Olara Otunnu
Ugandan politician, diplomat, and lawyer
Olara A. Otunnu (born 6 September 1950) is a Ugandan politician, diplomat, and lawyer. He was President of the Uganda People's Congress political party (UPC) from 2010 to 2015 and stood as the party's candidate in the 2011 presidential election. Otunnu was Uganda's Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1980 to 1985 and served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1985 to 1986. Later, he was President of the International Peace Academy from 1990 to 1998, and an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict from 1997 to 2005.
Background
Otunnu was born in Mucwini, among the Acholi people of northern Uganda. His father was a key leader in the East African Revival movement.
Education
He received his early education at Mvara, Mucwini, and Anaka primary schools. He received his secondary education at Gulu High School and King's College Budo. He then attended Makerere University, where he was president of the Students' Guild. Throughout his time as a student, he played an integral role leading the resistance movement against the Idi Amin regime, co-founding and serving as Secretary General of the Uganda Freedom Union, an organization that brought a number of patriotic Ugandans together in the struggle against Amin.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Olara Otunnu” as ugandan politician, diplomat, and lawyer. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as ugandan politician, diplomat, and lawyer. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7083109. VIAF identifies the subject as 53437739. The Library of Congress control number is n97075293. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1950, 2010, 2015 and 2011.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Olara Otunnu” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.