The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
COMMENT | ANDREW PI BESI | Today, 6 February, Ugandans once again gather in homes, villages, and public spaces to commemorate Tarehe Sita. This year’s main celebrations are taking place in Kabale, the old main town of what was once Kigyezi District.
It was on this day in 1981 that the Popular Resistance Army (PRA) launched its war against the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA) and the second Uganda Peoples’ Congress government of President Apollo Milton Obote. That conflict—memorialised as the Luweero Bush War—ended on 26 January 1986, when the National Resistance Army (NRA) defeated the UNLA forces of Gen. Tito Okello and Lt. Gen. Bazilio Olara-Okello.
In 1995, under a new constitution, the NRA formally transitioned from a guerrilla movement into a national army: the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF). For three decades, the UPDF has operated within this constitutional framework.
Yet since 2006, when Uganda moved from the Movement System to multiparty politics, a growing number of voices have come to view the UPDF not simply as a national army but as an institution closely associated with the ruling political establishment. This perception—whether fair, exaggerated, or shaped by political contestation—has persisted, particularly amid periodic speculation about political succession within the state’s upper ranks.
Beyond personalities, however, lies a deeper institutional question: what must an army become after a liberation war ends?
An army born in struggle must ultimately pass the peace test. It must evolve from being the shield of a revolution into the shield of a republic. Where that transition remains incomplete, suspicion naturally grows. The army begins to be viewed less as the defender of a constitutional order and more as the guarantor of a political one.
Such suspicions cannot be settled by speeches, parades, or anniversaries alone, important as these rituals are. They are resolved through posture, doctrine, and visible conduct over time.
The timing of this reflection is not accidental. Uganda stands at the threshold of its oil era—a moment when sovereignty becomes less abstract and more material.
History shows that when strategic natural resources enter the equation, the most serious threats to a state are not always internal dissent but external interest. Pressure rarely announces itself as invasion. It more often arrives through influence, leverage, legal frameworks, financial systems, sanctions—and, in extreme cases, force presented as “stabilisation” or “order”.
This is where the strategic orientation of the UPDF matters most.
An army that operates within domestic space does so in pursuit of national strategic security objectives as defined by the Constitution and the state. That role is lawful, necessary, and at times unavoidable. Yet the long-term stability of the republic depends on sustained clarity of mission and public confidence in institutional purpose. A national army must ultimately be seen—by citizens and by external actors alike—as primarily orientated toward defending the country’s territory, sovereignty, and strategic interests. Where public perception drifts toward internal political contestation, regardless of intent, that strategic clarity risks being blurred.
In this regard, the UPDF merits acknowledgement. Under successive leadership, it has continued the demanding transition from a liberation movement into a modern, integrated national army—professional in outlook, increasingly institutional in character, and attentive to its constitutional mandate. That evolution has not been without strain, but it has been deliberate, and it reflects an organisation conscious of the responsibilities that come with national power.
That progress must be safeguarded, particularly from political misuse. Political actors—especially within the NRM-O—who speak or act as though the UPDF exists to advance narrow, factional, or personal interests misunderstand both the nature of the institution and the danger such thinking poses to the state itself. The UPDF was not constituted to manage partisan competition, nor to secure individual political futures.
At the same time, opposition political figures who persist in questioning the legitimacy of the UPDF through careless or unsubstantiated claims risk eroding public trust in a core national institution. Uganda’s history offers sober reminders of how prolonged delegitimisation of state security organs can deepen mistrust, distort political conflict, and produce consequences far beyond the intentions of those who initiate such narratives. Responsible criticism strengthens democracy; indiscriminate accusation weakens it.
The UPDF does not belong to any party, past or present. It belongs to the republic. Its continued evolution into a disciplined, professional, and nationally trusted force is not merely a matter of institutional pride—it is a strategic requirement for a country entering an era of heightened geopolitical attention and material sovereignty.
In this sense, the truest way to honour the spirit of Tarehe Sita may not lie solely in ever-larger parades, but in completing the unfinished transition from liberation force to republican institution.
Across Africa, liberation armies fought to end externally backed political control. National armies must now ensure that sovereignty cannot be quietly reshaped through economic pressure, political engineering, or strategic dependency.
That requires a clear shift in emphasis: from internal dominance to external deterrence; from political proximity to institutional neutrality; from regime security to state security.
Only then can the UPDF decisively counter the claim that it is a personal army—not through denial, but through visible, sustained transformation into a force whose primary purpose is to safeguard the republic’s territory, its resources, and its sovereign decision-making space.
Thus, the question of Tarehe Sita is no longer merely historical. It is strategic and forward-looking.
After the war of liberation, the UPDF must now help liberate the future by ensuring that Uganda’s sovereignty cannot be negotiated away, pressured into submission, or secured by others on our behalf.
That is the deterrence our Republic now requires.
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Andrew “Pi” Besi | On X: @BesiAndrew
