By Otim Nape
Dickson Ogwang was two weeks ago dramatically expelled from Washington US where he was serving as Uganda’s Deputy Ambassador. This was preceded by episodes of domestic violence which saw him batter his wife and mother of his two children like a cobra snake. The matter was ofcourse written about by the newspapers creating an impression all wasn’t well with our mission in Washington. Investigations done by this news website show that Ogwang’s deportation was just a climax to events that had been building up over time. It also resulted from deeply seated intrigue that saw former Ambassador Olive Woneka actively fight to undermine if not to get rid of Ogwang. As she handed over, Woneka also privately cautioned her successor Mull Katende to be careful with Ogwang who many accuse of spying and reporting colleagues to Museveni. Many in both Washington and foreign affairs ministry in Kampala have always treated Ogwang with suspicion because of the trust he enjoys from President Museveni. In fact its widely considered that Ogwang, who was politically appointed after losing the Kole Parliamentary seat race to UPC’s Fred Ebil in 2011, to be a mole planted by Museveni to spy on colleagues in Washington. When Woneka was Ambassador, the relationship with Ogwang was very bad and it’s widely believed it’s the reason Museveni transferred Woneka to another mission because he couldn’t stand somebody antagonizing his blue eyed spy. For Museveni, Ogwang is an asset partly because of the vast network of personal friends he has built over the years in Washington amongst Senators and power brokers/lobbyists in the US capital. He has several times secured for Museveni meetings with high profile US officials which even foreign affairs Minister Sam Kutesa can sometimes not manage. The first break through meeting with the new Trump administration was actually secured by Ogwang at the prompting of Museveni. Sam Kutesa was directed by Museveni to go lead that delegation on his behalf but his presence was overlooked and the American officials conducted business in that meeting in a manner that created an impression they trusted Ogwang much more than the two senior officials he had come with. It was a three member delegation of namely Kutesa, Ogwang and Mull SebujjaKatende the new Ambassador to Washington. Being able to secure such a high level meeting with so much ease unsettled both Kutesa and Katende who became uncomfortable and started undermining Ogwang right away. “Kutesa hates people who encroach on his space and that is how AlintumaNsambu got into problems. He proved to have better contacts in the German government than SK and that was the start of his problems and political down fall. This meeting in Washington was a major breakthrough for the Museveni government but an indictment on Kutesa and the Foreign Affairs Ministry because Ogwang proved too smart,” said a source. It’s further added that the collegiality the US officials exhibited showing their proximity with Ogwang unsettled the two Principals. Kutesa always had no problem with Ogwang but haters rode on that to antagonize him with SK and other officials in Kampala.” Katende supervises Ogwang and sources say from the day of that meeting, his negative reports to Kampala about Ogwang began gaining more acceptability in Kutesa’s ministry. Whatever he reported to Kutesa about Ogwang began to be accepted without verification or scrutiny. It’s said there was an opportunity to save Ogwang (and Uganda the diplomatic embarrassment) but a lot of time was lost because his career downfall resulting from the domestic violence would consolidate and secure the job of Katende who was beginning to become very uncomfortable with him. “What made it even easier is that influential Senators and lobbyists were very sympathetic to Ogwang and had offered to lobby the State Department to find a way of letting him off the hook but the problem was his boss Katende who heads the mission was very lukewarm,” said knowledgeable sources. At some point, people in Katende’s office tried to recruit his spouse to spy for their boss on her husband to establish how often he speaks to Museveni in Kampala and what he would be reporting to him. They even tried to tell her that Ogwang’s downfall would increase chances for other relatives to consolidate their grip in the diplomatic service. The wife actually works in State House as a private secretary to the President. In fact when they learnt of the violence at home, some of Katende’s aides frantically looked for Ogwang’s wife to quietly encourage her to register a complaint with police against him. There had been violence before in Ogwang’s house whereby sometimes the wife would also feel much provoked and batter Ogwang and gets battered the next day. This experience of regular violence is understood to have greatly traumatized their kids. The Senators had made a major breakthrough getting the State Department to keep a blind eye on his violence but gave up when it turned out that, unknown to anyone else, the wife had also reported to the Crisis Management Unit on top of the police. Ogwang’s friends in Kampala had fundraised $60,000 and got him lawyers to fight off the deportation basing on alleged domestic violence. Unknown to them was the fact that beyond the police complaint, the battered wife had also reported to the crisis management unit. Once reported there, no matter who you are, one has to be prosecuted-and