How long has uganda been at war

Uganda country profile - home. British influence. Idi Amin years. Milton Obote becomes president after elections. Beginnings of recovery. Campaign against rebels. Multi-party politics. Image source, AFP. Somalia role. DR Congo allegations. Image source, Getty Images. Related Topics. Published 10 May For example, Rwanda has complained severally to Uganda both formally and informally about the presence of persons hostile to the government in Kigali.

It says these people abuse their refugee status in Uganda by indulging in politically hostile actions against the government in Kigali. Rwanda has further complained that these persons many of whom it has named are actively aided by Ugandan intelligence to recruit Rwandans from refugee camps and take them to DR Congo for training in rebel camps.

Kigali has always wanted and actively sought to discuss these matters with Kampala. It has been met with stone silence. Instead, Kigali has been reading in Ugandan traditional and social media that it is the government of Rwanda planning regime change in Kampala. Websites allied to State House in Uganda are leading this charge.

Some security chiefs in Uganda have said similar. Yet Kampala has never made a formal or informal complaint to Kigali on these allegations. This has placed the government of Rwanda in a difficult situation on how to respond to media rumors when government of Uganda has never owned them.

This situation could have been arrested long ago. However, all efforts to begin a dialogue between the two countries have been thwarted by Uganda. The most serious one was mid last year when I worked with Gen. Salim Saleh to send a delegation to Kigali or invite a Rwandan delegation to Kampala for discussions. We even greed on the team of Ugandan officials.

I talked to Kagame who readily nominated a team of officials to meet the Ugandan side. On the last minute Museveni personally cancelled the plan saying he will handle this matter directly with Kagame.

I personally tried several times to interest Museveni in the issues Rwanda was raising but he either expressed indifference or paid leap service or said he will discuss them directly with Kagame, which he rarely did. This was especially frustrating for me because between I worked closely with the Ugandan president to repair our relations with Kigali.

His subsequent loss of interest without explanation was confusing. While Museveni has promised to discuss these matters directly with Kagame and which he has done on occasion, there has been no follow up by Kampala. I am aware that whenever Museveni has met Kagame, he has never raised the issue of regime change by Kigali against him.

Museveni has promised to verify the claims and end the problem. The last I heard is that Uganda sent one such person to Norway. CMI has been detaining Rwandan nationals in illegal facilities, torturing and deporting them to Rwanda. CMI accuses these people of spying but has never produced them before courts of law. Neither has Uganda complained to Rwanda about this. Kigali has protested these detentions and deportations formally and informally. Again it has been met with stone silence. Meanwhile Uganda accuses Rwanda of kidnapping and killing Rwandans in Uganda and of seeking regime change but never provides names or any evidence and has never made a formal or informal protest to Rwanda.

I have told officials of Uganda that even if these allegations of kidnappings and killings are true, Rwanda is supposed to be our ally. Israel is an ally of America. On many occasions its intelligence services have been caught either kidnapping people from America or infiltrating US intelligence and stealing highly classified information.

These actions by Israel have been a great irritant to the USA, but they have never formed a basis for the break in relations. Recently America was caught tapping calls of leaders of nations among her NATO allies but this did not lead to the break in relations. Museveni is one of the most strategic minded persons I have read and listened to.

I do not think he would preside over the collapse of a strategic relationship with an ally because of such infringements. Such infringements are the reason to dialogue, not break-up. The only conclusion I can infer from his attitude towards Kigali is that either he does not consider Rwanda an ally or he does not think our relationship with her is strategic — or both.

Now here is the slippery slope to war: if Rwanda is convinced Kampala is seeking regime change against Kagame, it will not sit idly and watch. Uganda has enemies too. It follows that Kigali will be driven to aid them. Given the interpenetration of the two societies and government systems, Kampala will finally get the hard evidence of this aid.

Thus what begun as empty claims that Kigali is seeking regime change against Museveni will now be fact with evidence!

My view is both Kagame and Museveni should step down, Same as the Burundi leader and hand over power to the opposition that can actually unite all the great lakes region citizens.

Kagame needs to let go now so as to be forgiven by his people and try to set up a government that will be for the people by the people in uniting all the Rwandan groups then hand over power to a more civilized unmilitant leader. Andrew you are here bragging about your relationship with dictators.

