Uganda Since Independence: A Story of Unfulfilled Hopes
Early in the twentieth century, Winston Churchill called Uganda the 'pearl of Africa'. It became independent from British colonial rule in 1962 amid high hopes on all sides. Yet from the mid-1960s onwards, and most spectacularly after the seizure of power by army chief Idi Amin in 1971, the country plunged into an orgy ethnic violence, wholesale disregard for the rule of law, and economic chaos - hardly alleviated after the fall of Amin and return to power of the country's first President, Milton Obote, and the latter's overthrow and replacement by the Okellos. Under the National Resistance Movement led by Yoweri Museveni, the country - exhausted, impoverished and demoralized - has begun a move backwards towards constitutionalism and democracy.The author of this book is a former head of the department of History at Makerere University, and at the time of publication is a member o Uganda's Constitutional Commission. His immediate family suffered during the country's years of strife on a scale that that recalls European Jewish families during the Nazi Holocaust. He has therefore approached his task of recounting and analyzing the history of Uganda since independence 'as it really happened' with the agonizing knowledge of an insider, and with the passionate ideal of service to his fellow Ugandans. For, he argues, if they cannot achieve a sympathetic as well as a coherent understanding of the roots of the ills that have plagued their country since independence, there can never be reconciliation and reconstruction.The account begins with a survey of the country's history before independence, and ends with an analysis of the Museveni years - calmer than the preceding two decades but still checkered - during which efforts have been made internally to put Uganda back on the right track and to recover its former character. The book has been long in preparation, and will now be welcomed for its clear-sightedness and honesty.