not just deported or having one’s diplomatic immunity lifted. This sealed Ogwang’s fate but he survived prosecution because of the intensive lobbying by his Senator friends. Now to make Katende develop a resentful attitude towards Ogwang, old timers in Washington told him Ogwang had previously reported to Museveni and three colleagues got into problems. Shortly before Woneka’s transfer, Museveni had fired three top diplomats from the Embassy for financial impropriety, espionage and other forms of improper conduct and the suspicion was that Ogwang was the whistle blower who reported the three colleagues to Museveni. Using this experience, Katende was manipulatively told from day one that “you won’t have peace as long as that Museveni spy [Ogwang] is still standing.” He was even told that Ogwang, who is by far more sophisticated and schooled in diplomatic practice than Woneka, even stood a chance of being elevated to full Ambassador in which case he would take Katende’s job. “Katende was told that man Ogwang is a political appointee and not a career diplomat but the way the President trusts him, he can make him full Ambassador in Washington because if Woneka who is less sophisticated was appointed, what do you think will ever stop Mzee posting Ogwang?” Being a human being, such rumors negatively impacted on Katende and biased him towards Ogwang. Woneka had also told Katende that Ogwang is a bad man and thereby biasing him. He was also told having been a diplomat since the 1970s, he was considered too old and that it was a matter of time before Museveni appoints Ogwang to replace him. Katende’s assistants reacted by writing numerous diplomatic cables to Kampala bad mouthing Ogwang but Museveni always ignored as if the cables hadn’t reached him. Museveni was told by Katende’s people that by regularly having violent busts ups with his wife, Ogwang was soiling Uganda’s image in Washington. Yet the truth is Ogwang hasn’t been the first Ugandan diplomat in Washington to be reported to police for domestic violence because two months earlier another top official was quietly forced back to Kampala after severely beating his wife. Gratefully the matter never found its way to the media. The occasional acts of violence reported against Ugandan diplomats previously also further complicated the timing for Ogwang’s latest violence. “Everybody we lobbied was saying now you Ugandans, your domestic violence is becoming too much. Some told us you now have two potentially big diplomatic problems; that of Sam Kutesa concerning the bribery allegations and now this one. We can’t help you lobby the State Department on both. You have to choose and being the smaller man, Ogwang had to be sacrificed to re-focuss the lobbying efforts towards resolving the Kutesa saga,” said an influential diplomat privy to the whole thing. Back to Katende; he was also deceptively told that Ogwang was in touch with security guys in Kampala who Museveni used to investigate his mal-activities in Addis Ababa where he previously served as Ambassador. Museveni’s anger with Ambassador Katende in Addis related to queries regarding the UPDF/AU mission in Somalia. In fact it’s said things were so bad, Katende was supposed to be prosecuted if it wasn’t for Museveni to intervene using his clout and respect amongst Amison troop-contributing countries.
KUTESA BLACKMAILED:When Semujju Nganda, Gerald Karuhanga, Theodore Sekikubo and other MPs moved to question Kutesa over his role in the alleged bribery last month, Ogwang’s supporters saw an opportunity for a trade off. Ogwang’s domestic violence saga was ongoing in Washington as the Senators tried to save him.Ogwang’s supporters, including an influential bleaching female MP from Teso and other legislators from Lango, met Kutesa and told him “we are ready to help you mobilize MPs to fight off those Gerald Karuhangas but you also must first pick the phone and call Ambassador Katende compelling him to worker harder and cooperate with friendly Senators working towards saving Ambassador Dickson Ogwang.” We are told Kutesa complied and Katende, believed to have been clandestinely fighting Ogwang, reduced on his hostilities but this was only short lived. As soon as Kutesa was off the hook in Parliament (it was towards Christmas and focuss was on Magyezi Bill), Katende withdrew his active lobbying efforts aimed at saving Ogwang. This is how Ogwang was abandoned and found himself all alone with no shoulder to lean on. Neither was he still having any money. There were last minute efforts to get the wife to withdraw her complaint to the crisis management center but the ill-fated couple was advised it was too late. That is how Ogwang fell flat. And as of now the friendly MPs from his native Lango, working with the female Teso MP, are working around the clock to ensure that Ogwang is quickly rehabilitated and consoled with a job of Under Secretary in one of the juicy ministries. The very influential Teso MP has already engaged Museveni assuring him there are at least 4 under secretary slots that are vacant in the Ministries of Science & Technology, Public Service, Energy and others. Many of these MPs liked Dickson Ogwang because of the generous/courteous way he would treat them each time they travelled to Washington and needed consular services. For instance he always worked with the Speaker’s office to ensure MPs had the best time each time they travelled for UNAA and other official business.
