Obote's

 Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC), led by Obote from Lango in the north, was more progressive and more closely involved in the Pan-Mrican Movement than the other parties; it made a pledge to pursue the policy of Mricanisation vigorously once elected to office. The UPC's stand won favour with many of the soldiers, particularly those who had served a long time in the Army and whose appetites had been whetted by the token developments in promotion and improvement in conditions which had taken place just before Independence. Indeed, there was a genuine belief among Mrican servicemen that the Independence Government would resolve these issues, in an attempt to redress the discrimination suffered in the past. Africanisation, it was hoped, would change the nature of relationships between men and officers. The realisation of these hopes depended on whether the party elected to power would translate the promises of its campaign into action. Among the issues that concerned the troops, Mricanisation of the Army's command structure was central. It had already become a grievance during the colonial era, but it was only after Independence that it was taken seriously by those in power. However, it was a thorny issue, primarily because the ruling party, the UPC, from the moment it was elected to Government, was awkwardly placed between two forces with diametrically opposed interests. On the one hand were the Mrican rank and file who yearned for swift African.isation. On the other hand were British officers who were reluctant to allow for any very fundamental changes in the Army so soon after Independence; at the most, they would only agree to an extremely gradual reorganisation of the military. The new administration could not risk jeopardising the continuance of financial assistance from Britain which it so badly needed. Faced by this conflict of interests, the Government stalled and allowed the issue to drag on. The weakness of Uganda's first Independence Government was exacerbated by the fact that the ruling party, the UPC, owed its position of power to a coalition with the Baganda nationalist party, Kabaka Yekka ('Kabaka Only'). In the General Election in Uganda in April 1962 the UPC gained 52.4 per cent of the total poll and the Democratic Party (DP) 45.5 per cent. The 1962 Constitution had granted the Kabaka a choice between direct elections by the people of Buganda or the election of 24 Members of Parliament for Buganda by the Lukiiko (Buganda Parliament). He opted for the latter, to the detriment of the DP which would undoubtedly have won many votes in Buganda, but his action assured for the KY a strong voice in the National Assembly. The Election gave the UPC 43 seats, the KY 24 seats and the DP 24 seats in Parliament. By the terms of the UPC-KY coalition, the leader of the UPC, Obote, was Prime Minister, and thus executive Head of State; but his position was offset by the Kabaka's appointment as President - the titular Head of State. The UPC and KY were ill-matched partners, since on virtually every policy issue the two parties were opposed; but the stability of the country depended on this alliance being continued, and it was difficult for the UPC to enforce its populist policies against the wishes of KY. The strength of this limitation was felt particularly strongly in the Ugandan military, where the majority of soldiers - coming from the north -had little sympathy with the preoccupation with the monarchy which prevailed among members of the mainly Baganda KY. The period immediately after Independence witnessed hardly any changes in the Army, except that the 4th Battalion King's African Rifles was redesignated the Uganda Rifles, its original name. There were more token promotions of Africans, like those initiated during the last days of the colonial administration, but the pace was slow and fell far short of the major reforms hoped for by the troops. Even after Independence a considerable proportion of those who received promotion were expatriate officers. The first African officers promoted under the Independent administration were: Lieutenants S. 0. Opolot, I. Amin, S. Hussein, L. T. Okello and J. Musa, all of whom were promoted to the rank of Captain. All of these first African officers in Uganda were non-Bantu speakers. The Government's inability to come up with a clear programme for Africanisation of the armed forces disillusioned a number of indigenous