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Ugandan Bush War
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Ugandan Bush War
The Ugandan Bush War was a civil war fought in Uganda by the official Ugandan government and its armed wing, the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA), against a number of rebel groups, most importantly the National Resistance Army (NRA), from 1980 to 1986.
The unpopular President Milton Obote was overthrown in a coup d'état in 1971 by General Idi Amin, who established a military dictatorship. Amin was overthrown in 1979 following the Uganda-Tanzania War, but his loyalists started the Bush War by launching an insurgency in the West Nile region in 1980. Subsequent elections saw Obote return to power in a UNLA-ruled government. Several opposition groups claimed the elections were rigged, and united as the NRA under the leadership of Yoweri Museveni to start an armed uprising against Obote's government on 6 February 1981. Obote was overthrown and replaced as president by his general Tito Okello in 1985 during the closing months of the conflict. Okello formed a coalition government consisting of his followers and several armed opposition groups, which agreed to a peace deal. In contrast, the NRA refused to compromise with the government, and conquered much of western and southern Uganda in a number of offensives from August to December 1985.
The NRA captured Kampala, Uganda's capital, in January 1986. It subsequently established a new government with Museveni as president, while the UNLA fully disintegrated in March 1986. Obote and Okello went into exile. Despite the nominal end of the civil war, numerous anti-NRA rebel factions and militias remained active, and would continue to fight Museveni's government in the next decades.
The Ugandan Bush War is also known by a variety of other names. For instance, Ugandan Civil War has also been used, though this title as also been employed for other military conflicts such as the Lord's Resistance Army insurgency. As a result of the eventual victory of the NRM, several alternate titles for the 1980–1986 conflict reference the rebel group and its main theater of operations, the Luwero Triangle: These include Luwero War, National Resistance Movement revolution, or Resistance War.
In 1971, the President of Uganda Milton Obote was overthrown in a coup d'état by parts of the Uganda Army which put Idi Amin in power. Obote had been president since Uganda's independence from the United Kingdom in 1962, and his regime saw a general decline in living standards in the country, with growing corruption, factional violence, and persecution of ethnic groups. Obote's increasing unpopularity led him to believe rivals were beginning to plot against him, particularly Amin and arranged a purge to occur while he was outside of the country. As Amin was popular in sections of the military, his loyalists responded by acting first and overthrowing the government, forcing Obote into exile in Tanzania. Despite initial popularity, Amin quickly turned to despotism and established a military dictatorship which accelerated the decline of Obote's regime, destroying the country's economy and political system.
As time went on, Amin's regime was increasingly destabilized by factionalism and economic decline, while opposition groups as well as dissatisfied elements of the Uganda Army repeatedly attempted to organize uprisings or to overthrow his regime by other means. Several opposition factions, including Obote's loyalists, were supported by Tanzania under President Julius Nyerere. In 1978, parts of the Uganda Army launched an invasion of Tanzania under unclear circumstances, resulting in open war with the neighboring country. Tanzania halted the assault, mobilised anti-Amin opposition groups, and launched a counter-offensive. Amin's forces and his Libyan allies were defeated by Tanzanian troops and the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF), a political coalition formed by exiled anti-Amin Ugandans under the leadership of Obote, whose armed wing was known as Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA). Amin was overthrown during the fall of Kampala and then fled the country, and UNLF was installed by Tanzania to replace him. The unstable UNLF government ruled the country provisionally from April 1979 until December 1980. Meanwhile, the ousted Amin loyalists who had fled into Zaire and Sudan reorganised, and prepared to renew war in order to regain control of Uganda. Obote planned to regain power, even though he remained widely unpopular in Uganda. War correspondent Al J Venter stated that in case of Obote's return to the presidency "Uganda will be assured of another war, many times as intense as the current struggle [i.e. the Uganda–Tanzania War]. Only, the next one will be a guerrilla conflict".
