{UAH} UNLA IS UNDISCIPLINED, UNTRAINABLE RABBLE AND THE BEST THING TO DO IS TO DISBAND IT

1.2.2.4 Obote II. and the NRA bush war (December 1980 – July 1985)

In the run-up to the parliamentary and presidential elections of 1980 the two

main contesting Parties were the UPC of Apollo Milton Obote and the DP of Paul

Kawanga Ssemogerere. There were also other small political parties - not really contesting

for any big win - such as the Conservative Party of Mayanja Nkangi and

Uganda People’s Movement, founded by Yoweri Museveni, after he fell out with UPC

& DP.

As already noted, the 1980 elections were clearly rigged and the truly deprived party

was the DP led by Paul K. Ssemogerere, who in the opinion of some observers, were

the true winners.70 This claim, as to be expected, was and is denied by the UPC die- hards. In any case, many Ugandans believed it was better to live with a civilian government,

even if it came to power through rigged elections, than to enter into another

war after the eight or nine years under Idi Amin. Distancing himself from this general

inclination, there was Yoweri Kaguta Museveni with a group of his followers, who argued

that because the elections were rigged, he decided to wage war against the

Obote II government in the Luwero Triangle of Buganda region. This war, for good or

bad, was later to steer and determine the fate and future of Uganda.

Although it is not our intention to argue a political case in this thesis, it is important

we reject the commonly held opinion that the war waged in 1981 in Luwero

was a popular resistance against the election rigging of 1980. Sir Peter Allen, a former

colonial police constable who was in Uganda from 1956, slowly but surely ascending

the career ladder until 1986, leaving at this stage as the Chief Justice of

Uganda, with a very typical although liberal colonial attitude towards Uganda – we

have widely quoted him in the course of this thesis – has this to say about

Museveni’s waging war in 1981:

 

Tuesday 23 December [1980]: The new MPs were sworn in at Parliament today . . . . The awful

Muwanga, having stepped down as Chairman of the Military Commission, is unfortunately

now to be Vice-President. That is very bad news and does not bode well for us. It seems he’s

too politically powerful to be kept out. Oh dear. The UPM did very badly in the elections and

won only one seat - in Toro. Their leader, Museveni, who was not elected, has announced in a

fit of pique that he is taking to bush and will fight a guerrilla war against Obote’s Government.

That’s just what Uganda needs now. Instead of being able to use all our resources for the

much needed rehabilitation and rebuilding of the country, we have a totally unnecessary civil

war on our hands because of personal political ambitions of one man. How many people are

now going to die just for that? A very expensive sulk!71

 

And indeed it was a prophetic expression: ‘a very expensive sulk’ if we take account

of the costs of this war. We will refer further to Allen’s diaries to make us count these

costs, which actually explains and measures the amount of violence Ugandans

meted on Ugandans during this period.

 

Tuesday 10 February [1981]: ‘For the last three nights there have been explosions and gunfire

around the city. These are apparently caused by Museveni’s guerrillas attacking various

buildings. A very useful contribution to Uganda’s recovery….

 

Thursday 19 November [1981]: ‘Whoever is responsible for training the present UNLA army is

not doing a very good job of it; especially with regards to weapons discipline. All over Kampala

there are military sentries guarding the residences of ministers and senior army officers. Constantly

these sentries loose off shots from their weapons because they persist in carrying them

around loaded and cocked. So, an accidental touch or pressure on the trigger and away the

bullet goes often into the foot of the sentry; sometimes into a comrade while they are playing

about with their weapons. There’s a report in the paper of a foolish young recruit going on

leave by train to Kabale who took a live grenade into the railway carriage and actually played

with it on the journey, like an ignorant child. The pin came out and, in the resulting explosion,

he and the other passengers sitting with him were all killed, including a young woman with a

baby. . . I hear that in the Bombo area, about 30 miles north-west of Kampala, a large group of

Museveni’s NRA has been wiped out after heavy fighting. They were conducting guerrilla attacks

in and around Kampala from their strategically placed camp there’

