A Long Distance Relationship
Chapter 14
Murder in Uganda
Chapter 15
The General Challenges the Dictator
Chapter 16
Interrogation
Chapter 17
Another “Election”
Chapter 18
The General Returns
Conclusion
Further Reading
Notes
UGANDA
300 BC—300AD
The territory now known as Uganda settled by various migratory groups from central and eastern Africa.
1300s
Buganda kingdom established.
1840s
Arab traders arrive in Buganda.
1860s-70s
British and French explorers and missionaries arrive in Buganda.
1890s
Baganda Protestants, Catholics and Muslims engage in a series of wars for supremacy.
1894
Uganda formally becomes a British Protectorate.
1962
Uganda granted independence; Milton Obote becomes prime minister.
1966
Obote orders Army Commander Idi Amin to attack Kabaka Mutesa II’s palace. Kingdoms abolished the following year.
1971
Obote toppled by Idi Amin.
1979
Amin toppled by Tanzanian troops.
1979-80
Various governments installed and overthrown.
1980
Obote wins election amid rigging accusations.
1981
Yoweri Museveni and Andrew Lutaakome Kayiira establish rebel groups and declare war on Obote’s government.
1985
Obote toppled by army officers Basilio and Tito Okello.
1986
Museveni’s National Resistance Army topples the Okellos and takes power in Uganda. A quarter of his army comprises Tutsi Rwandan refugees.
1986
The National Resistance Army commits atrocities against the Acholi and Teso people in northern and eastern Uganda, respectively. Various rebel movements emerge.
1987-9
President Museveni makes three trips to Washington where he meets President Ronald Reagan and H. W. Vice President George Bush.
1988
Joseph Kony establishes the Lord’s Resistance Army and terrorizes the people of northern Uganda.
1991-4
Uganda funnels clandestine military assistance to both the RPF and John Garang’s Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).
NOVEMBER 1994
Uganda begins clandestine training of Congolese rebels who will eventually form Laurent Kabilia’s Allied Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDL).
1990s–PRESENT
Uganda becomes notorious for corruption. Billions of dollars vanish and virtually every Ministry is affected, including Health, Finance and the Prime Minister’s Office. Donors continue to support Museveni’s regime with ever more generous aid packages.
2001
Museveni wins his second presidential election, amid allegations of rigging. Opposition leader Kizza Besigye flees to exile.
FEBRUARY 2006
Museveni wins a third presidential election. Opposition again cries foul, alleges rigging. Two senior security officials later confirm the election was rigged.
2008
Joseph Kony flees Uganda and peace returns to the north for the first time since Museveni came to power in 1986.
2011
Museveni wins a fourth election, amid allegations of rigging. Non-violent protests are met with brutal security crackdown; at least nine unarmed demonstrators are killed.
2011-12
Parliament begins investigation into management of Uganda’s oil sector.
DECEMBER 2012
MP Cerinah Nebanda dies under mysterious circumstances.
FEBRUARY 2016
Museveni wins a fifth election. For the first time, European election observers cry foul. Opposition leader Kizza Besigye arrested for the fiftieth time.
RWANDA
1988
The Uganda-based Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), led by Tutsi officers in Uganda’s army mobilizes to topple the Hutu-dominated government of Rwanda.
OCTOBER 1990
The RPF invades Rwanda from Uganda.
1990-4
Civil war in Rwanda.
APRIL 1994
President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane is shot down in Kigali. Genocide against Tutsis commences.
JULY 1994
The RPF takes over Rwanda, more than one million Hutu refugees flee to Tanzania and Zaire.
SUDAN
JUNE 1989
Colonel Omar El-Bashir, backed by Hassan Al-Turabi’s National Islamic Front, topples Sudan’s Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi.
1989-2005
Civil war devastates southern Sudan.
2005
Sudan and the SPLA sign peace agreement
2011
South Sudan declares independence. Rampant government corruption ensues.
2013–PRESENT