officers, who had hoped for better prospects after Independence. It was not unknown for an officer to request to be transferred to the civilian sector because his hopes of advancement in the Army had long been frustrated. To the African officers at the time, it appeared that the authorities would silence any of them who dared to question the current set-up. Indeed, the readiness to obey higher ranking officers seems to have been a more effective qualification for promotion than educational attainment, as the rapid advancement of men like Amin and Opolot testifies. One British commander at the time has written that during the period prior to the mutiny in 1964, when most African soldiers were agitating for change, in the first year of Independence, a rapid expansion of the Army took place. At Independence the Uganda Army consisted of only about 700 men forming a single battalion; by July 1963 its strength had been doubled to 1500, and there were plans to form a second battalion in January 1964. Prior to 1962 the Uganda Battalion had formed part of the larger British Imperial Army, and in peacetime only a small force was needed in Uganda to act as a standing army for the country. The newly-independent state, however, felt the need of a much larger army as a symbol of her sovereignty. The expansion of the Army was accelerated owing to the force's commitment in various dispersed military operations. In the year 1962-3, there were several threats to the internal security of Uganda: cattle rustling between the peoples of Karamoja and Turkana in Moroto; the Ruwenzururu threat to secede from the central Government; the Tshombe crisis in the Congo; and the civil war in Sudan. During the power struggle between Tshombe and Lumumba in Congo, Uganda supported the anti-Tshombe forces because Obote viewed Tshombe as a traitor to the cause of Pan-africanism and an agent of American and Belgian imperialism (Uganda A~gUs, 13 and 16 January 1965). When two Ugandan villages in West Nile District were bombed in January 1965 by the Congolese army, it was decided to deploy some troops of the Uganda Army to the border with Congo, necessitating the recall of some ex -servicemen. As regards the Sudan, 

Uganda Government sympathised with the Anya Nya fighters in the south, interpreting the civil war in racial terms as a struggle of Mricans against Arab domination (Uganda Argus, 1 July 1964). The AnyaNya were therefore tacitly allowed to operate from bases in northern Uganda and Ugandan troops were deployed along the border with Sudan to protect against any possible military incursion into Uganda by Sudanese Government forces. With these external and internal threats to counter or subdue, and with detachments dispersed to all these areas, the attention of the Army was for the time being distracted from the issue of Mricanisation. But under the surface it continued to dominate the concerns of both Mricans and expatriates in the Army, for on it hung not only the future of the Army, but also the credibility and stability of the Government. Although Mricanisation in the political sphere was picking up pace, the military was still far behind. In the civil service, Mricanisation and improvement in salaries had already made headway. By July 1962 it was envisaged that all but a few scientific, technical, and teaching posts would be Mricanised in five years, and the rest within ten years. Nothing was said, however, about Mricanisation and conditions of service in the military. Nor was there any significant improvement when the Army gained an Mrican Commander-inChief. On I August the Uganda Rifles was redesignated the Uganda Army. Then, on 9 October 1963, Kabaka Sir Edward Mutesa, elected President of Uganda by Parliament in September, replaced the British Governor-General as titular Head of State and ex officio Commander-in-Chief of the Army. Accordingly, a new Oath of Attestation was introduced for future enlistments in the Army. In the new Armed Forces Oath, allegiance was sworn to the President in his capacity as Supreme Commander-in-Chief and to the Sovereign State of Uganda; the Oath said nothing about the role of the Army to protect the Constitution. The new Oath was simply a modification of the colonial one, which had required a recruit to swear allegiance to the British sovereign. It might reasonably have been expected that Mutesa would be more willing than the British Governor-General to back the Government in africanising