CONTENDING BELIEFS WITHIN GANDA HISTORY

For centuries two competing forces have been immanent in Ganda social structure, one more heterarchical, the other more hierarchical. The former was older and organised around clan membership whose hereditary leaders (Bataka) have always been responsible for rituals governing succession and ancestral burial grounds. Later, kings (Bakabaka) and the chiefs (Bakungu) they appointed competed for the loyalty of ordinary Baganda (Bakopi). Clan heads stressed the ‘collective health of the community’ (Kodesh Reference Kodesh2010: 6); chiefs, obligation to the king (Fallers Reference Fallers1964: 6). Both clan heads and kings exercised authority over ordinary Baganda, though in different moral spheres.

These two structural principles were joined because the Kabaka was also Ssabataka, head of all clans. While the Kabaka and chiefs grew more powerful during the 18th and 19th centuries, their capacity to act was constrained, not only by the independent authority of the Bataka, but also because ‘the vast, overlapping web of thousands of chiefships gave followers choices, and those in power had to be responsive to the concerns of their subordinates or risk losing them’ (Hanson Reference Hanson2003: 234).

In consolidating colonial rule in Buganda, British officials inadvertently triggered further changes in Ganda values and economic interests resulting in new rivalries among the Bataka, and many other customary authority figures, with the Bakungu. In negotiating the 1900 Agreement, the British gave half the kingdom to approximately 3,000 Bakungu in landed estates of varying sizes based on rank in return for loyalty to the Crown and the collection of taxes, while keeping the remainder for the Protectorate government (Low Reference Low, Low and Cranford Pratt1960: 140, 157–9; Hanson Reference Hanson2003: 127–36).Footnote ¹ These estates were also endowed with mailo, a novel form of tenure similar to freehold. The Bakungu who received them gained exclusive rights over land – ‘an affront to the meaning of things’ (Hanson Reference Hanson2003: 12). They received considerable economic benefits from the agreement.

Scattered through these estates were clan burial grounds to which Bataka were refused access by their new owners, losing both rights and responsibilities for them that they had possessed for centuries (Low Reference Low, Low and Cranford Pratt1960: 108–9). Although the previous Kabaka Edward Mutesa II inherited the largest of these estates, the agreement stripped him of much of his authority over the chiefs and his right to distribute land in the kingdom, as well as obligating him to follow British ‘advice’ (Hanson Reference Hanson2003: 133–4). In addition, after it was signed, British officials reorganised the Ganda chiefly hierarchy into the saza, gombolola and miruka chiefs of the colonial and post-independence period, reducing the number of Bakungu from 4,000 to less than 100. Consequently, since ordinary people had fewer choices of patrons (Hanson Reference Hanson2003: 18), this policy unintentionally strengthened the Ganda hierarchical principle.

While the Kabaka had long presided over an informal assembly of his chiefs, the agreement turned it into an official legislature in which the participating chiefs, now all landowners, owed more loyalty to British officials than to their king. Advisors to the Kabaka selected from this body became the original BKG, though one that changed dramatically before it was abolished in 1966.

While a boon to landowners, the 1900 agreement remains an enduring grievance to the Bataka and many others deprived of land awarded by previous Kabakas (Hanson Reference Hanson2003: 203). From that time forward, Bataka and chiefs have been at odds. Each group claimed the Kabaka as its cultural head, but their rationales differed. These rival justifications continued to invoke either collective welfare or hierarchy as the basic Ganda organising principle. However, both rationales changed dramatically over the colonial and early independence periods as these groups developed new concerns in response to British rule. Reliance on either principle often cloaked self-interested motives.

The 1900 agreement also changed the relationship between landowners and the farmers on their land, both Baganda and non-Baganda. These farmers became tenants subject to the wishes of the new landowner or were evicted in favour of his followers (Low Reference Low, Low and Cranford Pratt1960: 109–11). Eventually, when cotton became profitable, landlords demanded a larger part of the crop as rent. The colonial government, more concerned with expanding cotton exports than with the private property it had guaranteed in the agreement, introduced the Busulu and Envujo Law of 1927 that sharply limited rents paid by tenants and gave them some security of tenure (Pratt Reference Pratt, Low and Pratt1960: 238). In protecting them, the colonial government incurred the wrath of landowners, whose hostility over this constraint to their land continues to the present. Nevertheless, mailo tenure commoditised farming by permitting landlords to borrow against or sell their land, despite being hobbled by tenants who could not easily be removed (Low Reference Low, Low and Cranford Pratt1960: 143).

Having been excluded by the 1900 agreement, the Bataka built their claims for greater influence around their longstanding cultural rights and obligations. ‘… the history of clanship concerned the role of public healers and the concept of public healing – the idea that groups of individuals perceive the pursuit of well-being as a collective endeavor’ (Kodesh Reference Kodesh2010: 181). They often gained support from farmers discontented with their exploitation by landlords. ‘They [Bataka] were intimately connected with the traditional pattern of life. They regarded themselves as leaders and were so accepted by the people’ (Pratt Reference Pratt, Low and Pratt1960: 234). In 1921, they organised the Bataka Association in a largely unsuccessful effort to persuade the Governor and Kabaka to help them regain clan burial grounds. In bringing their case against the 1900 agreement in the 1920s, ‘the Bataka community envisioned a Buganda in which rulers were powerful but also accountable, in which many people participated in government’ (Hanson Reference Hanson2003: 224).

As the British imposed their rule over Buganda, they also opened a religious cleavage that further divided Baganda and reconfigured the meaning of kingship. British intervention on the side of Protestants at the expense of Catholics and Muslims in the religious wars ended decisively by deposing Kabaka Mwanga and enthroning his one-year-old son in 1897 – the first in a continuous line of Protestant Kabakas (Mutibwa Reference Mutibwa2016: 9–26). Protestant dominance, which embittered Catholics and Muslims, became entrenched in public life in the Buganda Kingdom, at least until the monarchy was abolished (Karugire Reference Karugire1980: 134–7).

