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.Postcoloniality and the Postcolony Like many African nations, Uganda endured a series of civil wars and coups d'état. 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.
Pre-colonial Uganda
The region now known as Uganda is divided linguistically by Lake Kyoga into a Bantu south and Nilotic north. The pastoralist Nilotes of the north were organized by lineage into small clans. While cattle raiding was practiced extensively, the highly decentralized nature of northern societies precluded the possibility of large-scale warfare. By comparison, the introduction of plantain as a staple crop in the south around 1000 AD permitted dense populations to form in the area north of Lake Victoria. One of the early powerful states to emerge was Bunyoro. However, chronic weakness within the structure of Bunyoro resulted in a continual series of civil wars and royal succession disputes. According to legend, a refugee from a Bunyoro conflict, Kimera, became Kabaka of the contemporaneous kingdom of Buganda, on the shores of Lake Victoria.Uganda – Library of Congress Country Studies
Bagandan governance was based on a stable succession arrangement, allowing the kingdom to more than double in size by the mid-nineteenth century through a series of wars of expansion, becoming the dominant power in the region. As well as a force of infantry, Baganda also maintained a navy of large outrigger canoes, which allowed Baganda commandos to raid any shore on Lake Victoria. Henry Morton Stanley visited in 1875 and reported viewing a military expedition of 125,000 troops marching east, where they were to join an auxiliary naval force of 230 canoes.
Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Uganda began to lose its isolated status, mainly due to traders seeking new sources of ivory after the decimation of elephant herds along the coast. Arab traders from the coast began making trade agreements with the Kabaka of Uganda to provide guns and other items in exchange for a supply of ivory. In the north, Turkish Sudan under Khedive Isma'il Pasha sought to expand its control of the White Nile. In 1869, the khedive sent a force under British explorer Samuel Baker to establish dominion over the upper Nile. Encountering stiff resistance, Baker was forced to turn back after burning the Bunyoro capital to the ground.See Ismailia by Sir Samuel White Baker download, hosted by Project Gutenberg, in particular "Chapter XXI: Treachery"
Foreign influences led to the eventual disruption of royal rule in Buganda. In 1877, the London-based Church Missionary Society sent Protestant missionaries, followed two years later by Catholic France-based White Fathers. The competition for converts in the royal court also included Zanzibar-based Muslim traders. When the new kabaka Mwanga II attempted to outlaw the divisive foreign ideologies (see Uganda Martyrs), he was deposed by armed converts in 1888. A four-year civil war erupted in which the Muslim forces initially declared victory, but were eventually defeated by an alliance of Christian groups. The conclusion of the civil war was also marked by various epidemics of foreign diseases, which halved the population in some localities and further weakened Baganda. The arrival of European colonial interests, in the persons of British captain Frederick Lugard and German Karl Peters, broke the Christian alliance. Protestant missionaries moved to put Uganda under British control, while French Catholics either supported the German claim or urged national independence. In 1892, fighting broke out between the two factions. Momentum remained with the Catholics until Lugard brought Maxim guns into play, resulting in the French Catholic mission being burnt to the ground and the Catholic bishop fleeing. With the support of Protestant Buganda chiefs secured, the British declared a protectorate in 1894 and began expanding its borders with the help of Nubian mercenaries formerly in the employ of the Egyptian khedive.
Colonial period (1894–1962)
In spite of the British declaration, actually taking control of the region was a prolonged affair. The British and their Buganda ally engaged in a bloody five-year conflict with Bunyoro, which boasted several regiments of rifle infantry under the firm rule of Kabarega. After defeating and occupying the Bunyoro, the British forces defeated the Acholi and other people of the north. Elsewhere, the Ankole kingdom and chiefdoms of Busoga signed treaties with the British, but the loosely associated kinship groups of the east and northeast resisted until they were finally conquered. The general outline of the modern state of Uganda thus took shape.
However, in 1897 the Nubian mercenaries rebelled, resulting in a two-year conflict before they were put down with the help of units of the British Indian Army, transported to Uganda at great cost. The protectorate rewarded Buganda for its support during these wars of expansion by giving it privileged status within the protectorate and awarding it most of the historic heartland of Bunyoro, including the locations of several royal tombs. The Baganda offered their expertise in administration to the colonial rulers, resulting in Ganda administrators running much of the country's affairs in the name of the protectorate. The Banyoro, aggrieved by both the "lost counties" and arrogance of Baganda administrators, rose up in the 1907 Nyangire "Refusing" rebellion, which succeeded in removing the irksome Baganda civil servants from Nyoro territory.
