How Museveni tried to
remove Moi
Standard
InvestigationS Team
In public, Ugandan President Yoweri
Museveni and former Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi, were the best
of friends � hugging, smiling and backslapping. In the secret
recesses of their hearts, they were the bitterest of
foes.
For more than six years, Museveni
actively plotted to overthrow the Moi Government while Moi actively
engaged in counter-insurgence, sending his intelligence officers on
cattle raids into Eastern Uganda.
Moi�s was retaliating to Museveni�s
regional expansionist scheme to bring four Eastern Africa nations
under his thumb at a time when the Kenyan leader had yielded to
internal demands for multi-party democracy.
The guerrilla units that would have taken
power in these four countries were trained in Uganda and supported
by the country�s top leadership as payback for the contribution of
their nationals to the victory of the National Resistance Army in
1986.
According to Museveni�s plan, pieced
together by the Sunday Standard after intensive
investigations, Kenya was supposed to be the first government to
fall in a domino-like chain of military takeovers in the region
covering Rwanda, Zaire and Sudan.
The Kenyan troops would then be used in
the operations in Rwanda, then Zaire, and then Sudan.
In the end, the troops that had been
marshaled for the Nairobi takeover ended up fighting in Rwanda and
some became part of the Rwanda Patriotic Front.
Museveni�s point man in Kenya was John
Steven Ochieng Amoke alias "Brigadier John Odongo", who gained
notoriety when then President Moi revealed plans to destabilise the
country through a clandestine organization, the February Eighteen
Revolutionary Army. The Kampala government flatly refused requests
by Kenya to extradite Brigadier Odongo.
By 1994, 1,000 Kenyan guerrillas had been
trained in military techniques, jungle warfare and paramilitary
commando operations. Although the Ugandan leader had seconded his
own brother, Lt Gen. Salim Saleh to FERA as its strategist, his
imperial designs were checked by one problem: there were no credible
Kenyan leaders willing to lead a military assault on Nairobi. His
preferred choice, Michael Wamalwa Kijana was a reluctant
icon.
Confidence
"He (Museveni) gave us confidence even
when the boys felt low and the leaders were not doing much," says
the eventual February Eighteen Movement�s political leader, Patrick
Wangamati.
Military officers in Uganda and Libya,
the two sponsors of the guerrilla groups, felt that time was running
out for Kenyan guerrillas. The Rwandese rebels were waiting for the
completion of the Kenya mission before embarking on their own
against Juvenal Habyarimana�s regime.
The man around whom FERA was organized,
the Bulgaria-trained Brigadier John Odongo, was a hopelessly inept
leader, according to one of his aides. Museveni was particularly
exasperated by him and appalled by his tardiness.
"He would wake up one morning and decide
that the boys should be ferried to Nairobi to launch attacks," says
Wangamati. "This was not possible without enough reconnaissance and
surveillance."
Apart from the 12-point manifesto that
FERA had developed years back, it had not crafted any tangible
action plan of how to grab power. Neither did it appear to have a
clue on how to conduct state affairs were it to topple the then Kanu
regime in Nairobi.
Brig Odongo�s ambiguous and unilateral
approach to issues led to a near revolt in the FERA ranks. Several
times, when the FERA leadership questioned Brig Odongo, he decided
to shift his base from the training camps to Kampala.
Odongo, now 66, the son of a peasant
farmer in Gem, Nyanza District, was hardly skilled in managing
guerrilla warfare despite his training in military strategy in
Bulgaria. He was even worse in administration and public
relations.
Yet, he was destined to be the ultimate
leader, chiefly because he was the architect of the
movement.
One day, Museveni reprimamded Brig Odongo
for decisions he felt were inherently dangerous. "He told us Moi had
complained to him that he was harbouring guerrillas," Wanagamati
revealed last week.
"Museveni had given Odongo permission to
start fishing in Lake Victoria, but the opportunity had not been
exploited. Museveni felt Odongo was a non-starter," says
Wangamati.