The 1900 agreement awarded more powerful kingdom offices and chiefships to Protestants than Catholics, with Muslims receiving many fewer (Low Reference Low, Low and Cranford Pratt1960: 96–7).Footnote ² Over the years, ‘almost all the “establishments” – from Entebbe, Mengo and in the other local headquarters in the Protectorate – were predominantly Protestant’ (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 139; Mutibwa Reference Mutibwa2016: 170).Footnote ³ Rivalries among Christian factions were largely suppressed under the Amin regime and then in Buganda during the second Obote presidency. Whether they would emerge again and thus expand the cultural possibilities affecting royal restoration was unknown in 1986.

In the 1940s, fears that the colonial government intended to give land in Buganda to European settlers led to the Bataka Union (BU). ‘Thus an old conflict, the product initially of much earlier tensions within the indigenous political system, received new life’ (Pratt Reference Pratt, Low and Pratt1960: 274). Unlike the earlier Bataka Association, the BU adopted radical policies, although ones firmly encapsulated in shared values of moral responsibility for the care of Buganda by each generation for the next (Summers Reference Summers2005: 428). Their demands were directed against chiefs as well as British officials. Summers emphasises the change in their approach during this period – ‘the name Bataka lost many of its historical connotations and came to refer to those who sought to reimagine and redirect British and Ganda policies in radical ways’ (Summers Reference Summers2005: 431).Footnote ⁴ Memories of their earlier activism provided Bataka with a potential direction for Ganda political action after 1986.

Chiefs, beneficiaries of the 1900 agreement, opposed the Bataka at every turn. They ran the kingdom government, greatly diminishing the Kabaka’s role. For the most part, they were its ministers and members of its Lukiiko. They blocked demands by the Bataka for removing clan burial grounds from mailo estates in 1908 and again in the 1920s (Pratt Reference Pratt, Low and Pratt1960: 196, 233–6). As landowners, they used their control of the kingdom government to try to protect their properties. In 1948, they attempted unsuccessfully to persuade Protectorate officials to ban the BU (Pratt Reference Pratt, Low and Pratt1960: 281). Mass demonstrations in 1945 and 1949 indicated that the chiefs were losing their capacity to manage ordinary Baganda. Kabaka Mutesa II, constrained by the 1900 agreement to support the policies of the colonial government, was no longer a popular figure by the early 1950s (Pratt Reference Pratt, Low and Pratt1960: 322).

Then a completely unexpected event occurred that reshaped the conception most Baganda held about their political values. Governor Andrew Cohen withdrew British recognition of Mutesa and deported him to England primarily for refusing to support British policy to develop Uganda as a unitary state. To the astonishment of the Governor, Baganda ‘became nearly unanimous’ in demanding his return – even supporters of the Bataka protested his deportation (Pratt Reference Pratt, Low and Pratt1960: 334–5). ‘Buganda's Kabaka crisis … transformed the country's political rhetoric from a discourse of intergenerational stewardship and rights to one of loyalty’ (Summers Reference Summers2017: 107). The earlier Bataka position opposing the Kabaka and his chiefs as greedy for accepting ownership of land from the British was swamped by ‘an unprecedented rhetoric of the Kabaka as the foundation of Buganda's identity’ (Summers Reference Summers2017: 112).

This transformation in imagining Ganda social structure dominated the period after the Kabaka returned in 1955. ‘Once inscribed, it tended to block out other ways of thinking about Ganda identity that had been struggled over by Bataka activists and educated men’ (Summers Reference Summers2017: 125). Furthermore, the Kabaka, now far more powerful, was finally able ‘to control and manipulate the Lukiiko, and effectively … diminish the impact of the democratic element which had been introduced as a result of Cohen's reforms’ (Ward Reference Ward1998: 442). Hierarchy supplanted heterarchy.

Thus, it was no surprise that when members of the Ganda Protestant elite organised a political party just before independence, they called it Kabaka Yekka (KY, Kabaka only). The chiefly hierarchy organised the voters to turn out for KY (Hancock Reference Hancock1970: 423–31). It swept the only set of elections it ever contested, those for seats in the Lukiiko in February 1962, winning 90% of the vote, crushing its opponent, the Catholic DP. Making the Kabaka the political focal point strengthened the hierarchical rationale. Kingship became the framework for explaining how Ganda culture had ‘always’ been organised, the dominant view at least until Obote forced Mutesa out again. This cultural imaginary, abruptly suspended in 1967, became available once more in 1986.

Over time, the 1900 agreement also changed the relationship of Baganda to non-Baganda who lived in other parts of Uganda. Outside Buganda, only an infinitesimal amount of land was converted to mailo tenure, slowing economic growth. As the colonial period progressed, chiefs in Buganda, as well as those who bought their land, became wealthier than residents elsewhere (Kasfir Reference Kasfir1976: 104–13). That led to anxieties throughout the rest of Uganda that Baganda would rule them after the British left (Kasfir Reference Kasfir1976: 141–2). Those fears continued after independence. If Baganda could turn cultural unity under the Kabaka into a political force, they might achieve national dominance. Thus, the 1967 decision of President Milton Obote, Uganda's first independence leader, to abolish all kings and kingdoms was popular throughout regions outside Buganda because it reduced Ganda influence – and was deeply resented by most Baganda.

Two decades later, after surviving the horrors of Idi Amin's regime and enduring the return of Obote for almost five years, no one knew what to expect from Yoweri Museveni when he became president after the NRA's military victory. Whether Buganda would again pose a challenge to the rest of the country was an open question. For many, it seemed likely in 1986 that the absence of monarchy for two decades meant it was gone forever. Similarly, no one knew whether the Bataka, who had continued in their shrunken roles after the abolition of kingdoms, or the wealthy and educated descendants of those Bakungu who had received estates from the British, could restore king and kingdom. But if either succeeded in rallying Baganda, it might change the national political balance.

