{UAH} Ddembe's musings
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Ugandan soldiers -are they any better than trained dogs?
Posted on April 11,
Ugandan soldiers -are they any better than trained dogs?
by Drew Ddembe on Wednesday, April 11, 2012 at 12:53am ·
A few weeks ago Stephen Twinoburyo posted the photo of a red beret in full military dress and combat gear complete with a bullet belt and an LMG.This photo first came to my attention when Daniel Ruhweza asked what one noticed on looking at that photo. Lots of people volunteered what their thoughts were on seeing that photo! For a while this photo has been bothering me. this has led me to think more about what I can remember about Ugandan soldiers.
At face value its a photo of a very fit looking soldier looking smart, mean and buff! His countenance is enough to strike terror into the hearts of his enemies! Suitably garbed and ready for battle, he looks ready to eat an elephant for breakfast! He looks like like the kind of guy you want on your side fighting your enemies while you sleep in bed with your wife and kids.
In many countries, this man would be considered to be a hero. People would look at him with pride and nice stories would be written about him in the papers. Politicians would all want to be associated with him to attract the goodwill of citizens many of whom will have served in previous wars defending the nation. People would be grateful that he is out there to bring terror to their enemies so that they can sleep in peace and protect their way of life! Numerous songs would be sung about this hero and girls hearts would go all fluttery and some would even go moist in certain areas at the sight of this guy. This guy who fights and kills the enemy in their trenches, keeps terrorists away from our homes, protects their children and women. The guy whose predecessors fill numerous heroes cemetries the world over. Society would be grateful that this mean well trained machine armed to the teeth with weapons of death was out there in the cold putting his life on the line and being eaten by mosquitoes on their behalf!
Not so in Uganda. In Uganda this man is considered to be a coward who attacks unarmed citizens, and tortures, shoots and terrorises them. He shoots children like four year old Nalwanga in Masaka or that pregnant woman in Kajjansi who was shot through the stomach. Armed men in uniform do not fill peoples hearts with pride -at least not unless they are your own clansmen or from your own village. They cannot be trusted with ones life, ones property or ones woman and loved ones. More often than not, our history tells us that they are employed by our enemies to kill, rape, maim and subdue our will to that of our rulers who are most times enemies of the people!
The most incongruous thing about this photo was that this mean looking battle hardened and battle ready family man with a wedding band on his ring finger together with his out of focus friends in the photo were headed out into the streets of Kampala to believe it or not do battle with unarmed citizens. That these unarmed citizens are their employers who pay their salaries through their taxes and are the voters who presumably voted this government into power appears to be irrelevant! But this man is not their to protect Ugandans from terrorists, from rapists and murderers or those who would do genocide but to protect them from a bunch of disillusioned citizens unhappy with the status quo voicing their displeasure and unhappiness with the rulers who have led the country down the path of ruin! To this soldier all he understands is that the rulers have labeled these dissenters as rioters, riff raff and dregs of the earth!
He is not there to fight Al Shabaab, nor Kony! Neither is he there to fight genocidaires who massacred millions in Rwanda nor Mungiki who killed hundreds in Kenya! Al shabaab bombed and killed Ugandans in their city while this guy was sleeping! ADF rebels burnt young boys in their dormitory in Kasese with him napping or fornicating or simply getting drunk! For decades Kony raped, killed and abducted children while this guy was busy admiring himself in the mirror and adjusting his red cap to a more rakish angle! But show him a civilian to shoot and he puts on his most mean face!
But why would this man wish to harm fellow citizens. The people who pay his salary. This family man with a wedding band on his finger who probably left a wife and kids at home. Why would he want to go out on the streets to kill other peoples wives and children?
All of these questions led me to reflect on the role of the soldier in the history of Uganda. In this i borrow a lot from my own personal history. A lot of this is based on the interpretations of a child who like many in my generation have grown up in the middle of a conflict spanning several decades each phase characterised by men in uniform.
Speke introduces us to the askari's he came to Uganda with. Recruited from the coast, they were mercenary in their behaviour believing it was their right to raid the gardens of the natives whenever they wanted because they were guards of the "big white bwana". They soon discovered that in Buganda, the only man allowed to raid peoples gardens and take food with impunity was the Kabaka for whom it was considered to be a right! Spekes askaris almost paid for their mercenary behaviour with their lives!
