May 12 (Reuters) - Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni was being sworn in for a fourth term on Thursday after winning an election in February in which opposition leader Kizza Besigye was his closest rival.
Besigye, who has now lost three presidential elections in a row to the veteran ex-rebel leader, returned to Uganda from hospital in Kenya hours before Museveni's inauguration. [ID:nLDE74B0UQ]
Here are some details about Uganda's leaders since independence:
* POST INDEPENDENCE:
-- Uganda became independent from Britain in 1962 under Prime Minister Milton Obote.
-- However nine years later, in Jan. 1971, army commander Idi Amin seized power in a coup, while Obote was out of the country, and launched eight years of terror and economic chaos. Amin declared himself president-for-life in 1976.
-- In October 1978, Amin ordered an attack on Tanzania in pursuit of a territorial claim. Aided by Ugandan nationalists, Tanzanian troops eventually overpowered the Ugandan army. As the Tanzanian-led forces neared Kampala, Uganda's capital, on April 13, 1979, Amin fled the city.
-- Yusufu Lule was installed as president, but because of disagreement over economic strategy and the fear that Lule was promoting the interests of his own Ganda people, he was replaced in June 1979 by Godfrey Binaisa.
-- Binaisa's term of office was also short-lived. Supporters of Obote plotted Binaisa's overthrow, and Obote returned to Uganda in May 1980.
* THE 1980s
-- Obote won rigged elections in December 1980 but was deposed in 1985 in a coup and replaced by General Tito Okello.
-- Some years before, in February 1981, Yoweri Museveni went to the bush with 35 men and launched a five-year guerrilla war against Obote's second government. He finally seized Kampala in January 1986 and declared himself president.
-- He was initially hailed by the West as the leader of a new generation of African statesmen, winning plaudits for his economic and educational reforms and the continent's most successful fight against HIV/AIDS.
-- However he has been criticised for failing to end high-level corruption and for his increasingly autocratic style, including the detention of Besigye and scrapping of term limits in 2005 that would have ended his tenure in office at elections in February 2006. He won elections in 1996 and 2001.
-- Museveni was re-elected in 2011, again defeating Besigye. However at least seven people have been killed during weeks of protests led by the opposition leader since April.
-- On Wednesday, Besigye was barred from boarding a flight to Uganda from the Kenyan capital Nairobi. He had flown there last month after being injured when Ugandan police dragged him from a vehicle and drenched him in pepper spray to prevent him taking part in so-called "walk to work" protests over rising food and fuel prices. Sources: Reuters/www.britannica.com (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/ ) (Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit)
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