Thus, the Museveni government's willingness to respond to any Ganda initiatives was constrained by suspicions of non-Baganda that demands for restoration of the Kabaka meant Baganda had not given up their desire to play a dominant role. During the guerrilla war, the NRA's strident opposition to ‘tradition’ reflected this concern. In its ‘Ten-Point Programme’, it insisted that ‘we rigorously fight tribalism and religious sectarianism and have always aimed at uniting as many people as possible’ (Museveni Reference Museveni1985: 49).

On the other hand, the war had mostly been fought in Buganda, which meant the majority of NRA fighters, although not the officers, were Baganda (Kasfir Reference Kasfir2005: 282–3). Museveni knew that many of them expected the restoration of the monarchy as a reward for their participation. He had given Mutebi, Mutesa's chosen heir then in exile in England, permission to visit NRA liberated areas in Buganda. Yet, Museveni appreciated the opposition elsewhere in Uganda to restoration of the monarchy. In July 1986, the NRM Secretariat warned, ‘NRM has never promised to restore monarchs’ (Karlström Reference Karlström1999: 273). When he seized power, Museveni had to tread carefully.

An appeal to culture was necessary to justify any initiative to restore the Kabaka and his kingdom, but proponents had to tailor their manoeuvres to the novel political circumstances in which Museveni now ruled. Neither was obvious in 1986. The growth of complexity in pre-colonial Ganda social structure and the rapid transformations that Baganda experienced during the colonial and independence periods had generated several cultural rationales that could justify restoration. The new national political dispensation was sufficiently plastic to allow competing initiatives to seek favour. Which position, if any, could become the commonsense understanding of what restoration meant? Although historical constraints ruled out extreme choices, secession for example, whether any alternative could be realised under this new government could not be foreseen.Footnote ⁵ Both cultural memory and political context were fluid. Political caution and organisational resources determined which vision of the past became naturalised – and determined its limits.

COMPETING GROUPS SOUGHT MUTEBI'S RETURN

Has the ‘disenchantment of the world’ (Weber Reference Weber, Gerth and Wright Mills1958 [1919]: 155) diminished interest in restoring kings? One might have predicted that after so many years of its abolition, sentiment for the monarchy among Baganda would have been greatly weakened. Could any Ganda group have thought mobilising widespread support based on its notion of cultural identity would make the central government listen? Still, perhaps it was inevitable that the first Ganda petition to the new NRM government would ask that the presumptive heir to the throne be allowed to come back from exile. The memory of the Kabaka's triumphant return in 1955 seems an inescapable parallel, even though Mutebi was not yet a Kabaka – nor the only possibility. In 1989, an Anglican priest proposed naming Henry Kimera Katabaazi as Kabaka in the draft Ugandan constitution because he was Mutesa II's only legitimate son (Ward Reference Ward1998: 443).

The groups that promoted Mutebi's return chose cultural rationales that served their own interests. The Bataka justified Mutebi's return as Ssabataka, the head of all clans, a cultural status entailing ritual responsibilities. The landholders who descended or acquired their estates from the chiefs saw his return as Kabaka as the cultural core of the kingdom. Meanwhile, Ganda secularists and those fearing Ganda domination opposed restoring any kings or kingdoms.

When Museveni became president, a small informal group of Baganda, later the nucleus of the BKG, began to frame a rationale to persuade him to allow Mutebi's return. They were already competing with two other groups, the Bataka ba Busolya who formed the Clan Heads Council (CHC) and the Bazzukulu ba Buganda (Descendants of Buganda). All three were ‘relatively weak and marginal groups’ whose members had remained in the country during the Amin and second Obote regimes (Karlström Reference Karlström1999: 215).

The current Bataka had inherited their cultural status, a process that had evolved over hundreds of years, beginning before the creation of Kabakas. Their authority as heads of clans had not been disrupted by the Obote government's abolition of the monarchy (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 29). They continued to play well-defined roles that legitimated their activities among ordinary Baganda. As they promoted Mutebi's return, they strengthened their organisation by introducing an office of Chairman to the CHC (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 134). They had a widespread largely rural base, but only marginal national political influence.

The Bazzukulu were a tiny group of older men without any specific cultural status, who saw themselves as the guardians of unchanging ‘tradition’ (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 46; Baral Reference Baral, Perrot, Makara, Lafargue and Fouéré2014: 314–15). They were uncompromising and outspoken supporters of Ganda royalism and nationalism. Like the Bataka, they organised around certain moral obligations inherent in Ganda beliefs; ‘because politics in Buganda worked through metaphors of normative family relationships’, the Bazzukulu also presented themselves as the guardians of tradition (Summers Reference Summers2017: 110). In general, both Bataka and Bazzukulu members were older, not particularly well off and not well educated, though some Bataka were exceptions.

In contrast to these two groups, future BKG members tended to be younger, urban-based professionals and land owners (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 31, 45). Their social and economic traits resembled those of Mutesa, the previous Kabaka, as well as Mutebi, whom they wanted to put on the throne. They had gained their class advantages through education, often in addition to inheritance or family purchase from the original beneficiaries of the 1900 agreement. The BKG also ‘inherited’ the distrust for landowners of most Baganda and non-Baganda tenants.

These conflicting interests complicated the ability of BKG organisers to mobilise Baganda. At first, they were in a relatively weak position because their top official, the Katikkiro (prime minister) was inactive after Museveni made him a central government minister (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 133). Furthermore, non-Baganda, approximately one-third of the population in Buganda, were not only unmoved by Ganda cultural arguments, but fearful that restoration would cause them more political and economic discrimination.

The political goals of these three groups also differed. At one time or another, all of them called for the unambiguous restoration of federal powers for the kingdom and unfettered cultural authority for the Kabaka. But they saw that prospect differently. The Bataka and Bazzukulu were more interested in returning to customary practices than members of the BKG were. The Bataka envisioned a king who would be central to the ‘renaissance of the clanship and succession system’ (Karlström Reference Karlström1999: 216). This difference had affected Ganda accommodation to higher authority at least since the beginning of the Protectorate period.

