UGANDA

NATIONAL CONFLICTS
to the insecurity that characterised the country following the NRA’s rise to power. 185
Participants in Bulambuli emphasised that atrocities committed by ill-disciplined NRA
forces during this period also led to more loss of life and property, for which citizens are
still demanding apologies and compensation. 186
PHASE VI: Museveni’s No-Party System Regime (1986 –
2006)
A new phase started for Uganda with the coming to power of the current regime,
with promises of democracy, economic development and a new constitution.
Even though peace seemed to have arrived in the capital, new insurgencies were
born in the peripheries. Amidst reforms in the army and new policies such as
decentralization and no-party politics, disparity in development between the
north and south of the country deepened. Rather than allowing a break from
the past, it has been said that, with the new regime, conflict and lack of national
unity continued, albeit with a different face.
24. Disparity between the North and South in Development (1986 -
present)
The deep-rooted regional divide in Uganda between the northern and the southern
regions of the country, which was created by the British Colonial Government in the
name of administrative efficiency, continues to vividly manifest in different forms,
thereby impeding national unity, equitable development and sustainable peace. Post-
Independence leaders concentrated powers and resources in the hands of specific
groups according to the leader’s region of origin. This engineering of regional exclusion,
inequality and imbalance in the country, as seen during the Apollo Milton Obote and Idi
Amin regimes, bred anti-northern sentiments in southern Uganda. 187
Participants across the country discussed the process by which President Yoweri
Kaguta Museveni’s administration has concentrated powers, authority and resources in
western Uganda and marginalised people from the north and people from the east, thus
perpetuating unequal development and deep-seated ethnic hatred. Participants suggest
that if the North-South divide is not addressed and if there is no regime change soon,
the ethnic communities in western Uganda associated with the incumbent President
Museveni might suffer terrible reprisals for the current maltreatment of other regions. 188
25. Increased poverty (1986 – present)
In all districts visited, participants indicated that the National Resistance Army (NRA)
185 Research conducted in Adjumani, Gulu, Bulambuli and Soroti Districts
186 Research conducted in Bulambuli District
187 Refugee Law Project (2004) Working paper no. 11: Behind the violence: Causes, consequences and the
quest for justice
188 This came from all the districts visited. The participants from Mbarara District expressed their current fears
of revenge and mistreatment after Museveni’s regimes ends, and a significant number of participants
from other districts expressed sympathy to many innocent people from western Uganda who might in
future pay for the sins and crimes perpetrated by the incumbent Government.
93