Yearbook 2008
Uganda. The year began hopefully with an end in view of
the long-standing rebel war in the north. In February, the
government and the rebel movement signed the Lord's
Resistance Army (LRA) on a permanent ceasefire. After almost
two years of negotiations, there was now only a settlement
of disarmament, demobilization and reconciliation in the
society of the LRA's soldiers in order for a final peace
agreement to be concluded.
According to
Countryaah reports, the government also created a special war criminal court
in an attempt to persuade the International Criminal Court
(ICC) in The Hague to bring the charges against the top LRA
leaders. The risk of being extradited to the ICC had led the
LRA management to have the negotiations handled by
subordinate representatives, which had made the work more
difficult and delayed.
The absence of guarantees from the ICC eventually led LRA
leader Joseph Kony to refuse to sign the peace agreement
that was finalized. Instead, the rebels were reportedly
preparing to resume war from their bases in northeastern
Congo (Kinshasa). In December, Ugandan forces went on
offensive against them with the permission of the Congolese
government. Several LRA camps were said to have been
destroyed, but the top rebel leaders appeared to have
escaped.
The new government was based on a consultative National
Council led by Yusuf Lule, a conservative university
professor with no political experience. Just 68 days later,
Lule was replaced by Godfrey Binaisa from UNLF. The
liberation front was fragile, however, as it was formed
solely on the common desire to put an end to Idi Amin's
terror. Binaisa was not skilled enough to reconcile the
various trends within her movement, and even less to
neutralize Milton Obote's rising prestige. Obote's party,
Uganda Popular Congress (UPC) remained very popular.
The president upheld the election in 1981 but tried to
prevent Obote from running for office. It created a crisis
that exploded in May 1980 when the military forced Godfrey
Binaisa to resign. He was replaced by a military council
tasked with conducting the elections and respecting the
pluralistic principles of the movement that had brought down
the Amin dictatorship. The council was chaired by General
David Oyite Ojok, and it oversaw the December 1980 election,
which ended with a total victory for the UPC. Obote's party
got 73 of Parliament's 126 seats. The election was
criticized, but an international observer committee of 60
members subsequently declared that under the given
circumstances in the country, the election had been
conducted with the minimum requirements met.
Obote took over a land in ruins; its copper mines had not
worked for several years, and both corruption and
speculation were widespread. In spite of the strong support
the new government received in the election, in 1981 the
defeated Conservative groups began a destabilization
campaign against the government. The destabilization later
developed into a guerilla. Despite this, Obote allowed Asian
traders to return to the country, regulate foreign capital
and begin to regain control of the economy - first and
foremost by fighting corruption and speculation. Despite the
rising political violence in 1981 he asked the Tanzanian
troops to withdraw from the country. They had remained in
the country since Amin had crashed. From 1982, the country
again exported coffee, international trade gradually
normalized and negotiations began with the IMF to
restructure the foreign debt inherited by the new government
from the Amin dictatorship.
In 1983, Obote was re-elected president and at the same
time went up to 90 seats in parliament against 35 for the
Democratic Party (DP). Shortly before, UPC succeeded in
restoring the East African Common Market, which had
disintegrated in 1977. From this point on, slow but secure
economic growth began within the community. |