The Bataka and Bazzukulu made more aggressive demands than those who formed the BKG, insisting on multiple occasions for immediate restoration of Buganda's position ex ante, that is, to the federal powers it had enjoyed under the 1962 (independence) constitution (Karlström Reference Karlström1999: 217; Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 46). An autonomous kingdom would provide more unfettered scope for restoring ‘tradition’. The BKG acted more strategically, ‘limiting their requests’ and ‘trying to accomplish one task at a time’ (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 109; BKG official 2010 Int.).Footnote ⁶ Unsurprisingly, the Museveni government preferred to negotiate with its leaders.

Several influential Baganda, including longtime nationalists, NRA combatants, and many working for the new government strongly opposed restoration (Karlström Reference Karlström1999: 9). After it took office, the NRM continued to condemn ‘sectarianism’ as the cause of Uganda's past political collapses. The NRM Secretariat insisted in July 1986, ‘the NRM has never promised to restore monarchs’ (Karlström Reference Karlström1999: 273). In a public speech in 1989, Museveni said he had not gone ‘to the bush to fight for “tribal chiefs”’ (Karlström Reference Karlström1999: 28).Footnote ⁷

Not only would any group intent on restoration have to persuade Baganda holding different values about restoring their shared inheritance, it would also have to find a way to bridge the impasse with the Museveni government. As it turned out, the 1967 abolition opened a novel question that yielded a compromise short of full restoration. Could the king, without the kingdom, be reconstituted as solely cultural or must restoration necessarily be political as well? If restoration could be shorn of its political authority, the institution would be less threatening to the central government as well as to non-Baganda. But would Baganda accept this novel change in the culture of kingship as authentic? By embracing it, the BKG eclipsed its rivals in the short run. Nevertheless, this cultural ambiguity has continued to haunt Buganda's relations with the central government.

RESTORATION OF KINGSHIP

Early in 1986, an informal group sent the heads of two clans with a legal advisor, who later helped organise the BKG, to urge Museveni to allow Mutebi's return from exile (Person attending meeting 2014 Int). The issue at this meeting concerned the status the new government would permit Mutebi to assume. The two Bataka pointed to customary practices of legitimating heirs that could not be performed without a Kabaka and more broadly to the desire of Baganda for their Kabaka.Footnote ⁸ They also contended his return would not cause trouble. Museveni initially rejected their proposal. To persuade him, the three moderated their request, asking that the government let him come as Ssabataka, head of all clans, rather than as Kabaka (Person attending meeting 2014 Int).Footnote ⁹ In other words, from the beginning they settled, at least temporarily, for a limited cultural status rather than an overtly political office.

Museveni agreed, although it took several months before a nervous government sent a trusted NRA army officer to meet Mutebi at the Kenyan border in August 1986 and drive him back with no ‘stopovers nor refueling’ (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 30).Footnote ¹⁰ Mutebi did not feel safe in Uganda during his 1986 visit (Karlström Reference Karlström1999: 220; also Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 30). He settled permanently in Uganda in November 1986 (Oloka-Onyango Reference Oloka-Onyango1997: 177).

‘Soon after his arrival’, Mutebi created an informal ‘council of wise men’ that included officials who had served the previous Kabaka and several younger men who later became the nucleus of the BKG (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 30–1). All of them volunteered their services. ‘Now we had small meetings of about 12 … People were scared [due to Museveni's opposition to sectarianism]’ (Former BKG official 2014 Int.). Mutebi formalised his advisory group and appointed 18 members in June 1991 (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 39–40). Because the 1967 Constitution, then in force, prohibited calling it the ‘Lukiiko’, the new body was named the Ssabataka's Supreme Council (SSC). Its composition changed from the older informal body, dropping some members who had previously served his father, excluding all but one of the Bataka and expanding younger professionals.Footnote ¹¹

On the other hand, the Bataka vied to claim Mutebi. They organised football matches among clans to mobilise Baganda behind the Ssabataka and show Museveni how popular he was (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 35; Former BKG official 2014 Int.). ‘Ganda clans have been reinvigorated by their king's return from exile’ (Kodesh Reference Kodesh2010: 191). By guiding his first visits to rural Buganda and representing him in central government meetings, CHC officials strengthened Mutebi's connection with the Bataka (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 134–5). The Chairman of the CHC remained a member of the SSC but regarded it as the CHC's competitor.

Nevertheless, because the Ssabataka chose to rely more on the young professionals who later formed the BKG than its clan-based representatives, the SSC seemed to overshadow the Bataka. It became the most legitimate voice among Baganda promoting royalism and the most trusted intermediary between Mutebi and Museveni (Karlström Reference Karlström1999: 222). The SSC indicated its willingness to work with the national government by recommending cultural rather than political monarchs, while calling for renewal of Buganda's federal status and land tenure. However, it was never the only voice. The Bataka and Bazzukulu flatly opposed the NRM's plans for a new constitution, insisting instead on reinstatement of the 1962 constitution (Karlström Reference Karlström1999: 229–30). In that constitution the Buganda Kingdom had its own legislature, courts and power to tax as the only federal unit in Uganda.

One reason for Bataka and Bazzukulu opposition was the NRA's reluctance to return all properties (ebyaffe, ‘our things’) that Obote had seized from the Buganda Kingdom, especially the Lubiri (royal palace) and the Bulange (the kingdom's parliament). Obote had given both buildings to the Army – a decision that incensed Baganda.Footnote ¹² In early 1991, the Bataka ‘triggered the first forceful attempt to put pressure on the government’ by suggesting they might boycott preparations for the new constitution (Karlström Reference Karlström1999: 229–30). If they had persuaded many Baganda to withhold participation, they would have jeopardised the constitutional process and the legitimacy of the NRM government. Younger members of the SSC managed to persuade the Bataka to cooperate (Karlström Reference Karlström1999: 229–30). That tactical success strengthened the SSC's bid to become the government's negotiating partner. Nevertheless, in March 1992, the SSC also complained to the central government over its delay in returning the royal properties (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 90).

