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Example research essay topic: Head Of State Point Of View - 2,055 words

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... the other argument used by those wanting to control Uganda was that the presence of the source of the Nile in that country gave it strategic importance both in relation to Egypt and the Suez Canal through which ships sailed to the jewel in the imperial crown, India. Moreover, there was concern that if Britain did not occupy Uganda, someone else would - most probably France - thus putting wider British interests at risk. Portal actually arrived in Uganda in 1893 and made a favourable report and in 1894 Uganda was formally declared a British Protectorate. But still the situation in Uganda was not calm, Colonel Colville, who was sent out as the Acting Commissioner to Uganda in 1894, had many problems to resolve.

His first task was to contain the Bunyoro ruler Kabalega who had chased away Kasagama from the Toro throne for a second time. In 1896 a combined force of Sudanese, Buganda and British soldiers defeated Kabalega and chased him from his capital at Mar. In order to gratify the Buganda part of the Bunyoro land was given to Uganda. These so-called lost counties were to remain a hotly disputed political issue into the early days of Uganda's independence. But in 1897 trouble broke out again when the Buganda Kabaka Mwanga, unhappy with his new subordinate position, rose against the British and joined Kabalega in the swamps of Langa. On top of that, some Sudanese soldiers who had been engaged by Captain Lugard revolted against being overworked and underpaid...

The British called in Indian regiments stationed in Mombasa and defeated the Sudanese soldiers. They then proceeded to capture Kabalega and Mwanga, and sent them into exile, first to Kismayu then to the Seychelles Islands where Mwanga died. Kabalega was eventually allowed to return in 1923 but he died in Busoga on his way home to Bunyoro. The troubles with Kabalega, Mwanga and the Sudanese soldiers meant that the British had to spend more money than they expected putting down the various revolts. As the British tax-payers were bitterly complaining, the British Government sent Sir Harry Johnstone as a Special Commissioner to Uganda to look into the situation, to devise ways through which Uganda could pay for administration, and to seek a permanent alliance with Buganda thereby making them contribute to the colonisation of the rest of Uganda.

Sir Harry Johnstone arrived late in 1899. His discussions and negotiations with the Christian leaders and the Buganda chiefs in 1900 led to signature of the Uganda Agreement in that year. The Uganda Agreement of 1900 Although this Agreement was to be the cornerstone of the British presence in Uganda, it only concerned the British and the Uganda. The Agreement fixed the boundaries of Uganda for the first time, including the two lost counties taken from the Bunyoro in 1896. The Kabaka was allowed to continue ruling Uganda, but his decisions were to be subject to approval by the British Commissioner resident in Uganda. The Buganda Parliament - the Lukiiko - was confirmed as Buganda's legislative body and its membership was fixed at 89.

All land in Uganda had previously belonged to the Kabaka. But now it was split into crown land on mainland. The Kabaka and his chiefs, particularly the Protestant ones who had helped the British, benefitted from this agreement and many became successful landlords, charging high rents for their tenants. On the financial front, the Agreement also introduced hut-tax and gun-tax, so as to finance the running of the protectorate administration without burdening the British tax-payers. From the British point of view, the introduction of these taxes had the added advantage of pushing local farmers into cultivation of cash-crops such as coffee and cotton in order to pay their taxes. The establishment of British rule Having put down roots in Uganda, the British moved quickly and established their rule over Toro, Bunyoro, Anyone and Kigezi.

The task of pacifying the east was effectively done for them by See Kakungulu, a Uganda general who had joined in the wars against Bunyoro and had played a big role in the final capture of Kabalega and Mwanga. Having got hold of the central region, the west and the east, the British moved slowly towards the north. Very slowly - in 1906 indeed they decided not to incorporate territories north of the Nile into Uganda partly on the grounds of the cost and effort which would be required to subdue the northern tribes. But this policy was reversed in 1911, and by 1919 the British had finally completed the conquest of present-day Uganda. The British had few men at their disposal to rule Uganda. They therefore preferred to use a system called indirect rule.

This meant that they ruled through the traditional chiefs of some tribes, mainly the Uganda whom they often posted in other parts of Uganda in a sub-imperialistic role. The Buganda system of government was therefore transplanted to other parts of Uganda, even those without such a tradition of kingly rule, while Uganda itself was run as a privileged state within a state. This caused considerable resentment against the Uganda agents. Indeed, in 1907 the Bunyoro rose in revolt against the Uganda agents.

Over time, the British realised that this system was not sustainable, and after 1920 they replaced the agents with local people. But the memory of this period was to endure, particularly in Bunyoro where there was also continuing ill-feeling over the lost counties. Uganda was generally calm between 1920 and 1938, although Africans were excluded from real political power. In 1921, the colonial government set up a Legislative Council. But this only represented British and Asian interests. The main cause of dissension with the Uganda was over land, with the landlords who had benefited from the 1900 Agreement exacting heavy rents, but these concerns were in the main met with the passage of legislation in 1927 to control the rents on such mail land.

