African Affairs 96:95-108 (1997)
© The Royal African Society
EXILE POLITICS AND RESISTANCE TO DICTATORSHIP: THE UGANDAN ANTI-AMIN ORGANIZATIONS IN ZAMBIA, 1972–79
The author is a Ugandan teaching in the History Department, National University of Lesotho
The contemporary debate on democracy and change in Africa appears to have largely concentrated on the current and future role of the political parties and the relative merits and demerits of multi-partly politics vis-a-vis single party rule during the 1980s and 1990s. In the case of Uganda, not enough attention has been paid to the historical background to the present. In particular, a major lacuna has been the role played by organizations outside the country for most of the 1970s in the struggle to remove the Idi Amin regime (1971–79) from power. This paper seeks to make a contribution towards filling this gap and thus add to our knowledge of the post colonial history of Uganda. It considers critically the part played by such organizations in the anti-Amin resistance movement which culminated in the formation of the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF) in March 1979 and the establishment of the first post Amin government in Uganda a month later. While recognizing the proliferation of similar exile bodies elsewhere, this paper concentrates on Zambia-based groups, the Uganda Liberation Group (Z) and the Uganda National Movement.