By Mulengera Reporters
As was recently revealed by panelists on Radio Simba’s Saturday panel, Maj Roland Kakooza Mutale, who once wielded power and assigned himself to duty to prevent Col Kizza Besigye from ever winning against Museveni, has indeed fallen on hard times. The ailing Mutale these days lives quietly in Namere, a little village outside Kampala city-off Gayaza road.
Yet barely 20 years ago, Kakooza Mutale was the most discussed subject and violator of human rights in Uganda as he worked to ensure no one diminishes Museveni’s right to rule and be President of Uganda for life. His Kalangala Action Plan (KAP) Paramilitary Group became so notorious in publicly persecuting Dr. Kizza Besigye and crashing skulls of his supporters to the extent that Parliament, then headed by Edward Ssekandi, had to establish a commission of inquiry to inquire into the Kakooza Mutale-orchestrated election violence.
The committee, whose creation was instigated by Winnie Byanyima and others, produced a report whose contents were so traumarizing that Speaker Ssekandi got so terrified and never allowed the same to be debated by the legislature. Kakooza Mutale remained untouchable to the extent he would defy court summons and nothing would be done to him. He would also refuse to appear before Parliament, like MK did recently, and nothing would be done to him.
With the President’s backing, the former journalist whose the Economy news magazine made Obote and Muwanga sleepless through the early 1980s, virtually became the state in himself.
He always proudly told off Parliament, Police and the IGG there was nothing they could do to him because he was only answerable to the President who he famously used to fondly refer to as “Omwana w’omulaalo [the herdsman’s son].” With thousands of KAP volunteers, who always moved in convoy of yellow buses with their brass band to intimidate, beat up and maim people days before Museveni campaigned in an area, Kakooza Mutale was the thing those days. And he indeed influenced election outcomes at Presidency and Parliamentary levels in especially the 2001 and 2006 election campaigns when Dr. KB was most potent.
Even when he purported to be working for Museveni, there are reasonable power brokers in the system who felt his crude violence was a burden to Museveni and unacceptable. They stood up to him and vigorously pushed back, which gradually weakened his influence. These included Amelia Kyambadde who was a powerful PPS at State House, Gen David Sejusa who was powerful as Coordinator of intelligence services and Gen Henry Tumukunde who was heading military intelligence.
These stood up to Mutale and used their clout around Museveni to ensure Mutale was gradually sidelined. The independent media came in handy (even New Vision was those days independent and a progressive publication under Kabushenga and Pike) helping to expose Kakooza Mutale’s excesses.
This demonized him and thereby causing Museveni, already under immense donor and international media pressure about electoral violence, to keep his distance. Amelia leveraged her PPS position to prevent Kakooza Mutale from accessing the President who was already under family pressure to discard such a brute. Kakooza’s brutality caused many Museveni cronies to have their visa applications disallowed or paused at several western embassies.
Sejusa leveraged his position to hunt down and disarm the thousands of KAP operatives in the districts where they had become extortionists. Time came when Amelia worked with Hajji Kakande, then undersecretary office of the President to block the logistical facilitation, in billions, which Kakooza Mutale used to get from the President’s budget in his capacity as the Senior Presidential Advisor in charge of special operations, a position which had become synonymous with impunity and lawless torture operations which no one would call to order. This lack of facilitation from President’s Office pushed KAP operatives to become extortionists and engage in contract murders.
They would be hired to help fix business wrangles and more so land disputes. Their office at Bombo road had become a Kangaroo court of some sort where land and business disputes would be resolved at a fee. It always went to the highest bidders. They would lock up and torture the other party. Such stories ended in newspapers where the President read them-and thereby emboldening the Sejusa/Kyambadde group which had repeatedly been telling the H.E that his man Mutale was a rogue. On getting evidence, Museveni coiled and stopped allowing Mutale any audience. One time the IGG had moved to lock up Mutale after he refused to declare his assets and liabilities as required under the leadership code. Gen Museveni, who was still okay with his man, signaled the IGG to back off.
But on realizing the liability Mutale had become to the President’s PR, Museveni shunned him. He never took his phone calls, chased him from meetings and in 2011 campaigns, he publicly used the microphone at a rally to chase away Kakooza Mutale and his band during a rally in Lira, the capital of Lango which was still firmly Besigye’s as of that time. Museveni’s publicly proclaimed order that Mutale backs off and stops following him or being part of his reelection campaign activities marked the end of the maverick Major. He had been disgruntled remaining a major for all those years when the young boys he trained under Mchaka Mchaka were generals but was too terrified to publicly complain about it.
Inability to have his yellow ga-buses anywhere near the President’s rallies of 2010-2011 pushed Kakooza Mutale into a periphery of some sort. His KAP operatives or foot soldiers then resorted to accepting facilitation from NRM MPs who required back up of some sort to cow their opponents at election time. Through intelligence gurus of that time like Sejusa, Museveni got to know about all this extortion and alienated Mutale’s KAP even more.
The relentless media publicity emboldened his adversaries but also made his Bombo road offices landlord Sudhir Ruparelia to realize he was headed for total loss of revenue now that it was clear State House wasn’t prepared to pay the Shs500m per year in rent for KAP to continue having their headquarters there. Sudhir kicked them out and that caused the KAP operatives to become even more deflated though they still had the guns which Sejusa gradually kept recovering from them while locking up some; where credible extortionist evidence existed.
One time, at the instigation of PPS Amelia Kyambadde, Gen Sejusa stormed Bombo road demanding to inspect what he called Kakooza Mutale’s torture chambers. Mutale was caught unawares and was in, addressing a press conference. Sejusa had come with his own media crew and with a huge team of army men who overpowered and disarmed Mutale’s escorts in full glare of media cameras.
Besides publicly announcing Maj Mutale wasn’t as powerful as he was portraying himself, Gen Sejusa went as far as asking Kakooza Mutale to produce his appointment letter proving he was still a State House employee or Presidential Advisor, which he didn’t have. He asked him his job description and the man simply stammered. Sejusa also asked him in which capacity he was locking up and torturing people and meddling in land wrangles between business people yet he isn’t a judge.
This incident greatly demystified Mutale who was subsequently issued with eviction notices by Sudhir Ruparelia who had been allowing him to occupy his building on Bombo road thinking he was part of State House. Kakooza Mutale was that evening locked up and eventually taken away by Sejusa’s men in full glare of media cameras. He subsequently became a farmer in Luwero where he lived like any other ordinary person.
As all this happened, he was nursing resentment because he hadn’t been able to meet Museveni for some good years. The nearest he had come to meeting him was in 2011 when he took his infamous yellow bus to Lira to campaign for Museveni but the man from Rwakitura expelled him saying he didn’t want his campaign to be associated with discredited organizations like Kalangala Action Plan.
Kakooza had no choice but to coil and return his swollen balls to Kampala. He remained idle until some NRM politicians in Kamuli contracted him to go to Kamuli and campaign for them against FDC’s Salaam Musumba who in 2011 was trying to get back her Bugabula South MP Seat. When Museveni heard about this, he signaled Kadaga to ensure Mutale gets flushed out of Busoga.
He tried to lead a group of villagers to clean up NFA forest in Kalangalo near L. Victoria when Mutagamba was Minister of Environment. That essentially was the end of his power and in his current state, Mutale, clearly an old man, struggles to even pay basic medical bills at small clinics in Mperere near Namere where he lives-alone, forgotten and frightened. He is also struggling with the feeling that he was used and dumped to be defenselessly mocked by opposition supporters who he used to maim at the peak of his power. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
