Uganda
Essay,
Mar/Apr
1998
Once the playground of tyrants like Uganda's Idi Amin, Ethiopia's Mengistu Haile Mariam, and Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko, Africa is finally shedding its postcolonial heritage of despotism and chaos. In Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Eritrea, a new generation of nationalist leaders with strong and disciplined armies is emerging to take control of the continent. Their fights against the old foreign-supported order have left them suspicious of anything that comes from abroad, especially from France. Still, they are far more accountable and egalitarian than their predecessors-and they want to get into the United States' good books.
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Essay,
Apr
1978
By the time this journal is in its readers' hands, the American Congress may have been called upon to decide whether Uganda's coffee should be barred from entering the United States. Its decision will hold great importance for Uganda, for the United States, and for the international system. At stake will be the issue of whether or not the richest and most powerful of sovereign states is justified in using its economic power unilaterally to force the government of a smaller and weaker state to alter the way it treats its own subjects. The questions raised come cascading forward: Why should rich North Americans interfere in the internal affairs of a poor African state? How would that interference relate to other American interests and policies - in Africa and elsewhere? What is the larger significance for the international system of such use of an economic instrument - a coffee boycott - for a political purpose?
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