Uganda, 1986–2026: Museveni's Liberation Army Became the System It Fought

The woman at the roadblock outside Kampala did not give her full name. She said call her Agnes. She had been standing there since dawn with a placard that read "Bobi Wine Is My President." It was January 18, 2021, four days after the election results were announced, and police were clearing the streets of anyone who looked like they might disagree with those results. Agnes was fifty-two. She had voted for Yoweri Museveni in 1996, 2001, and 2006. She said she believed him when he said he would step aside. "We were children then," she said. "We believed the guerrilla would keep his promise." By the time this correspondent left the roadblock, Agnes had been arrested. She was released three weeks later without charge.

That is how power works in Uganda. Museveni took office on January 26, 1986, after five years of guerrilla war against the governments of Milton Obote and Tito Okello. He promised democracy, constitutional term limits, and an end to the cycle of military rule that had devastated the country since independence. Thirty-eight years later, he is still president. The term limits were abolished in 2005. The age limit—which would have forced him out at seventy-five—was removed in 2017. His son, Lieutenant General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, commands the land forces and tweets about invading Kenya. His wife, Janet Museveni, is Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs. The National Resistance Movement, which fought as a liberation army, is now the state.

This is not a story about dictatorship in the abstract. It is a story about how a guerrilla movement becomes the system it overthrew, how foreign powers sustain regimes they publicly criticize, and how thirty-eight years of centralized rule has turned Uganda into a country waiting for a succession that nobody wants to discuss out loud.

What the Guerrilla Promised

Museveni came to power with a ten-point program. Point one: democracy. Point two: security. Point three: national unity. Point four: an independent foreign policy. He gave a speech on the steps of Parliament in Kampala in which he said, "The problem of Africa in general and Uganda in particular is not the people but leaders who want to overstay in power." The speech was broadcast across the country. People believed him because he had won the war and because the previous fifteen years—under Idi Amin and then Obote's second government—had killed an estimated 500,000 people.

For the first decade, Museveni delivered some of what he promised. Uganda stabilized. The economy grew. Primary school enrollment expanded. HIV/AIDS programs became a model for East Africa. The National Resistance Army fought a brutal counterinsurgency against the Lord's Resistance Army in the north—a war that displaced 1.8 million people and turned Gulu and Kitgum into permanent camps—but in Kampala and the southern regions, there was relative peace. The World Bank called Uganda a success story. Western donors poured in aid. Between 1986 and 2000, Uganda received more than $8 billion in development assistance.

But Museveni did not step aside. The 1995 constitution imposed a two-term limit. By 2005, as his second term neared its end, Museveni engineered a constitutional amendment to remove the limit. Parliament passed it after intense pressure and reported vote-buying. In 2017, facing the age limit of seventy-five, he did it again. The amendment passed after opposition MPs were forcibly removed from the chamber. Security forces surrounded Parliament. Bobi Wine—then a freshman MP named Robert Kyagulanyi—was among those beaten and arrested.

The 2021 Election and What It Revealed

The January 14, 2021 election was not an election in any meaningful sense. Bobi Wine, running under the National Unity Platform, drew massive crowds in Kampala, Jinja, and Mbale. His rallies were broken up by police using tear gas and live ammunition. According to Human Rights Watch, at least fifty-four people were killed in protests in November 2020 after Wine was arrested during the campaign. Internet shutdowns were imposed on election day. Independent observers were restricted. The official result: Museveni 58.6 percent, Wine 34.8 percent.

Wine was placed under house arrest for eleven days after the election. Security forces surrounded his home in Magere, a suburb north of Kampala. Journalists were blocked. The U.S. embassy called it "unacceptable." The European Union called for his release. He was released on January 25, one day before Museveni's inauguration. This correspondent spoke to Wine by phone in March 2021. He said, "The world watched them steal the election and did nothing. That is the lesson Museveni learned."

Oil, China, and the Remaking of Patronage

Uganda discovered commercially viable oil in the Albertine Graben in 2006. The reserves are estimated at 6.5 billion barrels, with 1.4 billion barrels recoverable. The fields are in Buliisa, Hoima, and Kikuube districts near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. Production is led by TotalEnergies (France) and China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), with the Uganda National Oil Company holding a minority stake. The $10 billion East African Crude Oil Pipeline—running 900 miles from Hoima to the Tanzanian port of Tanga—is scheduled to begin operations in 2025.

The oil wealth has not yet flowed. But the contracts have. And the contracts reveal how Museveni has restructured Uganda's patronage system for the twenty-first century. According to a 2022 investigation by Global Witness, the Ugandan government awarded oil supply contracts worth $400 million between 2015 and 2020 to companies linked to senior military officers and ruling party officials. The companies had no prior experience in oil logistics. One was registered three weeks before winning its first contract.

