By Oweyegha-Afunaduula
In Uganda, the sound of gunfire has echoed through decades, shaping a political landscape where violence is not merely a reaction but a calculated tool of governance for continuous invasion, conquest, and occupation well into the future, largely by people with exogenous roots. The National Resistance Movement/Army (NRM/NRA)’s bush war (1981-1986), framed as a liberation struggle, laid the groundwork for a governance model that relies on the control and suppression of the indigenous communities in Uganda.
From the Luwero Triangle’s brutal campaigns to today’s tear-gas-filled streets, state violence persists, raising a critical question: Has Uganda’s liberation narrative become a legacy of coercion? At the same time, the rulers of Uganda from the bushes of Luwero imposed decades of expenditure of public money celebrating something they knew was not a liberation but an invasion, conquest and occupation of a country that was yearning for meaning and effective liberation from the consequences of 70 years of British colonial rule. Instead, what has emerged is a new apartheid-like black colonialism.
Just like what happened in South Africa between 1948 and the early 1990s, the majority indigenous Ugandans are being segregated against ethnically, economically, ecologically, culturally, environmentally, socially and politically by a small supremacist ethnically well-knit group with strong roots in Rwanda and the Rwandese Tutsi-rich Mulenge area of present-day Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The group inserted itself in the Uganda Constitution 1995, which they dominated and directed, as the artificial indigenous Banyarwanda, and at the same time struggled hard to cast themselves as a traditional cultural group integral to the Banyankole indigenous group. Unfortunately, just as the group sustained violence in the Luwero Triangle from 1981 to 1986, which resulted in the death of nearly 500 mainly Baganda and Baruli people, the group continues to be central to the sustenance of violence and death even as they continue to convince every Ugandan that they ushered in peace and security from the bushes of Luwero and that they are the ones that can ensure that the country is secure and peaceful. They are not lying because Uganda continues to suffer insecurity, unpeace and violence because of the centrality of state violence in breeding and sustaining insecurity, unpeace and violence as and when it serves their interests.
Indeed, the President of Uganda has always reminded us that today it is interests, not identities, that matter in Uganda. This explains why political violence persists. This article examines how political violence, rooted in the NRM/NRA’s militarised past, has evolved into a systemic mechanism for maintaining power from 1996 to 2026.
Historical Roots of Violence: The NRM/NRA Legacy (1981-1986)
The NRM/NRA’s guerrilla war against Apollo Milton Obote’s regime, and later Tito Okello’s regime, was marked by intense violence in the Luwero Triangle, with massacres of civilians, forced displacements, and a pervasive climate of fear. While the NRM/NRA seized power in 1986 with promises of democracy, its militarised approach seeped into governance.
Yoweri Tibuhaburwa Museveni’s consolidation of power included establishing militarised Local Defence Units (LDUs), embedding military structures into civilian life under the guise of demystifying the gun. This period normalised the use of force against perceived enemies, setting a precedent for future regimes. In other words, the emergents from the bush were showing the seeds of violence on a continuous basis. Violence became institutionalised. This is traceable in:
(i) The Luwero Triangle massacres, where thousands of civilians were killed amid counterinsurgency operations.
(ii) Targeting of Baganda populations, fuelling ethnic tensions and a narrative of “enemy territories” (Buganda vs the North).
(iii) Post-1986 purges of perceived opponents, embedding a culture of suspicion and hatred
(iv) Organised criminal gangs, sometimes denied then later accepted as linked to the State. A good example is the Kalangala Action Plan.
Post-1996 Escalations: Patterns of State Violence
Since 1996, Uganda’s elections have been marred by escalating violence. The state has deployed a mix of physical brutality and legal restrictions to suppress opposition. Elections-related violence has become predominant. Sometimes just before elections, some gangs armed with pangas become most active and then quiescent after the elections. Or else both the UPDF and police become central to the electoral process and reign violence as and when they choose. There is a well-documented sequence of state-inspired violence:
(i) 2001 Elections: Kizza Besigye’s arrest and alleged torture, sparking protests;
(ii) 2006 Elections: Police raids on opposition rallies, Besigye’s violent rearrest;
(iii) 2016 Elections: Military deployment in Kasese, killing over 100 during a local protest.
(iv) 2021 Elections: Bobi Wine’s house arrest and live-bullet shootings at People Power rallies. Also, well over 80 people were killed and hundreds maimed by security forces during Bobi Wine’s maiden rally in the district.
(v) Violently targeting opposition dissent throughout the country.
(vi) Bobi Wine’s arrests (2018-2021), charged with treason, sparking nationwide protests.
(vii) Crackdowns on journalists: closures of media houses, arrests of reporters covering protests.