 

Thursday 16 March [1982]: ‘There appears to be an unusual amount of trouble around Kampala

at the moment and a lot of Baganda have been rounded up and carted off by people

working in the office of Vice-President Muwanga, who seems to have set up a sort of secret

police organisation. The thugs he uses are acting in the same way as those in Amin’s SRB

and quite probably some of them are the same people. A Commonwealth Military Training

Team (CMTT) has arrived to begin instruction on everything ranging from mechanics to ordnance

and ambush techniques. But this is largely a waste of time in my view as the UNLA is

an undisciplined, untrainable rabble and the best thing to do with it is to disband it.’

 

Wednesday 20 April [1983]: ‘Museveni and his NRA are very active in an area forming a triangle

between the main roads from Kampala to Gulu and from Kampala to Hoima. In these hundreds

of square miles, known as Luweero Triangle, the NRA is in control and telephone communications

between Kampala and Hoima, Masindi and Gulu have been cut for months. The

power supply to Masindi and Hoima is also cut. All this is a great discomfort and inconvenience

for the people who live there or who wish to travel to or to communicate with the area. It

doesn’t seem to matter to Museveni that his action of taking to the bush in petulance after being

totally rejected in the 1980 elections has cost the country so much in lives and property

and delayed or prevented Uganda’s recovery and rehabilitation after the destructive years of

Amin’s regime. And what is it all for? It can’t be a difference in policies. Any Uganda government

must have the same aims of rebuilding and rehabilitating the country and people. So it

just comes down to personalities and ambitions for power. How many people must suffer and die to satisfy this desire? And for how long? Nothing in Uganda is now better than it was at independence

21 years ago; indeed everything is in a very much worse state and Uganda has

merely achieved negative growth. Even this present awful government would not be anywhere

near so bad as it now is if it wasn’t being constantly attacked and harassed by guerrillas and

violent opponents. If everyone had the sense to put aside personal quarrels and political ambitions

for the time being while rebuilding this beautiful country, they could do wonders. But

there is no hope of that.

 

We could go on infinitely quoting from those worthy pages of the diaries of Mr.

Allen, but it should suffice to give a last quotation in this section to underline the violence

committed in this period of war between Ugandan government troops, the

UNLA, and the rebel group under Museveni, the NRA. Personal interests and sheer

greed for power were the sole reasons on the sides of both warring parties who were

blindly and mercilessly sacrificing many lives to meet the costs of their ambitions.

Here Allen writes:

 

Wednesday 2 January [1985]: ‘Last August Vice-President Muwanga visited North Korea and,

as a result, they have sent somewhere around 700 military personnel to train the UNLA. Amin

did the same for his army. Their expertise is in cruel and painful interrogation and unarmed

killing methods. We really don’t need this sort of thing, whatever Muwanga thinks. Now we

have them here again teaching Ugandans how to be more efficient killers of their own people.

They have been active up in the Luweero Triangle against the NRA, which has been getting

the upper hand recently and has established its HQ in Ssingo County around the area of my

old station Mityana. A short while back the NRA claimed to have killed about 140 UNLA troops

and three North Koreans and to have taken seven North Koreans as prisoners in fire-fights in

that area. Why on earth can’t these people call off this stupid, senseless civil war and just talk

together about sharing government and rebuilding this wonderful country instead of continuing

with this meaningless killing and useless destruction?’

 

The period of Obote II was marked with brutal violence on the sides of warring

parties: The government soldiers committed grave atrocities on the civilians in the

Luweero Triangle – many were forced into displacement camps or brutally murdered

when found outside those camps.80 It is even claimed that writings such as ‘A good Muganda is a dead one’81 were inscribed on walls of school or Church buildings by the UNLA soldiers.

 

vorgelegt von: Robert Lukwiya Ochola, MCCJ  {Seite 28}

 

 

EM

On the 49^th Parallel          

                 Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in anarchy"
                    Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni katika machafuko"