By Mulengera Reporters
During the NRA bush war, resentment resulting from perceived marginalization of Baganda was one of the many contradictions Gen Museveni (Chairman High Command) had to deal with. The other contradictions related to mistrust the entry of fresh graduates (intellectuals) from Makerere created as did the perceived complacency of External Wing members including the likes of Mathew Rukikaire, Amama Mbabazi, Ruhakana Rugunda, Matia Kasaija and others.
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The Baganda grievances were, according to bush war historian and writer Maj John Kazoora, occasionally expressed by Janat Mukwaya who was one of the few female combatants in the NRA bush war. Her husband Abbey Mukwaya was equally in the bush and played pivotal role.
Kazoora says that the coming on board of Katenta Apuuli, a non-Muganda who in 1980 had campaigned for CP’s Mayanja Nkangi and the grant of Federal to Buganda Kingdom, also created more problems as he kept inciting Baganda combatants to demand for more command positions since the war was being executed on their soil. There was also Uganda Freedom Movement’s very pompous Andrew Kayira who engaged in open sectarian talk against the NRA leader who he always demonized as modestly educated and globally less exposed than he (UFM leader) was.
Kayira would openly demand that YK Museveni, whose NRA rebel force was more organized with a better-articulated agenda which resulted into demonstrable support, must go and fight from his native Ankole sub region while leaving the Buganda front line to be executed by himself who was a Muganda. The Baganda in rebel NRA lamented even more when Commander Ahamed Seguya, who was their highest ranking officer in the war, died under mysterious circumstances. Their other co-ethnic, Capt Mutebi, had also been residing at the High Command headquarters as one of the many senior officers who stayed within that decision-making center.
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Perhaps the Baganda combatants had a point because as of that time (1982-1983), apart from Capt. Mutebi and Moses Kigongo none of the High Command members was their own inspite of the enormous sacrifices Ganda peasants were making including collecting intelligence and providing food for the NRA rebel army. Some eminent Baganda had surrendered their hilly square miles to facilitate the establishment of new NRA camps for habitation and training purposes.
The High Command members originally included Eriya Kategaya, Fred Rwigyema, Salim Saleh, Sam Katabarwa, Elly Tumwine, David Tinyefunza, Matayo Kyaligonza, Emmy Karuhanga, Tadeo Kanyankole and Capt Mutebi who was subsequently killed by UNLA during the Kakinga battle of the early 1982. He had been the only Muganda on the NRA High Command besides Kigongo who many perceived as not being adequately powerful.
It’s this exclusion-related disgruntlement that the commanders of Kayira’s UFM capitalized on to call on Baganda combatants in NRA to decamp because they were after all risking to die for nothing under NRA whose supreme YK Museveni never valued them. Indeed as early as April 1982, some NRA combatants walked out on Museveni and defected to UFM including 2nd Lt Mayanja and former police officer Bukenya who even went with some guns into UFM.
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In May 1982, the naturally very ambitious Kayira made a poorly planned attack on UNLA barracks at Lubiri Mengo only to be badly repulsed. Many UFM combatants were killed and those who survived went into disarray. Some like Sonko Lutaaya defected to NRA having written off Kayira as a mere drunkard who lacked the sophistication to match Museveni‘s superior organizational abilities. The Lubiri setback somehow humbled Kayira into finally accepting direct talks with Museveni since hostilities between NRA and UFA were only working to strengthen Obote’s UNLA.
Catholic Priest Leo Seguya, of Kijaguzo-Semuto parish, who also passionately hated Obote, offered to mediate the two belligerents who he kept telling a war between NRA and UFM would only produce a lose-lose situation for both Museveni and Kayira. That’s how Kayira reluctantly agreed to travel to a place called Kikunyu where a peace conference of sorts was held between him and Museveni.
Kayira came with 100 UFM combatants saying he didn’t trust NRA and therefore couldn’t take chances. His delegation to the Kakunyu talks (where he stayed for weeks) had the likes of Mark Kodili, Hussein Adda and Gyagenda Kalyesubula. The Museveni team had the likes of Political Commissar Kahinda Otafiire, Getrude Njuba, Haruna Sembajwe and Moses Kigongo who gradually became frustrated and plotted escape as we shall subsequently show in this flashback story.