Mutebi kept his choices open. In June 1992, he reorganised the SSC by removing the ‘troublesome Bataka’ – but replaced them in the SSC through elections, using clans as constituencies (Karlström Reference Karlström1999: 235). Then he asked the SSC to work with the central government for the return of Buganda's confiscated properties (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 88). At the same time, however, Mutebi strengthened his customary ties to clans by reinstating ‘Kisekwa's court, which was responsible for hearing cases regarding disputes over clan leadership’ (Kodesh Reference Kodesh2010: 191).

Meanwhile, conscious of the importance of maintaining Ganda support for the new constitution without conceding privileges that would significantly reduce his backing from those living elsewhere, Museveni decided to negotiate the return of some of the ebyaffe the SSC demanded.Footnote ¹³ He had mixed feelings over what to hand back. When he met with four SSC members, he wanted to delay returning the Bulange for five years, but then conceded that point (Former BKG official 2014 Int.). In these negotiations, Museveni offered to build them a better parliament building. An SSC official reminded the president that Mutesa II (Mutebi's father) had sacralised the Bulange by blessing every clan's token inside it and then rhetorically asked him: ‘Would you accept another skeleton for burial and not your father's?’ Museveni conceded, but said the Lubiri would have to wait five years. ‘We asked him who would be in power in five years? He laughed’.

Over stiff opposition from the NRA's Army Council in an April 1992 meeting in Gulu, Museveni managed to persuade it to accept the return of both the palace and parliament building.Footnote ¹⁴ Nevertheless, ensuing negotiations between the government and the SSC remained contentious (Nsibambi Reference Nsibambi2014: 68).Footnote ¹⁵ The SSC mobilised support through public demonstrations (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 91). Museveni won the support of the National Resistance Council (NRC, then the national parliament) in April 1993, in a closed session, explaining his decision to return royal properties, including the 350 square miles of mailo land owned by the Kabaka.Footnote ¹⁶

This decision, made public on 1 May 1993, paved the way for the coronation. Nevertheless, the central government held back other properties more symbolic of kingdom than of king – the county and subcounty headquarters (among others). Even though only the most prominent properties were returned, the decision, supported by the Army and the NRC, not only made Museveni popular among Baganda, it defused anti-royalist feelings among other ethnic groups, at least in Kampala (Karlström Reference Karlström1999: 242).Footnote ¹⁷ It also greatly strengthened recognition of the SSC as the group that spoke for the Baganda.

Anticipating that the government might concede more than just the properties, the SSC planned the Kabaka's coronation. In July 1992, it set up a committee and in March 1993, it formally selected Mutebi as the next Kabaka (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 109–10).Footnote ¹⁸ The SSC gambled that the government would not oppose a coronation, although its members worried that the Bataka and Bazzukulu, who vociferously opposed the draft constitution because it did not explicitly re-establish kingship, might outflank them (Karlström Reference Karlström1999: 239–41).

Then, in a tactical surprise, Museveni arranged for an amendment to the 1967 Constitution, still in force, to restore ‘The institution of Traditional Ruler … except that a Traditional Ruler shall not take part in politics’ (Karlström Reference Karlström1999: 243). Caught by their earlier acquiescence to a ‘cultural’ king, the SSC had to welcome his move. In any case, ‘President Museveni's willingness to allow the restoration to go forward raised him to the status of a national hero among Baganda’ (Karlström Reference Karlström1999: 241).

Opposition to the coronation was unexpectedly muted (Karlström Reference Karlström1999: 242). Lawyers pointed out that the decision to restore traditional rulers ought to have been left to the Constituent Assembly (CA) about to be elected (Oloka-Onyango Reference Oloka-Onyango1997: 181). Meanwhile the Bazzukulu rejected the coronation, arguing that a Kabaka is meaningless without his kingdom (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 108). Baganda in the NRM leadership kept quiet (Karlström Reference Karlström1999: 244).

The coronation took place at the end of July 1993. It remains the BKG's greatest success in persuading the central government to accept objectives shared by most Baganda. For a time, it cemented the legitimacy of the BKG as the authoritative body that spoke for the Kabaka and thus as the voice for Ganda interests. At this point, the BKG had decisively eclipsed both internal rivals. But a decade later, as elaborated below, it learned that if it advocated policies that many Baganda believed transgressed the boundaries of cultural authenticity, it would lose their support.

The newly crowned Kabaka and his advisors acted immediately to create the trappings of government. They intended to increase the BKG's influence by restoring as much of the kingdom as they could. They also sought to consolidate their position by taking a step to overcome lingering fears of Protestant domination. But despite their claim to restore Ganda tradition, their decisions revealed contradictions between customary precedent and contemporary governmental organisation. More contradictions between tradition and governance emerged after the 1995 Constitution prohibited kings from assuming any executive powers.

The Kabaka immediately appointed members to the new Lukiiko. They assembled two days after his coronation in the recently returned Bulange, thereby signalling their ambition to regain the federal authority that the Lukiiko had held under the 1962 Constitution (Englebert Reference Englebert2002: 349). The Kabaka enlarged the BKG, and included several ministries, such as Education, Health, and Youth, Sports and Recreation that had no cultural referents in pre-colonial kingdom governments. In a symbolic bid to add credibility to the ‘kingdom’, the Kabaka reinstituted the pre-colonial counties (Englebert Reference Englebert2002: 350).Footnote ¹⁹ In 1999 and 2000, he felt sufficiently emboldened to appoint his own county, sub-county and parish chiefs, even though they possessed no legal authority.

