a new Nyoro king, Solomon Iguru, a descendant of Kabarega and the 27th monarch of the Bito dynasty. In September 1993 nationalists demanded the restoration of the kingdom's traditional boundaries, including the Mubende area of Buganda, the Lost Counties.
The first national elections in 16 years were held in Uganda in April 1996. The majority of the Nyoros supported President Museveni, fearing the chaos and violence of the north of the country. The vote generally split along regional lines in Uganda, the the Bantu south supporting Museveni, while the Nilotic north supported opposition leaders.
For decades the Nyoros had been among the poorest of the peoples of Uganda, but in the 1990s they experienced a resurgence due to a new emphasis on cash-crop production by small-scale farmers. New prosperity and the partial restoration of the kingdom fueled demands for greater autonomy and for real political power for the new omukama. Presently, the king is a cultural leader, with no political or administrative power, but under his patronage the Nyoros are striving to salvage and maintain their age-old culture and kingdom....
In May 2001, the kingdom government took control of two palaces, royal burial grounds, and other cultural sites in the region from the Ugandan government. The monarchy has begun to reunite the Nyoros, who have had no unifying symbol since 1967.” – (James Minahan, Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations, ibid., pp. 1429 – 1430).
Although the kingdom is politically powerless, probably there are still many Nyoros who would like to regain their glorious past when they lived as an independent people under their own leadership.
There is latent nationalism among many people not only in Bunyoro but in other traditional kingdoms as well, although probably the majority, even if grudgingly, have conceded defeat and have accepted their status as an integral part of the modern nation of Uganda. But a resurgence of nationalism – micro-nationalism, sub-nationalism or proto-nationalism – among them can not be entirely ruled out in the future on a continent where ethnicity remains a potent force in national life.
Toro, an offshoot of Bunyoro, is another kingdom which has experienced nationalist awakening among its people who consider their homeland to be a separate entity although the majority, as in all the other kingdoms, acknowledge that they are an integral part of Uganda. But there has always been an undercurrent of sub-nationalism among the Toro like in other traditional societies and jurisdictions which constituted viable entities once ruled by their own people as nations or micro-nations until the British came and united them to form a bigger country that came to be known as Uganda.
It was also the British colonial rulers who encouraged nationalist aspirations among the Toro although they at the same time wanted to maintain Uganda's territorial integrity for administrative purposes to facilitate colonisation:
“Encouraged by the British, who believed that Ugandan independence was still decades away, the kingdom became the focus of Toro nationalism and identity. In 1953 the Toro royal government demanded federal status and the extension of the Lutoro language to all the kingdom's schools, even in the non-Toro Ruwenzori district.
The issue of Toro nationalism intensified as independence for Uganda neared in the late 1950s. Toro nationalism grew in an effort to keep the revenues from the Kilembe Copper Mine for themselves, and over what they perceived as lesser treatment for their omukama. Activists demanded that the omukama of Toro be granted the same privileges as the kabaka, the king, of Buganda, Uganda's largest and most powerful kingdom.” – J. Minahan, Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations, ibid., p. 1912).
Inextricably linked with Toro aspirations for autonomy and even for independence if possible is the Rwenzururu secessionist movement in the Ruwenzori – or Rwenzori – mountains in southwestern Uganda on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The Rwenzururu region is home to the Bakonjo and the Bamba, the dominant ethnic groups in the area who strongly resisted integration into the Toro kingdom by the British colonial rulers. As James Minahan states:
“The rapid growth of Toro nationalism parallelled the growing nationalism of the Konjo and Amba, in a reaction to increasing assimilation.
The two mountain peoples demanded separation from Toro and the creation of a separate Ruwenzori district within Uganda. The threat to the kingdom's territorial integrity raised Toro demands for recognition as an independent state before future relations with Uganda were regulated. On the eve of Ugandan independence the kingdom adopted a new constitution that ignored the Ruwenzori people's demands for official recognition of the kingdom's three peoples (Toro, Konjo, and Amba).
In 1962 the Toro accepted semifederal status within the newly independent Ugandan state. Toro nationalists, somewhat mollified by official recognition of the kingdom, blocked Konjo and Amba efforts to separate in a distinct district.
In early 1963 the mountain tribes rebelled, and on 13 February 1963 they declared independence as the Republic of Ruwenzuru, basing their claims to the entire Toro kingdom on historical possession and assertions that the Toro had migrated to the region from Bunyoro and should return to their original homeland.
Uganda's independence government, dominated by northerner Milton Obote, had little sympathy for the traditional Bantu monarchies in the southern districts. In 1967 the Obote government abolished the kingdoms as centers of local nationalism and separatism, and in 1970 the Ruwenzori rebels were finally defeated.
The Ugandan government (was) overthrown in a coup led by Idi Amin in 1971....Initial Toro support of Idi Amin in the belief that he would restore the kingdom quickly disappeared. Princess Elizabeth of Toro formed part of Amin's administration, but she was later framed and dismissed.
Persecution of the Christians fueled a revival of Toro separatism as Amin excesses accelerated (Amin was a Muslim). A strong secessionist movement in Toro ended in 1972 with the murder or disappearance of the majority of Toro's leadership.” – (Ibid., p. 1913).
Although Toro secessionist attempts were suppressed by Obote and later by Amin, there was no guarantee that they would not be rekindled in the future.
One of the main reasons for secessionist sentiments among many people in the different kingdoms was centralisation of power and dictatorial rule.
There was also, among southerners, opposition to domination of the national government by northerners, especially the Langi (Lango) and the Acholi. Obote. a Nilotic not a Bantu, was a Langi. The army and security forces were also dominated by northerners. Obote himself had become unpopular in the south especially after he abolished the kingdoms, all of which were in southern Uganda.
