Cinquant'anni di guerra e conflitti nella regione del Rwenzori dell’Uganda: Stati, regni e milizie

In the last fifty years, the Rwenzori region (western Uganda) has been ravaged by many rebel groups. At the beginning of the 1960s, the Rwenzururu Movement, an armed group composed mainly of Bakonzo and Bamba, started his struggle against Batoro’s hegemony in the region. The goal of the Rwenzururu Movement was to create an independent kingdom, but the project failed. In the 1980s, a new faction emerged, the NALU (National Army for the Liberation of Uganda), starting a campaign against the central government. The NALU were defeated but another rebel group, the ADF (Allied Democratic Forces), installed itself in the region. Nowadays some ADF units are still active in the North Kivu (Congo DRC). In the last decades the Ugandan government has recognized different kingdoms in the country and in 2009 even the Rwenzururu Kingdom was finally proclaimed. This new phase has fostered political and ethnic fragmentation. Recently (2014 and 2016) some militias poorly armed, composed mainly of young Bakonzo, attacked police stations and army barracks in the region. Starting from the Rwenzururu case, this article explores the relationship between the reemergence of “traditional authorities”, multiparty democracy and the ethnicisation of politics. These intertwined processes are strongly reshaping the State, not only in Uganda but in many African countries.