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1. There is some dispute in Uganda on what
political force removed Amin's military dictatorship.
2. The Amin coup was effected and supported
by powerful countries abroad. The dictatorship which the coup ushered
was therefore a political force in which countries abroad had much
interest and wanted the dictatorship to last. The counter political
forces in Uganda, composed of the leaders and members of the UPC and
leaders and members of the DP were not organised.
3. When Amin appointed the DP leader and the
leader accepted to be Chief Justice in a dictatorship, the DP component
of the unorganised counter political force became impotent, leaving only
the UPC component. Had the UPC done, nothing, there would have been no
Uganda political force in the removal of Amin. This Paper, gives in
summary what the UPC did from January 1971 to April 1979 and since no
other Uganda political force was in the arena, the laurel for the
removal of Amin belongs indisputably to the UPC.
4. The dispute or claims arise because when
the Tanzania Peoples Defence Forces (TPDF) and Uganda Militia then known
as Kikosi Maalum had already captured Mbarara and Masaka, the Tanzanian
Government was pressurised by the then British Labour Government to hold
a Conference which was to agree on a Uganda Administration to succeed
Amin.
5. I was the first to receive in the forenoon
on 11 April, 1979, the news of the fall of Amin. No member of Uganda
National Liberation Front Administration (UNLF) could have been the
first or even amongst the first 100 people to receive the news. They
could not because they were never involved and were not in the war
against Amin and were also, as their record in office showed, not a
political force. Their Party, the UNLF and their Administration both
became realities because the British labour Government pressurised
Tanzania to ensure that the Uganda successor Administration to Amin was
not led by the UPC and was to be very much against the UPC.
6. No member of the UNLF Administration and
not even Museveni who entered Uganda during the war on the coat tails of
the Tanzanian Army had participated in the raising of the Kikosi Maalum
- the Uganda Militia who together with the Tanzanian Army, was fighting
a war against Amin.
7. Throughout the UNLF Administration, the
Kikosi Maalum was known as the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA)
but another Militia which, after January, 1986 was to be claimed to have
also fought Amin under the name of FRONASA and with Museveni as its
leader was not known.
8. Before the UNLF itself was formed, I had,
as UPC leaders, sent Teams to Masaka and Ankole Districts to mobilise
the people to support the war efforts for the overthrow of Amin. The
leader of the Masaka team was Samwiri Mugwisa. The leaders of the Ankole
team were Chris Rwakasisi and Major Edward Rurangaranga. I had also sent
before the formation of the UNLF a team of Economists under the
leadership of Joseph Okune to Masaka to observe, assess and report on
the war damage to the economy and infrastructure.
9. On 11 April, 1979 when Kampala fell to the
Kikosi Maalum and TPDF, Museveni was in Fort Portal staying with
Princess Elizabeth Bagaya in the Omukama's Palace which the TPDF who had
captured the Town never damaged at all. On that same day, the President
of the UNLF and all his ministers who attended the Conference at which
the UNLF was formed except Museveni were, like me, in Dar es Salaam.
10. Before dawn on 11 April when the invading
armies (TPDF and Kikosi Maalum) were around King's College Budo, the
Tanzanian officers who were in overall command of the two armies asked
Kikosi Maalum to enter Kampala first. The ground given was that the
Ugandans in the Kikosi Maalum knew the nooks of Kampala better than the
Tanzanian officers.
11. When Kampala fell to the Kikosi Maalum,
what the officers of that army wanted uppermost was a telephone to ring
Dar es Salaam and report the fact to their political leader, the UPC
President. Since the telephone lines to countries outside Uganda were
down, the officers of the Kikosi Maalum worked hard to find someone who
could open or reactivate telephone lines to countries outside Uganda.
The officers found engineer Chris Opio who willingly and readily went
with the officers to the telephone House in a situation where pockets of
Amin's army were firing various types of weapons randomly and at moving
vehicles.
12. At the telephone House, Chris Opio
reactivated the line to Dar es Salaam and the late Maj. General David
Oyite-Ojok, who knew my number, placed a call to me. The news which
David gave me was most exhilarating. The struggle the UPC had waged from
25 January, 1971, came to an end that day when Amin's dictatorship fell.
The first thing I did was to ring President Nyerere and reported that I
had heard from David who rang from Kampala which had fallen that
morning. The President came to my residence immediately and we
celebrated the fall of Amin. That day, we had a double celebration at
the residence because Mrs. Oyite-Ojok delivered a baby boy in the
afternoon.
13. Although it was the Kikosi Maalum, the
Ugandan Militia Force raised by the UPC leader and members which entered
Kampala first and sent Amin running, the UPC has always praised, thanked
and acknowledged the political force which was the greatest factor which
removed Amin's military dictatorship. That political force, was the
Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM). The UPC had, in the 1960s' built a very
strong, close and cordial relations with the Tanganyika National Union
(TANU), which later changed its name to CCM.
14. Also during the same period, the UPC also
built the same strong, close and cordial relations with the United
National Independence Party (UNIP) of Zambia. The Governments of TANU
and UNIP never recognised Amin's authority over Uganda. That is the
first indisputable role of the UPC in the removal of Amin. Without those
political factors, Amin would, most probably not have been removed on 11
April 1979. No other political Party in Uganda except the UPC created
those political factors which on 11 April, 1979 liberated the people of
Uganda from a reign of terror and murders.