After his ouster by Amin in 1971, he returned to power in 1980:
“In 1980 Obote again took control of Uganda but met with stiff resistance in the southern Bantu regions. A Bantu supported resistance movement, led by Yoweri Museveni, rallied the peoples of the former southern kingdoms. Obote's efforts to destroy the rebels led to a great... loss of life....
Museveni finally took control of devastated Uganda in 1986, forming the country's first government controlled by the southern Bantus.
The relative freedom (under Museveni), after two decades of terror and destruction, rekindled Toro nationalism. The land issue, involving claims to territories taken from Toro during the colonial period and turned over to rival tribes, became the focus of the growing national movement.
In July 1993, with the Museveni government approval, the Toro kingdom was partially restored, and Patrick Olimi Kaboyo in 1995 was crowned as the twelfth king of Toro in Fort Portal. The monarchy became a cultural and expression, without its former political and administrative powers.
The Konjo and Amba of Bundibugyo District initially refused to relinquish the former royal lands they had occupied, but in March 1994 senior members of the Ruwenzori movement acknowledged the new king, officially ending the conflict that had begun three decades before. The Ruwenzori rebellion resumed in the late 1990s.
The Ugandan government's emphasis on cash crop production in the 1980s and 1990s aided economic recovery. Devastated during the 1960s and 1970s by civil wars and brutal dictatorships, the Toros had slipped back to a premodern existence. The economic resurgence parallelled the cultural and political revival of the kingdom.
Rebel groups in the Ruwenzori Mountains mounted raids on Toro towns in the western districts in early 2000, disrupting the tourism and farming industries. The rebels, mostly based among the Ruwenzoris, sought to separate the mountainous west from the Toro. Reaction to the threat to split their ancient kingdom raised nationalist tension in the kingdom to levels not seen since the early 1960s.
Toro nationalism, led by the Protestant minority, at the turn of the twenty-first century was less separatist than federalist. Many saw the king and the traditional legislature as the logical extension of Ugandan federalism. A completely restored Toro within a Ugandan federation would safeguard the Toro culture and traditions, while federalism and regional autonomy would support the moderate nationalist demands against the more radical aims of the small militant minority.
Many Toros support nationalism on the belief that had the kingdom seceded in 1962 as a member state of the British Commonwealth, they would have escaped the devastation, ruin, and massacres of the Amin and Obote years.
Increasing violence between the Toros and migrants from other areas o western Uganda, particularly the Kigas, became a serious problem in 1997 – 98, and by early 2002 had destabilized many of the rural areas. Many people fled to the relative safety of the towns and cities.” – (Ibid., pp. 1913 – 1914. See also Kenneth Ingham, The Kingdom of Toro in Uganda, 1975; Emmanuel K. Twesigye, African Monarchies and Kingdoms of Uganda, 1995; Thomas P. Ofcansky, Uganda: Tarnished Pearl of Africa, 1996).
As we have just learned, there were other secessionist attempts in the southwestern part of the country, besides Toro, before and after independence in the sixties and in the following years.
In June 1962, just three months before Uganda won independence in October, the Bakonjo and the Bamba severed ties with the Toro and declared they were not a part of the Toro kingdom. They had their own identity and history, culture and customs. They also suffered oppression and discrimination under the Toro for years and demanded to have their own separate territory, the same demand they made in the fifties.
The British rejected their demand. The Bakonjo and the Bamba responded by launching guerrilla warfare.
It was low-intensity armed resistance and continued even after Uganda won independence. Their nationalist movement was named Rwenzururu. It was secessionist and wanted to establish a kingdom for the Bakonjo and the Bamba.
On 30 June 1963, the Bakonjo and Bamba nationalists declared independence and named their new country the kingdom of Rwenzururu. Isaya Mukirania became king.
But the kingdom did not last long and was brutally suppressed by the Ugandan army. Toro soldiers in the army played a key role in neutralising the Bakonjo and Bamba secessionists.
However, the secessionists regrouped. They resurfaced years later and posed a great threat to national unity from 1979 to 1982. The government of President Obote reached an agreement with the secessionists. They agreed to abandon secession and accept autonomy for their region.
The odds against them were overwhelming. Unlike the Baganda, the Banyoro and the Ankole, the Bakonjo and the Bamba were not, even when combined, a very large community to be a viable entity had their demand for secession been accepted in order for them to establish an independent state. And there was, of course, the powerful machinery of the state – the central government – to suppress them.
But that did not dissuade them from pursuing their goal, an aspiration that is more common among larger groups. As Professor W. J. Argyle states in Tradition & Transition in East Africa: Studies of the Tribal Element in the Modern Era:
“It is, of course, true that size has usually influenced a group's chances of winning and maintaining independence, that ultimate test of nationhood, and it is also true that the most conspicuous attempts to seize independence have been made by large tribes like the Ibo, the Kongo, the Luba, the Lunda, the Ganda. Yet similar bids have been made by much smaller groups.
The Konjo and the Amba of Uganda cannot number more than about 150,000, but in 1962 some of them began a rebellion, followed by the declaration of an independent state and an appeal to U Thant for United Nations' protection against the forces of the Uganda government (Stacey, 1965, p. 81; and infra, p. 252ff.).
No doubt many of those who took part in this rebellion saw it merely as a chance to free themselves from the domination of the hated Toro. For its leader, Mukirane, and for his closest followers, it meant something more which would have been recognizable to European nationalists.
Its origin went back to a 'Bakonjo Life History Research Society' – partly inspired by an outsider, Mr Stacey – which Mukirane later turned into a political movement and renamed the 'Rwenzururu Secessionist Movement.' – ( W. J. Argyle, in P. H. Gulliver, ed., Tradition & Transition in East Africa: Studies of the Tribal Element in the Modern Era, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., 1969, pp. 52 – 53).