(viii) The 2020 A-Level Student Protests: mass arrests and alleged torture of students protesting grading issues.
(ix) Violence parked legal mechanisms
*Public Order Management Act (2013): Restricts gatherings, used to ban opposition rallies.
*Anti-Terrorism Laws: Broadly applied to silence critics, labelling dissent as “terrorism”.
*UPDF Act 2025: This is seen as instrumentalisation of the perversion of justice in Uganda for the benefit of the rulers.
Violence Mechanisms and the Impact
Political violence in Uganda serves multiple intertwined purposes:
(i) Intimidation and Fear: Silences critics, deters participation in opposition politics, and manipulates voter turnout;
(ii) Narrative Control: The government frames violence as “security measures”, while the opposition portrays it as state repression. This clash fuels polarisation in the country;
(iii) Human Costs: Casualties, displacements, trauma. e.g., the Kasese killings (2016) left deep scars, while social media shutdowns during elections amplify isolation;
(iv) Financial Costs: the National Budget is overstretched to support the State House and security security measures, denying essential sectors such as education and health adequate funds to ensure the quality of the population;
Good examples are:
(i) 2009 Buganda Riots: Over 100 killed when security forces denied the Kabaka of Buganda his right to visit Kayunga, escalating tensions with the kingdom.
(ii) 2020 Social Media Ban: * Blocked platforms during elections, culling information flow.
Challenges and Reflections
The normalisation of violence erodes trust in institutions, inviting international scrutiny while emboldening repression. Yet, resilience persists. Resistance, which is constitutional, and digital activism: Bobi Wine’s music (e.g., Situka), online campaigns, and youth-led protests continue to challenge the status quo and to cast violence as a paper tiger that cannot forever restrict people’s determination to win freedom, democracy, and justice for themselves without resorting to violence. However, many challenges remain.
(i). Many Ugandans are still ignorant of the fact that their country was not liberated but invaded, conquered and occupied;
(ii) Many Ugandans are ignorant of the fact that the continuing bantustanisation of their country into numerous districts, subcounties and constituencies is not because the rulers love them but to make it difficult for them to unite on a common cause such as freedom, justice and their resources;
(iii) Many Ugandans still don’t know who their rulers are and continue to fight against each other as they allow people with exogenous roots to dictate terms and determine the future of their country;
(iv) Many Ugandans are still mesmerised by the gun and endorse the overmilitarisation of their country, which they interpret as strength, security and peace; and
(v). It remains a huge task to transform the collective mindset of Ugandans in favour of their country. Many have fled the country, although economic pressures cannot be excluded from the explanation of their departure.
Some questions remain to be asked:
(i) Does violence stabilise regimes or sow deeper discontent?
(ii) Can Uganda break the cycle of violence without confronting its militarised past?
(iii) Is there international complicity? Many human rights crusaders agree that the silence of Uganda’s donors amid human rights abuses complicates the demand of Ugandans for accountability.
Conclusion
Uganda’s political violence is not an aberration – it is a tool inherited from the NRA’s guerrilla playbook, refined over decades to maintain power. As the country approaches 2026, the choice is stark: will the gun’s legacy fuel further repression, or will Ugandans demand a shift toward dialogue and accountability? Confronting this history is the first step toward reclaiming a meaningful politics of peace and security.
Otherwise Uganda will continue with a peace and security narrative conceived by and sustained by NRA combatants and within their interests of power, glory and regional supremacy at the expense of Uganda and its people, resources, development, transformation and progress, which are more talked about than realisable in the medium- and long-term.
Uganda will continue in a state of stagnation if the sense of entitlement implanted in the politics of the country continues to dictate everything: who rules the country, who gets educated, which communities get a share of the national cake, and what is emphasised in the national budget, why and how. For now it is peace and security as narrowly perceived by the military rulers of Uganda: military security at the expense of other types of security, including environmental security, social security, intellectual security, ecological security, sociopolitical security, mental security, psychological security, water security, health security, future security, et cetera.
The survival of Uganda in the 21st century and beyond needs total delinking from NRM violence-impregnated politics and governance. Short of this there is Uganda as conceived by the colonialists but disintegrated to serve the wider long-term interests of the latter-day invaders, conquerors and occupiers, currently benefiting from violent politics and the bleeding of the country as they did in the Luwero Triangle and have done over the last 40 or so years.
If the country has been massively bantustanised, what will ultimately happen is its total disappearance, like what did happen to the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in our lifetime. Only Ugandans can prevent this if they resolve to capture their country back sooner rather than later. The precondition is to reject continued militarisation of politics and the use of political violence as a governance tool towards 2050.
For God and My Country.
Prof. Oweyegha-Afunaduula is a conservation biologist and member of the Center for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis.