the military. Instead the policy seems, if anything, to have been delayed under Mutesa as Commander-inChief. Mutesa's reluctance on this score derived from divided loyalties. First, his loyalties were divided between the British and Ugandan Armies. In 1947 he had undergone military training in Britain and had been made an honorary Captain in the Grenadier  Guards, an occasion which he later recorded as one of the proudest moments of his life (Mutesa, 1967: 98). In 1963, the year when he became Commander-in-Chief of the Uganda Army, he was promoted to the rank of Honorary Colonel in the Grenadier Guards of the British Army. His attachment to the British Army derived from professional military training; his position at the head of the Uganda Army was simply a corollary of his role as titular Head of State. His prior allegiance to the British Army made it difficult for him to risk offending British officers by embarking on a policy of Africanisation. The second reason underlying Mutesa's dilatory approach to Africanisation of the national army was that his first loyalty was to his kingdom, Buganda; his commitment to Uganda as a state was secondary and derivative from this. Indeed, people from his area, Buganda, formed a negligible proportion of the Army. The bulk of the military was drawn from Acholi and most of the remainder from West Nile, and if Africanisation were put into practice, the command structure would inevitably become dominated by men from northern Uganda. Figures available for 1953 show that 60 per cent of the Army was drawn from Acholi. The situation had changed little by 1963. As the traditional ruler of the Baganda, as well as the national President, Mutesa had a duty to serve the interests of his own people within the national structure. In a power struggle between himself and the Prime Minister, Obote could invoke regional sentiments to mobilise the military in his favour; Mutesa had no such potential ethnic power base within the Army. Indeed, given the warm relationship between himself and the British, Mutesa might even expect support from British officers in the event of open conflict with Obote. Not only did the Kabaka have nothing to gain by the Africanisation of the officer ranks; he had much to lose. In the light of these circumstances, it was evidently politically more expedient for Mutesa to retain British officers in the top ranks of the Uganda Army. Even at this early stage of national independence a number ofUgandan leaders were both in ideology and practice wedded to the idea of an ethnic power base. Also, in October 1963 Parliament reaffirmed that, despite the new constitution, the military law passed by the colonial administration in 1958 would stand in all respects unless specifically amended. The military law, which had applied to the Uganda Battalion as a constituent of the British Imperial Army, was construed by the more educated and politically-conscious African soldiers as inimical to the new sovereign State.

 In April 1964, within months of the mutiny, the General Service Unit (GSU) was set up by the Government as a paramilitary force under the control of Akena Adoko, a close associate of Prime Minister Obote. The GSU was an elite military force, whose most important role was counter-insurgency (Parliamentary Debates, XXVIII 1963-4: 2087-118). Some were posted to embassies abroad; those who remained were dispersed throughout the country, but with a concentration of GSU personnel stationed in and around Kampala. Before long the force had risen to a strength of 800 men, and their ruthless tactics earned for them considerable notoriety. Soon the site of the Army Headquarters was transferred from Jinja to Mbuya in Kampala, in an attempt by the Government to increase its control over the Army. The new geographical proximity of the Army Headquarters to the seat of government facilitated greater coordination between the military and the political establishment. Having the GSU based in Kampala as a secret police force also helped to ensure the security of the administration. The soldiers' objections to the continued supremacy of the British in the military hierarchy, which they had expressed in the mutiny, led the Government to re-examine its relationship with Britain in military matters. Since exclusive reliance on a single foreign power entailed considerable political risks, it was decided to diversify the sources on which Uganda relied for military aid.

