1. One Christmas came at a time when the country was still bitterly divided over a recent return to power. Families debated politics as much as they shared food. What national event had taken place shortly before that Christmas?
2. A man who would later be recognised by the Catholic Church as a martyr was born on Christmas Day, long before independence and long before Uganda had its current borders. Who was he?
3. Just before one Christmas, Ugandan troops crossed into a neighbouring country in pursuit of a rebel leader who had evaded capture for years. The operation was loudly announced but failed to end the conflict. What was the operation called?
4. One Christmas season found a former insider suddenly outside the centre of power in Uganda. Rather than retreat, he quietly used the holiday period to plan a national political challenge. Who was he?
5. One recent Christmas felt unusually heavy. Ugandans were still haunted by images of violence that had shocked the country and the world earlier in the year. What incident cast that shadow over Christmas?
December 1980 general election.
The election was held on December 10 and 11, 1980, and saw the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) party, led by Milton Obote, return to power. However, the results were highly contentious and widely believed to be rigged. The deep division and dissatisfaction with the election outcome directly led to the start of the Ugandan Bush War (1981-1986), launched by Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Army (NRA).
The man born on Christmas Day who became a Ugandan Catholic martyr is Saint Kizito, the youngest of the Uganda Martyrs, martyred at about 14 years old in 1886 for refusing to renounce his faith, alongside St. Charles Lwanga and other Catholic and Anglican converts under King Mwanga II’s persecution.
The operation was called Operation Lightning Thunder.
The incident that cast a heavy shadow over a Christmas in Uganda was the 2008 Christmas massacres carried out by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Southern Sudan.