Kayira emboldened the disgruntled Baganda combatants among NRA even more when he launched a sectarian attack against Museveni who he directed to leave Buganda to go and fight from his native Ankole. He also reported to Fr. Leo Seguya that Museveni hated and feared him because he was a Muganda to the extent that when he was defense Minister under the UNLF government he ordered the arrest of his wife.
The free-spirited Kayira, who carried his whiskey and kept taking booze during the Kikunyu conference, demanded overall leadership of the war against Obote (leading both NRA and UFM combatants) because he was more educated, traveled and exposed than Museveni. Gen Museveni talked little and his only demand was that Kayira returns his guns which Bukenya and 2nd Lt Mayanja had gone with as they defected to UFM.
Kayira said his UFM wasn’t that organized so as to have a leadership structure through which the guns could be recovered. This prompted Museveni to sarcastically suggest he can loan him some well-disciplined cadres who could go and help him reorganize his UFM which was clearly disintegrating because of anomalous leadership and rampant miscalculations.
Some of the UFM fighters told some NRA combatants, who had become their friends during the Kakunyu retreat, that they no longer felt inspired by Kayira’s leadership yet at the same time weren’t adequately comfortable defecting to NRA because Museveni didn’t like Baganda. They considered joining Obote’s UNLA forces or totally abandoning politics.
As they departed from the Kakunyu conference, Kayira’s free-spirited entourage members were intercepted by Obote’s UNLA in an ambush during which many of them were killed and others scattered into disarray. Thank God Kayira, who Obote’s Commanders considered reckless, survived death that day. The deadly ambush took place near the then small Kitalya Prison facility along Hoima Road. The UNLA recovered a lot of important information from the fleeing Kayira fighters including cameras which had been used to take photos and videos during the Kakunyu meeting. The information obtained enabled Obote’s commanders to identify some of the young people who had left Makerere University to become bush fighters.
The resultant frustration prompted some of the senior UFM combatants to abandon Kayira and join NRA. These included Major Frank B Kaka, Eric Mukasa and Iraq-trained Kaliisoliso Ndungutse who stayed for a short time and quit saying he wasn’t comfortable serving under Museveni. Others like James Sebaggala and Dr. Lwanga decamped later and came to NRA.
Using information gathered from the fleeing Kayira group, Obote’s UNLA commanders were able to reorganize themselves and launch several successful offensives against NRA which lost many combatants besides having some of its best commanders fatally wounded. These include Salim Saleh who was wounded and left for dead during the battle of Bukalabi in February 1983.
A badly wounded Saleh was gratefully treated back to life by Dr. Kizza Besigye who had joined the war months earlier straight from Nairobi. As Saleh nursed his wounds, David Tinyefunza was designated to take his command place with specific instructions from Museveni to repulse Obote’s UNLA combatants who had camped in the area while planning more offensives.
Deputized by the highly effective Julius Chihandae, Tinyefunza was subsequently wounded too in a subsequent battle of Katiti in March 1983 which was the worst year on NRA, a rebel army which only registered renewed momentum from the 2nd December 1983 helicopter crush which claimed the life of Obote’s Chief of Staff Gen David Oyite Ojok whose death gave them propaganda value besides deepening tribal divisions and polarizes inside Obote’s UNLA. Gratefully, Dr. KB was at hand to treat Tinyefunza’s fatal wounds.
In May 1983, Museveni (who was increasingly becoming frustrated as a rebel leader) offered to command the war himself. This was done through what the man from Rwakitura called ‘Safari 50’ whose objective was to culminate into a raid on Kabamba barracks to replenish NRA’s ammunitions arsenal. Starting out at a place called Nakatete, an increasingly paranoid Museveni had overlooked a number of realities including the fact that morale in his NRA was increasingly low because of the earlier fatalities Obote’s UNLA had inflicted.
The 1500 troops he set off with suffered fatigue and were extremely hungry because the previous UNLA successes had demoralized peasants in the Luwero Semuto area into stopping to volunteer food to NRA. Discipline levels were low and some combatants for the first time openly opposed Museveni arguing that it was even suicidal and selfish for him to insist on going with all the guns (450) which NRA had at that time.
Clearly deflated, Museveni abandoned the mission and returned to the High Command headquarters from where he chaired a meeting during which it was decided to relocate to the areas of Greater Mubende/Kiboga/Mityana since the Semuto areas clearly seemed to be no secure and free from UNLA anymore. It was also decided by the HC that Tadeo Kanyankole and Ahmed Kashillingi undertake the military training of all the young intellectuals who had joined NRA from Makerere.