the end of July 1964 the British Army withdrew its entire secondment to the Uganda Army, and the Uganda Government was afforded a free hand to pursue an independent foreign policy. It was decided to extend links with a number of Third World countries. Accordingly, Israel, India, Pakistan, Ghana and the Sudan were engaged to train Uganda Army personnel (GAO 11/1966). Of these countries it was Israel which made the most capital out of the new military opportunities in Uganda. Not only were Ugandans sent to Israel for training, but also an Israeli military team was brought to operate within the country. However, Israel's involvement was not a totally new development. Israeli co-operation with Uganda began in 1962 on the eve of Uganda's independence from Britain, when Milton Obote, Uganda's first Prime Minister, visited Jerusalem. In November 1962 Israel was the first country to open an embassy in Uganda, less than a month after Uganda's Independence on 9 October. As an Independence 'gift', Israel presented the newly-independent Government with 150 scholarships for the training of Ugandans in military and other technical skills in Israel. The first technical agreement between Uganda and Israel was signed a few months later when Foreign Minister Golda Meir, who played a dominant role in formulating and advancing Israel's foreign policy in Mrica, paid Obote an exchange visit. Soon afterwards an Israeli military mission helped the Uganda Government to establish an air force, an artillery, and both armoured and paratroop corps in the Army - all within a very short space of time. The man responsible for setting up and running the Israeli military programme in Uganda for the first three years (1963-5) was Ze'ev 'Zunik' Shaham. He later recalled how Israel's military assistance contributed to making the Uganda Army one of the most efficient fighting forces in Mrica, and how the Israeli approach to training Ugandan soldiers, by living under the same conditions as the people they were instructing and working side by side with them, differed from the British, who had not only been aloof, but had also underestimated the capabilities of Mricans (Jerusalem Post Weekly, 4 April  1972). Involvement in Uganda fell within Israel's general strategic and political objectives since the late 1950s, in the atmosphere of cold war which then prevailed in the world. The Israeli Government aimed to imprint its influence on Mrica as a third force. Israel was attempting to gain political influence through military aid, and thus to help overcome her isolation in the Middle East. . After the 1964 mutiny Israel soon became Uganda's main military supplier; and the Israeli military training programme in Uganda was one of the biggest in Africa, perhaps second only to Israel's military assistance to Ethiopia. Israel took over the responsibility, not only for training Uganda's Air Force, but also for training and equipping the infant organisation, the GSU, in Israel under the auspices of its own intelligence network, MOSSAD. On a four-day official visit to the country in June 1966, the Israeli Prime Minister, Levi Eshkol, toured the Uganda Army Barracks as guest of the Army Chief of Staff, Colonel Idi Amin. This gesture was consistent with Israel's policy at the time, whereby association with top military personnel was used both as a conduit to Heads of State, and in anticipation of the military leaders achieving political prominence themselves in the future. The process of diversifying sources of military assistance continued, so that by the end of the 1960s there was a hotchpotch of military teams and military hardware in Uganda drawn from countries of both the eastern and western blocs, including the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. It is significant that Uganda's non-aligned posture was formulated in the wake of the mutiny. Given the prevailing state of cold war between east and west, while the British were still in effective control ofUganda's Army, the Government was inhibited from any practical interaction with non-western bloc countries. As a result of the mutiny the military was brought under the control of Ugandan officers who did not directly represent any foreign interests. This allowed the Government a freer hand with respect to its foreign policy. The mutiny was therefore an important factor in the reorientation of the country's geopolitical stance in international affairs. In pursuance of Uganda's new posture in international dealings, Prime Minister Obote visited Moscow in early 1965 and concluded a technical co-operation agreement with the Soviet Union. By its terms the Soviet Union was to extend over £5500000 in long-term credits for establishing a textile factory, a training centre for mechanical agriculture, meat-refrigerating installations, and a dairy factory. This agreement did not represent a transfer of allegiance from one power bloc to another, but was a gesture which symbolised Uganda's breaking free from her traditional exclusive dependence on the west.

