{UAH} What led to the killing of Dr Andrew Kayiira - by Colonel Samson Mande

By Henry D Gombya

Col Samson Mande said Dr Kayiira was killed after demanding implementation of Kikunyu Conference.

A former Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) senior officer has revealed why Dr Andrew Lutakome Kayiira who was the first Energy Minister in the Yoweri Museveni government of 1986 was killed. The officer has also confirmed the presence of the so-called "safe houses" where opponents of the Ugandan regime are imprisoned and often tortured to death.

In a wide-ranging interview with The London Evening Post, Col Samson Mande who is now exiled in Sweden said Dr Kayiira, who was gunned down while staying at the home of this writer 26 years ago in Bunga near Kampala, had confronted Gen Museveni with regards to an agreement the then Uganda Freedom Movement (UFM) which he (Dr Kayiira) led in the early 1980s, made with the then National Resistance Army led by Museveni which has now changed its name to the UPDF, in which both fighting Movements agreed on steps to follow once they succeeded in overthrowing the then regime of Dr Milton Obote.

According to Col Mande, during the meeting of the NRA and UFM held at Kikunyu in Central Uganda in 1982, both had agreed that once Dr Obote was overthrown, a move to democratise the country by involving many Ugandans that had not gone to the bush to fight the Obote regime would swiftly be implemented. He added that both leaders had agreed that once they came to power they would immediately implement the Kikunyu conference agreement by organising a national conference where all who had not physically participated in the armed struggle would be invited to meet the fighters and agree to how best lead the country.

Col Mande revealed that both the UFM and NRA had agreed to the implementation of federalism once their action against Dr Obote's government had been successful. "As everybody remembers, Dr Kayiira was arrested and charged with treason shortly after demanding that Museveni implements the Kikunyu agreement." He added: ""Dr Kayiira was a victim of political persecution. He died because of his views, the views of having a nation whereby the governance would have been by consensus."

Asked whether he knew the names of those that carried out the assassination, Col Mande said he knew the names of one or two of those involved in the killing but would not be drawn into naming them. "When you are part of the national force, part of the NRA, and close to what happened really and how he died, I was in a position to hear what was being discussed after he was killed. We talked about it quite often. I used my own intelligence to find out what had happened and it didn't take me long to find out what happened because in our circles it was widely discussed and I was able to find out who actually took part in the attack.

They talked openly after the incident of how they had killed the "kipingamizi", a Swahili word for enemy. Pressed to mention the names of those that carried out the attack, Col Mande had this to say: "The way they said it, I couldn't record them. It would be their word against me. I know very well those who said they were happy he had died and those who said 'Kipingamizi tumeuwa' (we have killed the enemy). I am reluctant to give out the names because it is a tricky question and I couldn't defend it legally in court." Asked whether he knew all the names of those who participated in the attack, Col Mande said: "I don't know all the names but I know one or two who were boastful 'of the attack' afterwards."

He however confirmed that Dr Kayiira was killed by the Ugandan military on orders from the top of the army. This revelation confirms what Gen David Sejusa, MP, the Uganda chief of intelligence services told The London Evening Post a couple of months ago in London soon after fleeing Uganda in fear of his life. Col Mande stressed that all who participated in the attack on my house were soldiers who were "highly placed".

He said Dr Kayiira's insistence to Museveni on having "a clear roadmap" for the future of Uganda, may have cost him his life. He explained that Kayiira wanted all Ugandans to have a say in the future of their country. "The demand for the implementation of the memorandum of understanding of the Kikunyu Conference where Dr Kayiira insisted that Uganda must now go on the road of democracy and follow the agreement reached at the Kikunyu conference, led to his arrest and the rounding up of all the boys in the army that were associated with him," Col Mande said.

We asked Col Mande whether he had attended the Kikunyu Conference and he replied that while he had not been able to attend all sessions of the conference, he indeed took part in some of them. We also asked him to explain what the Kikunyu Conference was all about. This was his reply: "The Kikunyu Conference was about the UFM and the NRA wanting to form a merger and it didn't work out rightly. They had agreed to cease being hostile to one another and kind of cooperate. But they also wanted to agree on why they were fighting, what they would achieve, what was the dream for Uganda after the war. An agreement had to be reached between the NRA and UFM for what they would implement after the war; the transition, the democracy and the democracy that would be a federal democracy."

Col Mande said once the NRA and UFM got into power, Dr Kayiira wanted a roadmap to achieving what both movements had agreed upon. "He wanted, for insistence, a national convention so that the issue go beyond the two liberation forces. He wanted everybody in the country to be involved in discussing this and implementing it." He explained that Dr Kayiira had stressed the importance of inviting other people who had not physically engaged in the armed struggle to have a say about the future of the country. He said Kayiira wanted a speedy implementation of the Kikunyu Conference agreement so that both fighting movements would not in the future be accused of bias and leaving out the majority of Ugandans from deciding the future of their country.

Col Mande said Dr Kayiira was alarmed that President Museveni abandoned the Kikunyu Agreement and started appointing people into his administration without referring to what had been agreed upon by the two fighting movements. The UPDF officer said the issues that Dr Kayiira raised were shared by many in the NRA and UFM.  "He wasn't the only one victimised because of his views. Many in the NRA/NRM who agreed with him were victimised," he said.

