by Guy Arnold
Moi increased his grip on power in 1986 when control of the civil service was transferred to the President’s office, as was the power to dismiss the Attorney-General, the Auditor-General and judges, thus lessening the independence of the judiciary. A new system of voting that was an open invitation to intimidation was introduced: voters had to queue publicly behind the candidate of their choice. By 1987 Kenya was attracting increasing international odium for its poor human rights record. KANU won the elections of 1988 although known opponents of Moi such as Odinga were prevented from standing and Moi was returned unopposed as President for the third time. In the post-election reshuffle the popular Vice-President Mwai Kibaki was demoted. However, early in 1989 Odinga appeared to have been reconciled with Moi when he called on all Kenyans to support the government. In May of that year the Vice-President, Josephat Karanja, was accused by party leaders of arrogance, forced to resign and then expelled from KANU. In June Moi released all political prisoners including Odinga’s son. At the same time he attacked the Daily Nation for its political reporting and Arab countries for opposing his decision to resume diplomatic relations with Israel. By the end of the decade Moi was no longer able to ignore the growing demands for a return to multiparty politics. The murder, in February 1990, of the Foreign Minister, Robert Ouko (a Luo), damaged the government’s already tarnished image since it was seen as a political killing. In June 1990 two former politicians of standing – Kenneth Matiba and Charles Rubia – applied for a licence to hold a public meeting to discuss a return to multiparty politics. They were consequently harassed, then detained without trial. By 1991, however, the government was moving reluctantly towards a return to multiparty politics although Moi kept insisting that such a move would lead to a reversal to tribalism.
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In Tanzania after Julius Nyerere was returned as President for the fifth time with 93 per cent of the votes cast in 1980 he announced that he would not stand again in 1985. Prime Minister Edward Sokoine retired for health reasons and was replaced by Cleopa Msuya. A coup attempt was mounted against Nyerere in January 1983 leading to the detention of 20 soldiers and nine civilians. Nyerere later launched an anti-corruption drive that resulted in more than 1,200 arrests. Economic decline during the decade led to a growing realization that the programme of ujamaa and villageization was not working, in part because the bureaucracy had been unable to provide the necessary support. There were increasing shortages of basic consumer goods while the lack of foreign exchange became more acute. Disappointed in the failure of his socialist policies, even though he still had the support of the majority of Tanzanians, Nyerere stood down in 1985 and was succeeded as President by Ali Hassan Mwinyi in October. At first Mwinyi made only minimal changes in policy; before long, however, he inaugurated a major departure in economic policy when he accepted IMF proposals and economic restructuring, thus signalling the end of Nyerere’s brave attempt at grassroots socialism. Tanzania, thereafter, moved back into mainstream, orthodox Western-style economics. Even so, Nyerere had made a lasting and unique impact upon both Tanzanian and more generally African politics. ‘He ruled his country for 25 years and tried to involve all his people in his own homespun brand of socialism. Though his economic policies were not successful, he did create a moral and social climate superior to most of the rest of Africa and he gave his people good educational standards and a strong belief in his philosophies and themselves.’1
Ali Hassan Mwinyi had become President of Zanzibar in January 1984; he calmed a politically explosive situation on the island whose politics were always volatile and supervised a return to prosperity, achievements which brought him to the attention of Nyerere. As a result he was Nyerere’s choice as successor in 1985 and was duly elected by 1,731 to 14 votes in a special congress of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) in August 1985 before he went on to win the presidential elections in October. Tanzania was facing an economic crisis and Mwinyi quickly came to terms with the existing realities when, pragmatically, he turned to the IMF and began to liberalize the economy although he met heavy criticism from the left for abandoning the CCM’s socialist principles. In 1989 a rift developed between Nyerere, who had remained chairman of the CCM, and Mwinyi as president since Nyerere was still opposed to any deal with the IMF. He was, however, becoming increasingly isolated on this issue. Despite this difference, Nyerere acknowledged Mwinyi’s successes in tightening up the administration: he had made ‘the new government look like a government’ he said. In February 1990 Nyerere, the architect and intellectual defender of the one-party state, said publicly that Tanzania should consider multiparty politics again. On 29 May Nyerere announced that he intended to resign as chairman of the CCM in favour of Mwinyi. In the elections of October Mwinyi was returned unopposed as president with 95 per cent of the vote. He appointed John Malecela (the former High Commissioner to Britain) as his Prime Minister. By this time many voices were raised in favour of multipartyism and in March 1991 Mwinyi set up a presidential commission to seek the views of the people. The government also relaxed the leadership code as laid down in the Arusha Declaration. By then it was clear that the Nyerere era of the one-party state was over. Despite its poverty and periodic disorders in the troubled island of Zanzibar, Tanzania had enjoyed a remarkable record of stability through the Nyerere years from 1961 to 1985 and then under his successor Hassan Mwinyi.
