ABSTRACT
Uganda is notable nowadays both for its comparative tranquillity and for the radical nature of its economic reforms. This is in a part of the world better known in recent years for communal strife and negative economic growth. Zaire, Sudan, Somalia, Rwanda, even Kenya hit the headlines more frequently nowadays for political disorder and economic decay than for development or democracy. Uganda, by contrast, now seems in another league. Twenty or even ten years ago, it appeared a hopeless economic and political case during the presidencies of Idi Amin (1971-1979) and, for a second time, of Milton Obote (1980-1985). Now, however, it is treated widely as a regional trendsetter. Economically, it is hailed by international financial experts for the energy with which its current president, Yoweri Museveni, supports ‘structural adjustment’ policies validated by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Politically, Museveni astonishes students of Third World politics still further by the vigour and eloquence with which he attacks multi-party democracy as inappropriate for Africa and, in Uganda in particular, a cause of the country’s continuing problems rather than one of their potential solutions.1