China's role is central. CNOOC holds a 33 percent stake in the Kingfisher and Tilenga oil projects. Chinese state banks provided $2.5 billion in financing for pipeline infrastructure. In return, Uganda has aligned its foreign policy with Beijing. It voted against U.N. resolutions criticizing China's human rights record. It signed onto the Belt and Road Initiative in 2018. When Western donors threatened to cut aid over Uganda's anti-LGBTQ legislation in 2014 and again in 2023, Chinese loans filled the gap.

The Proxy War in Eastern Congo

Uganda and Rwanda fought together in the 1990s. They invaded Congo together in 1996 to overthrow Mobutu Sese Seko. They invaded again in 1998 during the Second Congo War. But by 2000, they were fighting each other in Kisangani, a city neither had any legal right to occupy. The battle killed at least 1,000 Congolese civilians and destroyed much of the city center. A U.N. panel in 2001 accused both Uganda and Rwanda of systematically looting Congo's minerals—gold, diamonds, coltan, timber. Uganda's defense spending in 1999 and 2000 exceeded its declared budget by $140 million. The panel documented how Ugandan officers sold mining concessions and established shell companies in Kampala to launder the proceeds.

The looting never stopped. It evolved. Uganda withdrew its formal military presence from Congo in 2003 under international pressure. But it continued to support armed groups in Ituri and North Kivu. According to a 2023 report by the Kivu Security Tracker, Ugandan-backed militias control illegal gold mining operations in at least six territories in eastern Congo. The gold is smuggled across the border to Kampala, where it is sold to international buyers with no questions asked. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) recorded 847 violent events in eastern Congo involving Ugandan-linked forces between January 2020 and December 2022.

Rwanda's M23 rebel group—widely documented as receiving Rwandan military support—operates in the same territory. Uganda and Rwanda are technically allies in the U.S.-backed East African regional force. In practice, they are rivals fighting a shadow war for control of Congo's mineral wealth. This correspondent met displaced Congolese families in Goma in August 2023 who said they could not tell which militia was which. They knew only that the men had guns and took what they wanted.

The CIA Relationship Nobody Mentions

Uganda is a key counterterrorism partner for the United States. It contributes the largest troop contingent to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), with more than 6,200 soldiers deployed as of 2024. Those troops are trained, equipped, and funded by the United States under bilateral security agreements. According to the U.S. State Department, Washington provided $989 million in security assistance to Uganda between 2011 and 2023.

The CIA operates from Entebbe. This is not speculation. In 2014, the Washington Post reported that a secret CIA base in Uganda serves as a hub for drone operations, intelligence-sharing, and counterterrorism missions across East Africa. The base is used to track al-Shabaab in Somalia, monitor threats in South Sudan, and coordinate with Ugandan intelligence. In exchange, the U.S. overlooks Museveni's domestic repression. After the 2021 election, the State Department condemned the violence. The security assistance continued. In 2022, Congress approved an additional $45 million for Ugandan forces in Somalia.

This is how patronage works at the international level. Museveni provides troops and intelligence access. Washington provides money and diplomatic cover. When the European Union threatened to impose sanctions after the 2021 election, the U.S. quietly opposed them. A leaked State Department cable from February 2021, reported by The East African, stated that sanctions "would undermine regional security cooperation at a time when al-Shabaab remains a significant threat." The sanctions were never imposed.

The Succession Nobody Will Name

Museveni is eighty-one years old. His son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, is fifty years old and commands the Uganda People's Defence Forces Land Forces. Muhoozi tweets about his presidential ambitions. In October 2022, he tweeted that he could capture Nairobi in two weeks. The tweet caused a diplomatic incident. Museveni apologized and claimed to demote Muhoozi. Three months later, Muhoozi was promoted to full general and appointed senior presidential advisor.

Inside Uganda, everyone understands what is happening. Muhoozi is being positioned as successor. But the transition is delicate. The NRM is fractured between old guerrilla commanders who fought in the bush and younger technocrats who have no revolutionary credentials. The military is loyal to Museveni personally, not to the institution. If Museveni dies or is incapacitated before securing Muhoozi's position, Uganda could fracture. The succession will not be smooth. It may not be peaceful.

What Comes Next

This correspondent returned to Kampala in March 2026. Agnes, the woman from the 2021 roadblock, has not been seen at rallies since 2022. Her neighbors said she moved to Jinja. Others said she stopped talking about politics. The roadblocks are still there. The security forces are still clearing the streets. Bobi Wine is still under surveillance. His rallies are still broken up. The 2026 election is scheduled for January. Nobody expects it to be different.

Museveni will win. The West will condemn the irregularities and continue the security funding. China will finance another infrastructure project. The oil will begin flowing in 2027. The contracts will go to the same politically connected firms. The guerrilla who promised to step aside will remain in power. And Uganda will wait for a succession that may come as a coup, a collapse, or a carefully managed transfer to the president's son.

That is how it works here. The system Museveni built cannot survive him. But it will not let him go.