1966 was a particularly tumultuous year in the East African country of Uganda. After an era of relative peace and stability, the country was plagued by a range of tragedies that resulted in a constitutional crisis after the 24 May attack on the palace of the King of Buganda. This was the first time in Uganda's short history that the state had deliberately and systematically turned its guns on its own people. As a point of departure the study advances that existing historical analyses on the crisis lack detail. Consequently, the core of the study was to provide a more focused detailed and multi-faceted historical account of the 1966 crisis on the Buganda’s monarchy. The study yielded insights into the political and socio-economic impacts of the 1966 political turmoil on the people of Buganda. Using the historical method to inform the research design; the study employed an archival history methodology to examine how both the colonial legacy and the internal dynamics of the Ugandan society combined to lead to a serious and dramatic conflict between the kingdom of Buganda and State of Uganda. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that the political turmoil left an indelible scar on the Kingdom of Buganda. The study offers clarity on why and how the crisis occurred and contributes a better understanding of the ‘grey area’ of knowledge and insights into what the abolition of the Kingdom meant to the Baganda.

At the dawn of independence in Africa, colonial rulers hastily introduced new structures such as national parliaments, local councils, and opposition parties in a bid to channel popular demands into responsive policies. These structures while all laudable were no match for the ethnic identities that had been created during the colonial period. Colonial rulers had drawn ethnic and geographic boundaries arbitrarily perhaps as part of the divide and rule policy which are said to have contributed immensely to the development of ethnic identities. This seems to give credibility to Mngomezulu argument that the concept of ‘ethnicity’ itself was imposed by colonial administrators upon an otherwise undifferentiated group of people. Thus, while it may be true that Africans in the pre-colonial societies were not homogeneous as evidenced by the migration of various groups across the continent, the colonial era played on the divisions making them rigid. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2011. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/ / nf2012 / Centre for Human Rights / LLM