While i attend the Conference in Uganda and interact with a large number of scholars, I can see a lot of resentment among the scholars here. However, they feel they are helpless but now Prof.Consolata Kabonesa who is the Dean of the School of Women and Gender studies( This is a school not just a Dept) here at Markerere tells me they are preparing a paper on gender and why it is important and will soon submit to the President.The reason for the resentment is that the President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni who is in power since 1986 and was involved in the revolt against Idi Amin has been saying there is no point in students stuudying subjects like History, gender studies,peace and Conflict studies and Religious studies which cannot provide jobs and these departments should be closed down.He is targetting these four Depts.He wants students to go in for technical and science education.Unfortunately these depts have the largest number of students.Reminded me of AP.Chief minister Chandra Babu Naidu who closed the History Depts in AP. thinking they do not serve any purpose and there was a long agitation and he had to withdraw.
Years of guerrilla warfare followed and some parts of the country experienced extremeviolence particularly the so-called LuweroTriangle north of the capital Kampala that suffered a lot, mainly at the hands of the UNLA ( 6Uganda National Liberation Army) . Somehave characterised this violence as genocide. 200,000-300 000 people are estimated to have been killed during the civil wars between 1981 and 1986. Then the strife within the government army led to a coup in 1985 that overthrew obote‟s Government, who immediately entered into Peace talks with Mr. Museveni of the NRA ( National Resistance Army) but these talks never yielded a permanent solution as NRM never wholly accepted to enter into power sharing with the military junta of Tito and Basilio Okello. The war then continued until January 1986 when Kampala fell into the hands of the NRM ( National Resistance Movements). Mr. Museveni was soon sworn in as the new president of Uganda who warned Ugandan that “this is not a mere change of guards, but a fundamental change” and promised to reconstruct a new Uganda along a Ten Point Progrmme among which democracy, rule of law and economic sustainability were prominently highlighted.Mr. Museveni has been the undisputed ruler of Uganda since 1986, with the positions ofPresident, chairman of the NRM, the minister of defence and commander of the army. Ina country where more changes of regime have been a result of military coups thanelections, the importance of the latter two positions cannot be underestimated.