The soldier in colonial times was a mercenary and oftentimes a foreigner. Indian regiments. Sudanese regiments. Swahili guards from the coast. Their job was to protect the colonial master and assist him in stealing from the natives both their resources as well as their labour. Massacres of natives to impose the will of the colonial master or to steal their resources. Bunyoro, the Mau mau rebellion in Kenya, In Namibia and in Congo, in apartheid South Africa and Zimbabwe, various wars and massacres of Somali natives, the Lobengula rebellion in Zimbabwe and massacres -all over the continent, colonial armies of native and foreign recruits were trained to put down the natives sometimes their own people with maximum prejudice and brutality!
In Uganda Sudanese and Gujarati soldiers were replaced by soldiers from the so called "martial tribes". These came from the north of the country. To the rest of the country, soldiering was a lowly job left to what in Buganda were called "Basiru kale" translated as "real idiots"! Most times the soldiers did not even speak languages the civilian population could understand. Their official language, swahili, was foreign to most Ugandans and became the official language of coercion, intimidation and terror! Uptil now swahili remains an unpopular language among many Ugandans today, one they will only speak or learn under duress despite the governments lip service to the East African community. Having been introduced to uganda by slave traders and colonial armies, and used by all post colonial armies, it will take a lot more time to rehabilitate the language in Uganda!
This colonial army trained people like Idi Amin whose training in putting down natives and imposing the will of the rulers included campaigns against the Mau Mau in Kenya as well as the karimojong in Uganda! His commanding officers in their reports noted his penchance for brutality -and yet he was promoted. At independence he was one of the highest ranking native officers handed over. it should come as no surprise that many Ugandans still erroneously consider Idi Amin to have been Sudanese. They likewise also consider his nubian allies to be Sudanese too. Nubians are descendants of those foreign colonial troops brought to Uganda to fight colonial wars.
Obote soon recognised and fed Idi Amins appetite for brutality. Amin was promoted over arguably more deserving and better qualified solders like the late Shaban Opolot. In a world where brutality meant power, it was not hard for Amin to learn that he did not have to heel to the command of a man like Obote who could not shoot a gun nor command an army. Amin went into business for himself doing the very same job his colonial masters had taught him so well -putting down natives who objected to being governed against their will! To hear the western including the British press go on about Idi Amin, one would believe that he just happened out of the blue! Amin did what he was trained to do -by the British. Is it any wonder that the British supported his coup and ascendance to power?
As a child my recollection of soldiers during Idi amin was of two to four soldiers in an army landrover. Uptil 1979 I have no recollection of seeing a soldier on foot outside a military parade! Neither were their armed soldiers on the streets. There is no doubt that while Idi Amins soldiers were dogs like all Ugandan armies, his own dogs attacked at his command while Obote exerted no control at all over his as long as they targeted his perceived enemies who also happened to be citizens!
In 1978 soldiers camped around the major installations around Kampala. So Radio Uganda where my mother worked after being transferred from Nasur's office was surrounded by soldiers. In those days capturing the only radio station in the country pretty much made one the new president! And the Sheraton gardens which were then open to the public had soldiers in tents camped all over the place. Being children, we talked to them and it was then that a soldier first showed me his gun, how to cock it and shoot it. Of note is that we were not afraid of soldiers.
In 1979 during the fall and heavy bombardment of kampala, we had to flee our home like many people. My father chose to stay behind but sent us off to Luwero to stay with family on a ranch. but there was one problem. there was no transport. the roads were completely deserted.
In Kawempe, a UTC bus stopped by. My mother negotiated with the army officer who had commandeered the bus and its driver to transport him and his wounded men home to Arua. Again it is interesting that neither my mother nor us were afraid of the soldiers. She paid them to transport us several hundred miles away from the battle raging around Kampala. Two adult women, more than ten children, 2 or 3 teenage girls and no adult males but none were molested by these Amin soldiers fleeing the city on the way home from Mutukula after being routed by the enemy. Several months later, my mother met the driver, a Hajji who said that when he arrived in Arua, the soldiers paid him quite generously and let him go.