At the same time, the BKG paid little attention to Buganda's older traditions in selecting its ‘official’ representatives to the UK, Sweden and Kenya, not to mention its adoption of a flag and an anthem (Englebert Reference Englebert2002: 351). Furthermore, it used ceremonies at the Bulange to strengthen its position as superior to the Bataka. For example, it had each clan display its flag outside the Bulange ‘to signify the united monarchy under Kabaka Ronald Mutebi II’ (New Vision 30.7.2002). But it did not have the funds to pay salaries to its new appointees, weakening the image of the government it hoped to realise.

In an unprecedented decision, the Kabaka cautiously initiated the appointment of the first-ever Catholic Katikkiro. John Katende, a Protestant BKG member, had urged Mutebi to choose a Catholic as his first prime minister (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 143–4). One reason was ‘to restore the balance, since Catholics were in the majority in Buganda’ (Former BKG official 2018 Int.). The unifying effects among Baganda of the abolition of kingship, opposition to Obote's second regime and the war in Luwero probably also contributed. As a serving senior BKG official added, while religion had divided Protestants from Catholics in the February 1962 election, ‘the DP got the votes of Protestant Baganda in 1980. Baganda united against Obote’ (Senior BKG official #2 2018, Int.).

The choice of a Catholic Katikkiro signalled a new dimension in the cultural meaning of kingship in Buganda. However, both the drawn-out process of appointment and later Protestant opposition indicated that religious cleavages had not disappeared. In January 1994, Mutebi appointed Joseph Ssemwogerere, a Catholic, as Deputy Katikkiro; ironically, an office new to Ganda tradition – invented presumably to test the waters (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 145–56). Finding little opposition, he made him Katikkiro in July 1994.

Three of the next four Katikkiros have also been Catholics. In addition, more Catholics and Muslims have been appointed as chiefs, members of the Lukiiko and to the Kabaka’s cabinet than ever before (Senior BKG official #2, 2018 int.). Nevertheless, some Protestants vehemently opposed these decisions, apparently including bishops and senior ministers in the Kabaka’s cabinet, and for several years tried to force his resignation (New Vision 19, 22, 23.7.2000; Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 392–3).

The coronation created a new political dilemma because Museveni saw it as the solution to Uganda's kings and kingdoms, while the BKG regarded it as merely a step in the right direction. As a senior BKG official put it: ‘Start with this and progress’ (Senior BKG official #1 2010 Int.). Another BKG officeholder was more specific: ‘The point all along after the restoration of the Kabaka was to advocate for self-determination for the kingdom, so that it retains its cultural autonomy’ (2014 Int.). While they were frequently able to negotiate conflicting positions, neither Museveni nor the BKG could always predict how ordinary Baganda would react to their proposals. It did not take long before ambiguities in the cultural politics they had jointly unleashed brought them both up short.

THE BKG'S UNCERTAIN FORTUNES AFTER THE RESTORATION

During the 20 years following the coronation, the BKG played the central political role in attempting to advance Ganda interests. In most cases however, it managed only to defend what it had already won. There were three reasons. First, the BKG's concession that the Kabaka would not engage in politics, which enabled his restoration, deprived it of the political influence it needed to bargain effectively. Second, Museveni was unwilling to yield more ground that would enhance Buganda's political stature. Third, the BKG's success over its internal rivals, the Bataka and the Bazzukulu, had not erased their interpretations of Ganda culture that necessitated a politically autonomous kingdom. On occasion, the latter would mobilise public opinion to defeat the BKG.

The BKG vigorously campaigned for federalism, Kampala to remain within Buganda, protecting landlord interests and the return of the ‘9,000 square miles’ claimed by the Protectorate government in the 1900 agreement, while ardently opposing Museveni's encouragement of new cultural ‘kings' within Buganda. Their struggles generally failed to advance Ganda interests in the CA, the constitutional review process, Parliament and especially in direct confrontations with Museveni. But that was not the whole story. A close examination of these policy battles reveals important exceptions. The president occasionally compromised, permitting the BKG to move a step closer to its larger objectives.Footnote ²⁰ For its part, the BKG developed additional resources through new business enterprises, particularly a radio station, and fundraising that made it a more robust opponent. Despite their infrequent compromises, growing tensions marked the period and erupted into serious violence in 2009.

The most revealing case was the BKG's failure to acquire a kingdom by contending for federalism. It shows how difficult it was for the BKG to make progress without political authority, despite Museveni's apparent willingness to compromise. The BKG proved unable to persuade the CA to adopt federalism in the 1995 Constitution, even though its relations with the NRM government were as good as they would ever be. In private negotiations during the CA, Museveni agreed to a Buganda Region responsible for specific inter-district activities including certain roads, lands, buildings, hospitals and educational facilities financed by a mandatory payment from the central government (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 60–2). Persuading Museveni was an unexpected achievement for the BKG. However, Museveni was unable (or unwilling) to persuade the Movement caucus of CA delegates to adopt this agreement (Karlström Reference Karlström1999: 255–6). Instead, the constitution enacted only a ‘Charter of Co-operation’ that ‘deemed’ the districts of Buganda to have joined, thus leaving no basis for a kingdom government.Footnote ²¹ ‘[T]here emerged a high feeling of betrayal … in Buganda’ (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 65).

The BKG tried again six years later when the government set up a Constitutional Review Commission (CRC). In a fleeting triumph, the CRC accepted the BKG's most important demands: federalism, return of management of the ‘9,000 square miles’ and inclusion of Kampala district in Buganda (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 223–7). But the government, while still open to regional administration, opposed returning the ‘9,000 square miles’ or including Kampala. The impasse produced angry exchanges at a delicate moment for the government because Museveni was manoeuvring to lift term limits constitutionally so that he could run again.