15. On 25 January, 1971 the day of Amin coup,
I was in Singapore where I had gone on the pleadings of the leaders of
TANU, UNIP and the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa. I
had decided not to go to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting
(CHOGM). An election to the National Assembly was due in April and the
Electoral Commission under the Chairmanship of Ateker Ejalu had already
demarcated 126 Constituencies which were to be used in 1980. The UPC
Government was also finalising the writing of the 2nd 5 year Development
Plan following the very successful completion and implementation of the
1st 5 year Development Plan launched in 1963 which saw the standard of
living of the people rising from year to year; the construction of 22
Rural Hospitals, Dispensaries, Primary and secondary Schools; tarmacking
of roads such as from Masaka to Kabale and from Kampala to Gulu and
Lira; extension of the railway line from Soroti to Pakwach and piped
water in Kisoro; valley tanks in Teso, Lango and Karamoja, boreholes
throughout the country, and Ranches in Luwero and a special livestock
Development Scheme in Buganda.
16. Before the Singapore CHOGM, the British
government announced their decision to sell arms to the Apartheid South
Africa regime. The UPC Government immediately conducted research in
depth on the import of that decision. A meeting was called in Dar es
Salaam for the leaders of TANU, UNIP and UPC to which the leaders of the
ANC of South Africa were invited. The UPC leader presented the result of
the research the Uganda Government had conducted. The meeting adopted
the findings of the research as basis for a common strong opposition by
TANU, UNIP, UPC and ANC to the British decision. When the UPC leader
told the others that he would not be going to Singapore, the other
pleaded that he should go and lead them in opposing the British
decision.
17. On the remarks by the UPC President
against the sale of arms to the Apartheid regime, the British Prime
Minister was heard, outside the Meeting saying that some of the African
leaders opposing British policy would not return to their countries. Two
days later, Amin staged his coup. I flew to Nairobi and was met by Kenya
Ministers who took me and my entourage to a hotel.
18. The next day, 26 January, I received in
my hotel two Tanzanian Ministers sent from India by President Nyerere
who was on a State visit to India to ask me to go with the two Ministers
to Dar es Salaam. We left Nairobi in the afternoon and on arrival in Dar
es Salaam, the struggle for the removal of Amin began in earnest and
never ceased until I received the telephone call from David Oyite-Ojok
on 11 April, 1979.
19. Although I had in Tanzania, a friendly
and conducive base which was near Uganda and to where Party members
could easily go for discussions on how to reverse the situation, there
were also until October 1978 many and difficult imponderables, not least
the OAU Charter Provision of "No interference in the internal affairs"
of a member State to which Tanzania was a very strong subscriber. There
was also the implications of the indecent and hasty recognition of
Amin's very brutal dictatorship by the British Government within ten
days of the coup. Amin went on official visit to the UK within 6 months
of the coup and had lunch with the Queen and dinner with the Prime
Minister. In addition, two very adverse conditions existed in Uganda
against any preparation for mobilising and mounting some action against
the dictatorship.
20. The first very adverse condition was that
leading politicians were all supporting the brutal military
dictatorship. They wrote an open letter to President Nyerere in which
they pleaded that I be not granted asylum in Tanzania. Not so leading
politicians concentrated on the students. The UPC Government had
encouraged the students to build a very strong National Union of
Students of Uganda (NUSU). The political job seekers and lovers of
dictatorship went to the students particularly at Makerere. The student
leaders were urged to support the dictatorship because allegedly "Amin
was killing only Obote's people"! To the job seekers and lovers of
dictatorship (some of whom were to be the organisers of the Conference
at which the UNLF was formed in March 1979 and became leaders of the
UNLF), the massacres of citizens of Uganda was not revulsive if only
they could become ministers. Amin appointed some to his cabinet and some
to the East African Community at a time when Tanzania's non-recognition
of Amin also embraced no co-operation with him on the affairs of the
East African Community.
21. The second very adverse condition which
existed in Uganda was that besides the massacres of soldiers, the brutal
military dictatorship banned the existence of all political Parties and
thereby removed political mobilisation of the people against it. The
National Resistance Army (NRA) dictatorship of the charlatans has done
exactly the same with the difference that the charlatans have been
massacring the people and not soldiers. When Amin was in London lunching
with the Queen and dining with the Prime Minister, there were horrendous
massacres being committed in the Barracks and at Makindye but the
British High Commission and the British Government, feigned having heard
nothing and feigned knowing nothing. In London, Amin openly spoke of
wanting British arms to enable him to reach Tanzania Ports on the Indian
Ocean.
22. The Amin Decree which banned the
political Parties contradicts the campaigns of the haters of the UPC
who, even today falsely charge that the UPC had made Uganda a one-Party
State in December, 1969. The chief of the charlatans has also picked on
that false charge when Article 269 of his Constitution makes Uganda a
one-Party dictatorship whereas the UPC Government never amended the
provision in the 1967 Constitution which provided for freedom to form or
join a political Party and the existence of Parties in Uganda's body
politic.
23. For Uganda to have been made a one-Party
State in 1969, the Constitution had to be amended and there was no such
amendment. Even DP members of the National Assembly, remained members as
the Hansard shows after December, 1969 and throughout 1970. It must have
been a very curious one-Party State when the main opposition Party had
representatives in the National Assembly. The haters of the UPC appear
to want dictatorship to shield them from competing with the UPC in the
public arena and therefore throw any mud, however inconceivable, at the
UPC. They did it under Amin and again have been doing it since January,
1986 under the charlatans.
24. In March, 1971, I received an invitation
from the Sudanese Government to go to Khartoum where a European
mercenary was due to stand trial but not as a witness to the trial. The
background is that in 1970 the OAU passed a resolution which called for
the arrests by Governments of the Member States of the mercenaries then
known to be operating in Africa and the deportation of any arrested
mercenary to the country where the mercenary was known to have been
operating. A European mercenary who was known to be operating in
Southern Sudan crossed into Uganda and was arrested and deported to
Sudan.
Part two comming
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