How Uganda’s foreign relations fuelled the 1966 Buganda Crisis

Thursday, May 24, marked 52 years since government troops commanded by Idi Amin attacked Lubiri and drove Kabaka Muteesa into exile. This led to what is today commonly known as the 1966 Buganda Crisis. The causes were mainly internal, but Uganda’s foreign relations at the time also had an influence in fomenting the crisis.

A few years before the coalition government that ushered Uganda into independence had ended, UPC used both coercion and patronage to lure members of both the Democratic Party (DP) and Kabaka Yekka (KY) to its side to give it absolute majority in the House.

Keeping the enemy closer
As the cracks in the UPC-KY alliance became visible, Muteesa is said to have advised some KY Members of Parliament to cross to Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC).
According to the Uganda Argus newspaper of July 19, 1965, during one press conference, KY members who had crossed to UPC said “Kabaka advised us to join UPC”.

The six who crossed were Abu Mayanja, SK Masembe-Kanali, I Ssebunya, A Kisekka, EMK Mulira and FG Sembeguya, with Grace Ibigira as the mastermind of their crossing.

They all claimed to have “joined UPC on orders from Muteesa in order to give effect to the word of the Kabaka so that Buganda MPs could play a bigger role in the nation”.
Despite Muteesa’s denial, his brother, Prince Alfred Joseph Kigala and a staunch UPC supporter, said in the Uganda Argus interview: “I am convinced beyond any doubt that Uganda Peoples Congress is the champion of national unity in Uganda. It is the only party which is for the good and unity of the country; the protection of the Kabaka.”

By mid-1965, two factions had developed in the UPC caucus in Parliament. One faction, led by Obote, had a nationalistic approach with the aim of doing away with kingdoms and focusing on communism and eradication of class distinctions created by the colonialists. Others in this group were Sam Odaka, Felix Onama, Adoko Nekyon and Idi Amin.

The other group, which was sympathetic to the survival of kingdoms and political reforms, was led by Grace Ibigira had members such as vice president William Nadiope, Baraki Kirya, Dr Lumu, Shaban Opolot, among others.
The split came at a time when the situation in eastern Republic of Congo (today Democratic Republic of Congo) drew the attention of the Obote faction. Covertly and with support from the Chinese, they supported the defeated Simba rebels. The rebels had been defeated by Moïse Tshombe’s forces which had been supported by a combined airpower of American and Belgians mercenaries.

Obote sent the Third Battalion of the Uganda Army, commanded by Idi Amin, to provide training and some equipment to the rebels to revive their fight against the Moïse Tshombe government. It was this intervention that deepened the rift between the UPC government and other foreign powers, culminating in the 1966 Crisis.

How it started
The events in Congo seemed of interest to Obote even before he sent troops there. In his speech titled ‘A Plan for Nationhood’ made in 1962 during a party conference, Obote accused the United States, Britain, Portugal, Belgium and the Soviet Union of dividing Africa to control them even after independence.

“There is no reason for us in Uganda to think that the problems facing our immediate neighbours and the whole of Africa do not concern us… The situations in Mozambique, South Africa, and the Republic of the Congo are not only the negation of our cherished ideal but also a positive danger to our dignity and independence. Our relation with any country must never follow a course dictated to us,” Obote said.

The speech only widened the gap between the two factions within UPC. Foreign powers exploited this gap to influence politics in Uganda and in Congo.

The January 1964 army mutiny was a blessing in disguise for Obote as it helped him get rid of the British army officers still serving in the Uganda Army.
This also marked a turning point in the military relations between Uganda, Israel and China. This was at a time when Britain had turned down Obote’s request for improved military support on grounds that Uganda had no threat to warrant military upgrade.

Turning point
With that rejection, Obote turned to Israel, first and later reached out to China and the Soviet Union. According to Omara Otunnu’s book Politics and the Military in Uganda, 1890-1985, “By April 1964 Israel secret service MOSSAD was training Uganda’s new 800-man elite paramilitary force the General Service Unit (GSU) headed by Akena Adoko.”
This in return gave the government strength and belief to want to help the Simba rebels. To cover their tracks, Information and Broadcasting minister Adoko Nekyon, who was a member of Obote’s group, issued a warning of suspected espionage going on in Uganda.

“Foreigners were organising, financing and spreading anti-government propaganda, all Ugandans must be careful that the government’s commitment to freedom of expression and association did not degenerate into a license to subvert the UPC government,” reported the Uganda Argus of May 18, 1964.
When Congolese prime minister Moïse Tshombe announced that his government had arrested Ugandan troops operating in Congo, the Uganda Argus of February 22, 1965, instead reported that the six Ugandan soldiers were kidnapped while on a border patrol in West Nile and taken to the Congo.