Milton Obote was one of a very few African leaders ousted in a coup who, after a decade in exile, made a successful comeback. He returned to Uganda in 1980 to lead his Uganda People’s Congress in the December elections which he won, taking 68 of 126 seats although the results were widely regarded as having been rigged. Yoweri Museveni, whose Uganda Patriotic Movement had contested the elections, never got on with Obote and after his defeat he took to the bush and built up the National Resistance Army (NRA). Although 1981 and 1982 could not be regarded as years of civil war, there was much violence aimed at the government and many complaints of unruly behaviour and indiscipline on the part of Obote’s army. The violence increased dramatically during 1983 and in the area north of Kampala an estimated 100,000 refugees from the escalating violence in the north of the country found themselves targets for an army that was clearly out of control. By 1984 guerrillas opposed to the government were attacking targets ever closer to Kampala so that the civilians in central Uganda were the people who suffered the most as a result of the increasing lawlessness and breakdown of central control. Obote appeared less and less able to exercise control over the army while frequent army forays against the guerrillas north of Kampala failed to eliminate the threats posed by these dissidents with the result that a general sense of insecurity increased. Obote had some limited success in a policy of reconciliation, at least with the Democratic Party, but by 1985 the economic recovery was faltering. Having made his political return, Obote showed little capacity to get on top of an increasingly lawless situation in which anti-government rebels successfully attacked government targets, acts that invited government reprisals rather than any policy. In the west of the country Museveni’s NRA went on the offensive. In July the army mounted a coup and Obote fled to Zambia. A military council was established under Gen. Tito Okello; it appointed Paulo Muwango, Obote’s Vice-President, as Prime Minister, a move that caused great anger, especially in the ranks of the NRA which, in any case, was excluded from the new government. The anger increased when the army recruited former Amin soldiers into its ranks. As a result, the military council dismissed Muwango after only a month in office. On 17 December 1985 Museveni signed a peace pact with the military council but this was broken almost at once and after a lightning campaign the NRA took control of Kampala on 26 January 1986 and Museveni was sworn in as President of Uganda on 29 January. Once Museveni had been sworn in as President, Okello’s army disintegrated. The NRA showed a restraint that was unique in 16 years of on-off civil wars and massacres to which Uganda had been subject and this added to the appeal of Museveni’s National Resistance Movement (his political wing).
By the end of March the NRA had taken the whole country with little loss of life, leading Museveni to declare that the war was over, though in this he was premature.