He goes on to state:
“After the rebellion had begun, Mukirane set up a rudimentary administration in the mountains with himself self-proclaimed 'President' of the new state of Rwenzururu, which had its own national flag and anthem. A statement justifying the secession included many of the classical nationalist complaints and demands: too few schools and scholarships for Konjo and Amba children; hardly any Konjo or Amba teachers and priests; an unfair allocation of land and of the products derived from it; discrimination against Konjo and Amba in appointments to the bureaucracy.
Such pretensions on behalf of so small a people seem bizarre enough, and it is not surprising that Mr Stacey came, reluctantly, to the conclusion that Mukirane was mad.
Yet was he any madder than, say, the leaders of the Basque nationalists? There are only about three times as many Basques as there are Konjo and Amba,7 but numbers did not prevent them from demanding and obtaining from the Spanish government in 1932 the same degree of local autonomy as had previously been given to the Catalans, a much larger group.
During the Civil War, Basques took the next step and set up the Republic of Euzkadi with a provisional government headed by a President (Thomas, 1965, pp. 81, 83, 370). The Republic was, of course, suppressed by General Franco's armies, but Basque nationalism and separatism still survive today, and Basques are still being imprisoned for advocating them. Nor are the Basques a unique case in Europe.
The populations of Albania and Esthonia were probably both under a million when they achieved national independence, and that was one argument which their larger neighbours used against their national aspirations. Unless we wish to identify ourselves with Russians, or Serbs, or Greeks or Italians, we surely have no reason to accept the argument. By the same token we cannot, on the grounds of size alone, deny the nationalism of many small groups all over Africa today.
In fact, it has already been implicitly conceded by a few authorities. Not long ago Post (1964, p. 67) pointed out that 'if a nation is conceived as having a common culture, language, and historical experience, as the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European writers held, then the closest approximation to national sentiment in West Africa must be the 'tribalism' so often denounced by the nationalists.'
What I have done in this paper is to extend the scope of Post's generalization to cover other parts of Africa and to document it by apt illustrations.” – (Ibid., p. 53 – 54).
The nationalist aspirations of the Bakonjo and the Bamba, two small tribes or ethnic groups in the Ruwenzori mountains in southwestern Uganda, is one such apt illustration of the legitimate aspirations of an oppressed and neglected people using the language of nationalism – taken for granted by larger groups – to articulate their demands.
Their demands may have seemed unrealistic, given the overwhelming power of the state to crush rebellion and because of the small size of their stateless nation that had yet to be realised. But they were no less legitimate.
The Bakonjo and Bamba secessionists made another attempt to achieve their goal when they launched a rebellion under the banner of the National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (NALU) in the late eighties and early nineties when Yoweri Kaguta Museveni was president of Uganda.
The secessionists had a lot of support among their people. According to a survey conducted by Makerere University in 2008, 87 per cent of the people in Rwenzururu wanted to have their own kingdom. Museveni's government acceded to their demand and declared the Kingdom of Rwenzururu as a cultural institution – but without political power.
Charles Mumbere became the omusinga (king) of the Rwenzururu kingdom in October 2009. His authority was strictly social and cultural. Political power was in the hands of the national government. His father, Isaya Mukirane, was the leader of the secessionist movement which was mostly Bakonjo. He was acknowledged as the king of Rwenzururu and was killed when his son Charles Mumbere was only 13 years old.
But Museveni's government also stated that no such kingdom had existed in the past and there was no historical justification to the claim by the secessionists that they were reclaiming lost glory.
Ankole is another kingdom whose sub-nationalism was an obstacle to national unity through the years before and after independence.
One of the four kingdoms in the country, all in the south, Ankole first sought to maintain its status as a sovereign entity during colonial rule just as the other kingdoms attempted to do. But it failed to do so and was forced to accept curtailment of its authority by the British colonial rulers.
Suppression of Ankole nationalism did not achieve its goal. Instead, it had unintended consequences. It fuelled nationalist sentiments and aspirations among the people of the kingdom.
Latent nationalism has always existed among the Ankole and the people of the other kingdoms even during the most brutal periods in Ugandan history. It could not be neutralised. And like all the other kingdoms, it has been profoundly affected by the changes which have taken place in Uganda through the years and was one of the first victims of centralisation of power soon after the country won independence from Britain in 1962.
Although the central government exercised control over the country, it also created instability because the kingdoms did not fully accept the new national rulers who had assumed power after independence. As Professor Edward Kannyo, a Ugandan, states in the International Handbook of Human Rights:
“The roots of political and social instability in Uganda lie in the fragmentation of the polity at the time of the attainment of political independence in 1962. This fragmentation is traceable to political, administrative, economic, and cultural processes which developed during the colonial regime.
Like virtually all the other African states, Uganda is a creation of the nineteenth-century European colonial expansion. It encloses dozens of cultural and linguistic groups which had previously lived independently of each other. Within the space of sixty years, they were arbitrarily brought under one politico-administrative system.
The colonial regime was a bureaucratic authoritarian system and did not provide for full-fledged political participation by the indigenous peoples at the national level. In Uganda, meaningful African political participation was restricted to local administrative levels which varied in size and form of government.
The kingdoms of Buganda, Bunyoro, Ankole, and Toro enjoyed higher degrees of administrative autonomy than the other parts of the colony. Among the kingdoms, Buganda stood out through its greater size, its greater administrative autonomy and, more particularly, its attachment to the '1900 Agreement' signed with the British government which provided for a higher degree of political autonomy and was regarded as a covenant by the Buganda government, and the resultant special consideration which the colonial regime always showed to the Buganda monarchy.4
The restriction of effective African political participation to local levels during the colonial regime was compounded by the uneven socioeconomic development of the country. Buganda took the lead in the development of modern education, commerce, and the cultivation and marketing of export cash crops.