However, it laid Obote open to misinterpretation and to being accused of communist sympathies. In the domestic realm there were two important political developments in the latter half of 1964 which were to have a bearing on the military. The first was that the alliance between the UPC and the Kabaka Yekka party was terminated in a speech by Prime Minister Obote on 24 August 1964 (UgandaA~gUs, 25 August 1964). The uneasy relationship between the two parties had lasted for only 27 months. It was a coalition which Obote had earlier characterised as 'a negation of national unity and a serious source of instability' (Parliamentary Debates, XXIII, 1963-4: 859). Obote's announcement followed a series of defections from the opposition Democratic Party (DP) -and to a lesser extent Kabaka Yekka (KY) -to the UPC. The primary reason for this change of allegiance appears to have been that members of both these parties who supported a nationalist ideology had begun to feel that they had more in common with the UPC. When the Parliamentary Leader of the Opposition, Basil Bataringaya, crossed the floor to join the UPC together with five other members of the DP, the Opposition was left without effective leadership in Parliament, and the supremacy of the UPC in the National Assembly was assured. The atrophy of the Opposition soon secured for the UPC an over-all majority in the National Assembly, and obviated the need for a coalition with the KY. By the end of 1964 the strength of the parties in Parliament was: UPC 67; KY 14; DP 10; with one independent candidate. However, the absence of strong opposition from outside the UPC also had the effect that ideological disagreements began increasingly to occur within the Party. With the formal termination of the alliance, the tenuous ideological truce on which it had been based was broken. The UPC, with its support drawn mainly from outlying areas, had espoused nationally egalitarian policies, whereas the policies of the KY, whose political base was at the administrative and industrial centre of the country, tended to support the privileged position of the Baganda and had a much more parochial outlook. Now that the UPC had attained a new position of strength, Buganda was relegated to a marginal position in national politics, while politicians from the peripheral regions were able to promote policies which were more equitable for the country as a whole. Their politicians now deprived of national influence, the people of Buganda turned to the Lukiiko (Buganda Parliament) rather than the National Assembly as the main arena for their political activities. The second political development concerned the question of the 'lost counties' of Bunyoro, which had been allotted to Buganda after the British defeat of Kabarega in 1894. Despite continued agitation from the Banyoro, the colonial government had never settled the issue. The Independent Government of Uganda was keen to resolve this long-standing dispute between Bunyoro and Buganda. On 25 August 1964, a day after Obote had declared an end to the UPC-KY alliance, and after some months of unrest in the 'lost counties' of Buyaga and Bugangazzi, the Minister of Justice introduced a bill in Parliament for holding a referendum in the disputed counties in November 1964, as provided for in the 1962 Constitution. At the beginning of the debate on the bill, Kabaka Yekka Members of Parliament walked out ofthe Chamber. The opposition Democratic Party, however, supported the bill and accordingly it was passed into law. As President of Uganda, Sir Edward Mutesa ought to have signed the bill; but he refused and instead vowed as Kabaka ofBuganda to retain the two counties under dispute within his kingdom. He tried to influence the outcome in Buganda's favour by settling about 4500 exservicemen from Buganda in one of the areas at issue, but this move was unsuccessful, and when the referendum was held an overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of the disputed counties voted in favour of transfer to Bunyoro. The outcome was both a blow to the people of Buganda and a personal humiliation to the Kabaka. It sparked off riots in many parts ofBuganda, forcing the resignation of Katikiro Michael Kintu (Buganda's Prime Minister) and prompting an appeal by the Buganda government to the Privy Council to invalidate the referendum results. The vote in favour of Bunyoro served to strengthen allegiance to the UPC among the people of Bunyoro, who had previously been lukewarm in their support of the ruling party. The referendum demonstrated that Ugandan politics could not be represented simply as a cleavage between Bantu and Nilotic, for here was one group of Bantu-speakers ranged against another. But neither could the conflict be seen solely in terms in terms of one ethnic group against another, since the Parliament which enacted the bill recognising Bunyoro's claim was a multi-ethnic body. The conflict might instead be seen in terms of' centre' versus 'periphery'. However, Parliamentary Members ofKabaka Yekka did try to use the principle ofBuganda