Uganda’s new house soon divided

Press, 19 February 1986, Page 18

Uganda’s new house soon divided

From “The Economist,” London

Mr Yoweri Museveni was sworn in as the latest president of Uganda on January 29, in a ceremony formally marking the victory of his National Resistance Army over the murderous and tribally divided forces of the previous regime. The "peace accord” between the Government and its adversaries, signed on December 17, had failed to hold. General Tito Okello, the previous head of Government, had, as expected, failed to restore discipline among his soldiers. Now it is Mr Museveni’s turn to try to make sense of his country. It will be a hard job. Mr Museveni does not yet control all of Uganda. The soldiers of the former regime, who still have their weapons, appear to have withdrawn to their tribal areas beyond the Nile; the river, with its string of lakes, forms a barrier that Mr Museveni’s forces will approach with care. Some of his opponents there, the fighting men of the Langi and Acholi tribes, are likely to hold on toughly to their territories.

Another centre of resistance in the north, West Nile province, the home of the former President, Idi Amin, is linked to the rest of the country by a single bridge. It has been in effect a separate fief since General Amin was thrown out in 1979, and will probably remain so. Mr Museveni is now in charge of the fertile and manageable parts of the country, which are dominated by its largest and

best-educated tribe, the Baganda. He is not one of them: his father was a soldier, and his mother came from the small Banyarwanda tribe of Uganda’s far south-west He is thus relatively free of the tribal and family ties that have caused Uganda so much heartbreak, and he says he is determined to restore justice and prosperity. But what are his policies likely to be? It appears that Mr Museveni is intelligent, idealistic and (wonderful, if true) uncorrupt. He was a competent Minister of Defence during a brief half-democratic interregnum around 1980. He speaks the political language of “African socialism,” which can mean almost anything; if he has a European model, it is Sweden. His intentions, however, are one thing; it is another whether he will be strong enough, which the also well-intentioned General Okello was not, to bring his more difficult supporters into line. Some foreigners have made themselves unwelcome to Mr Museveni’s backers. The International Monetary fund imprudently praised the brutal regime before last when its president, Mr Milton Obote, went through the motions of introducing a free-market system. Mr Museveni’s allies think the I.M.F. thus propped up an evil dictator. The British tried to train Mr Obote’s army: Mr Museveni’s men did not like that either. Nor do they like Uganda’s Asians; • and most of the country’s export businesses (coffee, tea, sugar,

cotton) are either owned by Asians or operated, by them on behalf of others. Mr Museveni no doubt shares some of these dislikes, and a certain amount of anti-western wordage is to be expected. That will not matter if he couples it with economically sensible policies on the exchange rate, agricultural pricing and the internal market. During the last few years of bloody turmoil Uganda has built up a backlog of foreign aid, promised but unspent because there was no administration that could spend it. This money could do much good if Mr Museveni complies with reasonable advice about managing the country’s economy. Given his supporters, that is a big “if.” The other main worry about Mr Museveni is the apparent disunity among his Baganda supporters. They are united only in opposition to all other tribes. The 20 per cent of Baganda who are Roman Catholic, and whose political voice is the Democratic Party, are accused by the rest of having collaborated with known murderers from General Amin’s day in the two most recent regimes. The neighbours upon whom Uganda depends for its connections to the outside world will be pressing for peace and prosperity there after so many years of strife.

Kenya makes good money from trans-shipping Ugandan goods when Uganda is doing well. Tiny Rwanda (where Mr Museveni has family connections) gets all its imports through

Uganda, and desperately needs its roads to be free of gunmen, and if possible, to be repaired. These countries’ leaders are likely to support Mr Museveni,

and to urge him towards reconciliation with those of his former opponents who are.- not actually responsible for murder. Copyright, “The Economist.” -