The relative lag of the other parts of the country, compounded by the desire of important segments of the political elites in Buganda to seek independence outside the colonial territorial framework, as decolonization looked imminent, led to resentment on the part of political leaders from other areas which must on balance be considered as having been an obstacle to the evolution of strong national political leadership on the eve of political independence5.” – (Edward Kannyo, Chapter 18, “Uganda,” in Jack Donnelly and Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, eds., International Handbook of Human Rights, Westport, Connecticut, USA, 1987, pp. 386 – 387. See also, cited by E. Kannyo: 4. The Kabaka (king) was of Buganda was the only ruler accorded the honorific 'His Highness.' See D. Anthony Low and R. Cranford Pratt, Buganda and British Overrule, London: Oxford University Press, 1960; 5. Cf. Ali A. Mazrui, 'Privilege and Protest as Integrative Factors: The Case of Buganda's Status in Uganda,' in Protest and Power in Black Africa, ed. Robert I. Rotberg and Ali A. Mazrui, New York: Oxford University Press, 1970, pp. 1072 – 87; David E. Apter, The Political Kingdom in Uganda, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1967; Tarsis B. Kabwegyere, The Politics of State Formation, Nairobi, Kenya: East African Literature Bureau, 1974; Nelson Kasfir, The Shrinking Political Arena, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976; Samwiri R. Karugire, A Political History of Uganda, Nairobi, Kenya: East African Literature Bureau, 1980; Grace S. Ibingira, The Forging of an African Nation, New York: viking Press, 1973).
There were other factors which contributed to the fragmentation of the Ugandan polity and accentuated ethnic and regional differences and rivalries as well as social cleavages which continued after independence and impeded efforts to achieve genuine national integration. As Professor Kannyo goes on to state:
“Another major colonial legacy has been rivalry based on conflict between Protestant and Roman Catholic political elites.
This rivalry originated in the late nineteenth-century struggles between the French (Catholic) and English (Protestant) Christian missionaries, backed by their respective countries, for control of the kingdom of Buganda, which became the nucleus and heart of the future Uganda. It was reinforced by the dominant role which the missionaries came to play in the provision of primary and secondary education for their followers.
When national political parties were formed in the 1950s, they came to reflect these religious rivalries. Thus, the Democratic Party (DP) was identified with Roman Catholic elites who sought to redress their discriminatory underrepresentation in national and local administrative bodies, while the Uganda People's Congress (UPC) was, though to a lesser degree than was the case with respect to the DP and Catholicism, identified with the Protestant elites who sought to preserve their overrepresentation.
In the period immediately before and after the attainment of political independence, the major claims articulated by the contending political parties and groups involved the institutional character of the postcolonial state, that is, unitarism vs. federalism and the closely related issue of the terms on which Buganda would be incorporated in an independent Uganda; the redress of socioeconomic inequalities between regions and districts; and the representation of different religious groups in elite political and administrative positions. The resultant pattern of politics was extremely complex.
Broadly speaking, in the period 1961 – 1966, politics revolved around the overlapping and yet conflictual relationships between (1) the two major political parties, the UPC and the DP; (2) the four kingdoms of Buganda, Bunyoro, Toro, and Ankole; (3) the district of Busoga, whose dominant elites wanted to convert it to a kingdom; and (4) the other districts of the country which did not have monarchical institutions and comprised the majority of the population of the country. The dominant elites in these various institutions competed for power and influence at certain times and over certain issues and collaborated at other times and over other issues. The same pattern applied within the institutions themselves.
The four kingdoms were united in their determination to preserve their monarchical institutions and a certain degree of political autonomy. However, in the period leading up to the political independence of the country, the leaders of Bunyoro, Toro, and Ankole would often join with the leaders from other political groups to oppose any attempts on the part of Buganda to secede from the country or to acquire any status which exceeded their own. In addition, Bunyoro had a direct quarrel with Buganda over some border territories which the British had transferred from Bunyoro to Buganda at the beginning of the colonial regime.
The elites in Busoga sought to convert their district into a monarchical unit and to emulate the institutions of the Buganda and Bunyoro kingdoms, with which the region shared important cultural and historical links. As for the rest of the districts in the country, the main goal was to maintain as much parity of status as possible with the kingdom areas.
It was against this complex background that the UPC and the DP competed for control of the postcolonial state. Both parties were united in their desire to preserve the inherited state in its colonial boundaries. In spite of some rhetorical ideological disputes within the UPC between 1964 and 1966, there were no serious class ideological differences between the two parties. The best one can say is that the UPC contained more people who espoused a more radical interpretation of African nationalism and who advocated a more neutralist foreign policy posture than the DP. However, these individuals were far from being dominant within the party.6 Both parties were compelled to make compromises with the strong prevailing ethno-cultural sentiments.
The two most contentious issues which the political leaders faced at the time of independence were the degree of autonomy which would be enjoyed by the Kingdom of Buganda and the other kingdoms and the question of who would be head of state. The 1962 Independence Constitution provided for a complex political structure granting a high degree of regional autonomy for Buganda, lesser autonomy for the kingdoms of Bunyoro, Toro, and Ankole, and even lesser autonomy for the 'Territory' of Busoga. The rest of the country had a unitary relationship with the central government.
