Chapter 4 presents, as a case study, the cooperation between Czechoslovakia and Uganda during the formative period for the newly independent Uganda in the 1960s; it can be easily seen to be one of the most remarkable cases of CS involvement in Africa during the Cold War. The ideological and political entry points for this cooperation were much the same as in the case of Kenya, but the development of the actual cooperation between the two countries and effects on political development were different. My intention in this chapter is to identify and analyse in what crucial ways Uganda and Czechoslovakia interacted in this period and how these contacts and various forms of cooperation shaped and affected Uganda’s political development. I also point out some of the striking similarities with, and, more importantly, differences from the other two case studies covered in this research.
After Uganda received independence and the UPC successfully established itself as the strongest political party in the country, Obote’s government started to seek foreign assistance in the military and security spheres in order to consolidate its control over the power institutions of the Ugandan states. From 1964 on Uganda was receiving extensive assistance in this field from Israel. The motivations of both countries and the form and nature of this cooperation are well known in academic circles. Uganda’s special cooperation with other countries including Britain, the USA or the Soviet Union has also been at least partially researched. However, when it comes to Czechoslovak involvement in developing the Ugandan military and security spheres during Obote’s and Amin’s eras existing academic texts 403do not give us much more than a brief acknowledgement
that Czechoslovakia did indeed provide Uganda with some special material during Amin’s rule. It seems that there is no deeper academic knowledge of any special military cooperation between Czechoslovakia and Uganda evolving during Obote’s regime. Similarly, existing secondary literature either ignores or is simply unaware of the role that Czechoslovakia played in forming and developing Obote’s intelligence apparatus, known as the General Service Unit. For this reason the effects of these activities on Ugandan political affairs have never previously been analysed and presented to an
academic audience. This is true in spite of the fact that the role of the Ugandan military is amongst the most closely studied themes of political development in post‐colonial Uganda as the army turned out to be a major political agent, driving far‐reaching political change that ultimately caused the collapse of the Ugandan state.
The following section of this thesis will attempt to fill this gap by providing a comprehensive overview of Czechoslovak cooperation with Uganda in the field of special military and security assistance. The motivations for, and forms and effects of this cooperation are presented here in relation to the major events of political development in Uganda in this period. The Czechoslovak‐Ugandan special cooperation is viewed and interpreted here in reference to existing academic discourse on the role of the military in Ugandan politics and other major topics including the matter of Bugandan separatism or Obote’s inclinations to a one‐party system. The significance of the role that both the Ugandan army and Ugandan security forces played in the political development of the newly independent Uganda in the first decade of its existence proved paramount in the period of Obote’s rule as well as that of Amin. Both of these organisations initially contributed to Obote’s rise into limitless power, only to add to his fall a few years later by increasing their own interdisciplinary tensions, and in the case of the army, finally mounting the coup against him and acquiring the control of the state for itself.
The text in this chapter is organised chronologically and thematically and covers the period from the mid‐1950s when the anti‐colonial processes in Uganda intensified until circa 1970 when the rule of President Obote was steadily declining until it was ultimately challenged by the Ugandan army in the figure of its Commander‐in‐chief Idi Amin. The most significant effects of Czechoslovak‐Ugandan cooperation on this development are presented against the background of crucial events in the political development of Uganda. I outline the main forms of cooperation that were typical for each period, the main personalities that were involved in their execution, and the political effects that these relations might have had on regional or supra‐regional affairs.
Archival materials from the CS records are the only source of information on this curious topic that I have managed to trace. Archival records are plentiful enough to aid an attempt at reconstructing this cooperation, but they are by no means complete. A large part of the documentation, especially that from Interior Ministry and StB sources, are incomplete and the remainder have still to be organised. With the stored materials
being in disarray, together with the common use of code names and confidentiality measures, the reconstruction of the full image of this cooperation is somewhat of a challenge.
I gathered more personal testimonies and interviews in Uganda than I did in Kenya and Tanzania. Unfortunately, the quantity in this case was no guarantee of quality and this part of the field research fell short of my hopes. I travelled to Uganda with a list of names that I hoped would shed more light on some of the issues left unresolved by the archival material. Once in Uganda, it quickly turned out on contact with local authorities that none of the figures from my list would be traceable. Most of the people on my list were already dead; others had been missing for a long time, while the rest proved impossible to locate within the constraints of time and funds at my disposal. I was forced to apply a different approach in my data collection. Through contacts and the help of some Ugandan officials, I decided to find and interview people who might have been personally involved in Czechoslovak activities in Uganda as members of the state administration, military or security in the periods when relations between Uganda and the CSSR had peaked. The other group of people who I decided to interview, with little hope of success, included persons who might not have had direct contact with CS activities but might have gathered some knowledge of CS activities in, for example, the Ugandan military either ex‐post or indirectly through other people.
In my desperate quest for information, I met and talked to several current high‐ ranking officials of the Ugandan army, including Brigadier Rusoke and Colonel Pecos Kutesa. Most of these people were directly involved in the past in the opposition to the government of Idi Amin, who maintained his vital contacts with the CSSR. With the same outlook, I interviewed several former politicians from Amin’s period in power or Obote‘s second regime. I placed a lot of hope in contacting Idi Amin’s family members, some of whom still reside in Uganda. However, despite my repeated attempts to acquire their details and contact them through my network of helpers, Idi Amin’s sons and daughter remained unreachable. In the end, I ended up interviewing ten people, but I obtained very little information on CS activities in Uganda, in striking contrast to the actual intensity and duration of these activities. Nevertheless, most of the interviews proved helpful in respect of providing me with a unique insider‘s view of the turbulent and complicated historical development to which the CSSR had contributed.