Nevertheless, BKG-government negotiations eventually resulted in a formal compromise that reaffirmed the Lukiiko as a new tier of regional government containing members and a prime minister who would be directly elected plus cultural nominees of the Kabaka (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 244–53).Footnote ²² It listed specific functions the regional government could legislate and gave the regional government authority to determine what was ‘partisan’, thus removing Parliament's authority to dethrone the Kabaka. It also dropped the right of a district to opt out of a regional government and even recognised Kampala as within Buganda though administered by the central government. This bargain was a remarkable step toward the BKG's objective of realising a federal government with genuine powers under the Kabaka. Indeed, one might see it as restoring the kingdom.

The Lukiiko acclaimed the BKG negotiators as heroes, but the Bataka and Bazzukulu persuaded the Ganda public to reject the compromise (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 386–7; Nsibambi Reference Nsibambi2014: 80). Elections, they feared, might result in a non-Muganda deciding kingdom policy. Unexpectedly, recognition of this ‘cultural principle’ swept the public and forced the Kabaka to reject the agreement, reshuffle his cabinet and, ironically, dismiss his Katikkiro. The rejection demonstrates the distrust for the BKG felt by the Bataka and many ordinary Baganda. Nevertheless, the full agreement with the BKG, including direct elections of Katikkiro and Lukiiko members, became part of the constitution. However, without the BKG's cooperation, it could not be put into effect. In an effort to catch up with popular Ganda opinion, a then senior BKG official later affirmed the cultural norm his BKG predecessors had ‘overlooked’: ‘An elected Katikkiro could not be the custodian of culture and the principal advisor to the king’ (#1 2010 Int.).

The BKG's failure to protect mailo landowners from changes the government had introduced in the 1998 and 2010 Land Acts further revealed its political limitations as well as its elite interests. As a senior BKG official complained, the government's ‘intent is to weaken the landed; that's the idea behind all land reform’ (#1 2010 Int.). By giving customary tenants certificates of occupancy and limiting their rents, the government gave them protection that inevitably would reduce both the income of landowners and the sales value of their estates. In addition, the BKG could not overcome the Government's refusal to return administration of the ‘9,000 square miles’.Footnote ²³ The government even put members of a 2008 BKG committee that was touring the country to mobilize opposition to the land bills in prison for a week (Mayiga Reference Mayiga2009: 403–14).

The BKG faced a more dangerous encounter when Museveni tried to weaken the Kabaka by promoting other cultural leaders within Buganda. During the 18th and 19th centuries, Buganda had absorbed other ethnic groups that had assimilated culturally and linguistically without forgetting their past identities. Museveni encouraged individuals from these other groups, despite their slender claims to cultural authority, to form ‘governing bodies’ and demand official recognition. In two cases, Museveni even attended their ‘investiture’ ceremonies. He also prevented the Kabaka from visiting places historically within his kingdom that these other leaders ‘represented’.

The BKG responded by arranging for the Kabaka to tour these areas, as Kabakas always had. Two attempts led to spectacular stand-offs. The government forced him to turn back when he tried to visit Buruli district in 2008, saying it could not guarantee his safety. Then, when the BKG arranged for the Kabaka to tour Kayunga district in 2009, the government stopped the BKG's Katikkiro at the border two days before the Kabaka’s visit. The worst riots during Museveni's tenure immediately broke out in Kampala, claiming at least 40 lives and spreading to other towns in Buganda.

The central government vehemently insisted the riots had been organised by the BKG (Senior Police official 2010 int.), while BKG officials claimed, just as heatedly, that the riots were spontaneous (Senior BKG official #1 2010 int.). The government introduced a Traditional Leaders Bill primarily intended to restrain the Kabaka. The BKG Attorney General denounced it as putting ‘the final nail in the Kabakaship as we have known it before’ (quoted in Nsibambi Reference Nsibambi2014: 124). It passed, but only after vigorous lobbying by the BKG resulting in 15 amendments that left the relationship basically unchanged (New Vision 7.3.2011). In reviewing these events, the former BKG official sighed, ‘Museveni doesn't really believe in the culture of kings’ (2014 Int.).

In a volte-face, Museveni initiated a step toward rapprochement in 2013, unexpectedly offering to return additional properties to the BKG – ‘it came out of the blue’ (BKG officeholder 2014 Int.). For years, the BKG had complained that the rest of the properties seized from the former Buganda Kingdom in 1967 had not been returned despite the requirement in both the 1993 statute restoring kings and the 1995 Constitution that all of them had to be given back (Daily Monitor 25.7.2008). The central government had distinguished between returning ‘cultural’ properties while keeping ‘administrative’ government land and buildings (Daily Monitor 29.5.2007).

Now, a 2013 memorandum of understanding (MoU) proposed to return 213 properties, pay the accrued rent on them and allow the Kabaka to travel anywhere in Buganda region (BKG officeholder 2014 Int.). But, this memorandum still recognised the status of the other ‘cultural heads’ within Buganda that Museveni had been promoting and gave them certain of these properties (Observer, 10.6.2014). As a BKG officeholder tentatively ventured, ‘the MoU changed the tone of their relationship from confrontational to negotiable’ (2014 Int.) The BKG remained the government's interlocutor with Buganda, but the constraints on its action remained painfully apparent.

STRATEGIES, CONTINGENCIES AND CONSTRAINTS

Once established, successful contingencies seem natural. But examination of their origins shows that they rarely are. The apparent ascendancy of the reconstituted BKG is an example. The BKG justified the coronation of Mutebi and his government by claiming that loyalty to the Kabaka had always been the basis of Ganda culture. But divergent structural arrangements deeply embedded in Ganda history and modified by sweeping changes introduced by British Protectorate officials opened multiple possibilities for how Baganda might re-enact contested cultural principles after 1986. Potential options available within historical memory were constrained by internal rivals, and by whatever agreement could be wrung from Museveni.

The failure of the Bataka to capitalise on the heterarchical principle they embodied is surprising. In 1986, when restoration could finally be usefully imagined, Bataka had greater organisational resources available for shaping the reinstatement of Ganda culture in the Ugandan polity than anyone else. They had performed cultural rituals continuously throughout the abolition period and thus held wider personal connections and superior moral status compared with Bakungu descendants and young professionals whom clan heads saw as rivals.

