UGANDA

15
THEMATIC ISSUES
conflict between newly converted Catholics and Protestants. 8 Marriage between people
of two different religions became taboo and many families were divided along religious
lines.
Colonialism as a root cause of post-Independence conflict
The end of the colonial era did not end the divisions it had created. Instead, these
divisions had become firmly rooted and would inspire conflict for generations to come.
A participant in Kitgum said:
“The British left conflict behind before Independence. It has
continued in different forms… and we are still not solving the
conflicts related to it.”
The first Ugandan independent Government inherited more than just the boundaries of
the State of “Uganda” from the British Protectorate. A political landscape characterised
by division, tribal rivalries, resentments, conflicts and struggles for power had developed.
Participants considered this colonial legacy never to have been comprehensively
addressed by the post-Independence Governments. 9 In fact, post-colonial divisions were
regularly exploited by Uganda’s rulers, and a number of participants believed that ‘divide
and rule’ strategies implanted by the British remain largely intact today. 10
Participants found that the colonialists, through the use of indirect rule and their divide
and rule policies, were responsible for sowing the seeds of division and conflict in all
layers of society. They said that the colonial administration exploited and exacerbated
already existing rivalries between different ethnic groups (and the polities they had
links to, such as Kingdoms). Where alliances were created with certain rulers, they were
granted special privileges. The 1900 Buganda Agreement, for example, allowed the
Buganda Kingdom to expand their sphere of influence across the Protectorate. With the
help of the British, the Buganda Kingdom annexed territory that previously fell under the
jurisdiction of the Bunyoro Kingdom, an area commonly known as “the Lost Counties.” 11
British policies of divide and rule and indirect rule set the stage for ‘Tribalism’ and
national disunity that would keep Uganda divided to date, according to participants. In
Gulu, this was described as Uganda’s “national disease”. The British divided Ugandans
not only between Baganda and non-Baganda, but also according to region. (See directly
below, under ‘Post-Independence North-South Division’)
8 For more information, see conflict number 2 in this Compendium
9 Some limited attempts to deal with colonial legacies were arguably made. It is possible to consider the
structure of Uganda’s first post-Independence Constitution in this fashion, as well as Obote’s abolition of
Kingdoms in 1966. None of these actions, however, were considered to constitute a genuine and comprehensive
process to deal with colonial legacies
10 One of the Compendium’s reviewers added to this analysis. As had the participants, he considered that
the colonial legacy had yet to be properly addressed, and that Uganda remains a “conquest state”, created
through conquest by colonialists and inherited as such by the first independent Ugandan government.
The conquest state, he argued, remains predatory, repressive, undemocratic and unaccountable in
nature, having never undertaken the reforms necessary to achieve democratization to derive its power
and legitimacy from the people rather than coercion
11 For more information see, conflict number 8 in this Compendium.