Opponents of Museveni mounted periodic attacks through 1986 and 1987 and in mid-1987 the Federal Democratic Movement brought its alliance with Museveni to an end and joined with the Ugandan People’s Democratic Movement in the hope of ousting him from power. A further violent complication arose with the appearance of a religious sect in the north of the country where some 6,000 followers of the prophetess Alice Lakwena rose against the government; they were defeated by the NRA in November although 1,490 were killed in the fighting. Prolonged fighting always debases ideals and this was true of the NRA. Museveni’s ‘National Resistance Army, which started with the highest ideals, soon found itself in a life and death conflict with several groups of guerrillas and the methods it adopted to win the guerrilla war were just as vicious and inhumane as those of previous regimes. Museveni found it difficult to discipline his own commanders or find a political solution and peace formula agreed by all Uganda’s diverse groups.’2
Although Museveni tried to persuade the rebels to lay down their arms with repeated offers of amnesty, resistance continued to 1989. In February of that year he held the first elections to the National Resistance Council, though it only had limited powers; even so, the voters were given considerable freedom of choice and 14 ministers were ousted. Real power lay with Museveni alone and in October 1989 he announced that democratic elections and a return to civilian rule would be delayed until 1995. Museveni became chairman of the OAU for the year 1990/91. In 1990 he said, ‘Leaders must be elected periodically. They must be accountable. There must be a free press. There must be no restriction on who participates in the democratic process.’ This statement of principles was at variance with Museveni’s actions. He refused to promote multipartyism, and said, ‘There is no reason why a single political party cannot be democratic,’ although experience clearly suggested otherwise. At least by the end of the decade most resistance to Museveni had either died out or been crushed.
Over the Amin years and through to Museveni’s establishment of full control Uganda had suffered fearful casualties from its civil wars. An estimated 300,000 Ugandans had been killed under Amin from 1971 to 1979, especially among the Acholi and Lango tribes. In 1985 Paul Ssemogerere, the leader of the Democratic Party, claimed in Britain that 500,000 people had died between 1980, when Obote returned to power, until his overthrow in 1985 and in 1986 Museveni claimed that a total of 800,000 Ugandans had been killed under Amin, Obote and Okello. By that time there were about 100,000 Ugandan refugees in neighbouring countries. Uganda entered the 1990s facing twin problems: continuing rebel activity and unrest, especially in the northern and eastern provinces; and falling world coffee prices which threatened the economic recovery programme. At the same time Museveni was obliged to keep a careful eye on the NRA in order to check potential rivals and though a number of exiles were allowed to return to Uganda their demands for multipartyism presented Museveni with new challenges.
BURUNDI AND RWANDA: PERMANENT TRIBAL INTERFACE
Jean Baptiste Bagaza, a Tutsi soldier who had toppled Michel Micombero in a coup in 1976, introduced a new constitution in Burundi in 1981 and was responsible for land reforms that forced Tutsi landlords to hand over land to Hutu peasants. He vested greater power in the Union pour le Progrès National (UPRONA) (Union of National Progress). The first elections for a national assembly were held in 1982 and in July 1984 Bagaza, as sole candidate, was elected head of state by direct suffrage with 99.63 per cent of the votes. All too soon, however, Bagaza became increasingly autocratic, overriding those who opposed him. In the mid-1980s he embarked upon a conflict with the Roman Catholic Church, which was seen as a supporter of the Hutus, and had priests deported or detained. In September 1986 he announced the nationalization of Catholic seminaries and placed other restrictions upon the Church. His quarrel with the Church in a highly religious country was not popular, neither was his increasing autocracy. Bagaza was deposed by the army on 3 September 1987 and Pierre Buyoya replaced him as president. Buyoya suspended the 1981 constitution and all the organs of UPRONA, lifted the restrictions on the Catholic Church and released 600 political prisoners. Buyoya was also a Tutsi, as were most of the army. He accused Bagaza (who was out of the country at a French-speaking summit in Canada) of corruption, violations of the constitution and of pursuing an economic policy that was only geared to help certain groups. In place of the National Assembly which he had dissolved, Buyoya established a Comité Militaire pour le Salut National (CMSN) (Military Committee of National Salvation). However, tensions between Hutu and Tutsi were again mounting while Buyoya failed to give ethnic relations the attention they always required. The explosion came in August 1988 when Hutu massacres of Tutsis were met with much more extensive revenge killings: these took place in the commune of Marangara in Ngozi province and at Ntegi in Kimundu province while an estimated 10,000 people, mainly Hutus, were killed in the Bujumbura area. The army, Tutsi officered, also had all arms under its control. About 65,000 Hutus crossed into Rwanda as refugees.