Meanwhile, Uganda's northeast was destabilized by large-scale banditry and communal violence. Karamojong groups, Uganda Army remnants, and foreign raiders used the political instability to raid cattle and other foodstock. These events caused a famine in Karamojong Province which killed 50,000 out of the 360,000 inhabintants of the northeastern highlands.
The first group to initiate hostilities were the Amin loyalists who launched a rebellion against the UNLF government in the autumn of 1980. Their 7,100-strong force never adopted an official name, but is generally called "Uganda Army" as it consisted for the most part of old troops of Amin's Uganda Army (it was also known as "West Front" or "Western Nile Front"). The rebels were not truly unified but split into several bands that were loyal to numerous officers who had previously served under Amin such as Emilio Mondo, Isaac Lumago, Isaac Maliyamungu, Elly Hassan, Christopher Mawadri, and Moses Ali. Amin arranged for the group to receive money from Saudi Arabia in preparation for a large-scale attack across the border against the West Nile sub-region. On 6 October, one week before the offensive was to commence, about 500 rebels crossed the border and attacked the town of Koboko. The 200-strong UNLA garrison was on parade at the time and was unarmed; the rebels massacred the soldiers. Word of the attack spread to other UNLA garrisons in West Nile, who quickly fled to the Nile River, leaving the Uganda Army's advance unopposed. They were welcomed by the local population, which had tense relations with the UNLA. As the rebels knew that they could not hold the captured territory against a full UNLA counter-offensive, they mostly retreated back into Sudan after a few days with a large amount of loot. The UNLA began its counterattack on 12 October accompanied by Tanzanian forces. The only significant resistance they encountered was in Bondo, where six Tanzanians were killed. The UNLA forces, considering the local population hostile, engaged in a campaign of destruction and looting across the West Nile, as Tanzanian officers tried in vain to restrain them. They leveled the town of Arua, killed over 1,000 civilians, and provoked the flight of over 250,000 refugees to Sudan and Zaire. The brutality of the UNLA inspired further unrest, as peasants and ex-soldiers took up arms to defend their lands from the government forces.
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Ugandan Bush War
The Ugandan Bush War was a civil war fought in Uganda by the official Ugandan government and its armed wing, the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA), against a number of rebel groups, most importantly the National Resistance Army (NRA), from 1980 to 1986.
The unpopular President Milton Obote was overthrown in a coup d'état in 1971 by General Idi Amin, who established a military dictatorship. Amin was overthrown in 1979 following the Uganda-Tanzania War, but his loyalists started the Bush War by launching an insurgency in the West Nile region in 1980. Subsequent elections saw Obote return to power in a UNLA-ruled government. Several opposition groups claimed the elections were rigged, and united as the NRA under the leadership of Yoweri Museveni to start an armed uprising against Obote's government on 6 February 1981. Obote was overthrown and replaced as president by his general Tito Okello in 1985 during the closing months of the conflict. Okello formed a coalition government consisting of his followers and several armed opposition groups, which agreed to a peace deal. In contrast, the NRA refused to compromise with the government, and conquered much of western and southern Uganda in a number of offensives from August to December 1985.
The NRA captured Kampala, Uganda's capital, in January 1986. It subsequently established a new government with Museveni as president, while the UNLA fully disintegrated in March 1986. Obote and Okello went into exile. Despite the nominal end of the civil war, numerous anti-NRA rebel factions and militias remained active, and would continue to fight Museveni's government in the next decades.
The Ugandan Bush War is also known by a variety of other names. For instance, Ugandan Civil War has also been used, though this title as also been employed for other military conflicts such as the Lord's Resistance Army insurgency. As a result of the eventual victory of the NRM, several alternate titles for the 1980–1986 conflict reference the rebel group and its main theater of operations, the Luwero Triangle: These include Luwero War, National Resistance Movement revolution, or Resistance War.