You used to be a respected journalist who was impartial and independent minded. I am disappointed you lost the journalistic impartiality due to greed and love for money. Charles Onyango-Obbo must be disappointed in you too. He has maintained his principles. And by the way Andrew, your articles are no longer well researched. This too was poorly written. Jeje, how old are you? How do you manage your family if you have one?

There is a limit even a parent can take. But i think Rwanda is feeling the heat bz Mzee has started on correcting their errors for example DRC- Felix has publically said Mzee was behind his success and he freed all Political prisoners, Burundi- Piere Mzee is the main reason he still in Power.

These papers have vindicated me. He has entirely focused his attention to tourism to the extent that mountain gorillas in Rwanda are better treated than the people in that country. To be continued…. It is incumbent on everyone who lives in this region to reflect. If we support or beat the war drums to teach so and so a lesson, the war is likely to occur……but suppose by sheer bad luck, things turn out as they did in Kisangani, there will be the dead, IDPs and refugees.

When people are displaced by war, some travel by private means including air, others by public and yet others on foot….. Plan B or contingency is always good to have handy because you never know what might be. Yours truly having seen the evils of wars in this region will wait for the outcomes but I assure you that there can be no winner if Rwanda and Uganda went to war……the best witnesses are unfortunately gone a la Col Edison Muzoora, Col Sula Semakula, Gen Kazini and others.

But Andrew, the refusal to let Rwanda act with impunity in uganda and a clamp down on their actions in uganda should be seen as our response to their shenanigans surely. Closing their borders is only an escalation. Rwanda should solve the problem by not having refugee camps in uganda or any country. Then there will be no recruitment. Yes, closing the borders can do that. The irony. I think our president is being arrogant and elitist.

Your friend President Kagame is not being candid with you or there are facts about the conversations between the two presidents that you are not sharing. I for one will not be convinced that our president did not lay his case bare to President Kagame.

We have all seen him go off script many many times. I except otherwise. That said Johnny is smart and successful while ozimandius is right in his expectations of national integrity. A direct front line is unlikely since it works against both leaders. First, if Rwanda sends an expeditory force to Uganda, they may bring war to the presidents back yard by turning Kabale, Ntungamo and Mbarara into battle grounds. I am also sure most of these towns including Rwakitura could be within the striking range of some advanced artillery.

So, this will break the back of Uganda. On the same note, Kigali is very close to Uganda and can also be devastated without Uganda even sending in ground troops. Either way, both nations stand to loose. My fear is that mutual suspicion will continue and the person with a better wit shall outsmart the other and lead to his downfall. However all this has yielded nothing but has only exposed Rwanda. They know Uganda is the only country that has tolerated Rwandans, but because kagame says Uganda is the enemy they have no choice but to follow.

THESE two partners in crime know what the other is capable of doing and are therefore restless all the time not sure what the other is up to. The failure for any formal talks to take place is because the two principles consider their respective countries almost as personal estates , and most especially in one of the cases , there are no institutions. Matters are handled at a personal level, the reason there is no follow up.

The last time there was a meeting, it was the principles who met and talked, and no one or very few people know what transpired in the meeting. It was not a delegation meeting officials of say the relevant ministries. Even now, the brother in law, Sam Kuteesa is the one issuing statements, not as a minister , but more as a muko in a family feud.

I am aware that whenever Museveni has met Kagame, he has never raised the issue of regime change by Kigali against him…….. So what does this show? I pity people who take him seriously, bound to be heart-broken sooner than later. I think this is a really worrying trend from Rwanda. In this article, Mwenda wrote what President Kagame has said. Uganda has continue to harbor Rwandan criminals and fugitive. And all those issues has affected Rwanda and Uganda bilateral relations over the years.

Rwanda is a very open and free country. We prize accountability and Rwandans are quickly adapting themselves to the possibilities of a digital economy. Andrew, am I just imagining it or are you partial towards Rwanda? As Ofwono- Opondo once said it is easier to abuse M7 because he generally does not respond to petty politcking by wanainchi compared to PK who will have goons at your door before the ink is dry. With that said, I agree that M7 has no intention of settling this matter amicably.

M7 has historically shown a penchant for intolerance and disdain for dialogue. Not to mention numerous duplicitous maneuvers in the internal politics of Uganda whereby he pretends to listen to you only to find out months later that he has been plotting behind your back.