Asked what prompted him to leave the UPDF and seek asylum in Sweden, Col Mande said it was the same issues as those that Dr Kayiira, Serwanga Lwanga and Dr Kizza Besigye were concerned about in the NRA. Democratisation. "Power was being centralised in one man's hands and he had started abusing it. He had started appointing people not because of merit, but because they would help him to remain in power."

Col Mande said the NRA had agreed to introduce what they called 'open criticism'.  This platform was given the Swahili name 'Kibaraza' where officers would openly criticise the army without fear of being reprimanded. He explained that after meeting Gen Museveni and voicing his concerns about the direction the country was taking, he soon realised that Museveni had veered away from allowing serving army personnel to voice their views and this led to his being slowly but surely ignored and leaving him on the rank of colonel while those junior to him gained promotions up to the level of general.

The officer told us that through this platform he had often sought audience with the president and informed him he was leading the country into a wrong direction. "I didn't know that he had jumped out of the open criticism mind. He put me in a black book quietly and that can be explained from the fact that for all officers who voted rank, they progressed further and gained higher promotions while I remained on this rank of colonel."

Mande said until 1995 when frivolous charges were brought against him, he had remained without a bliss on his character. "There is no reason to explain while I remained on my rank even when those that were my juniors were becoming generals," Col Mande said. His downfall came mostly after he wrote a document he entitled 'My dear Comrades'. "I circulated this document to members of the High Command. In it I said I had seen cracks in the armed resistance and that I had [also] seen cracks in the National Resistance Movement (NRM) which cracks needed to be discussed."

The colonel explained that he was later arrested and thrown in the so-called safe houses. Asked to say where these safe houses were, Col Mande said they are to be found all over the country. He said that the one in which he was kept was in Bunga, on the outskirts of Kampala. "Can you imagine that there is a house in Kololo next to the residence of the ambassador of the Danish embassy? You would have thought that an embassy has security around and that these guys had a way of disguising what a safe house is and disguising it." He added: "For instance, in the house where I was, I was on the third floor downstairs underground. They are all over the country and very well disguised. It took a man to jump out of these house near the Danish embassy for the world to believe these safe houses do exist."

 The NRM came to power in 1986 with many people around the world believing this was a movement that would take Uganda out of its long misery created by the many coups d'état the country has experienced since its independence from Great Britain in 1962. The colonel blamed the present crisis in Uganda on the way many looked at Gen Museveni as idol, one that would take them away from their long suffering. He said many Ugandans often believed that he would deal with any problem, and often soldiers would be heard saying to themselves: "Don't worry, Mzee atapanga (the old man will do it), thereby acceding power to him."

Col Mande said the belief which Ugandans had in Museveni led him to be corrupted by power. He said: "Like I always say and I hope people can listen to me this time that we should blame this partly on the leadership and blame it largely on ourselves. We made Museveni what he is today. Museveni would not have been a dictator. We put too much trust in him. We looked at him as an idol, one Jesus who had come to liberate us from a bad situation, remember we were coming from a very bad situation."

He said the trust that Ugandans placed with Museveni was accompanied with a lot of power. "By saying 'don't worry Mzee atapanga', we lost power to him. Instead of backing him up with structures to manage the NRM as an institution we just said, 'Ah, Mzee is there. Whatever he says is final'. He became like our God. If you have someone accumulating power right from liberation time and then over time in government, too much power corrupts. He was corrupted by power."

Col Mande said in addition to becoming so powerful, President Museveni had a hidden agenda to stay in power for as long as necessary. "He did not tell us [this]. We thought the NRM was going to be a liberation movement. After liberation we thought others would go back to school, others would go back to business and others would lead after conducting a free and fair election." He added that it was the failure of conducting a free and fair election during the 1980 general election that led them to go to the bush and fight the regime of Dr Obote. "We said this time we give the people the chance and that is what a fundamental change is all about. We wanted to give the people of Uganda a chance to have the destiny of their country in their own hands after we had chased away the dictators."

He said those who went to the bush to fight the regimes of Idi Amin and Milton Obote had done so in order to make it possible for Ugandans to be in control of their own destiny. "After all, we had chased away the dictators. The chasing away of dictators was done, but the transition towards democracy was spirited towards one man remaining in power and inserting himself constitutionally to rule this country as a dynasty for ever, a family dynasty." Col Mande added: "That's how the NRM got it wrong. He [Museveni] got corrupted by too much power, then he reneged on many agreements, not only the Kikunyu agreement. There is that NRA 10-point programme, there was an agreement with the [Gen] Moses Ali group. So all this involves leaving out the agreements and the people involved in them and putting in your clear agenda, that of ruling Uganda for ever and after him, either his son or his grandchildren in the dynasty.

When asked how those opposed to Museveni can convince a good number of Ugandans who still believe that he is the best thing that has ever happened to the country, Col Mande said: "Only time will tell. In 1979 Ugandans changed the regime and got rid of Idi Amin but were unable to get rid of Aminism. Museveni has broken so many promises; with teachers, with doctors, and wherever you go you can hear people saying 'Ah! He's just looking for votes. They never used to do that." Col Mande said it was still possible for Museveni to be removed from power through the ballot, but a military option was also still on the cards.

http://www.thelondoneveningpost.com/exclusive-what-led-to-the-killing-of-dr-andrew-kayiira/5/