The Fifth King Of Scotland

Nancy Pelosi may tear up over her frustrations with health care opponents and the "racist" Right. She should try politcking in Uganda where, in addition to the usual political factions, the president has to contend with no fewer than 5 kings, each a living link to Uganda's pre-colonial past: Riots In Uganda: In Whose Interest?

RIOTS rocked Kampala in support of the king of the Baganda, the country’s largest ethnic group. Shops in the capital were looted, cars burned. Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, who hails from the much smaller Ankole group, ordered police and soldiers onto the streets.

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Buganda is the largest of Uganda’s five ancient kingdoms banned under the presidencies of Milton Obote and Idi Amin but revived by Mr Museveni. The Baganda make up 17% of Ugandans.

Students of human nature will not be surprised to learn that each king, and his respective ethnic group, has a long list of grievances, including demands for the return of "stolen land:"

Mr Museveni thinks the Baganda have been getting uppity. Though their kingdom is the largest and was once the most powerful, it is now a ghostly fiction, with no sovereignty and little wealth. Mr Museveni is especially weary of persistent Bagandan demands for a return of a swathe of claimed ancestral lands that were long ago distributed to pastoralists or pilfered by officials—and are most unlikely ever to be given back. Besides, generosity to Buganda would aggravate the other kingdoms, particularly neighbouring Bunyoro, whose land includes Uganda’s new-found oilfields.

And, lurking in the background is a familiar mischief maker:

Mr Museveni’s people say they have identified another villain of the piece: Libya’s president, Muammar Qaddafi, whom they accuse of giving cash to the Baganda. For several years Mr Qaddafi has subsidised Uganda’s kings and their cultural institutions as part of an exotic plan to unify Africa in a web of chiefs and kings. But his latest dollops of cash, say Mr Museveni’s friends, were meant to stir up trouble, because Mr Qaddafi has fallen out with Mr Museveni, despite helping him to win a bush war that brought him to power two decades ago.

No doubt, there are westerners who would read the above and declare that we must Do Something, but it is not clear what. Uganda may be riven with violent ethnic factionalism. It may be burdened with a bloody history of misrule. Plus, it is landlocked, which means it trades with the rest of the world with one hand tied behind its back. Yet, it has enjoyed an couple of decades of stability and growth, and even managed to fight on the winning side on the War for the Congo. It is a muddle. Dare we say it's a thriving muddle?