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............................Part 2 of
part one
And the
paradox? The NRA/Museveni conspiracy to march to drive out co-conspirator
Bazilio out of Kampala and outwit the power broker Cardinal Nsubuga was to start
from F/Portal that was handed to them �free of charge� by the very man they must
now over throw.
�Honourable Museveni, please
come out of the bush. No more fighting. We are one, let us work together�, Radio
Uganda crackled for several days pleading with Museveni.
�Naturally�, the NRA rejected
the plea and refused to join the Military Council to share power with the other
groups, but nevertheless took advantage of the unsuspecting Bazilio�s political
ignorance and naivety and moved its troops within striking distances of the main
barracks of Mbarara, Masaka and Bombo. NRA demanded large supplies of food and
logistics, which they were given as appeasement. The tattered and overwhelming
majority of the UNLA was redundant, confused, and leaderless and could not
fight. Some of the soldiers dispersed to their homes and others simply waited to
switch side to the winner. On arrival in Kla, on Acacia
Avenue, Bazilio�s convoy had to fight a fifteen-minute battle to break free.
Bazilio quickly confirmed that there was an intrigue going on aand learnt that
he was on his own. His fellow conspirators had deserted him. The political
leadership he expected to find in Kampala and hero�s welcome were absent and the
people were hostile to him. He quickly determined that it was vital for his own
survival to keep the remnants of the UNLA loyal and united. He, therefore, sent
a helicopter to Southern Sudan to hunt down and fetch General Tito Lutwa Okello
and reinstated him as the Army Commander and also appointed him as the Chairman
of the Military Council, President and Head of State of Uganda. At the same time
Bazilio contacted Tanzania and Lt.Gen Msuguri, the liberation war hero of 1979,
arrived the same day as Tito. Tito�s appointment was bad
news and provocation to Museveni, Cardinal Nsubuga and Kayira. To make it worse,
Tito, accompanied by his de factor Foreign Minister Olara Otunnu, flew straight
to Dar es Salaam to seek advice from President Nyerere on how to run a
government. Nyerere chidingly advised Tito to find someone who was still in
Uganda who knew what government was about and could run their government for
them. They suggested and agreed on Mzee Paulo Muwanga. On return, Tito
straightway appointed Muwanga, Prime Minister and was to form a government,
while he was still under �House Arrest� in Entebbe. On announcing Muwanga�s
appointment all hell was let loose. Kampala exploded with rumours and opinions
were polarizing. Some people were suspiciously, and some expectantly asking �Is
UPC back to power again?� �Is Obote coming back?� Some took up to hostile,
visible and grotesque protests. Muwanga�s residence on Kololo hill was
showered with bullets for a second time that night. Museveni flew out of Kasese
through Kigali to Nairobi and in a press release denounced the regime in Kampala
as of murderers that he will have no dealings with. Tito�s and Paulo�s
appointments some what stopped the witch-hunt and stayed the execution of many
known UPC members in parts of Buganda, at least for a while. Some of the
stranded and hiding UPC ministers began to appear in the open. But this came too
late for Okello Zziwa�s 17-member family. They were all slaughtered in the same
night, except for one who escaped to tell the gruesome murder. The old man Zziwa
himself was brought bound in ropes to the roadside and amidst torture,
humiliation and orgies of laughter and drumming, he was laced with an old tyre,
doused with kerosene and was set alight to burn to his death. The laud drums
could not drown out his screams of excruciating pain of death. As far as Zziwa
was concerned he was a Muganda. He had settled here some 40 years earlier and
had nothing to do with his origins in Lango. The whole family spoke only Luganda
and practiced kiganda culture as they intermarried with the local people, and
was popular and kind. Bazilio was angry and
desperate. Adimola could not answer his question, �Where is the political
support you said was waiting for us in Kampala?� He ordered his hitherto closest
political advisors, Ademola, Dr. H B Obonyo (his nephew), Mr. Justin Okot (his
personal Pricipal Secretary), Mr. Peter Abe, and many of the Acoli DP stalwarts,
to be removed from Nile Mansions, and they are to see him only by appointment
like everyone else. He now dealt with a group of soldiers calling themselves