As had happened in other former British colonies, when Uganda became independent, the British monarch became the head of state and was represented in that ceremonial position by a governor-general who, in this as in other cases, was the last British governor. However, it was clear that this was a temporary arrangement and within a year, the question of who would replace the governor-general arose. This was an emotional issue for the various political groups. As George W. Kanyeihamba has recalled:
While there was agreement on this change the problem was to find the right candidate. The kingdoms would not accept a commoner to occupy the important position of Head of State and thereby become, in importance, greater than their Kings. Buganda went further, no one even if he be King, could be Head of State unless he was the Kabaka [King] of Buganda Himself. The non-kingdoms districts were not silent either. Unused to the regions of Kings they would not accept one of them to be Head of their Independent State.7
A compromise solution was found. The head of state would be chosen from among the traditional rulers. However, in order to satisfy the nonkingdom areas, the position of 'constitutional head,' a type of surrogate king, was created for these districts. Any one of these leaders would be eligible for the position of head of state. The head of state was to be known as 'president.' There was also to be a vice president, and both offices were to be held for a term of five years and were to be elected by the National Assembly on a secret ballot.
The Kabaka of Buganda became the head of state and the Kyabazinga (king) of Busoga – who was also the UPC vice president – became vice president of Uganda. To quote Kanyeihamba again: 'The Baganda were jubilant, the other Kings happy and the rest of the country satisfied for now there was a possibility that each region was in a position to become produce a President.8
It is almost certain that this solution would have failed eventually. The replacement of the Kabaka of Buganda as head of state, which would have been demanded to give a chance to another ruler, would have been strongly resisted in Buganda. Moreover, the creation of nontraditional 'king surrogates' outside the kingdom areas was not universally popular and had given rise to conflicts within some districts.” – (E. Kannyo, ibid., pp. 387 – 389. See also, cited by E. Kannyo, in his chapter notes: 6. Cf. Mahmood Mamdani, Politics and Class Formation in Uganda, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1976, pp. 189 – 227; 7. George W. Kanyeihamba, Constitutional Law and Government in Uganda, Nairobi, Kenya: East African Literature Bureau, 1975, p. 67; 8. Ibid., p. 68).
A look at Uganda during its first years of independence in the sixties and in the following decades clearly shows that a number of factors have made it very difficult for the country to achieve unity the way, for example, neighbouring Tanzania has in spite of the fact that it has a very large number of tribes or ethnic groups.
Tanzania also has substantial numbers of Christians and Muslims – 33% to 35% each in the total population – unlike Uganda which is predominantly Christian. Yet it has managed to avoid ethnic conflicts and rivalries in a way Uganda has not been able to. It has also maintained religious harmony between Christians and Muslims for more than 50 years since independence in 1961 just as was the case during colonial rule.
The British colonial government in Uganda played a major role in accentuating social cleavages and in fostering ethnic rivalries.
The Buganda kingdom which formed the nucleus of what was to become the nation of Uganda – it even gave the country its name, “Uganda” from “Buganda” – was favoured by colonial rulers over the other kingdoms. This kind of favouritism fuelled hostility towards Buganda among many people in the other kingdoms who felt that they were not considered to be as important as the Baganda.
It also laid the foundation for a future secessionist movement among the Baganda who felt they were entitled to rule the whole country after independence; if they could not, they would secede.
There was also a major dividing line between the north and the south. The British focused their attention on the southern part of Uganda while virtually neglecting the north. The result was hostility between the two regions fuelled by economic inequalities.
The north remained underdeveloped. Educational opportunities were virtually non-existent in the region while the south had almost all the schools including institutions of higher learning such as Makerere University College founded in 1922.
Religious differences between Protestants – who were mostly Anglican – and Catholics in Uganda aggravated the situation when political competition also assumed a religious dimension, even though this problem was not as serious as ethnoregional rivalries. But it did play a role in impeding progress towards national unity especially when the members of the Democratic Party, which was predominantly Catholic and was led by Benedicto Kiwanuka who came from the Buganda kingdom, made a concerted effort to undermine Prime Minister Obote who was a Protestant and a northerner.
And as in almost all the other African countries, ethnic and regional loyalties have always played a major role in Ugandan politics, clearly demonstrated even during the first years of independence.
The ethnic and regional dimension in Ugandan life and politics was also partly a product of British colonial rule. While the south had the largest number of educated people, in fact one of the largest in East Africa if not the largest during that period, the north provided soldiers.
The largest number of soldiers and members of the security forces during colonial rule and after independence were northerners, mostly Acholi and Lango or Langi.
The imbalance persisted after independence. But it also greatly benefited Obote who, as a northerner, had solid support from the army and other security forces during his term in office until he was overthrown by Idi Amin, a fellow northerner although from the northwest, in January 1971.
But without the support of the army which was then under the leadership of Amin who had been promoted by Obote to that position, Obote may not have been able to survive in office. And he would not have been able to neutralise and oust the kabaka, Edward Frederick Mutesa, from the presidency even though the title was more ceremonial than functional; power was in the hands of the prime minister, Obote, during that period.
Although Uganda has survived as a nation, it has had to contend with various forces which could have torn the country apart, especially along ethnoregional lines because of the rivalries among the various ethnic and regional groups which have championed regionalism or micro-nationalism, seeing themselves as nations within a nation. As Professor Joshua Forrest states in his book, Subnationalism in Africa: Ethnicity, Alliances, and Politics:
“In Uganda, decades of subnationalist ferment, religious and political strife, and militarized autocracy created a context of intense instability that long preceded Museveni's installment as president.
During the colonial period, powerful ethnoregional leadership structures with direct precolonial roots were strengthened, while the British artificially created several smaller kingships.