As you will see, I was soon to learn that soldiers are not always like that. On the way, they stopped to pick up a young boy and girl who had walked from their boarding school in their school uniform. They were still more than a hundred miles away from home. They dropped them off at their destination.
My father picked us up a few months later to return to Kampala. By this time Kampala was under the command of Tanzanian soldiers. They occupied several areas around Kampala. There was a detach close to our home and they frequently came around in part because there were a number of teenage female cousins. Inevitably a cousin got pregnant by one of them. As children we never got to know the details. He later returned to Tanzania leaving behind a boy who is now an adult and has never known his father. His mother returned to the village and dropped out of school. Not till the end just before they returned to Tanzania did the soldiers start to misbehave. In general they were friendly which was not very hard given the warm welcome they were given by locals.
In 1980, just before the general elections, Prof. Lule was deposed and replaced by Binaisa. One day they announced that he was returning to Kampala. People thronged the roads. But they were later told that Lule was not coming. On the same day Yoweri Museveni the then Minister for Defence in the ruling Military Council returned from the airport to face riots. Shots were fired in the air as he forced his way through and it was later reported that some people were shot and killed.
There were at the time Ugandan troops such as those under Museveni, the FRONASA as well as those under Oyite -Kikosi Maalum. There were also other more shady outfits such as the 'Wampedin' who were reputed to be quite brutal and savage!
With the return of Tanzanian soldiers home, road blocks around Kampala were now manned by the UNLA. It was then that life became hard and brutal. My school started evening classes. while my brother and sister returned home at 4 pm, we were required to stay till later. My father would pick up my younger siblings but I started to take a taxi home. From the city to my home about 5 miles from the city, we went through 8 roadblocks one way. And at each of these meetings with soldiers in uniform, one could die, get tortured or raped.
I get amazed when I read comments on FB glorifying life under Obote II! Quite frankly unless we lived in different countries or some of these people are too young to remember or did not live in Uganda, one cannot glorify life under Obote because Museveni has proven to be a liar who has failed to keep his promises! Quite simply life in Obote II was short brutal and nasty! Many of the acts of his soldiers are no different from those attributed to Joseph Kony and his rebels some of whom were a part of Obote's armies! Fear was a soldier dressed up in an army uniform! One sometimes reads revisionists accounts like that of Timothy Kalyegira and Andrew Mwenda and wonder whether some people are mad, rude or stupid or simply dishonest for Timothy was in Kampala at the time and was older than me so he should be able to remember! Certainly having lived close to the golf course he would remember soldiers around that area and the rapes and killings of innocents! He would know kids who had guns and behaved with the same impunity their parents did!
On one night, after a rainy evening I got to the park and there were no taxis. My parents had got into the habit of giving me extra money for a special hire taxi just in case. But by then people had got into the habit of demanding that the drivers returned their cars home by nightfall due to the insecurity. The only cars on the road after nightfall were military landrovers and trucks and only the suicidal ventured outside their homes after dark! The night was ruled by soldiers. Rapid machine gun fire and even artillery and rocket fire were the norm every night! Yet Kampala was not a war zone! Those of us who grew up in Kampala never got to see a guerilla fighter till the fall of Kampala in 1986 yet we lived in insecurity!
On that night I failed to get a taxi till about 10 or 11 pm. While waiting for a taxi on what was then called South street, now Ben kiwanuka street, automatic fire gunshots rang out as they always did every night. A soldier standing only a few feet from me raised his AK47 and fired several rounds into the air. By the time I got home, my parents were in a state!
The next week my class teacher announced that I should repeat P6. It was the end of the first term. Interestingly I happened to be the 5th overall in the class but it turned out my age was below the class average which had also been pulled up by children of returning exilees from Kenya and Tanzania who had been required to repeat a class or two! This together with the security situation convinced my parents I needed to be in boarding school! I was in a new boarding school the next day, two weeks to the end of the term.