�young officers�. Sadly for him, among the so-called young officers were
Museveni�s men who were monitoring every activity and orders to the army, and
reporting it to NRA. The conspirators were well
aware of Mzee Muwanga�s method of work. His incisiveness in decisions making was
well known and he can be bullish. There was now, therefore, fear of �losing all�
to Muwanga. While Cardinal Nsubuga embarked on an open and vicious public
diatribe and vilifications, Adimola moved in to live in Muwanga�s house on
Kololo, maybe to try and salvage something little at least. A DP delegation led
by Mr. Paul Ssemogerere, the DP President General and Abe Mukasa, stormed into
Muwanga�s house and demanded fifteen ministerial seats (but not less than
eleven), including that of the ministries of defence, finance and foreign
affairs, in the cabinet that Muwanga was going to form, that is if Muwanga
wanted their support. That was the price tag for DP support. Nsubuga sent in a
letter, demanding that Muwanga should first �cleanse� himself by denouncing his
former government and the UPC for killings and human rights violations in Luwero
in particular, and publicly apologize to the Baganda, or else he must resign in
the name of peace in Buganda. Muwanga ignored Nsubuga�s
letter. Meanwhile, The Military
Council rejected Muwanga�s first cabinet. Muwanga tried a second time to form a
cabinet. This was again rejected. It coincided with Nsubuga,s second letter
which demanded that Muwanga should now resign his appointmnt. Then a third
letter, which was this time written in Luganda, and is believed Nsubuga brought
it himself to the gates of Muwanga�s house, arrived. On reading the letter,
Muwanga raved, as if in pain. That same evening, Muwanga wrote a short letter to
the Chairman of the Military Council to tender his immediate resignation, giving
no reason or options. No amount of persuasion could later change his mind.
Another obstacle to Museveni�s
ascendance to power had been removed. If anyone celebrated Muwanga�s downfall
heartly, it must have been the two, Nsubuga and Museveni, whose relations must
have grown more cordial and closer since the days in the Cardinal�s Kisozi Farm
in Luwero when they met often to plan to subvert an elected government. Kayira with his UFM, obviously was busy
eliminating the �undesirables� and blaming it on the Military Council. What
followed was afore gone conclusion. Museveni began to call the
tunes, even for Bazilio. The NRA laid their roadblocks along Kla/Gulu Road,
around Masaka and along Mbarara/Fort Portal Road. They even arrested and
detained Bazilio�s officers, and he could do nothing about
it. Nsubuga and Museveni put the
Nairobi Peace Talks together in order to buy time for the NRA and UFM to
complete training the large number of recruits, which they have by now recruited
between them and deploy them strategically. For the first time Nsubuga came out
openly, and publicly announced his interest in politics on UTV and Radio Uganda.
He even evoked the powers of the Pope who had allowed him to participate in
politics, as long as he did not hold office. He invited himself to Nairobi and
gave himself the status of �observer�. Many Ugandans watched this phenomenon
with owe and concern. The Talks were probably the
saddest tragedy in the annals of Uganda political history. The two monkeys
riding a leopard were the two most politically na�ve, namely Col. Wilson Toko,
the Vice Chairman of the Military Commission and the Foreign Minister Olara
Otunnu. It was as clear as day that members of the Kisozi Farm Group sat on both
sides of the Conference table and also on the observers� desks. By night, as
Otunnu and Toko went to sleep, the Kisozi Farm Group sat together and compared
notes and planned how to prolong the Talks. They cheered Otunnu on as he wasted
time repeatedly tried to outshine a whole Cardinal on matters of �spirit� and
�faith�, while the Cardinal was visibly dreaming of the day and hour when his
guns will blaze into Kampala and rid it of these buffoons. Museveni sat there a
few minutes at a time utterly amused as he saw the drama unfold. Otherwise he
was out of the meeting issuing press statements to denounce the Military
Commission and calling the individuals, murderers. Mr. Tiny Roland of LONRHO paid
for all NRA costs, underwrote the procurement of arms, and also laid his
executive jet for Museveni�s use. Museveni flew to Dar es Salaam, Kigali and to
base in Kasese several times. LONRHO was a conglomerate of companies based in
London but made its ill-gotten wealth in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa.
