But the war has tended to help Museveni's NRM which has exploited it to rally the peoples of central and western Uganda against the fear that the northerners may come back to power as under ex-Presidents Milton Obote Idi Amin Dada and their brief successors...
Its Treasurer Lira MP Ateng Otim is affiliated to ex-President Milton Obote's Uganda People's Congress (UPC)...
Bwengye is an old ally of Museveni's who after losing the elections as DP Secretary General in 1980 fled to London to offer chequebook support to the NRM's guerrilla war against Milton Obote's ruling Uganda People's Congress (UPC)...
Government officials were saying until recently that the LRA was supported by remnants of the last Milton Obote government who live in exile in London...
But on the basis of last year's local elections it seems the UPC still enjoys much support in the sparsely populated north particularly from exiled party leader Milton Obote's Langi ethnic group...
Even former President Milton Obote who was ousted by Amin in 1971 but also succeeded him in the (heavily rigged) 1980 elections has equivocated as have some more radical opposition groups such as the Reform Agenda...
Even Museveni's sharpest critics concede that NRM rule stabilised much of Uganda after the ravages of Idi Amin Dada and Milton Obote...
He labelled his opponent as part of the old order of Idi Amin Dada and Milton Obote although Besigye joined Museveni's guerrilla struggle in 1981 and was at one time the Movement's chief ideologue...
MP for Mbale once a stronghold of Milton Obote's Uganda People's Congress and a qualified legal draftsman...
Without that it will return to the ethnic violence it knew under Presidents Milton Obote Idi Amin Dada and others...