The Buganda kingship, with solid links to its precolonial antecedent, was accorded unusual privileges and considerable autonomy.22
Immediately prior to Uganda's 1962 independence elections, the traditional Ganda leadership, fearful of losing their privileged position, declared that Buganda would secede from Uganda. However, constitutional negotiators enticed the Ganda to acquiesce by promising autonomy and special status for Buganda within a quasi-federal framework.
The western kingdoms of Bunyoro, Toro, and Ankole, along with the very small kingdom of Busoga, were granted nearly as wide a berth of autonomy, despite the fact that the Ankole and Toro kingdoms had been virtually invented by British administrators.23
The resultant political stability proved relatively short-lived. In the early 1960s, parliamentary maneuverings by a variety of opponents of Prime Minister Obote considerably weakened his political power. By 1966, the Ganda king Kabaka Mutesa II, who had been granted the largely titular but symbolically significant post of Ugandan president – Prime Minister Obote ran the country – formed a political alliance with parliamentarian backbenchers who opposed Obote's rule.
This proved a strategic error: Obote then pre-empted Mutesa, removing the king and his political allies from their government positions and subsequently deciding to rescind the formal autonomy that had been granted to the Buganda kingdom as well as to the aforementioned western kingdoms.24 Buganda reacted by rejecting the authority of the Ugandan national government.
The ending of autonomous status for the kingships exacerbated the level of state-ethnic tension. Subnationalism in Buganda now became strengthened, as Ganda elites, bureaucrats, and ordinary people coalesced both politically and culturally. Territorial and ethnic assertion here converged with popular enmity toward Obote, so much so that Obote felt it unsafe to set foot inside Buganda.25
The Bugandan autonomy movement persisted through the Idi Amin and second Obote regimes, serving a potent reminder of the fragility of the political basis on which the integrity of the Ugandan nation-state rested.”26 – (Joshua B. Forrest, Subnationalism in Africa: Ethnicity, Alliances, and Politics, Boulder, Colorado, USA: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., 2004, p. 220. See also, cited by Joshua B. Forrest: 22. Crawford Young, The Politics of Cultural Pluralism, Madison, Wisconsin, USA: University of Wisconsin Press, 1976, p. 227; 23. Frank van Acker, “Ethnicity and Institutional Reform: A Case of Ugandan Exceptionalism?” in Politics of Identity and Economics of Conflict in the Great Lakes Region, ed. Ruddy Doom and Jan Gorus, Brussels: VUB University Press, 2000, p. 165; Donald Rothchild, Managing Ethnic Conflict in Africa: Pressures and Incentives for Cooperation, Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1997, p.68; 24. Young, Politics of Cultural Pluralism, pp. 150, 265; 25. Ibid., pp. 264 – 266; 26. van Acker, “Ethnicity and Institutional Reform,” p. 152).
But Buganda was only a part of the problem, although the major part of it in terms of posing a real threat to national unity. However, other parts of the country had the potential to cause instability and even promote regional fragmentation. As Professor Forrest goes on to state:
“Meanwhile, long-term economic neglect helped to fuel the generation of separatist movements in the northern and western regions.
During the colonial as well as the postcolonial era, the largely rural northern and western regions remained mostly outside the state-centric development rubric.27 Frank van Acker uses a district-by-district analysis of road-building and electrification projects to convincingly depict the long-term structural economic neglect of the north and west.28
Northern discontent stemming from economic inequity generated uprisings, protests, and demands for autonomy by northern and western region traditional leaders. In combination with Gandan subnationalism, this helped to ensure that Uganda would continue to spiral steadily toward internal fragmentation.
The inability of the Ugandan central government to grapple effectively with rural challenges was made especially clear by the rise of the Rwenzururu separatist movement, which sought autonomous rule based on traditional leadership structures for the Konjo and Amba peoples.
The Konjo and Amba were under the jurisdiction of the Toro kingdom, which was cooperating fully with the Ugandan state. The subnationalists aimed to free themselves of both the kingdom and the nation-state. Tensions led to battles in 1963 – 1964 between the Konjo and the Amba on the one hand, and Toro and Ugandan army units on the other; the latter effectively suppressed the rebels.
However, the Rwenzururu movement reconsolidated over time, and in the wake of the power vacuum left by the collapse of Idi Amin's regime in 1979, it was again able to pose a serious subnationalist threat.29
The second Obote administration pursued negotiations with Rwenzururu leaders and reached a settlement in 1982 according to which Konjo and Amba elites agreed to abandon outright secession in return for 'a degree of autonomy'; the appointment of Konjo and Amba to administrative posts; and the provision of economic benefits, such as motorized vehicles, shops, and student scholarships, that would be assigned for distribution by the traditional leaders of these two groups.30
The Rwenzururu movement had forced the state to grant power and goods to traditional leaders for the sake of political stability.
In reaction to the monarchical restorations of the 1990s, the Rwenzururu movement was revived yet again, this time with its leaders insisting on separatism. De facto Konjo and Amba control over their claimed districts had already been achieved”31 – (Ibid., pp. 221 – 222. See also, cited by Joshua B. Forrest: 28. van Acker, “Ethnicity and Institutional Reform,” p. 151; 29. Rothchild, Managing Ethnic Conflict, p. 90; 30. Ibid.; 31. van Acker, “Ethnicity and Institutional Reform,” p. 165).
Ethno-regional loyalties and rivalries have always been a part of life in Uganda. That is one of the main reasons why subnationalism has equally been an enduring phenomenon in the country although in varying degrees at different times.
But it is marginalisation of the groups and regions which have been kept on the periphery or which don't consider themselves to be a part of the mainstream which has really fostered this sentiment.
Had there been equality, meaningful participation in the political process and in the government as well as equitable redistribution of the nation's resources, for all the groups and regions, a lot of this clamour for separation, secession and greater regional autonomy to the detriment of national unity would not have been heard as loudly as it has been through the years.
