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Uganda FOREIGN MILITARY ASSISTANCE
Foreign Assistance in the 1960s and 1970s
During the years immediately after independence,
Ugandan ties
with Britain remained strong. Uganda was a member of the
Commonwealth of Nations and maintained civil service,
judiciary,
and educational systems organized according to British
institutions. A number of British military personnel
remained in
Uganda, including the commander of the Ugandan Army, and
each
year two Ugandan students were admitted to the Royal
Military
Academy at Sandhurst. In 1964 Uganda called on British
troops to
help suppress a mutiny staged primarily by Baganda
soldiers, but
Ugandans soon objected to the continued British military
presence, and the troops were withdrawn later that year.
Although relations with Britain remained important,
Uganda
broadened its foreign military relations during the 1960s.
Israel, China, and the Soviet Union substantially
increased
military assistance. Israel and Uganda established
diplomatic
ties in 1962, and the two nations soon concluded
agreements to
train Ugandan intelligence, police, military, and
paramilitary
personnel. In August 1963, four Ugandans qualified as
pilots on a
Piper Super Cub in Israel. By 1965 Tel Aviv was equipping
Uganda's security services, supplying small arms, light
artillery
pieces, and other equipment, and providing Israeli
military
instructors in Uganda. Israel also helped establish the
Ugandan
Air Force and equipped it with Piper Super Cub and Piaggio
aircraft. After Congolese (Zairian) aircraft bombed
western
Ugandan villages in 1965, Israel furnished Uganda with six
armed
Fouga Magister jet trainers and three DC-3 Dakota
transport
aircraft. Tel Aviv also established training schools for
Ugandan
pilots, artillery officers, and paratroopers. By early
1967,
Israel had seconded approximately fifty instructors to
support
this training effort, supplementing nonmilitary assistance
for
agricultural development and a variety of construction
projects.
The government of China hoped to block Tel Aviv's
efforts to
gain a foothold in Africa because of Israel's pro-Western
orientation. To neutralize Israeli influence, Beijing
supplied a
range of economic and military assistance to Kampala, but
this
effort was short-lived. In 1965 the Chinese granted Uganda
US$1
million and provided a US$4 million interest-free loan.
Beijing
also sent some small arms and a military aid mission to
Uganda.
In late 1967, after Ugandan officers complained that the
Chinese
mission was "engaging in revolutionary activity" and
distributing
lapel buttons displaying the picture of Mao Zedong,
President
Obote asked the mission to leave the country.
In contrast to China's relatively minor role in Uganda,
the
Soviet Union eventually became one of Kampala's closest
allies.
Soviet weapons deliveries to Uganda began after the two
countries
signed a military agreement in July 1965. Under the terms
of this
agreement, Moscow trained more than 250 Ugandan army
personnel,
20 pilots, and 50 air force technicians and mechanics. In
addition, the Soviet Union supplied a squadron of two
MiG-15 and
four MiG-17F fighter-interceptors, airport ground support,
and
military maintenance facilities, ground-to-ground and
ground-to-
air radio communication equipment, artillery pieces, and
military
trucks. All this matériel was free of charge, but Uganda
had to
pay for spare parts and ammunition purchased after that.
By the
end of 1967, twenty-five Soviet advisers were in Uganda
helping
to integrate this equipment into the Ugandan security
services.
During the 1970s, the Soviet Union expanded its
influence by
increasing military assistance. In July 1972, a Ugandan
military
delegation visited Moscow and arranged to take delivery of
a
variety of weapon systems, including tanks, armored
personnel
carriers, missiles, transport aircraft, helicopters,
marine
patrol boats, field engineering equipment, MiG-21s, and
radar.
The next major Soviet arms deliveries were in 1974 and
1975, when
Uganda obtained more than US$500 million in equipment.
Significant items included 12 MiG-21s, 8 MiG-17s, 60
T-34/T-54
tanks, 100 armored personnel carriers, 50 antiaircraft
guns, 200
antitank missiles, 850 bombs and rockets, 9 radar units, 2
Mi-8
helicopters, 250 surface-to-air missiles, 6 patrol boats,
6
mobile bridges, an unknown number of trucks and jeeps, and
quantities of ammunition, spare parts, and test equipment.
In
addition, between 1973 and 1975, more than 700 Ugandan
military
personnel received training in the Soviet Union, while
more than
100 Soviet instructors managed a variety of training
programs in
Uganda.
Ugandan-Soviet relations cooled in 1975, when Amin
expelled
the Soviet ambassador because of a disagreement over
Moscow's
intervention in Angola. In July 1976, Israel launched a
raid on
the airport at Entebbe that freed passengers who had been
taken
hostage by Palestinian terrorists. Embarrassed and
threatened,
Amin improved relations with the Soviet Union. Moscow
resumed
arms shipments and signed a series of technical and
cultural
protocols with Kampala, but ties became strained once
again as
the Amin regime began to deteriorate in the late 1970s.
When Tanzania invaded Uganda in 1979, a decline in
Soviet
military assistance forced Amin to look to Libya and, to a
lesser
extent, the PLO for support. Tripoli responded by sending
large
quantities of arms to Uganda, including three BM-21
"Stalin
organ" rocket launchers and a Soviet-built Tu-22 bomber,
which
were used to bomb Tanzanian positions throughout southern
Uganda.
In addition, Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi sent
approximately
2,000 poorly trained members of the Libyan militia to
Uganda.
Several hundred PLO guerrillas also took part in the
unsuccessful
fight to save the Amin regime, which fell in April 1979.
Data as of December 1990
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