Chronography of Uganda
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2006, The Ugandan Govermnent and the Lords Resistance Army signed a
truce.
10
October 2005, Milton Obote,
President of Uganda, died
16
August 2003.
Idi
Amin, former
(mad) dictator of Uganda, died. He was born in January 1925 into a Nubian tribe in the West
Nile region. In 1946 he joined the King�s Africa Rifles as a cook. At 6�
4��tall, weighing 16 stone, he was a good boxer, and was Ugandan heavyweight
champion for nine years. He was also a good marksman, but missed out on army
promotion when he was found in bed with a colleague�s wife and had to flee
naked down the street.
His
ruthless nature emerged during the Mau-Mau
rebellions of the 1950s, when he would line the tribesmen up with their penises
on a table and threaten to chop them off with a machete unless they revealed
their hidden weapons caches. He was never court-martialled, despite torturing
to death three Kenyan tribesmen. He was a sergeant-major at Uganda�s
independence in 1962, and was a close aide of President
Milton Obote until Obote began to ask questions about arms spending.
On 25
January 1971, whilst Obote was abroad, Amin, by now a general, sent tanks into the capital, Kampala, and declared
Uganda to be under his military rule. He first purged the ranks of the
military; 32 senior officers were killed in one go when their barracks was
blown up. Other officers were shot, hanged, or beheaded. Amin set up the State Research Bureau, whose 3,000 officers could intern
people on mere suspicion of sedition. Survivors of these internment camps told
of being forced to smash other prisoner�s heads with sledgehammers, or even
being forced to butcher, cook, and eat them, in order to be spared themselves.
Many victims were thrown to the crocodiles in the Nile at Karume Falls Bridge.
During his
eight year rule of Uganda, over 300,000 Ugandans were killed by his
administration, sometimes publicly, on television. He was reputed to have kept
the heads of his more powerful opponents in a fridge, so he could carry on
berating them; he admitted to occasional cannibalism, disliking not the act
itself but the taste of human flesh � he found it too salty. He murdered his
first wife�s uncle, who was also his Foreign Minister; soon after divorcing his
second wife her dismembered body was found in a car boot. He divorced another
two wives over the radio. On 10 August 1972 Amin denounced Uganda�s 70,000 Asians as
crooks, racketeers, and racists who prevented their daughters from marrying
Africans and gave them 90 days to leave the country, minus all their assets;
they were permitted one suitcase each. This effectively stripped Uganda of all
its civil servants, administrators, and business leaders. Some 80% of Uganda�s
businesses were left leaderless, and British businesses were nationalised the
following year.
Amin claimed Scotland had offered him its
crown if he helped it separate from Britain, and he took to wearing a kilt. He
proposed to patch up Anglo-Ugandan relation by marrying Princess Anne. Idi Amin advised Nixon to jail the opposition during the
Watergate scandal. Amin sent a message of support to Kurt Waldheim,
former Nazi
who became Secretary general at the UN, after Waldheim was accused of war
crimes; Amin said Hitler�s only mistake was to lose the war. In
Uganda, Amin forbade facial hair, shorts for men and trousers and
mini-skirts for women; he banned flip-flops and forced two offenders to eat
theirs.
The Entebbe crisis of 1976 was the beginning of the end of Amin�s rule. In revenge for an Israeli raid on the airport to free hostages held
by Palestinian guerrillas, the Ugandan army killed an elderly British
woman, Dora
Bloch. By 1978 every non-Arab nation had severed relations with Uganda,
which was in ruins economically. Amin then invaded Tanzania. He sent President
Julius Nyere a telegram saying �I love you so much if you were a
woman I would marry you�, even as Ugandan troops were slaughtering Tanzanians
and their livestock over 700 square miles of Tanzania. Ugandan rebel forces
joined with the Tanzanian army and Amin�s regime fell on 10 April 1979.
Amin managed to escape, first to Libya,
then Iraq and finally Saudi Arabia. He gave up his flamboyant uniform for
Muslim robes and a skull-cap, and appeared to be a devout Muslim, living in a
luxurious villa in Jeddah. Giving up alcohol, he was said to eat 40 oranges a
day �to keep up his sex drive�. Amin drove a white range-rover, switching
to a blue Cadillac on his birthday.
On 18 July
2003 he was admitted to a Saudi hospital with kidney problems, having suffered
for years with high blood pressure. He fell into a coma and died on 16 August 2003.
2002, Uganda withdrew its forces after intervening in the
Congo civil war.
17
March 2000, In
Kanungu, Uganda, a sect calling itself the Movement for the Restoration of the
Ten Commandments of God burnt themselves to death inside their church.
1999, Sudan agreed to let Ugandan troops enter Sudanese
territory in pursuit of the Lords Resistance Army.
11 May 1996, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni
won the first free Presidential elections in Uganda.
12 January 1989, Former Ugandan President Idi
Amin was expelled
from Zaire; he sought refuge in Senegal.
