Paper short abstract:

Multiple, rival, Ugandan actors sought to to draw on external support in their attempts to remake Uganda’s future in the months after Amin’s fall. This paper argues that this was a politics of extraversion and was also characterized by misunderstandings and disappointment on all sides.

Paper long abstract:

When an assortment of exiled Ugandans gathered briefly in the Tanzanian town of Moshi in March 1979, the focus of their discussion was apparently on Uganda. Yet the conference was in many ways a foreign policy exercise, aimed at an international audience - both for the exiles who organized it and attended, and for those non-Ugandans who in various ways helped to produce the conference as an event: it was part of a politics that was extraverted, as well as exilic.

The meeting at Moshi set the tone for a period of politics that was rhetorically focussed on the idea of Ugandan unity but constantly looked beyond Uganda for resources and legitimacy. Rival factions and individuals constantly sought the approval and support of governments and organizations beyond Uganda as they vied for power within Uganda.

Their manoeuvrings were characterised by misjudgements as well as by ambition; and their relations with potential external allies and sponsors appear as a story of mutual misunderstandings, not least because of a chronic tendency on all sides to misunderstand both their own power and that of others. External involvement in Uganda in 1979-80 might be seen as a vindication for a ‘realist’ view of foreign policy – those in Uganda, and external actors, were all primarily concerned with their own direct political interests. But this paper also asks whether their ‘realism’ was confused or based on miscalculations – for ‘interests’, whether national, factional, or individual were often contested and unclear.