Were FERA to take over the government, it
was not clear who would become President, according to intelligence
sources. Some people within FERA felt that Wangamati, as the leader
of the political wing, should be the President of Kenya while Odongo
would have taken up the position of the military commander. But
FERA�s rank and file appeared to have little faith in Odongo. The
troops felt the indolence on the part of their leaders was only
helping to endanger their lives. Their fear revolved around Kanu�s
security apparatus that was so ruthless against perceived
dissidents. What if Kanu sent agents to kill them? Indeed as
indolence seized FERA, the enemy had his own counter-plan. President
Moi was upping pressure on the international community to admonish
Museveni for sponsoring anti-Kenya elements. Kenya, says
intelligence sources, financed insurgence in Uganda.
�The string of cattle raids in eastern
Uganda was hardly spontaneous. It was instigated by the Nairobi
regime to fluster Museveni. At the same time, "there were reports
that Kenya planned to close its borders with Uganda, and this was a
threat to Ugandan exports passing through Kenya" according to
Wangamati.
Former FERA guerrillas said that at one
time, they were raided by a contingent of the Kenya military dressed
in NRA military camouflage at the Mt Elgon training camp. Dozens of
FERA recruits were killed in the "friendly" exchange.
Plot hatched
Of concern to Uganda, and particularly to
Museveni, was the slowness Odongo appeared to operate. Almost six
years since the anti-Moi plot was hatched, nothing was off the
ground to account for his seriousness in staging a military
uprising. And the situation looked even more overcast.
In fact, a number of Kenyan boys had
become so disillusioned with Odongo to the extent they were now
fighting alongside Fred Rwigyema, the founder leader of the Rwanda
Patriotic Front who was killed in the early stages of the invasion
to be succeeded by Paul Kagame. Some were training among the forces
opposed to Zairean leader Mobutu Sese Seko.
To put the mission back on track, a
frustrated Yoweri Museveni began shopping for a leader, arguing that
the movement needed a person who could guide and give direction to
the FERA assignment. He sought somebody political, one able to
strengthen the February Eighteen Movement, the political wing of
FERA.
According to sources, the Ugandan leader
was interested in the then Ford-Kenya boss and later Vice-President
Michael Kijana Wamalwa. But when Kijana failed to attend a meeting
with Museveni�s emissary in London, he asked for an alternative
choice.
The then Kwanza MP George Kapten,
instrumental in guerrilla recruitment, was another possible choice.
But his adversaries felt that his differences with Wamalwa
jeopardised his position as a Luhya leader.
Roads Minister Raila Odinga was also
approached. He was hardly interested because, allies say, he could
not place in perspective the "constituency of this resistance
movement". Although Odongo and Raila were reputed to know each
other, the latter was not keen using military force to oust
Kanu.
The impasse forced the war councils,
established to arm Bukusu youths during the politically-instigated
ethnic clashes of 1992, to consult extensively. Yet it emerged that
most Bukusu leaders were either deeply involved in Kanu or plainly
cowards.
Wangamati, a son of a polygamous peasant,
was ready to take charge. Having chaired some of the war councils,
and having financed the Bukusu reprisals dur-ing the ethnic clashes,
he was an easy pick.
In fact, the jigsaw appeared to fit when
it became clear that, on Minister Elijah Mwangale�s devices,
Wangamati had fallen out with Moi.
"Moi used to call me tajiri (rich man)
because he felt I was bankrolling the Opposition," he
says.
In the late 1980s, Wangamati, then
chairman of the Webuye Town Council, had been a pawn in Western
Province political battles for supremacy pitting Mwangale against
Moses Mudavadi, the all-powerful Local Government Minister.
Wanagamati, to Mwangale�s chagrin, had sided with his foe,
Mudavadi.
His closeness to opposition leader
Masinde Muliro only helped to strengthen Moi�s resolve to disregard
Wangamati as an ally and a Kanu pointman in Bungoma
District
Lacklustre
Wangamati was a self-made man. His
father, disappointed with the lacklustre academic performance of his
elder sons, decided against educating the younger offspring. "He got
disappointed but I offered myself to go to school," he said a week
ago.