In my last term and after the p7 exams, the close of the term coincided with an attack on Lubiri barracks by Kayiira's UFM troops. There were no taxis venturing along the road to my school. Parents and children were stranded at the school. Suddenly a UTC bus came and my name was called out. It turned out that my mother who knew some people having been in the civil service had hired a whole UTC bus and got some soldiers to evacuate me from boarding school in what was now a war zone that had been shut down by the army! In her previous work in Nasur's office, she had also been responsible for getting travel documents for many people who needed to get out of Uganda in a hurry!
No one could believe that this whole bus was there to pick up one child! This bus provided transport to lost of other parents and students home who would otherwise have remained stranded. The soldiers packed it full. The areas around Rubaga, Ndeeba, Mutundwe, Lungujja remained deserted for many years, houses looted bare and roofs, doors and windows removed and stolen by soldiers with the residents displaced!
Over the next few years we learnt how to fear and distrust soldiers. One loses track of the number of people shot and killed for no reason by soldiers in uniform. People slaughtered like goats. Their throats slit at road blocks! Tortured and burnt with burning plastic! Dead bodies on the street! Women raped in front of their families. Stabbed through their genitals! All this is stuff we saw as children! People disappearing to army barracks and never being seen alive again!
Obote had several military forces. The red berets or military police. The Special forces. The regular army troops or the UNLA. There were also several spy organisations such as NASA! All were animals. Quite frankly to call them animals would be to insult animals! If they were dogs, they could only be a really virulent breed of wild dogs infected with rabies! They were murderers rapists, and robbers in uniform. If a soldier desired anything be it your watch, a kilo of meat, a litre of milk, your girlfriend or wife, your car or house, you were best advised to hand it over.
Life was not worth very much! We witnessed panda gari where cordon and search operations netted all men and boys above a certain age, herded them into a stadium where identification parades were then conducted. Those who were identified manytimes by people who had themselves been tortured were then arrested and often disappeared for ever. Any idiot in uniform with a gun was next to God. A man was shot in the stomach and killed in my parents home -for a radio cassette player. And for the rest of the night, he screamed while holding his bowels in before dying just before daybreak. No one dared drive him to hospital in the middle of the night. In any case even if one got to hospital they would more than likely also be arrested for bringing in a gunshot victim and be treated like guerillas!
In our home we several times had to leave the house at night and sleep outside for fear of marauding soldiers. Many valuables were buried. My father stopped driving a car and parked it in the garage. My mother left the civil service as her place of work had heavy military security and she found it too stressful working around soldiers! We had a curfew every night and all windows and ventilation were boarded up lest a marauding soldier viewed a light on as an invitation. No one ventured out at night unless they were suicidal. My mother ensured that all of us were home and accounted for by 6 pm! We were treated to gunshots every single night till even as children we could recognise different guns by the sound of the gunshots. we were taught how to take cover at the sound of bullets or bombardment and rocket fire from a very young age! And most of all we were taught not to talk back or challenge any idiot in a uniform with a gun!
In 1985, Obote's men went into business for themselves under the command of the so called Okello junta. A new government was formed that included people like Olara Otunnu now president of UPC and Gad Wilson Toko together with Bazilio Okello and Tito Lutwa Okello. The irony is that Olara Otunnu was part of the military junta that overthrew the UPC led Obote government!
At the same time the previously hostile troops were joined by new troops from Southern Sudan. The population came to know these as Anyanya fighters brought in by Olara Okello. They were brutal and especially more so because they spoke neither English nor kiswahili! Slaughtering a man by slitting his throat by the roadside like a goat was something they appeared to have no trouble with! All UNLA troops and people from northern Uganda became known as "Anyanya"! Reprisals were to later target "anyanya" and anyone who looked like them -just like Libyan soldiers were targeted after the fall of Amin and killed by civilians! In that short Okello reign, Kampala became an even more terrifying place where life was worth absolutely nothing.
1986 saw us in boarding school. One morning students noticed some new people advancing on the school. It was then that we came to meet the guerillas who had been fighting against Obote for the last five years. From tree to tree to the cover of buildings they came. Well built men armed with AK47's and machine guns. A few hour later, they ordered the school evacuated. Its then that the long trek to Buddo started along back roads. They were friendly but firm -the school had to be evacuated. Its later when we returned to school that we understood why -the school had been a battle ground. This was the final assault on Kampala. Its then that we came face to face with kids younger than ourselves carrying guns. Battle hardened 12 year olds ready to fight and kill!