Even after Yoweri Museveni seized power and tried to build a broad-based national movement to involve people and groups from all the regions of the country, there were still those – especially northerners – who felt they were being ignored or deliberately excluded from the political process and other areas of national life because they challenged the president or dared to openly say there is no true democracy in Uganda except for Museveni and his supporters.
Dissatisfaction with the central government, lack of opportunities for members of some groups who feel they have been marginalised, curtailment of freedom, and the government's determination to concentrate power at the centre, have contributed to tensions in a country where many people, probably the majority, have not yet transcended ethnoregional loyalties for the sake of national unity.
Other factors such as lack of economic opportunities, regional disparities in education and income, sociocultural differences, tribalism and other forms of discrimination simply because you are different or you are not one of them, and mistrust of the national government regardless who is in office, have all contributed to these tensions which have manifested themselves in different ways through the years but with the same tragic consequences: dividing the nation, pitting one group against another, and encouraging regional fragmentation. And as Forrest states:
“Recent tensions reflect the radicalization of monarchists who now insist on complete autonomy and fully independent powers for the Kabaka.
At the same time, a proliferation of new claimants to unrecognized kingships in the restive north and west, especially on the part of the Alur and the Teso, signal further instability, and Lango activists are calling for their own autonomous state.
Adding to this instability is the fact that two of the four officially restored kingships – Ankole and Toro – have now been effectively rendered moribund by the intensity of popular opposition to those kingships within their respective regions.39
In these ways, the monarchical reinstallments and the president's attempt to create a stable quasiconsociational political system both reflect and expose the very real limitations to state power and to the integrity of the nation-state.
Uganda's rural regions have repeatedly defied incorporation; they represent elusive redoubts within which the state vainly seeks to fasten its political girders, even when it does so by utilizing relatively loose mechanisms of government control.” – (Ibid., pp. 224).
It is clear that Uganda faced serious problems in her attempts to achieve national unity soon after independence. One of the major problems was the quest for greater regional autonomy which would have greatly weakened the national government had this goal been achieved by the kingdoms of Buganda, Bunyoro, Toro, Ankole, and the princedom of Busoga which at different times had tried to elevate its status to become a kingdom like the rest.
But the biggest threat to national unity was secession. However, this phenomenon was not peculiar to Uganda. There were other African countries which were also threatened by secession.
In East Africa, Kenya also had to contend with separatist tendencies in the Coast Province whose inhabitants wanted to unite with Zanzibar because of the cultural and historical ties they had. The ties were forged during Arab rule among the people in the coastal regions of Kenya and Tanganyika and on the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba. Like their Arab rulers, the people were also overwhelmingly Muslim, a unifying bond that transcended ethnicity and regional loyalties. It was the Arabs who brought Islam to them.
There have been other separatist demands in East Africa. The Somali of the North Eastern Province of Kenya, what was once known as the Northern Frontier District, and of the Ogaden region in Ethiopia have always wanted to unite with their kith-and-kin across the border in Somalia. Their brethren in Somalia have expressed the same desire to unite all Somalis who live in Greater Somalia. Greater Somalia is an area composed of Somalia itself, Djibouti, and the regions in neighbouring countries inhabited mostly by Somalis: the Ogaden in Ethiopia, and northeastern Kenya.
In Zambia also, there were secessionist threats among the Lozi of Barotse kingdom – or Barotseland – in the western part of the country which is also the Western Province. There were also separatist tendencies in the southern part of the country among the Tonga and the Ila who straddle Zambia's border with Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
In Congo-Leopoldville, there were strong secessionist tendencies among the Bakongo in the fifties. And after the country won independence, secessionist demands continued not only among the Bakongo but among the members of other ethnic groups in all of the country's provinces. The strongest demands came from Katanga Province which seceded only 11 days after Congo won independence from Belgium on 30 June 1960.
Another province, South Kasai, seceded on 8 August 1960 and its leader, Albert Kalonji, declared himself king of the new country.
In the Ivory Coast, there was an uprising among the Sanwi in 1959 in their attempt to secede and establish an independent state under a monarchy.
The Tuareg of northern Mali refused to recognise the national government in Bamako and attempted to secede in 1963. Even before independence, they demanded independence for their region. They told the French colonial rulers Mali should be partitioned so that they could have their own country. They were ignored.
In April 2012, following a military coup in Bamako which caused disarray in the nation's capital, leaving a power vacuum, the Tuareg took advantage of the situation to achieve their goal. They seized the entire northern half of Mali and declared independence. They named their new country the Islamic Republic of Azawad. According to a BBC report, “ Mali Tuareg Rebels Declare Independence in the North,” 6 April 2012:
“A rebel group in northern Mali has declared independence for a region it calls Azawad, after seizing control of the area last week.
The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) made the statement on its website, adding that it would respect other states' borders.
The MNLA is one of two rebel groups to have gained ground in the area after Mali's government was ousted in a coup.
The African Union has condemned the declaration as 'null and void.'
Former colonial power France and the European Union have also said they will not recognise Azawad's independence....
The army seized power on 22 March, accusing the elected government of not doing enough to halt the two rebel groups - the MNLA and an Islamist group opposed to independence, which wants to impose Islamic law, or Sharia, across the whole country.
'Brink of disaster'
The declaration comes as rights group Amnesty International warned that Mali was on the brink of a major humanitarian disaster in the wake of the rebellion.
It demanded that aid agencies be given immediate access to the country after days of looting, abduction and chaos in the northern towns of Gao, Kidal and the historic city of Timbuktu, which have all been taken by the rebels.