nationalism to mobilise support for the Kabaka (Kasfir 1976). In the Army, for the time being, Mricanisation was continuing apace. Two months after the departure of the British military personnel the Obote Government promoted Shahan Opolot to the rank of Brigadier, and Idi Amin to Colonel and Deputy Commander of the Uganda Army (GAO 71/1964). These promotions made Opolot and Amin the two highest ranking officers in the Army, with Opolot the senior of the two. But although the rank and file had only recently been clamouring for Mricanisation, the promotions which did occur were not wholeheartedly welcomed by them. In October Army units complained that the system of promotions was unfair (GAO 84/1964) because it appeared to them that promotion was beginning to be awarded according to ethnic affiliation rather than merit. Once the British contingent left, although the Defence Council had the power of veto, an individual depended for promotion on the personal recommendation of the commander of the Army and his immediate subordinates; this created opportunities for the dispensing of patronage. Those in power hoped both to ensure loyalty to themselves, by distributing the appointments at their disposal primarily among men of their own ethnic groups, and to secure economic benefits for their own areas. It was from this time that ethnic, regional and linguistic cleavages within the Army began to be manipulated for factional political interests. The fact that bias in the system of promotions was a source of discontent among the soldiers suggests that their earlier pleas for Mricanisation were not so much based on ideology per se as on the expectation of personal advancement. Mricanisation alone was insufficient to satisfy them if their personal ambitions were not fulfilled. Towards the end of 1964 a major reviewofthe Army Establishment was carried out by top military personnel at a Conference in Mbuya. The Conference questioned the basic efficiency of the Army's organisation and made recommendations to the Military Council for the 'modernisation' of its fighting capacity. The Conference concluded that lack of co-ordination between the constituent companies of a battalion, which were being posted in different areas and were operating independently of each other, rendered the Army vulnerable to attack from outside the country's borders. The solution proposed was to build up a task force for the co-ordination of the various companies. Accordingly, the Conference recommended that a Brigade Reconnaissance Company, an Ordinance Depot and a Brigade Signals Squadron should be established. As the scheme was being put into effect, an external threat to the country arose which catapulted the Ugandan military into action. On 13 February 1965 Congolese military aircraft violated Ugandan airspace and bombed two border villages, Paidha and Goli, in the country's West Nile District, injuring a platoon commander of the Uganda Army. Prime Minister Obote reacted by appealing to all the people to unite to defend their country, and he criticised the American government for sending arms to the Congo. He urged everyone to be on the alert and to respond without hesitation when called upon to defend the country's independence and sovereignty, and the Government called up all ex-soldiers to report to Army Headquarters in Kampala for re-enlistment (Uganda A~s, 15 February 1964). The situation provoked a mass demonstration in Kampala of Ugandans belonging to all political parties -the largest in Kampala's history to date. Internal dissensions were temporarily shelved in the face of the supposed threat to the nation. In particular, the crisis may have postponed the clash between the Prime Minister and the Kabaka which seemed imminent after the Privy Council had rejected Buganda's plea for the 'lost counties' referendum result to be overturned. The Congo Crisis precipitated a rapid expansion of the Uganda Army. Two weeks after the the bombings the 3rd Battalion was formed at Mubende in Buganda, with Major P. Y. Okoya as its acting Commanding Officer; and three weeks later the ex-servicemen were formed into a 4th Battalion under Major Y. Omoya as acting Commanding Officer. Another month later, the Brigade Signals Squadron was established at Jin ja ( GAOs 11, 27, 30, 46/1965). By the end of 1965, the strength of the Army, which had been 1998 in 1964, was more than doubled to 4500. This headlong expansion of the armed forces appears to have been an ad hoc response to the crisis, and not something for which the Government had properly planned. However, the increased number of troops was to stand Obote in good stead when, a year later, the conflict between himself and the Kabaka, which was already building up, eventually came to a head. Both because of this rapid expansion and because, in responding to an external threat, the Army had taken on a role going beyond that of a concern with internal security, it was decided by the administration that it should no longer remain under the aegis of the Ministry of  Internal Affairs. Accordingly, on 3 May 