“Guerrillas Don't Die Easily”: Everyday Life in Wartime and the Guerrilla Myth in the National Resistance Army in Uganda, 1981–1986

Abstract

This article examines the civil war in central Uganda between guerrillas of the National Resistance Army and the government of Milton Obote between 1981 and 1986. Its central focus is the wartime experience of guerrilla fighters – men, women, and children. The material for the article has been collected through interviews with participants about their experiences. The interview partners described their motives and expectations as guerrillas as well as their perception of the reality of war “in the bush”. Their narratives differ from the victorious guerrilla's official history of the war and the guerrilla myth cultivated in that history, as they lack the subsequent certainty of victory and emphasize the fighters' disappointments and suffering. In this way, the method of oral history provides important points of departure for a social history of this war and allows us, at the same time, to differentiate and correct our current understanding of it in significant ways.