Word: okello
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Dates: during 2005-2005
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General Tito Okello, the 71-year-old army commander who was sworn in last week as chief of state, imposed a curfew and urged calm. He promised to hold elections in the East African nation within a year. But the survival of the transitional government is precarious. Okello, a career soldier with little political experience, has appointed Obote's former Vice President and Minister of Defense, Paulo Muwanga, 60, as Prime Minister. This has caused alarm and suspicion among many Ugandans. Opposition parties charge that Muwanga organized fraudulent elections that put Obote in power in 1980, after the bloody dictator...
...General Okello forged a firm alliance with Basilio Olara Okello, the brigade commander who led the coup. The two men are related but are both members of the Acholi tribe. It was the belief that Obote discriminated against the Acholis and favored officers from his own Lango tribe that helped spark the coup. The general's greatest challenge will be to win the backing of the National Resistance Army, a guerrilla group led by former Defense Minister Yoweri Musevni, which was at the forefront of the struggle against Obote. "Forming a military government without Musevni means it cannot last," says...
Last week around 2,000 mutinous Acholi troops, led by Northern Brigade Commander Bazilio Olara Okello, seized control of parts of the north and began moving southward. They surged across the White Nile and went on to overpower Obote loyalists at Bombo Barracks, 20 miles from the capital of Kampala. Finally, on Saturday, a column of about 20 tanks, jeeps and buses filled with heavily armed troops rolled into Kampala. Half an hour later, a voice interrupted programming on the state-run Radio Uganda to announce the "end of Obote's tribalistic rule." Obote had been charged with the killings...
...Obote fled, reportedly across the border to Kenya, crowds of happy civilians poured into the streets to celebrate. Yet it was quickly apparent that the new military government was still unsteady. One of the first acts of the new regime, apparently headed by Okello, was to close the international airport at Entebbe. Before long, the roughly 2,000 soldiers patrolling the streets were hard pressed to keep order as the celebration degenerated into a looting spree. Stores were smashed open, and one pilfering soldier was shot dead. A few hours later, a spokesman began broadcasting on radio to announce...