Military History of Uganda - Disunity and The Ugandan Bush War (1979-1986)

Disunity and The Ugandan Bush War (1979-1986)

The lack of cohesion between the various Ugandan groups that formed the UNLF quickly became apparent as president Yusuf Lule was replaced by Godfrey Binaisa, a former minister in the UPC. While the UNLF force that helped overthrow Amin numbered only 1000, in 1979, Museveni and David Oyite-Ojok, a Langi like Obote, began a massive recruitment of soldiers into what were in-effect their personal armies. When Binaisa attempted to stop this rapid military expansion, he was deposed by Museveni, Oyite-Ojok and Obote-stalwart Paulo Muwanga. After Muwanga's rise to power, Obote returned to the country to stand in elections. In an intensely contested and highly compromised election held on December 10, 1980, Obote was re-elected president with Muwanga as his vice-president. In response, Museveni declared armed opposition to Obote's UNLF government. In 1980, Museveni merged his Popular Resistance Army (PRA) with Lule's Uganda Freedom Fighters, forming the National Resistance Army (NRA). As well as the NRA, two rebel groups based in Amin's home West Nile sub-region emerged: the Uganda National Rescue Front and the Former Uganda National Army.

The beginning of the Ugandan Bush War was marked by an NRA attack in the central Mubende District on 6 February 1981. The NRA insurgency was based largely in the anti-Obote strongholds of central and western Buganda and the former kingdoms of Ankole and Bunyoro. Fighting was particularly intense in the Luwero triangle of Buganda, where the bitter memory of the counterinsurgency efforts of the UNLF's Langi and Acholi soldiers against the populace would prove an enduring legacy. The NRA was highly organized, forming Resistance Councils in areas they controlled to funnel recruits and supplies into the war effort. In comparison, the inability of the UNLF government to defeat the rebels both in the west and West Nile proved devastating to the unity of the government, while the brutality of the counter-insurgency further inflamed anti-Obote sentiment in the occupied areas. Following the death of General Oyite-Ojok in a helicopter crash at the end of 1983, the Acholi-Langi alliance began to fracture. On 27 January 1985, Acholi troops under Brigadier Bazilio Olara-Okello staged a successful coup and put fellow Acholi General Tito Okello into the presidency as Obote once again fled into exile, this time for good. The Okello government had little policy besides self-preservation. After an Okello-Museveni peace agreement broke down, the NRA began a final offensive and entered Kampala in January 1986 as the Acholi troops fled north to their homeland. Yoweri Museveni declared the presidency on January 29, 1986. Estimates for the death toll for the 1981-5 period, which includes the Bush War, conflict in West Nile and internecine UNLF purges and fighting, range as high as 500,000.