The absence of both a recognised Ssabataka and a Kabaka in 1986 inclined Bataka to call for Mutebi's return, perhaps thinking his restoration would facilitate pursuit of the collective welfare principles they had developed in the 1940s. Yet, they chose to present themselves, along with the Bazzukulu, as guardians of the notion of ‘tradition’ expressed in the 1962 Constitution, which directly reflected the centrality of the Kabaka. In the run-up to restoration, the CHC strengthened its claim by creating its formal chair and by guiding Mutebi on his first visits to the countryside. Introducing a leader who had the cultural authority to speak for them as an organisation just when they were pressing for restoration gave them an important resource toward justifying a more heterarchical presentation of the Kabaka. Yet, they failed to make their former cultural vision dominant.

The Bazzukulu maintained a presence throughout, but never became a player. Only 30–40 in 1986 (Karlström Reference Karlström1999: 217), its numbers dwindled to ‘a dozen’ by 2011 (Baral Reference Baral, Perrot, Makara, Lafargue and Fouéré2014: 336–7). Its primary organisational asset was its claim to moral purity by expressing an uncompromising if self-contradictory cultural vision that occasionally resonated with mass opinion. While aspiring to the independent pre-colonial kingdom, it advocated reinstituting the 1962 Constitution that recognised Buganda Kingdom as a federal state within a democratic Uganda. It was the most conservative of the groups working for restoration, even rejecting democracy as ‘not in our culture’ (Baral Reference Baral, Perrot, Makara, Lafargue and Fouéré2014: 337). It vigorously rejected the BKG's claim to speak for Baganda, regarding the latter's acceptance of a king without a kingdom as a cultural absurdity.Footnote ²⁴

Considering their extraordinarily modest starting point, the founders of the new BKG succeeded beyond anyone's expectation. They surpassed their rivals when Mutebi, then only the Ssabataka, turned to them to form his advisory body. A large part of their success stemmed from their founders' prudence in casting their entreaties as cultural rather than political and limiting the demands they made on the untested NRM government. Their restraint likely accounts for Museveni's willingness to negotiate with them rather than other Ganda leaders.

Still, without unremitting pressure by many Ganda groups, the central government would probably not have restored the Kabaka. BKG members recognised that Museveni sought political support from Baganda for his own reasons, though he may have also felt obligated to Baganda who had supported the NRA during the civil war. The future members of the BKG gained his support first for the return of the most symbolic buildings seized by Obote and then for the coronation, which in turn enabled them to organise the BKG formally and confirm its relative dominance over the Bataka and Bazzukulu.

With Mutebi's coronation in 1993, the BKG managed to reproduce the idea that the Kabaka was the core of Ganda moral order. This notion had become the dominant expression of Ganda culture only in 1953–5 with the mobilisation for Mutesa's return. Although incomplete, the triumph of its reconstruction overshadowed the divergent perspectives of the BKG's internal and external rivals. In the Coronation Lecture, Semakula Kiwanuka, a leading authority on Buganda's monarchy, observed, ‘that in the Kabaka was concentrated the well-being of the country [Buganda]’ (Kiwanuka Reference Kiwanuka1993: 6).

Afterwards, the BKG assiduously promoted this interpretation. ‘Culturally, the Kabaka is the embodiment of our identity – everything, including clan identity, leads to it’ (BKG officeholder 2010 Int.). A senior BKG official observed, ‘The king is the instrument of the culture and social welfare to his people. That's been the practice all along. It is what people expect of their king’ (#1, 2010 Int.). In other words, the culture embodies an executive king, a political authority – as the Kabaka plainly was during the later pre-colonial period and, though to a considerably lesser extent, throughout the Protectorate and first years of Uganda's independence. Thus, the BKG kept pressing the central government for a kingdom.

But as they set out to extend their position, members of the BKG discovered that their earlier caution had undermined their ability to empower the Kabaka politically, achieve federalism, and regain a kingdom. While Museveni may not have been willing to give them any other choice, the cultural rationale that gave them the Kabaka hampered further efforts to expand their position in the CA and prevent the central government's rejection of the CRC's adoption of their proposals. A cultural explosion from below torpedoed the regional tier, the negotiation in which they had made real progress toward federalism. That incident revealed constraints on the BKG's capacity to determine the Ganda cultural inheritance. Failure to realise the kingdom could even cause the BKG's downfall.

Culture was a weapon Museveni also wielded. As tensions grew between the central government and the BKG, he demonstrated the fragility of the Kabaka's position by encouraging the emergence of would-be cultural leaders of small ethnic groups within Buganda. In reaction, his tactic evoked yet another new principle accepted by most Baganda – that the boundaries of the former Buganda Kingdom, though indistinct during the pre-colonial period, had become sacrosanct. In 2009, when many Baganda decided that official recognition of these new leaders was an attack on Ganda culture, they rioted.

At least five additional factors constrained BKG influence. First, as an explicitly cultural organisation, it could not legitimately claim to represent the large minority of residents in Buganda who were not Baganda. Second, throughout NRM rule, a large proportion of Baganda living in rural areas and small towns in the region supported Museveni because the NRA had brought peace. Most of them saw no contradiction in supporting both restoration of the Kabaka and NRM rather than BKG policies (Karlström Reference Karlström1999: 194–5). Third, many rural Baganda regard the BKG as representing landowner interests, not theirs. Fourth, cleavages between Ganda Protestants and Catholics weakened the BKG's capacity to maintain a united front in opposing the central government, despite the Kabaka’s unprecedented appointments of more Catholics to his administration. Finally, Baganda with nationalist and progressive views supported the NRM for its programme when it came to power. Those among them who feel the NRM has lost its way may look for another path. But few of them will choose to support the BKG.