Museveni felt it was high time the young intellectual got involved in leading intelligence gathering and military operations as a way of improving the quality of decision-making for NRA which was increasingly becoming a struggling rebel force as Obote’s UNLA gained ground throwing them out of the liberated areas which they had previously been controlling.
Because the demoralized Ganda peasants had stopped giving free food to NRA because of the demonstrable gains Obote’s UNLA was making, extreme hunger and starvation hit the NRA camps to the extent that women combatants like Janat Mukwaya lost weight and their breasts besides becoming malnourished. Mrs Mukwaya, whose husband Abbey Mukwaya was also part of the war, in the end had her health deteriorate and even contracted a mental problem which saw her run bonkers.
Suspecting she had been bewitched, CHC Museveni decreed that Janet Mukwaya, who was to subsequently serve as a powerful Minister, leaves the Luwero jungles and that’s how she returned to her birth place of Kyaggwe/Greater Mukono where she stayed until the end of the war. Gratefully, her mental ailment was ably managed by Mukono-based traditional medicine men to the extent that she regained her sobriety and was able to subsequently serve her country post-1986.
KIGONGO ESCAPE:
Moses Kigongo, who currently serves as Museveni’s 1st Vice Chairman in the NRM hierarchy, was equally a big man during the bush war. Not only did he sit on the High Command, Kigongo also chaired the National Resistance Council (NRC) which was charged with making all the sensitive political decisions as Museveni’s High Command handled military decisions.
Whereas he was being stressed, hurt and affected by lack of essential supplies like food and medicines (external wing guys had slept on the job, become complacent as opposed to mobilizing logistics for the war) besides Obote’s advancing men, Kigongo also faced the trauma and helplessness resulting from the endless grumbling that kept coming his Baganda co-ethnics.
Museveni initially managed this grumbling by promoting Serwanga Lwanga and self-professed medical doctor Edward Luswata Kanoonya. Coming rather too late and moreover at the time (1983) Obote’s UNLA was gaining upper hand, this intervention by Museveni didn’t adequately deescalate things. Fatigue kept growing and many combatants were increasingly becoming hopeless and threatening desertion.
Some Baganda combatants demanded they can only stay and carry on with the war if Museveni commits himself in writing that he will restore Buganda Kingdom to its original glory and give the region Federal status. Calculative as always, Museveni declined the request preferring to say “we shall carry out the necessary consultations.” All this combined to mount pressure on Moses Kigongo who lower level combatants accused of not doing enough to push Museveni into making the necessary concessions.
Major John Kazoora, who was his blue-eyed ADC, says it’s because of such mounting pressure that Kigongo plotted to escape from the bush war to go and live in some other country. One time while arranging his Principal’s tent, Kazoora saw a newly issued passport for Moses Kigongo. He recalled how Museveni implored him to help spy on Kigongo as he was making him his ADC in 1982, when he had just joined from Makerere, and decided to confide into the man from Rwakitura.
Kazoora implied to the CiC it’s possible the Hajji from Butambala was planning to flee the country. In total disbelief, Museveni dismissed Kazoora’s intel as kiwaani and mere fabrication. He demanded for proof prompting Kazoora to quietly deliver the newly issued passport. Museveni couldn’t believe his eyes and subsequently confronted Kigongo who vehemently denied everything as untrue.
A restless Museveni escalated matters to the High Command whose emergency meeting was convened where many suggested that Kigongo be court-martialed and subsequently executed for betrayal and planned desertion. Kigongo maintained his denial even in that High Command meeting prompting Museveni to send for his ADC John Kazoora who testified against him.
Museveni somehow persuaded other High Command members to forgive Kigongo whose execution would only have made worse an already complex situation the rebel NRA was facing. The clearly deflated NRC Chairman was allowed to stay but surveillance around him was intensified. He later confronted Kazoora, who had become like his son that he had to explain why he betrayed him by giving away his escape plans.
After NRA had captured power in January 1986, Kigongo once again confronted Kazoora saying: “My son do you I could have been executed because of your treachery?” And Kazoora, a renowned wordsmith, responded with: “Mzee if it was not for me, you would not be Vice Chairman of NRM today.” They both laughed and life carried on. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [whatsapp line], 0779411734 & 0200900416 or email us at [email protected]).
