Mutesa II of Buganda

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Mutesa II of Buganda : biography

November 19, 1924 – November 21, 1969

Succession table as Kabaka

Reign

Mutesa was crowned at Buddo, on 19 November 1942, his eighteenth birthday. At that time, Buganda was still part of the British protectorate of Uganda.

The years between 1945 and 1950 saw widespread protests against both the Governor of Uganda’s and King Mutesa’s governments. In the early 1950s the British Government floated the idea of uniting British East Africa (Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika) into a federation. Africans feared that this would lead to their coming under the control of Kenya’s white settler community, as had happened in Rhodesia. The Baganda, fearing they would lose the limited autonomy they had under British rule, were particularly opposed. Mutesa himself opposed the proposal, and thus came into conflict with the British Governor, Sir Andrew Cohen. In 1953, the Lukiiko (Parliament) of Buganda sought independence from Uganda, with Mutesa himself demanding that Buganda be separated from the rest of the protectorate of Uganda and transferred to Foreign Office jurisdiction. Cohen’s response was to depose and exile the Kabaka, creating massive protests among the Baganda. Mutesa’s forced departure made him a martyr in the eyes of the Baganda, whose latent separatism set off a storm of protest. Cohen could find no one among the Baganda willing and able to mobilize support for his schemes. After two years of unrelenting Ganda hostility and obstruction, Cohen was forced to reinstate "Kabaka Freddie", who returned to Kampala on 17 October 1955 under a negotiated settlement which made him a constitutional monarch and gave the Baganda the right to elect representatives to the kingdom’s parliament, the Lukiiko. Mutesa’s standing up to Cohen greatly boosted his popularity in the kingdom.

In 1962 Uganda became independent from Britain under the leadership of Milton Obote. Under the country’s new constitution, the Kingdom of Buganda became a semi-autonomous part of a new Ugandan federation. The federal Prime Minister was Obote, the leader of the Uganda People’s Congress, which entered a governing coalition with the dominant Buganda regional party, Kabaka Yekka. The post of Governor General was abolished with the attainment of republican status and replaced by a non-executive President, a post first held by Mutesa.

In 1964 the coalition between Mutesa and Obote’s parties collapsed over the question of a referendum which transferred two counties from Buganda to Bunyoro.

In 1966 Mutesa’s estrangement from Obote merged with another crisis. Obote faced a possible removal from office by factional infighting within his own party. He had the other four leading members of his party arrested and detained, and then suspended the federal constitution and declared himself President of Uganda in February 1966, deposing Mutesa. The Buganda regional Parliament passed a resolution in May 1966 declaring that de jure Buganda’s incorporation into Uganda had ended with the suspension of the constitution and requesting the federal government to vacate the capital city, which was in Buganda. Obote responded with an armed attack upon the King’s palace, sending Mutesa into exile in the United Kingdom via Burundi, and in 1967 a new constitution abolished all of Uganda’s kingdoms, including Buganda.

The final years

While in exile, Mutesa wrote a published autobiography, The Desecration of My Kingdom.

Mutesa died of alcohol poisoning in his London flat in 1969. Identified by the British police as suicide, the death has been viewed as assassination by those who claim Mutesa may have been force-fed vodka by agents of the Obote regime. Mutesa was interviewed in his flat only a few hours before his death by the British journalist John Simpson, who found that he was sober and in good spirits. Simpson reported this to the police the following day on hearing of Mutesa’s death, although this line of inquiry was not pursued. Mutesa’s body was returned to Uganda in 1971 after the overthrow of Obote and given a state funeral at Kasubi Nabulagala. Ironically, the new President who ordered the state funeral was Idi Amin, who as Army Commander had led the assault on Mutesa’s palace in 1966.

It is said that while in exile in London, King Freddie lived in poverty. However, he was often a lunch guest at Buckingham Palace, and it is rumoured that a palace official would slip a five pound note surreptitiously into his coat pocket on leaving.

Education

He attended Kings College Budo before he went to England to complete his education at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he joined the University Officer Training Corps and was subsequently commissioned as a captain in the Grenadier Guards.