Are the recent riots in Uganda an indication of things to come? Is this country, which has known peace for over twenty years, except for the LRA tragedy in the north, about to erupt? All this over a local king, a cultural leader with no political power?
The Buganda kingdom is centuries-old, with a long-standing culture and tradition. It is not going to go away overnight. The Baganda people are attached to it, and anyone who tries to spoil it sooner or later will face their wrath. Former president Milton Obote abolished it in 1966, and sent the father of the present kabaka (king in Luganda) into exile where he died, and has never been forgiven. President Yoweri Museveni restored it in 1993, against the advice of his army generals, and has had strong Baganda support in the elections since then. With this latest ill-judged move, preventing the kabaka from visiting a cosmopolitan part of his kingdom, where his own people still form the majority, and with such a flimsy excuse –that the heavy police and military “cannot guarantee the kabaka’s safety”-, and that the Banyala (2.7 per cent of the district’s population) are likely to create trouble if he visits, defies credibility.
Perhaps the President thinks he can count on the Baganda vote in the 2011 elections, -the Baganda form 17 per cent of the national population and are the best educated- because there’s time to mend fences before then, and, besides, Museveni has no strong competition for the presidency. People find likely presidential candidates Kiiza Besigye, Museveni’s former personal physician, too strident and negative; and Olara Otunnu, who was out of the country for 23 years and came back recently for a few days, before disappearing again, is “not serious”. All the same, he’ll have to work hard to erase this serious political gaffe from the Baganda memory. For the Baganda first come their king and everything he stands for, and then the president, who, by the way, is considered a “commoner” by traditional Baganda and may not approach the king just like that.
Reconciliation won’t be easy, because of the land issue. The capital, Kampala, is built on and surrounded by the kabaka’s land. It’s fertile and is centrally located. It is prime land, and anyone with money and influence would like land there. At present the ones who manage to get land in or close to the city are well-connected Baganda, and top military men who come from western Uganda, the president’s home area.
However, the Baganda are people who don’t go to war easily. They are smart business people and have built up a reasonable prosperity in their kingdom, which they don’t want to see destroyed. But they don’t want to be pushed around either, as the recent riots showed. Closing four of their radio stations and charging a popular talk-show presenter with sedition may be unwise moves too. Commuters listen to the latest news, and gossip, on the radio stations as they travel to and from work, and discuss issues among themselves. Buganda thrives on rumours at the best of times –a left-over from the days of Obote and Idi Amin repression-; with their stations closed, wild rumours can spread and threaten security. The rioters, the bayaye –uneducated and unemployed youth, who live on the edge and have nothing to lose- won’t fear going to the streets again.
What was unusual about these riots was their length. One Ugandan friend told me it reminded him of 1979, when Amin’s successor, Yusuf Lele, a gentle academic, was thrown out; Lule was a Muganda. Riots in Kampala are usually half-day affairs, and stop in time for people to go back to work and buy food. Also, they are always confined to the city centre. These spread to outlying district of the Buganda kingdom, and included destruction of property. The same “old hand” thinks that we might see a repeat performance of 1966, when Obote, a nationalist and socialist with little sympathy for royal tradition, overthrew the kabaka of the time, who had been appointed Ugandan President by the British before they left, and imposed a state of emergency.
The second day of riots was caused by a rumour that the Kabaka had been arrested. After four hours of confrontation with police, a heavy thunderstorm dampened spirits, and after it was over rioters and braver soccer fans ventured out to watch a crucial Arsenal-Manchester City match together “live” in the public TV halls and local bars.
Uganda has had a bloody history since Independence in 1962, and the UPDF (Ugandan army) is still chasing rebel leader, Joseph Kony, now creating mayhem in the Central African Republic. Older Ugandans can all remember war, deaths in the family and its grim sequel, AIDS, and everyone wants a better future. The young in most of the country haven’t experienced war, but they know that peace is preferable; and the ones who have been abducted and brutalized in northern Uganda will spend the rest of their lives recovering from trauma.
For Ugandans the riot is the last resort, when all other avenues are blocked. It is a cry of despair.
Martyn Drakard is a freelance writer based in Africa.
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