The Uganda–Tanzania War, the fall of Idi Amin, and the failure of African diplomacy, 1978–1979

George Roberts

Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2014, vol. 8, issue 4, 692-709

Abstract: The Uganda–Tanzania War of 1978–1979 has received little attention from historians. This article uses British diplomatic sources to explore the causes and course of the conflict. In particular, it examines how Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere sought to hide from and later justify to the rest of the world an invasion of Uganda and the overthrowing of Idi Amin, actions that contravened the Charter of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). Distinct among contemporaneous African conflicts for its noticeable lack of a Cold War context, the war demonstrated the shortcomings of the OAU in resolving African conflicts. Despite some dissenting voices, Nyerere's own disregard for state sovereignty was largely overlooked, as the fall of Amin's regime was quietly welcomed by the majority of Africa's leaders.

Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/17531055.2014.946236 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rjeaxx:v:8:y:2014:i:4:p:692-709

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rjea20

DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2014.946236

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Eastern African Studies is currently edited by Jim Robert Brennan

More articles in Journal of Eastern African Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().