The British also relied on a growing number of Asians as middle-men to run the economy. For instance, in the cotton industry, only Europeans and Asians had the right to own cotton jine ries - Africans were forced to remain as merely the growers of the raw produce. But for all its flaws, the administrative system which was imposed upon Uganda gave indigenous Ugandans far greater autonomy than was found elsewhere in British-ruled Africa. From the African point of view, the good news was that the protectorate government discouraged white farmers from settling in Uganda as they had in Zimbabwe and Kenya. However restricted the role of Ugandans in the economy, many regions nevertheless attained a high degree of economic self-sufficiency, the Local Government Ordinance of 1949 which divided Ugandan into 18 districts gave considerable powers to local African administrators. The churches remained mostly responsible for education, with the result that children tended to grow up within a Protestant or a Catholic environment, a division which was later to be reflected in the formation of Ugandan political parties.

The Muslims were very much a third, and underprivileged, class. The area which suffered most from British policy was the north, which was neglected in terms of education and never provided with the transport links which would have enabled farmers to export their products to other parts of the country. So the people of the north were forced to send their children south in search of work, and they became a source of results for the army and the police force. The build-up to independence The demand for independence after World War II was slow to build up in Uganda compared to other African colonies. This was probably due to a number of factors, including the lack of widespread European settlement to act as a trigger for resentment, and also to the fact that the status quo rather suited Buganda's Protestant elite. Uganda's first anti-colonial party, the Uganda National Congress (UNC) was not founded until 1952.

The first serious call for independence came from an unlikely source - the unpopular Kabaka Mutesa II who in 1953 defied the British by vigorously opposing the proposed federation of Uganda with Kenya and Tanzania. Behind this was Buganda concern that federation would mean the loss of their special status and dominance by Kenya. When the Governor of Uganda refused to give Mutesa any special guarantees regarding a special status for Uganda in such a federation, Mutesa demanded independence for Uganda alone. The Governor then exiled Mutesa to Britain. This made the Kabaka a very popular figure, for standing up to the British, and in 1955 he was allowed to return and to sign a new Uganda Agreement giving him and his government even greater federal powers.

Sadly, Mutesa did not use his popularity to help unify Uganda, but continued to focus only on questions such as Buganda's status which only reinforced the fault lines in Ugandan politics. The countrys first important political party, the Democratic Party (DP), was founded in 1956 by a Catholic Buganda called Matayo Mugwanya. Mutesa had rejected him as a candidate for the Prime Minister ship of Uganda because he was a Catholic, and the DP became a platform for the grievances of Catholics who felt themselves to be second-class citizens. The formation of the Uganda Peoples Union (UPU) came in 1958 when for the first time a quota of Africans was elected to national level government. It was an alliance of non-Buganda leaders, and it merged in 1959 with the non-Buganda element of the older UNC led by Milton Obote, who came from the north of Uganda, top form the predominantly Protestant Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC). The Buganda element of the UNC combined with members of the federal government of Uganda to form the pro-Protestant and pro-Uganda Kabaka Yekka (meaning Kabaka forever, KY).

Independence The stage was set for the tragedy which was to follow Ugandan independence. The DP won the pre-Independence 1961 elections (largely because of a boycott by the Buganda) and their leader Benedict Kiwanuka became Prime Minister when Uganda was granted self-government in March 1962. But an alliance between the UPC and the KY, based on their anti-Catholicism, gave them victory in the elections which came shortly afterwards, and it was Milton Obote who lead Uganda to independence in October 1962 as Prime Minister, with the Kabaka as head of state... Uganda at independence was therefore fragmented along religious and ethnic lines, with Uganda having full federal status while the other kingdoms only had semi-federal status, and the rest of the country - including the north - was linked directly to central government.

Moreover, Obote's majority in Parliament was based on an alliance with the Buganda which was based solely on religious grounds. All in all, the situation was decidedly frail. The issue which tested the new state was the old one of the lost counties of Bunyoro. In 1964, Obote decided to settled the question by holding a referendum in the counties, to ask the people whether they wanted to be part of Bunyoro or Uganda. Inevitably, almost 80 %voted in favour of Bunyoro, causing a serious dispute between Obote and the Kabaka and the end of the fragile alliance between the UPC and the KY. Obote remained Prime Minister because enough DP and KY political had defected to his party for him to retain a Parliamentary majority.

But continuing tensions between Obote and the Kabaka caused a Constitutional crisis in 1966 when Obote overthrew the Constitution, and stripped the Kabaka of his role as head of state. When the Kabaka appealed to the United Nations to intervene, Obote sent his army - led by an officer called Idi Amin - to attack the royal palace. The Kabaka fled, but several of his supporters were massacred. Obote then pushed through a new Constitution, making himself Life President and abolishing the Kingdoms, and giving the army unlimited powers to detain people without trial. Faced with continuing Buganda resentment, Obote had to rely more and more on force to stay in power. He appointed Amin his Army Commander.

In 1969 Obote banned the DP and other political parties. He was deposed by Amin in 1971, while in Singapore for a Commonwealth Conference. The main reason seems to have been that Obote was accusing Amin of stealing $ 4 million from the military budget.


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Research essay sample on Head Of State Point Of View

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