Uganda essays

Uganda essays The people of Uganda have had many types of governments during their long history, but until the coming of British Colonialism, there was no central government. Originally government was in the hands of the tribal groups who elected their own leaders and made their own laws, which all members of their group were expected to follow. Later some central authority was given to the kings of the various tribes, including the largest of these, the Buganda, whose ruler, the Kabaka, was considered the king and had ultimate authority over his people and their land ( Cavendish, 31). Mutesa II, whose full name was Sir Edward William David Walugembe Mutebi Luwangula Mutesa, was the Kababa of the East African State of Buganda, which is now part of Uganda from 1939 to 1953, and again from 1955 to 1966 (Thompson, 134). During the 1940s although he was nominally king, Mutesa was essentially controlled by the British resident and his Katikiro, or prime minister, and was personally unpopular. In 1953, when elimination of the privileged position of king of Buganda within the protectorate of Uganda seemed imminent, Mutesa II took an unyielding stand in meetings with the governor of Uganda so as not to completely alienate many of his increasingly suspicious and anti-British subjects. His key demands were for separation of Buganda from the rest of Uganda and the promise of independence. When he refused to communicate the British governments formal recommendation to his lukiiko, or parliament, he was arrested and deported (Cavendish, 32). Buganda leaders engineered Mutesa IIs return in 1955, as a constitutional monarch who still had a great deal of influence in the Buganda government. When Uganda became independent, Prime Minister Obote hoped to placate Buganda by encouraging Mutesas election as president in 1963, but a conflict over the continued integrity of the Buganda kingdom with Uganda followed. When Mutesa II t...