As a side note i suspect that a larger population of Uganda who has been rankled by Rwandese influence in our country over the past four decades are gleefully capering about and hoping for a rift which will return Rwanda to it rightful ignominous position of tiny country in the south of Uganda whom we patronize.

I think you are right. If you insult a President you must be in trouble. This is not democracy or free speech you keep claiming, it is bad manner and dangerous ideology you are teaching young generations. Chef, you are right. How dare you call a President an idiot? You are harboring bad ideology.

The few of us who survived we know who out God used to make us survive. But the genocide started I ! If what you are saying is out of ignorance, it is ignorance with bad faith. Semana tell your leadership to make conditions at home conducive for refugees to return home,why should you have your citizens live outside your country as refugees?

No one want a war…. Yeah, I hope even President Museveni do not want a war, since a war in this region can help anyone. We have lost many relations, and time in conflict, today we should strive for development. And good relations between our sister countries is one of the factor.

I am sure there is a lot more he does not know , or he will never know between politics of the two sister nations. There is no reason we should be having Rwandan refugees in Uganda when Rwanda is largely peaceful,We hosted Kagame and his friends when they were never wanted in their home country. The Children of War Rehabilitation Center, a facility run by World Vision, an international Christian charity, was hidden behind high shuttered gates, and walls studded with broken glass.

Inside, one-story buildings and tents filled the small compound. At the time of my visit, children were awaiting relocation. Some kicked a soccer ball, some skipped rope, others passed the time performing traditional dances. I saw about 20 children who were missing a leg and hobbling on crutches. One could tell the most recent arrivals by their shadowy silences, bowed heads, haunted stares and bone-thin bodies disfigured by sores.

Some had been captured or rescued only days earlier, when Ugandan Army helicopter gunships attacked the rebel unit holding them. Jacqueline Akongo, a counselor at the center, said the most deeply scarred children are those whom Kony had ordered, under penalty of death, to kill other children.

But virtually all the children are traumatized. One evening in Gulu at a sanctuary for night commuters, I met year-old George, who said he spent three years with the rebels.

He said that as the rebels prepared to break camp one night, a pair of 5-year-old boys complained that they were too tired to walk. On another occasion, George went on, he was forced to collect the blood of a murdered child and warm it in a saucepan over a fire.

He was told to drink it or be killed. Nelson, a young man of about 18, stared at the ground as he described helping to beat another boy to death with logs because the boy had tried to escape. Robert, a year-old from Kitgum, said he and some other children were forced to chop the body of a child they had killed into small pieces.

Margaret, a year-old mother I met at the rehabilitation center in Gulu, said she was abducted by LRA forces when she was 12 and repeatedly raped. She said that Kony has 52 wives and that 25 abducted girls will become his sexual slaves once they reach puberty. Margaret, a tall, softvoiced woman with faraway eyes who that day held her 4-year-old son in her lap, said she was the eighth wife of a high-ranking LRA officer killed in a battle last year.

He was captured this past July after a fierce battle near Gulu. One of his wives and a 4-year-old son were killed by helicopter gunship fire, but most of his soldiers got away. The army uses him for propaganda, having him speak over a Gulu radio station and urge his former LRA colleagues to surrender. Banya is in his late 50s. When I met him at the barracks, he said he underwent civilian helicopter training in Dallas, Texas, and military training in Moscow.

He claimed that he was himself abducted by LRA fighters, in He said he advised Kony against abducting children but was ignored. He denied that he ever ordered children to be killed or that he had raped young girls. Banya said that when he arrived at his first LRA camp, water was sprinkled on his bare torso and rebels marked him with crosses of white clay mixed with nut oil.

Banya, he said, crossed over to Kony of his own volition. The terrorist forces led by Kony, an apocalyptic Christian, could not have flourished without the support of the radical Islamic Sudanese government.

It was around then that Museveni ordered the Acholi population into the relative safety of government camps. In my three decades of covering wars, famines and refugees, I have never seen people forced to live in more wretched conditions. In a convoy of trucks filled with WFP rations, and accompanied by some armed Ugandan Army soldiers and two armored vehicles mounted with machine guns, I visited the Ongako camp, about ten miles from Gulu. Ongako housed 10, internally displaced persons.

Many wore ragged clothing as they waited for food in long lines in a field near hundreds of small conical mud huts. The crowd murmured excitedly as WFP workers began unloading the food—corn, cooking oil, legumes and a corn and soybean blend fortified with vitamins and minerals.