In 1971, the President of Uganda Milton Obote was overthrown in a coup d'état by parts of the Uganda Army which put Idi Amin in power. Obote had been president since Uganda's independence from the United Kingdom in 1962, and his regime saw a general decline in living standards in the country, with growing corruption, factional violence, and persecution of ethnic groups. Obote's increasing unpopularity led him to believe rivals were beginning to plot against him, particularly Amin and arranged a purge to occur while he was outside of the country. As Amin was popular in sections of the military, his loyalists responded by acting first and overthrowing the government, forcing Obote into exile in Tanzania. Despite initial popularity, Amin quickly turned to despotism and established a military dictatorship which accelerated the decline of Obote's regime, destroying the country's economy and political system.
As time went on, Amin's regime was increasingly destabilized by factionalism and economic decline, while opposition groups as well as dissatisfied elements of the Uganda Army repeatedly attempted to organize uprisings or to overthrow his regime by other means. Several opposition factions, including Obote's loyalists, were supported by Tanzania under President Julius Nyerere. In 1978, parts of the Uganda Army launched an invasion of Tanzania under unclear circumstances, resulting in open war with the neighboring country. Tanzania halted the assault, mobilised anti-Amin opposition groups, and launched a counter-offensive. Amin's forces and his Libyan allies were defeated by Tanzanian troops and the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF), a political coalition formed by exiled anti-Amin Ugandans under the leadership of Obote, whose armed wing was known as Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA). Amin was overthrown during the fall of Kampala and then fled the country, and UNLF was installed by Tanzania to replace him. The unstable UNLF government ruled the country provisionally from April 1979 until December 1980. Meanwhile, the ousted Amin loyalists who had fled into Zaire and Sudan reorganised, and prepared to renew war in order to regain control of Uganda. Obote planned to regain power, even though he remained widely unpopular in Uganda. War correspondent Al J Venter stated that in case of Obote's return to the presidency "Uganda will be assured of another war, many times as intense as the current struggle [i.e. the Uganda–Tanzania War]. Only, the next one will be a guerrilla conflict".
Meanwhile, Uganda's northeast was destabilized by large-scale banditry and communal violence. Karamojong groups, Uganda Army remnants, and foreign raiders used the political instability to raid cattle and other foodstock. These events caused a famine in Karamojong Province which killed 50,000 out of the 360,000 inhabintants of the northeastern highlands.
The first group to initiate hostilities were the Amin loyalists who launched a rebellion against the UNLF government in the autumn of 1980. Their 7,100-strong force never adopted an official name, but is generally called "Uganda Army" as it consisted for the most part of old troops of Amin's Uganda Army (it was also known as "West Front" or "Western Nile Front"). The rebels were not truly unified but split into several bands that were loyal to numerous officers who had previously served under Amin such as Emilio Mondo, Isaac Lumago, Isaac Maliyamungu, Elly Hassan, Christopher Mawadri, and Moses Ali. Amin arranged for the group to receive money from Saudi Arabia in preparation for a large-scale attack across the border against the West Nile sub-region. On 6 October, one week before the offensive was to commence, about 500 rebels crossed the border and attacked the town of Koboko. The 200-strong UNLA garrison was on parade at the time and was unarmed; the rebels massacred the soldiers. Word of the attack spread to other UNLA garrisons in West Nile, who quickly fled to the Nile River, leaving the Uganda Army's advance unopposed. They were welcomed by the local population, which had tense relations with the UNLA. As the rebels knew that they could not hold the captured territory against a full UNLA counter-offensive, they mostly retreated back into Sudan after a few days with a large amount of loot. The UNLA began its counterattack on 12 October accompanied by Tanzanian forces. The only significant resistance they encountered was in Bondo, where six Tanzanians were killed. The UNLA forces, considering the local population hostile, engaged in a campaign of destruction and looting across the West Nile, as Tanzanian officers tried in vain to restrain them. They leveled the town of Arua, killed over 1,000 civilians, and provoked the flight of over 250,000 refugees to Sudan and Zaire. The brutality of the UNLA inspired further unrest, as peasants and ex-soldiers took up arms to defend their lands from the government forces.
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