1965, responsibility for the Army and the Air Force was transferred to a new Ministry of Defence. This Ministry was to be directly controlled by Prime Minister Obote (though Onama was appointed Minister later that year), with a Permanent Secretary (the Secretary of Defence) to oversee its day-to-day administration (GAO 30/1965). The first Secretary of Defence was Wilson 0. Lutara from Acholi. This step consolidated Obote's power over the Army and in this respect strengthened his position vis-a-vis Kabaka Mutesa who, as President, remained the titular Commanderin-Chief of the Uganda Armed Forces. It serves as an index of the priority then accorded to the military by the Government. Not long afterwards a number of new units were created as part of the new establishment in the Army. On 1 July 1965 six units were formed: Brigade Reconnaissance, Army Ordinance Depot, Brigade Signals Squadron Training Wing, Records Office, Pay and Pensions Office and Uganda Army Workshop (GAO 46/1965). At the end of the year, a further two new units were established with newlyintroduced equipment: an Anti-Aircraft Detachment armed with 30mm and 20mm Batteries, and a Brigade Reconnaissance Company consisting of a platoon with 106mm Batteries and 120mm Mortar Batteries (GAO 1/1966). These developments constituted a step forward in the implementation of the recommendations made by the Army Conference in November of the previous year. Towards the end of 1965 an event occurred which was to make the Army a focus of political struggle between the Prime Minister and the President. On 19 November 1965, on the occasion of Kabaka's birthday, President Mutesa had ordered the Army Band to play at his palace at Lubiri in Kampala. At Obote's behest, the soldiers refused. Obote accused Mutesa of being unable to keep separate his two roles as Head of State and as Kabaka of Buganda. Behind this seemingly trivial incident lay the emergent struggle for the command of the Army. The second incident took place in London on 30 November 1965. On that date, Daudi Ocheng, who was Secretary-General of the Kabaka Yekka Party but came from Acholi, claimed at a press conference that Kabaka Yekka had uncovered a communist plot to overthrow the hereditary rulers in Uganda. He also hinted that he would soon raise in Parliament a case of corruption involving Prime Minister Obote, Minister of Defence Felix Onama, Minister of Economic Planning Adoko Nekyon, and the Deputy Commander of the Uganda Army Colonel Idi Amin. It is clear that Ocheng's reference to a communist conspiracy was an allusion to the cordial relationship being forged between the Uganda Government and the eastern bloc countries, and the time and place of the announcement was aimed to give it maximum impact, as Britain had most to lose from her former dependant's new non-aligned foreign policy. The third incident happened at Naguru near Kampala on 4 December 1965. At a public rally the Prime Minister hinted that legislation to curb the activities ofKabaka Yekka in the country was to be introduced in Parliament. There is little doubt that the Prime Minister's utterance was intended to sound out people's feelings. A month later, in January 1966, a Penal Amendment Bill, whose main import was to render the Kabaka Yekka party illegal, was introduced in Parliament and subsequently passed. From these incidents and their timing it is clear that the main protagonists on the national political front were positioning themselves for a direct confrontation. Ocheng's allegation of corruption, involving four of the country's most influential figures, was a political powder-keg. At this point, however, the Prime Minister left for a Commonwealth Summit Conference in Lagos, leaving the showdown impending. For Obote, the Conference provided a breathing space from domestic politics. He used the opportunity to advocate a firm stand both against Ian Smith's Unilateral Declaration oflndependence in Rhodesia and against Britain's response to it. On the same day (13 January 1966) that Obote was making these proposals at the Lagos Summit, in Uganda the parliamentary leader of the opposition Democratic Party, Alexander Latim, a politician from Acholi, alleged in the National Assembly that a plot had been uncovered to assassinate leading politicians, and that it involved both Army personnel and certain politicians on the Government side of the House. In both Ocheng's and La tim's allegations the motif of identifying the Army with the party in power recurs. On his return from Nigeria the Prime Minister visited northern Uganda for a 'Meet the People Tour'. During his absence, Daudi Ocheng called in Parliament for the suspension of Colonel Idi Amin, the Deputy Commander of the Uganda Army, while an investigation of his bank account was undertaken. Ocheng alleged that Amin had taken advantage of the crisis in the Congo to obtain gold and ivory illegally from there. The proceeds from the sale of these, so Ocheng claimed, had been shared out between Amin himself, Obote, Felix Onama and Adoko Nekyon. The motion to suspend the Deputy