The impact of ideological conflicts on Uganda’s stunted development

Discussions of Uganda’s slow development have centered on challenges like rapid population growth, hostile ecological environment and poor governance. While these have had an impact, attention needs also to be directed at ideological conflicts as well. These ideological conflicts have diverted development resources – time, financial and human – to non-developmental activities or led to failure to utilize fully Uganda’s human talent.

Conflicts between Catholics and Protestants denied Catholics to form an independence government in 1962 because Protestants in the UK and those in Uganda were not prepared to relinquish power the chiefs and their relatives had enjoyed since 1894. Qualified Catholics were either sidelined or under-utilized with all implications in loss of morale or reduced incentive to produce to the optimum level. The situation changed with the NRM government since 1986, putting Catholics ahead of some Protestants and repeating the same ideological problem. Many good Protestants are languishing in the ‘dark’. Anti-sectarian law has ensured that little is said about this problem.

Within the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) and Kabaka Yekka ( KY) alliance conservative and radical differences surfaced soon after independence. At the same time, within UPC the conservatives or capitalists led by the late Grace Ibingira conflicted with socialists led by the late John Kakonge. On the other hand, the KY royalists could not stand UPC commoners led by the late Milton Obote. These ideological conflicts wasted time and resources that could have been devoted to economic and social development. At the 1964 UPC delegates’ conference in Gulu, the differences came out in the open during the election of the party’s Secretary-General. The socialists lost and were hunted. The showdown was particularly serious among youth wingers. The socialist were marginalized and under-utilized, forcing many to leave and fight the party.

At the same time capitalists in the government worked closely with royalists in and out of government led by Ibingira and waged a fierce political battle against socialists led by Obote after Kakonge who was feared by both men had been removed. The military leadership was also split with the commander on the side of capitalists/royalists and the deputy commander with the socialists. In circumstances like these, development efforts are severely undermined.

The defeat of capitalists/royalists in 1966 and the new constitution of 1967 which abolished kingdoms and increased powers of the executive president emboldened the reinvigorated UPC to go socialist with the launch of the Common Man’s Charter in 1969. It triggered capitalist forces inside and outside Uganda. A new ideological war between Amin with capitalist guidance and Obote, the socialist leader led to a military coup of 1971 that sent the country into ‘darkness’ for eight years.

From 1981 the ideological conflict between capitalist and socialist groups was expressed in structural adjustment. Socialism had to go. For two years, intellectual war raged in government between those who did not want structural adjustment which minimized the role of the state in the economy and those who wanted it guided by market forces and laissez faire capitalism. Ultimately the pro-structural adjustment group with external backing won decisively and even implemented shock therapy version and some of those against it lost their jobs or were marginalized at best. Subsequent advice against excesses of structural adjustment was regarded as sabotage and those who gave it were penalized in one way or another.

The anti-terrorist act with a very broad definition is now being used to curtail civil, political, economic, social and cultural freedom of those in the opposition to the NRM government. However trained and experienced they may be they have been kept outside of the mainstream. Much time, financial and human effort is being diverted from development to trace dissidents at home and abroad and silence them.

Consequently, Uganda has retrogressed in all areas of human endeavor, witness re-emergence of preventable diseases that include meningitis, cholera, dysentery, plague, human sleeping sickness and jiggers. Against this backdrop, Uganda has been appropriately described as a failed state under a military dictatorship disguised as democratic.

Thus, ideological conflicts should also become an integral part of the development discourse to be able to have a holistic understanding of the situation and recommend appropriate solutions.