Uganda People's Defence Force
The Uganda People's Defence Force, previously known as the National Resistance Army, is the armed forces of Uganda. From 2007 to 2011, the International Institute for Strategic Studies estimated the UPDF had a total strength of 40,000–45,000, consisting of land forces and an air wing. Recruitment to the forces is done annually.
After Uganda achieved independence in October 1962, British officers retained most high-level military commands. Ugandans in the rank and file claimed this policy blocked promotions and kept their salaries disproportionately low. These complaints eventually destabilized the armed forces, already weakened by ethnic divisions. Each post-independence regime expanded the size of the army, usually by recruiting from among people of one region or ethnic group, and each government employed military force to subdue political unrest.
History
The origins of the Ugandan armed forces can be traced to 1902, when the Uganda Battalion of the King's African Rifles was formed. Ugandan soldiers fought as part of the King's African Rifles during the First World War and Second World War. As Uganda moved toward independence, the army stepped up recruitment, and the government increased the use of the army to quell domestic unrest. The army became more closely involved in politics, setting a pattern that continued after independence. In January 1960, for example, troops were deployed to Bugisu and Bukedi districts in the east to quell political violence. In the process, the soldiers killed 12 people, injured several hundred, and arrested more than 1,000. A series of similar clashes occurred between troops and demonstrators, and in March 1962 the government recognized the army's growing domestic importance by transferring control of the military to the Ministry of Home Affairs.First post-independence military, 1962–1971
On 9 October 1962, Uganda became independent from the United Kingdom, with the 4th Battalion, King's African Rifles, based at Jinja, becoming the Uganda Rifles. The traditional leader of the Baganda, Edward Mutesa, became president of Uganda. Milton Obote, a northerner and longtime opponent of autonomy for the southern kingdoms including Buganda, was prime minister. Mutesa recognized the seriousness of the rank-and-file demands for Africanising the officer corps, but was more concerned about the potential northern domination of the military, a concern that reflected the power struggle between Mutesa and Obote. Mutesa used his political power to protect the interests of his Baganda constituency and refused to support demands for Africanisation of the officer ranks.On 1 August 1962, the Uganda Rifles was renamed the "Uganda Army". The armed forces more than doubled, from 700 personnel to 1,500, and the government created the 2nd Battalion stationed at the northeastern town of Moroto on 14 November 1963. Omara-Otunnu wrote in 1987 that "a large number of men had been recruited into the Army to form this new battalion, and... the new recruits were not given proper training" because the Army was already heavily committed to its various operations.
In January 1964, following a mutiny by Tanganyikan soldiers in protest over their own Africanisation crisis, unrest spread throughout the Uganda Army. On 22 January 1964, soldiers of the 1st Battalion in Jinja mutinied to press their demands for a pay raise and a Ugandan officer corps. They also detained their British officers, several non-commissioned officers, and Minister of Interior Felix Onama, who had arrived in Jinja to represent the government's views to the rank and file. Obote appealed for British military support, hoping to prevent the mutiny from spreading to other parts of the country. About 450 British soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, The Scots Guards and Staffordshire Regiment responded. They surrounded the First Battalion barracks at Jinja, seized the armory, and quelled the mutiny. The government responded two days later by dismissing several hundred soldiers from the army, several of whom were subsequently detained.
Although the authorities later released many of the detained soldiers and reinstated some in the army, the mutiny marked a turning point in civil–military relations. The mutiny reinforced the army's political strength. Within weeks of the mutiny, the president's cabinet also approved a military pay raise retroactive to 1 January 1964, more than doubling the salaries of those in private to staff-sergeant ranks. Additionally, the government raised defense allocations by 400 percent. The number of Ugandan officers increased from 18 to 55. Two northerners, Shaban Opolot and Idi Amin, assumed command positions in the Uganda Army and later received promotions to Brigadier and commander in chief, and army chief of staff, respectively.
Following the 1964 mutiny, the government remained fearful of internal opposition. Obote moved the army headquarters approximately from Jinja to Kampala. He also created a secret police force, the General Service Unit to bolster security. Most GSU employees guarded government offices in and around Kampala, but some also served in overseas embassies and other locations throughout Uganda. When British training programs ended, Israel started training Uganda's army, air force, and GSU personnel. Several other countries also provided military assistance to Uganda.
Decalo writes:
using classic 'divide and rule' tactics, he appointed different foreign military missions to each battalion, scrambled operational chains of command, played the police off against the army, encouraged personal infighting between his main military 'proteges' and removed from operational command of troops officers who appeared unreliable or too authoritative.
When Congolese aircraft bombed the West Nile villages of Paidha and Goli on 13 February 1965, Obote again increased military recruitment and doubled the army's size to more than 4,500. Units established included a third battalion at Mubende, a signals squadron at Jinja, and an antiaircraft detachment. On 1 July 1965, six units were formed: a brigade reconnaissance, an army ordnance depot, a brigade signals squadron training wing, a records office, a pay and pensions office, and a Uganda army workshop.