Obote denied Tshombe’s claims, saying his statements were politically motivated because “UPC did not recognise Tshombe’s government, but rather the Simbas as the legitimate government of the Congo”.

With reports of Ugandan troops being in Congo coming to light, Basil Bataringaya, a DP member and leader of opposition, tabled a motion ‘Peace in Africa’. In his argument, Bataringaya said the motion was “intended to stimulate non-partisan debate of a general nature regarding foreign intrusions in Africa”.

He condemned the Russians, Chinese and Americans for their interventionist foreign policies towards the Congo, saying “if we allow the Cold War politics to dominate our political scene, we shall lose our independence”.

Supporting the motion, UPC’s JSM Ochola said: “Uganda was faced with internal problems arising from external influence.”
While KY’s EMK Mulira in his contribution accused ministers and UPC backbenchers of “receiving money from the US and China to further their own personal political agendas”.

Secrets revelling session
What was meant to be a motion for debate turned out to be a secrets revelling session. Animals, Games and Fisheries minister John Babiiha accused KY members of being subversive agents who were in contact with Tshombe and seeking to destabilise Uganda for Tshombe’s benefit with American support.

Instead of denying it, KY MP Kigunddu replied: “Oppressive laws passed by African governments often led to foreign states settling internal disputes and that a similar process was happening in Uganda.”
It was Internal Affairs minister Felix Onama who brought the debate to an end, saying: “If the worst came to the worst, I do not think that there is anybody sensible who is going to honour the Constitution for the destruction of Uganda. We shall just ban the Constitution and act to the best interest of ourselves, to defend Uganda, and deal with the traitors.” This was less than a year to the 1966 Crisis.

A few weeks after the debate, Vincent Rwamwaro, another Obote loyalist, claimed of an assassination attempt against the prime minister.
“Unscrupulous Asians and KY leaders had contacted unnamed foreign embassies to assassinate Obote,” he claimed, adding that “Uganda’s Constitution needed to be amended so that it matched the times and with developments in the country.”
Matters took a turn for the worse for the Obote faction in Parliament when KY’s Daudi Ochieng presented a copy of Amin’s bank statement on March 16, 1965, showing he had banked Shs340,000 got from a gold sale.
Ochieng went on to allege that between January and February 1965 Amin travelled to West Nile in order to meet Nicholas Olenga and Christophe Gbenye, both leaders of the Simba rebellion.

Two months after Ochieng’s allegations, a convoy of arms destined for Uganda was intercepted by Kenyan authorities.
It took Obote two weeks to have them cleared. For the first time Obote admitted that Uganda had military relations with China as the arms impounded were from China. He told Parliament that “Britain had been unable to provide them quickly enough”.

Between September and November 1965 rumours of an impending coup were making rounds in Kampala.
These rumours further damaged the already fractured unity in the UPC-led government. They were sparked off in September 1965 when Daudi Ochieng asked Obote “whether or not the government is prepared to grant the requests contained in telegram from General Olenga Nicolas in Khartoum, Sudan.”

The telegram asked the Uganda government to block the withdrawal of large sums of money belonging to the National Council of Liberation deposited in Uganda Bank accounts in the names of Christophe Gbenye, Thomas Kanza, and Idi Amin.
Obote denied knowledge of the telegram, but two weeks later Ochieng made more claims of a group of 26 Ugandans who had been secretly trained in some communist countries to come and overthrow the government of Uganda.

Lukiiko resolution
Concerned by the claims, the Buganda Lukiiko on the September 29, 1965, passed a resolution asking the Kabaka’s government to discuss with the central government the threats of overthrowing the central and federal governments and assassination of leaders.

As talks of a coup were making rounds, another faction within UPC with a communist leaning headed by John Kakonge heavily supported by the party’s youth league had emerged, bringing the factions in the party to three.
The alleged link between Ibingira’s faction and its support from America to topple Obote as UPC party president, and rumours of a communist country training members of the pro-communist UPC youth league all worked in favour of the Obote faction to strengthen their position.

However, the revelation of Obote faction’s secret involvement in the Congo rebellion made many of his supporters question his growing authority.
This brought together all those who wanted the central government power under control, most especially politicians from Buganda. They were joined by those who feared communism such as Ibingira and several other UPC members.
But fears of the rising American and Chinese influence in Uganda as a result of the Congo intervention made many anxious that Uganda’s sovereignty was being violated, thus causing the Obote faction to justify their attack on the Lubiri.