The relatively small scale of the uprising by the Hutus demonstrated how absolute Tutsi control of the country was at that time. In an attempt to restore unity Buyoya appointed a Hutu, Adrien Sibomana, as Prime Minister and a cabinet that had a Hutu majority for the first time. As a result of these measures reconciliation of a sort followed and 40,000 Hutus who had fled the country returned in 1989. In 1990 the government issued a Charter of National Unity, which gave equal rights to the country’s three ethnic groups, the Hutu, Tutsi and Twa. Although both Bagaza and Buyoya were Tutsis they each inaugurated changes that favoured the Hutu majority at the expense of the Tutsi minority.
Over the years 1976–90 Rwanda made huge economic strides. ‘It had come a long way from 1976, when it had a per capita income lower than that of any of its neighbours. By 1980, however, the World Bank estimated that the per capita income of Rwanda was higher than that of any of its neighbours. By 1987, Rwanda had the lowest debt, the lowest inflation rate, and the highest rate of growth of the Gross National Product (GNP) of any country in the region.’ This record was especially impressive in agriculture, re-afforestation and infrastructure developments. ‘Between the early 1960s and the early 1980s, Rwanda was one of only three sub-Saharan countries that succeeded in increasing total food production per capita.’3 By the end of the 1980s, however, the World Bank was citing Rwanda as one of the three worst performing sub-Saharan countries when it came to food production. By then there was hardly any land left for crop expansion. In the absence of any technological breakthrough, and in the presence of an increase in sheer numbers, soil fertility was decreasing. ‘The Second Republic began to unravel from about the end of the 1980s. The context of that development was both internal and external. The external dimension feeding the post-1985 resource crunch in Rwanda accelerated with the multiplication of forces that fed it: coffee prices plummeted from 1989, a Structural Adjustment Programme was imposed from outside in 1990, and military spending rose dramatically following the RPF [Rwandan Patriotic Front] invasion, also in 1990.’4 Also by the end of the 1980s, Rwanda had one of the highest densities of NGOs and internal voices of protest were reinforced by these NGOs as well as by the assembly of Francophone states and the Vatican. Up to 1989 Habyarimana considered that any political change could only be effected through the one-party system; yet by July 1990 he was prepared to agree to a separation of party and state and possibly a move to multipartyism. However, whatever he might have done was pre-empted by the RPF invasion of October 1990. ‘On the eve of the RPF invasion of October 1990, the Rwandan polity was healthier than many others in the region. It had a better record of dealing with political opposition than did most countries in the region of the Great Lakes, Tanzania being the notable exception… The unexpected factor, rather, was the critique from without – the critique which stemmed from the RPF and which arti
culated the aspirations of the mainly Tutsi diaspora. This, indeed, is where the difference with Tanzania was telling. While Tanzania was the one state in the region that did not drive entire groups into political exile, independent Rwanda was the one state whose very birth was linked to the phenomenon of group exile leading to a mushrooming diaspora.’5 Whatever its achievements the Second Republic failed completely to answer the question of how to reintegrate the Tutsi diaspora in the country. Rwanda had to be a nation embracing both Hutu and Tutsi and that was an outcome the Hutu could not envisage.
Habyarimana dominated the politics of Rwanda throughout the decade. He had seized power from President Gregoire Kayibanda in 1973 and in 1975 had formed the Mouvement Révolutionnaire National pour le Développement (MRND) (National Revolutionary Movement for Development) with the proviso that every Rwandan became a member of it at birth. Elections in December 1981 returned the first elected legislature under the single-party (MRND) system and presidential elections in December 1983 reconfirmed Habyarimana as President. The country faced growing tensions between Hutu and Tutsi through the decade and relations with Uganda plummeted when 45,000 Rwandan Tutsis resident there were expelled. Rwanda closed its border and other refugees sought asylum in Tanzania. About 110,000 Rwandan refugees were registered with the UNHCR and as many again were unregistered. The Central Committee of the MRND said the economy was not equipped to absorb more refugees even though these were their own people. By the end of the decade population pressures, soil erosion and the collapse of world coffee prices forced Habyarimana to introduce an economic austerity programme. Then, on 21 September 1990, he announced a charter for the introduction of a multiparty system.