1986, Museveni seized power.
27 July 1985, Ugandan President Milton
Obote, who regained
power in 1980 after being deposed by Idi
Amin in 1971, was
overthrown in a military coup. He was replaced by General Tito Okello.
10 December 1980. In the first elections in Uganda for 18 years, Dr Milton Obote was declared the winner.
11 April 1979. Kampala, capital of Uganda, was captured by Tanzanian forces
who deposed General Idi Amin. Fighting continued in Uganda, and on 22 April 1979
Tanzanian forces captured Jinja, 50 miles from Kampala. Idi Amin fled to Libya
as troops closed in on his capital.
Idi Amin regime
1971-79
22 March 1979. Ugandan Army troops surrounded the home of General Idi
Amin but he slipped away undetected. Under Amin�s rule some 300,000
Ugandans were killed. Amin became President in 1972, overthrowing Milton Obote;
his downfall came when he invaded
northern Tanzania in 1971. President Nyerere retaliated, assisting Ugandan
rebels to depose Amin.
8 November 1978, Uganda dropped its territorial claim on Tanzania.
12 October 1978, Border clashes between Uganda and Tanzania, caused by Idi Amin�s
expansionist claims on Tanzanian territory.
17 June 1977. Britain recalled its last two ambassadors from Uganda after
threats against them from President Idi Amin.
16 February 1977, The Archbishop of Uganda, the Most Reverend Janani Luwum, was
murdered by Idi Amin�s troops.
For Entebbe
Airport events 1976 see Jewish, 1976
27 July 1976, The UK broke off diplomatic relations with Uganda.
25 June 1976. In Uganda, Idi Amin declared himself President for life.
13 July 1975. President Idi Amin of Uganda was promoted from
General to Field Marshall.
25 March 1974. Fifty army officers were killed after a failed coup attempt
against President
Idi Amin of Uganda.
24 March 1974, In Uganda an attempted coup against President Amin by Brigadier Arube
was suppressed. Arube
shot himself and later died in hospital.
30 November 1972, The UK Government cancelled a planned �10 million
loan to Uganda because of Amin�s treatment of the Asians there. With the
Asians gone, Uganda now suffered serious economic problems. In Kampala, 80% of
the shops were closed, a third of the residential areas were deserted, and
there was a shortage of teachers at some schools, also of medical personnel;
few Ugandans were qualified to replace them. Imports were disrupted,m causing
prices and unemployment to rise.
22 September 1972, Idi Amin gave the remaining 80,000 Ugandan Asians 48 hours to leave
Uganda.
20 September 1972, Fighting ceased
after a short border war in which 1,000 Ugandan refugees living in Tanzania had
invaded Uganda, occupying three small towns.
6 August 1972. Idi Amin�
began expelling 50,000 British Asians from Uganda. He gave all Ugandan
Asians who were not citizens of Uganda 90 days in which to leave the country.
2 February 1971, Idi Amin dissolved the Ugandan Parliament and
formed a Defence Council with himself as Chairman. Idi Amin�s rule favoured the Muslims
of northern Uganda, amongst whom he had originated.
25 January 1971. Major General Idi Amin
(born 1926 of the northern Muslim Kakwa tribe) seized power in Uganda,
deposing President
Milton Obote whilst he was abroad at the Singaporean meeting of the
Commonwealth.� In March 1979 Uganda was
invaded by Tanzanian and dissident Ugandan forces, deposing� Idi Amin. Amin fled to Libya.
8 September 1967, Uganda became a
republic, with Milton Obote as the first President. The former Ugandan Constitution was abolished, and Obote now enjoyed wide-ranging powers.
1966, Milton
Obote accused Freddie
of trying to overthrow the central government. Federal troops under a young
colonel called Idi Amin stormed the Royal Baganda Palace,
forcing Freddie
into exile.
25 October 1962, Uganda was admitted to the United Nations, as the 110th
member.
9
October 1962. Uganda
became independent, after 62 years of British rule. The state was set up as
a Federation of Buganda and three other kingdons. Milton
Obote from the
northern Lango tribe was the first Prime Minister. Freddie, King of the southern
Buganda Kingdom became President of Uganda in 1963.
See 25
January 1971.
1 March
1962, Uganda
achieved full self-government, with Benedicto Kiwanuka as Prime Minister.
29
April 1954, Queen Elizabeth
II opened the Owen Falls hydroelectric dam at Owen Falls, Uganda.
28 December 1924, Milton Obote, President
of Uganda, was born.
23 May 1908, Famine
in Uganda
killed 4,000.
Uganda
becomes a British colony
10 March 1900, Regents for the King of Uganda signed a treaty
with Britain accepting UK sovereignty of their country.
11 April 1894. Britain established a
protectorate over Buganda. It then incorporated other regions to form the
present country of Uganda.
1890, Britain and Germany reached an
agreement; the UK was to colonise Uganda, and Germany to colonise Tangynika.