The Politics of Acknowledgement: An Analysis of Uganda’s Truth Commission

Abstract

In the aftermath of a period of gross atrocity at the hands of the state, the restoration of the political and social fabric of a country is a pressing need. In the case of Uganda from the mid-1960s forward, this need was particularly real. Almost since the country had gained independence from Britain in 1962, a series of brutal governmental regimes had ransacked the country, and had viciously dealt with its inhabitants. Nearly thirty years of mind-numbing violence, perpetrated under the regimes of Idi Amin and Milton Obote, culminated in a broken society. Where once had stood a capable people, able to provide for themselves on every level, now was found a country whose economic, political, and social systems were seriously fractured.