Museveni was involved in rebellions that toppled notorious Ugandan leaders Idi Amin β79 and Milton Obote β85 before capturing power in the 80s. In the mid- to late s, Museveni was celebrated by the West as part of a new generation of African leaders. At the same time, Uganda remains a country suffering from high levels of corruption, unemployment and poverty.
Museveni's presidency has been marred by involvement in the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other Great Lakes region conflicts; the rebellion in Northern Uganda by the Lord's Resistance Army which caused a humanitarian emergency; and the suppression of political opposition and constitutional amendments scrapping presidential term limits and the presidential age limit , thus enabling the extension of his rule.
Museveni was born on 15 September in Rukungiri and his family migrated to Ntungamo , Uganda Protectorate , to parents Mzee Amos Kaguta β , a cattle herder, and Esteri Kokundeka Nganzi β , a housewife both illiterate. He is of the Basita clan, Bahororo tribe. Museveni gets his middle name from his father, Mzee Amos Kaguta. In , he went to the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.
There, he studied economics and political science and became a Marxist , involving himself in radical pan-African politics. Studying under the leftist Walter Rodney , among others, Museveni wrote a university thesis on the applicability of Frantz Fanon 's ideas on revolutionary violence to post-colonial Africa.
The exile forces opposed to Amin invaded Uganda from Tanzania in September and were repelled, suffering heavy losses. With the overthrow of Idi Amin in in the Uganda-Tanzania War and the contested election that returned Uganda 's earlier president Milton Obote to power in , Museveni returned to Uganda with his supporters to gather strength in their rural strongholds in the Bantu-dominated south and south-west to form the Popular Resistance Army PRA.