It was known for introducing bribery and corruption in the corridors of African
governments. Tiny made several trips in 1984/5 to see President Obote. He
demanded exclusive rights to buy all Uganda Coffee, to build an Oil Pipe Line
from Nairobi to Kampala, and an absolute franchise to explore and exploit all
Uganda�s mineral potential. Needless to say, anybody who knew Obote well for his
nationalism and patriotism, the answer was to be �No�. It is said Obote was
angry at Tiny,s arrogance and insistence, and added �I, Obote as an individual,
have no right to mortgage my country in perpetuity.� Tiny flew straight back to
Nairobi and looked up Museveni. When the anti-Bazilio forces
were ready to make the final assault on Kla, two things happened. Museveni
agreed to sign the Agreement. Secondly, to ensure the easy capture of Kampala,
Bazilio was to be removed. The American Embassy in Kampala hurriedly organized
for Bazilio to visit Washington, allegedly to put his case directly to the
President of the USA and also to check on his health. Bazilio stupidly agreed to
go, and was driven to Nairobi
to get a quick connection. Rumours spread that he had run away. His friends of
the FUNA and UNRF withdrew from the front line back to West Nile. His other officers of the UNLA began to
desert one by one leaving the Bazilio army in complete disarray.
Bazilio rushed back and landed
at Entebbe on a Wednesday. He could not drive in to Kampala. The NRA had already
occupied the Ent/Kla road. The Air Force, nonetheless, flew him on a helicopter
to the Nile Mansions. He was lucky to find Kla was still in the hands of his
loyal troops. Not because his troops had put up a fight, but because of a delay
caused by another intrigue within intrigue. It was not clear whether Nsubuga had
wanted to get rid of Museveni at this stage. But Kayira�s UFM and
�Col.�Nkwanga�s FEDEMU were now the real authority within and in the surrounds
of Kampala. They stopped Museveni�s NRA from advancing on to Kampala until
�matters were sorted out.� They clashed with NRA at Rubaga, ENT road, Makindye,
Gaba, Luzira. Bazilio planned roadblocks and
ambushes that night around Kampala. The first major person to fall into the
ambush at Nakawa was Nkwanga. He confessed during an interrogation in Nile
Mansion that he was heading his troops to take over Radio Uganda and UTV so as
to announce the overthrow of the Military Council. Later in the day of that
fateful Thursday, Cardinal Nsubuga was to be sworn in as Uganda�s Interim
President, who would then appoint Dr. Andrew Kayira as the Prime Minister to
form a government. Nkwanga never lived to see another day. Kayira, at his
stronghold base in Gaba, confirmed that Nsubuga was due to be sworn in but
Museveni stayed away, therefore, the ceremony had to be postponed.
Cardinal Nsubuga disappeared
that night, and was later seen in Nairobi. He allegedly was looking for
Museveni. Museveni meanwhile seemed to have sniffed the intrigue and had flown
to NRB and out of NRB via Arusha to Kasese; behind his
troops. Tito, quite
characteristically, flew out of Nile Mansions and was once more reported to be
inspecting troops between Jinja and Moroto. Bazilio conceded defeat and also flew out
of Nile Mansions on Friday night, leaving many of his lieutenants and vulnerable
Ministers behind. Ocaya Lakidi hid in the boiler room and in the morning was
seen crawling along and squeezing his voluminous size through broken fences
together with looters, to get away. The fact that they left haphazardly and in a
hurry is vividly remembered by the fate of Paul Okonyomoi Otunnu who was
abandoned and got to a command radio that had been left switched on. He was
bellowing out a distress call intermittently every other minute, �I am Paul
Lukonyomoi, the pastor, I am the brother of Olara Otunnu, I am still here in
Nile Mansion. Can you come and collect me? Do you hear me? Do you hear me?� The
radio crackled, and a voice answered, �I hear you well, stay put, we will find
you, Roger Over and out.� It was the NRA radio communication answering. Nobody
came for Lukonyomoi and he was able to walk out in the morning among cooks and
other servants who were also stranded last night. Another one. An intelligence
officer was still reporting from the Car Park; � I can see many �keya� here
fallen in parade, I think they are �adui�, please send rece (reconnaissance).� A
voice came on, �you are wrong, they are our troops, they are going to the
frontline. Do not radio again, out.� The NRA was assembling at the Bus Park to
make the final assault on the Republic House, in which Tito�s bodyguard and a
son were killed. On the forth day after Kampala
had virtually fallen in the hands of the NRA, the Radio announced to the waiting
and speculating people of Uganda that it was Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, leader and
commander of the NRA, after all, who was to be sworn in as president. It was
rather a subdued ceremony, but Cardinal Nsubuga was there, and everybody who
mattered and had contributed to the undermining and eventual subversion of
Uganda�s second elected government and thus the thwarting of the processes of
democracy in Uganda, were there, except, of course, the donkey Bazilio and the
blind bat Tito. To be continued::::::...
The Mulindwas communication group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy" |