Tensions rose in the power struggle over control of the government and the army and over the relationship between the army and the Baganda people. During Obote's absence on 4 February 1966, a motion opposing him was introduced to parliament by Grace Ibingira, which called to suspend Amin and investigate Obote and three others for supposedly accepting gold and ivory from Congolese rebels. On 22 February, Obote arrested Ibingira and four other ministers, essentially dismantling opposition to himself in the Ugandan People's Congress. Later, Amin was appointed Chief of the Army and Air Force Staff, while Brigadier Opolot was demoted to the Ministry of Defence as Chief of the Defence Staff. On 24 May 1966, Obote ousted Mutesa, assumed his office as president and commander in chief, suspended the 1962 constitution, and consolidated his control over the military by eliminating several rivals. In October 1966 Opolot was dismissed from the army and detained under the emergency regulations then in force.
At about the same time, Obote abrogated the constitution, revoked Buganda's autonomous status, and instructed the Army to attack the Kabaka's palace, forcing the Kabaka to flee. Elections were cancelled. Political loyalty rather than military skill became critical amongst both officers and men. Many educated southern officers were court-martialled or dismissed in 1966 and 1967, and ethnicity became the key factor in recruitment and promotions.
In 1970, the International Institute for Strategic Studies assessed the Ugandan armed forces to consist of 6,700 personnel, constituting an army of 6,250 with two brigade groups, each of two battalions, plus an independent infantry battalion, with some Ferret armoured cars, and BTR-40 and BTR-152 armoured personnel carriers, plus an air arm of 450 with 12 Fouga Magister armed jet trainers, and seven MiG-15s and MiG-17s.
Uganda Army of Idi Amin, 1971–1979
In January 1971, Amin and his followers within the army seized power in a coup d'état.Shortly after the expulsion of Asians in 1972, Idi Amin launched a small invasion across the Tanzanian border into south-western Uganda. His small army contingent in 27 trucks set out to capture the southern Ugandan military post at Masaka but instead settled down to await a general uprising against Amin, which did not occur. A planned seizure of the airport at Entebbe by soldiers in an allegedly hijacked East African Airways passenger aircraft was aborted when Obote's pilot blew out the aircraft's tires, causing it to remain in Tanzania. Amin was able to mobilize his more reliable Malire Mechanised Regiment and expel the invaders.
In 1976, during Operation Entebbe, the Israeli military destroyed 12 MiG-21s and three MiG-17s based at Entebbe Airport to prevent pursuit.
In 1977, before the Uganda–Tanzania War, the Ugandan armed forces were reported by IISS as consisting of 20,000 land forces personnel, with two four-battalion brigades and five other battalions of various types, plus a training regiment. There were a total of 35 T-34, T-55, and M-4 Sherman medium tanks. SIPRI assessed decades later that ten T-34s had been supplied from Libya in 1975–76. An air arm was 1,000 strong with 21 MiG-21 and 10 MiG-17 combat aircraft. The IISS noted that the Uganda Army collapsed in the face of the Tanzanian onslaught and the serviceable aircraft were removed to Tanzania. Its remnants fled into exile in Zaire and Sudan, from where they launched an insurgency. Meanwhile, pro-Tanzanian rebel groups were reorganized to become Uganda's new regular military.
UNLA, 1979–1986
After the Uganda–Tanzania War, fighters available to the new government included only the fewer than 1,000 troops who had fought alongside the Tanzanian People's Defence Force to expel Amin. The army was back to the size of the original army at independence in 1962. Titularly, Colonel Tito Okello served as army commander and Colonel David Oyite Ojok as chief of staff, leading the Uganda National Liberation Army.But in 1979, in an attempt to consolidate support for the future, leaders such as Yoweri Museveni and Major General Ojok began to enroll thousands of recruits into what were rapidly becoming their private armies. Museveni's 80 original soldiers grew to 8,000; Ojok's original 600 became 24,000. When then-President Godfrey Binaisa sought to curb the use of these militias, which were harassing and detaining political opponents, he was overthrown in a military coup on 10 May 1980. The coup was engineered by Ojok, Museveni, and others acting under the general direction of Paulo Muwanga, Obote's right-hand man and chair of the Military Commission. The TPDF was still providing necessary security while Uganda's police force—which had been decimated by Amin—was rebuilt, but President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania refused to help Binaisa retain power. Many Ugandans claimed that although Nyerere did not impose his own choice on Uganda, he indirectly facilitated the return to power of his old friend and ally, Obote. In any case, the Military Commission headed by Muwanga effectively governed Uganda during the six months leading up to the national elections of December 1980.
A Commonwealth Military Training Team - Uganda assisted the UNLA in the early 1980s.
After the Museveni government was formed in 1986, an NRA code of conduct, originally formulated in the bush in 1982, was made public. This was later formalized as Legal Notice No. 1 of 1986, and served as a basis for relations among soldiers and between the NRA and the public. After the MRM victory steps were taken to institutionalize the NRA, including the setting-up of a bureaucracy; uniforms; regimental colours; training programmes; ranks; and pay and privileges. A number of key Rwanda Patriotic Front personnel became part of the National Resistance Army that became Uganda's new national armed forces. Fred Rwigyema was appointed deputy minister of defense and deputy army commander-in-chief, second only to Museveni in the military chain of command for the nation. Paul Kagame was appointed acting chief of military intelligence. Other Tutsi refugees were highly placed: Peter Baingana was head of NRA medical services and Chris Bunyenyezi was the commander of the 306th Brigade. Tutsi refugees formed a disproportionate number of NRA officers for the simple reason that they had joined the rebellion early and thus had accumulated more experience.