Despite these tensions, the protectorate was generally stable and prosperous, especially in comparison with Tanganyika, which suffered greatly during the East African Campaign of World War I. This began to change with the British decision to divest itself of its colonial properties and prepare Uganda for independence, embodied in the arrival of Andrew Cohen in 1952 to assume the post of governor.
Various groups began to organize themselves in preparation for planned elections, which was given urgency by the announcement that London was considering joining Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika into an East African federation. Many politically aware Ugandans knew that the similar Central African Federation was dominated by white settlers and feared that an East Africa counterpart would be dominated by the European settlers of the White Highlands in Kenya, where the Mau Mau Uprising was being bitterly fought.
In the complete lack of popular confidence in his rule, Cohen was forced to agree to Buganda demands for a continued privileged status in the new constitution. The major dissenters were the Baganda Catholics, which had been marginalized since 1892 and were organized into the Democratic Party (DP) of Benedicto Kiwanuka, and the Uganda People's Congress (UPC), a coalition of non-Baganda groups, determined not to be dictated to by the Baganda, led by Milton Obote. After much political manoeuvering, Uganda entered independence in October 1962 under an alliance of convenience between the UPC and Kabaka Yekka (KY), a Buganda separatist party, against the DP. The Kabaka was named ceremonial head of state, while Obote became prime minister.
Early independent Uganda (1963–1970)
In January 1964, several army units rebelled, demanding higher pay and more rapid promotion. Obote was forced to request the assistance of the British military in putting down the revolt, but ultimately caved in to all of the demands. The obvious lack of civilian control of the military resulted in the rapid expansion of the army and its resulting importance in political affairs. Obote also chose a young army officer, Idi Amin Dada, as his personal protege. Later that year, Obote made a deal with several DP ministers in which they would cross the floor to join the UPC if Obote could return the "lost counties". The kabaka opposed the planned referendum and sent 300 Baganda veterans to Bunyoro to intimidate voters. In response, 3,000 Banyoro soldiers massed on the Bunyoro-Buganda border. Civil war was avoided when the kabaka backed down, allowing the referendum in which the populations of the "lost counties" overwhelmingly expressed a desire to return to the Bunyoro kingdom. In early 1966, Obote consolidated central power by stripping the monarchs of the five kingdoms of their titles and forced them into exile.
The UPC itself fell into disarray in 1966 after it was revealed that Obote and his associates, including Amin, were smuggling arms to a secessionist group in neighboring Congo in return for ivory and gold. Faced with nearly unanimous disapproval, Obote did not take the expected step of stepping down as prime minister, but instead had Amin and the army carry out what was in effect a coup d'état against his own government. After suspending the constitution, arresting dissident UPC ministers and taking the powers of the presidency for his own, he announced the promulgation of a new constitution abolishing the autonomy of the kingdoms guaranteed by the former federal system. When the Baganda protested, now-President Obote sent the army under Amin to attack the palace of the kabaka. The Battle of Mengo Hill resulted in the palace being overrun, with the kabaka barely escaping into exile. With his opponents arrested, in flight, or co-opted, Obote secured his position with the creation of the General Service Unit, a system of secret police staffed mostly with ethnic kinspeople from the Lango region. Nevertheless, Obote narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in December 1969, apparently carried out by Baganda monarchists.
In early 1970, the mysterious murder of Acap Okoya, the sole rival to Amin among the senior military officers, led Obote to grow suspicious of Amin. Later that year, Obote escaped another assassination attempt after the attackers mistakenly targeted the car of the vice-president. However, Obote could take no direct action as he was totally reliant upon the army that Amin led to keep him in power. In response, Obote increased the recruitment of ethnic Acholi and Langi to counter the recruitment by Amin of soldiers from his home West Nile sub-region. In October 1970, Obote put Amin under house arrest on charges of increasing military expenditure over budget, as well as continuing to support Sudan's Anyanya rebel group in the civil war against the government of Gaafar Nimeiry, after Obote had decided to switch his support to Nimeiry. Amin was close friends with several Israeli military advisors that were helping to train the army and there is much speculation that they had influenced him to continue supporting the Anyanya, which was also the recipient of Israeli military aid.
Under Idi Amin (1971–1979)