Wangamati never went beyond Class Eight,
yet at the age of 35, he would become the Webuye Municipal Council
chairman on its creation in 1974.
But what made Wangamati a hot choice to
lead FERA, so to speak, was that he financed the Bukusu
counter-attack in the politically fanned violence that pitted the
community against the Sabaot.
Using his modest wealth, he formed war
councils in Sirisia, which was the epicentre of the fighting. He led
boys to acquire arms in eastern Uganda to protect their own because,
it was assumed, the Kanu regime was arming the other protagonists,
the Sabaot.
Somehow, Wangamati�s admission into FERA
appeared to complicate matters in the movement. Rather than work
together as a team, Wangamati and Odongo appeared to operate at
cross-purposes. "It was more like FERA and FEM were at war," says
one former guerrilla commander.
Wangamati and Odongo were different in
their approach to governance. Brig Odongo was convinced of the
necessity of military attacks, a sort of military take over of
Kenya. Wanagamati was out to transform the movement into what he
termed a "pressure group" to make Moi more tolerant and force the
creation of a government of national unity.
"My idea was not to remove Moi but to
force him to be more democratic," says Wangamati, at one time top
Moi confidante in Bungoma District.
Wangamati was a gifted grassroots
organizer and shrewd political schemer, skills that were critical to
getting close to the centre of power. "My idea was to convert (the
movement) into a pressure group, to tell the world that people were
discontent with Moi."
The loyalty of the troops
notwithstanding, Moi also had plenty of money to stage
counter-offensive operations against Uganda and the insurgents. This
he made clear at a meeting between Museveni and FEM/FERA top brass
in Kampala. Wangamati�s fear was that the Kenya Government was so
strong that a ragtag military outfit could hardly topple
it.
Odongo, a veteran of Uganda war, felt
that any government disliked by its subjects could be toppled. Idi
Amin, despite his immense hold on the citizenry, had been toppled by
a ragtag assembly of forces sponsored by Tanzania. Obote was also
pushed out by mostly child soldiers. "Odongo was not a good
strategist," says Wangamati. "He was not convincing. I could not
work with him.
In fact, it was these divergent interests
that eventually consigned FERA to the dustbin in the mid-1990s. "We
had a lot of problems," Wangamati says now. "I would say the boys
were organised more than Odongo."
Despite the fact that the movement was
structured along specific military tasks, such as departmental
commanders, Odongo used to take unilateral decisions in total
disregard of peer advice. This was happening when the troops did not
have even resources to operate.
"Volunteers in Kenya were getting tired
with the lethargy," says the leader of the political wing. However,
the FERA leader was unfazed by all this. He wanted his troops in
Nairobi.
Such scuffles only helped to nurture
inertia and lethargy in the movement. This fluid situation gave
birth to another key player in the name of Jood Mafokeng, a South
African who had been a resident of Busia for years from the
apartheid days.
FERA guerrillas who have since returned
say Mafokeng was generally not a politician but a master schemer and
strategist. "We went through oaths administered by Jood," says
Bramwel Kizito, a Standard Eight drop-out who escaped the clashes
and joined FERA in 1992. Mafokeng was a man in passionate love with
African medicine. He was convinced that if well applied, his
concoction had the potential to transform bullets into water. He
preached this gospel to the recruits who believed him.
But it wasn�t just the boys; Odongo also
blindly trusted Mafokeng and he would do anything he said, according
to Wangamati, who according to Kenyan intelligence sources was a
mere stooge in the FERA arrangements. His powers were relegated to
merely drafting Press releases.
When it became obvious that Odongo and
Wangamati were too weak to launch a guerrilla war, and when the UN
and foreign nations started putting pressure on Uganda, Museveni
threw the FERA leader into detention. Some of the troops were
rounded up and conscripted into the armies of Rwandese and Congolese
rebels while others were given work in Uganda�s prison
industries. | 