The unexploded ordinance left all over the school later resulted in the deaths of some older kids including members of the schools football team. Semugooma is still remembered by many today.
The new army was a lot more friendly than the ones we had got used to. One could talk to them in ones own language and few found them intimidating. One did not need to go out with an ID! You could argue with a soldier or policeman, tell them off if they were stupid, criticise the government and nothing would happen to you! It was a good time to become older adolescents and adults.
Manytimes civilians were known to have disarmed an indisciplined or drunken soldier. The police who had previously been as bad as all the security forced during Obote's regime became more people friendly. No one was scared of them -at least not in Kampala and most parts south of the Karuma bridge. The war still continued for many years in the peripheral and northern parts of the country here most of the previous armies had their homes. They were also the homes of new insurgencies aimed at overthrowing the new government of Museveni and reinstalling Obote to rule!
Life slowly came back to normal. One could walk around at night, go to a night club, walk with his beautiful girlfriend or buy an expensive car or build a nice house without fear of death. Flaunting ones wealth was a sure way of inviting death in the previous governments. A friend once refuelled a car at his fathers fuel station in the city. It was an army green Benz. He excitedly run to tell his father that he had seen his car! His father ordered him to shut up and even declined the soldiers money for the fuel! The car had been robbed at gun point and was driven by an army captain but he dared not indicate he knew it. It was not uncommon for soldiers to refuel at their station and drive away without paying!
This new found peace with men in uniform was shattered by an episode in school following a strike. The headmaster in an over reaction had invited soldiers from a nearby detach into the school. To say the truth while they identified themselves now as NRM, they were really previously part of the FEDEMU another rebel group that was well known for indiscipline. The rounded up the school, dragged us from our beds and proceeded to cane some of the boys they considered to be ring leaders. Many boys have never forgiven Brother Kazekulya and Brother Aganze, then headmaster and deputy headmaster of the school!
Over the next few years we were introduced to the educated politicised soldier cum politician. This was a new breed of soldier after the illiterate brutes and savages who posed as soldiers before! Some of these men have sat in parliament or acted as ministers.We were also introduced to the soldier businessman many of whom are now billionaires. These men, many school dropouts walked out of the bushes with nothing, no education and using patronage and connections to the state have amassed fabulous wealth many with little evidence of actual productive business.
We have also met the peace keepers as well as the 'private contractors' outsourced to the Iraq war for profit! These are modern day mercenaries previously Ugandan soldiers. Ugandan soldiers have fought in Rwanda, in Sudan, in Congo, in CAR and now Somalia. We have heard stories of plunder and fabulous wealth. The fortunes of the soldiers have changed, at least those at the top and from certain regions. Soldiers like my friend Dr Kiyengo have done good work with civilian populations in Somalia.
We have also seen the rise of the smart new soldier. Educated and well trained. smart and apparently intelligent. Soldiers like Muhoozi and Rwakitarate!
But what does all this mean for Ugandans. Can we expect a modern soldier who understands his role in protecting the nation and the constitution? A soldier willing to stand up against unlawful orders. A soldier who like those in Egypt will protect the people and not the rulers?
Which brings me back to this photo. This soldier is presumably more "civilised" than those who came before him. He is likely better trained and better educated. He is a family man who probably left a wife and a few kids at home. He looks fit and buff and is well armed. He looks like a guy you want to be on your side in a scuffle!
But the last few years from the war in the north against Kony that raged on for many years, the Mabira riots to the so called Buganda riots to Kasubi to Walk 2 work and subsequent protests by unarmed Ugandans struggling for their voices of dissent to be heard, this soldier has proven that he is no better than those who have gone before him. The veneer of civility is thin and at the end of the day, he remains as ignorant and views his job not as defending the people and the constitution but that of defending those in power.
At the end of the day, little has really changed. The Ugandan soldier is still little better than a glorified guard dog unquestioningly protecting the countries rulers from the people they oppress!!
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