On Thursday the MNLA rebels declared a 'unilateral' ceasefire after the UN Security Council called for an end to the fighting in Mali.
A statement posted on the rebel website on Friday proclaimed independence, adding it would respect existing borders with neighbouring states and adhere to the UN Charter. The statement also called for recognition from the international community.
'We completely accept the role and responsibility that behooves us to secure this territory. We have ended a very important fight, that of liberation... now the biggest task commences,' rebel spokesman Mossa Ag Attaher is quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.
The Tuareg people inhabit the Sahara Desert in northern Mali, as well as several neighbouring countries and have fought several rebellions over the years, complaining that they have been ignored by the authorities in distant Bamako. But the Tuareg are not the only people who live in the area they claim as Azawad.
Islamists and Tuareg
Journalist Martin Vogl in Bamako says there are two main interpretations for why the MNLA made its declaration now.
Firstly, he says it could be intended to forestall a possible intervention by the West African regional body, Ecowas and secondly to show that it, rather than the rival Ansar Dine group, is in charge of the north.
But he also points to problems with the proclamation, such as the absence of a referendum to prove a popular mandate, as well as reports that the Islamist rebels may control more areas than the MNLA.
Ecowas military chiefs met on Thursday in Ivory Coast. Afterwards, they said they had discussed a proposed force's rules of engagement and would await a response to their suggestions from the region's heads of state. A 2,000-strong force has been put on standby, while France has promised logistical support.
The MNLA was formed last year, partly by well-armed Tuareg fighters returning from Libya, where they had backed former leader Muammar Gaddafi.
But the UN has voiced alarm at the presence of Ansar Dine, which has links to an al-Qaeda franchise which operates in the region.
Correspondents say that Western powers are more concerned by a growing Islamist threat throughout the region than a Tuareg issue which is considered a political internal problem.
The MNLA could possibly expect greater autonomy rather than independence if it came back to negotiations and helped fight the Islamists, they say.
Mali has been in disarray ever since the 22 March coup enabled the rebels to secure territory in the north.
People are continuing to flee the area and buses to the capital have been packed with people desperate to get out. Reports say the situation in the northern town of Gao, in rebel hands, is particularly tense.
The Algerian government also says seven of its staff were kidnapped by unknown gunmen in Gao. The consul and six colleagues were forced to leave their diplomatic mission at gunpoint.
The Algerian government says it is doing all it can to find them.
Ecowas has closed Mali's borders to trade, frozen its access to funds at the central bank for the region's common currency and slapped travel bans on the coup leaders and their supporters.
The coup and Tuareg rebellion have exacerbated a humanitarian crisis in Mali and some neighbouring countries, with aid agencies warning that 13 million people need food aid following a drought in the region.”
Although Tuareg separatists came nowhere close to achieving their goal in the sixties and in the following decades, they remained a source of instability in Mali, especially in the north where they continued to campaign for autonomy and independence sometimes by violent means.
Ghana under Kwame Nkrumah also had to contend with separatist threats among the Ashanti in the central region. They posed the biggest threat to national unity.
The Ewe in the east also posed a threat. There was an irredentist movement among the Ewe in the Volta region seeking to unite the Ewe of Ghana and Togo who had been separated by the boundary between the two countries during colonial rule.
There were also separatist demands among the Dagomba and members of other ethnic groups in northern Ghana, a region that was once known as the Northern Territories.
Nkrumah effectively neutralised all those threats by establishing a highly efficient centralised state with power concentrated at the centre just as Obote did in Uganda, Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya and Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia although in varying degrees.
It was fear of the domino effect: once one region or province goes, the rest also will go and become independent states. That is why many African leaders were very suspicious of those who demanded regional autonomy. They feared such devolution of power to the regions or provinces could eventually fuel demands for secession and even lead to secession in some cases. And as Touval states:
“The ethnic composition of the African states has been an important influence in shaping governmental attitudes and policies on boundaries. Boundaries may be likened to the external shell of the state. Since the majority of African states have not yet attained internal cohesion, it is in their interest to preserve this shell intact.
In many cases, the maintenance of the status quo has come to be associated with the self-preservation of the state. It was feared that, were the right to secede granted to any group or region, such a grant could stimulate secessionist demands from additional regions or groups, and thus threaten the disintegration of the state. The danger of such disintegration has been vividly exemplified by the secessionist movements that have sprung in several states....
The interest of states in preserving the status quo is reflected also in the qualms many states have shown about annexing regions or tribes from neighboring states.” – (Souval, ibid., pp. 30 and 31).
The only leader in Ugandan post-colonial history who attempted to claim some land from neighbouring countries was Idi Amin who, in October 1978, annexed 710 square miles of Tanzanian territory in Kagera Region in the northwest bordering Uganda. Tanzania fought back and drove out Amin's occupying forces. Amin also claimed parts of western Kenya and southern Sudan without success.
Most African leaders, including Ugandan, want to maintain the borders inherited at independence.
The problems most African countries face are internal, not external. One of them is ethnic and regional rivalries. Uganda is one of the countries on the continent which have had to contend with this problem since independence. And it has not been fully resolved as different groups continue to demand autonomy for their regions from national leaders who are determined to maintain highly centralised states as the best guarantee for national unity.
Most African leaders articulate the same position on a continent where they fear the countries can easily disintegrate along ethnoregional lines if extensive devolution of power to the regions is allowed in order to defuse tensions and resolve ethnic and regional rivalries. They also fear civil wars triggered by secessionist demands and quarrels over borders by those demanding secession.
That is why decades after independence in the sixties, most African countries have not adopted a federal form of government which would have enabled regions or provinces to have autonomy, reducing the power at the centre over the rest of the country. They have remained highly centralised states with no prospect for devolution of power to the regions....