Rag-tag militia training in Uganda had few resources
By Otsieno Namwaya
Those who knew Brig John Odongo, Patrick Wangamati and the workings of the February Eighteen Revolutionary Army (Fera) well concede that while it had enough resources to begin operations and even moved ahead to set military camps and thus conducting the first ever successful raids by any Kenyan rebel group, its biggest undoing was actually lack of proper organisation and vision.
Fera mastermind, Brig Odongo, is said to have had little education and very little understanding of the political issues that should have formed Fera�s ideological basis.
But of course, being the only person with military training in the group, he automatically became its military chief. Those who knew him say, while he lacked proper understanding of the issues, he was well grounded as a soldier.
Also because of his close ties with Yoweri Museveni, he became Fera�s linkman with Museveni and the few military chiefs who knew about Fera. For, according to the arrangement put in place by Museveni, only one senior military chief was supposed to know about the existence of such dissident groups in the country.
Below the senior military chief, the only other person who knew about Fera was an officer heading the provincial branch of Intelligence Security Organisation (ISO) at Luakhakha. All the other officers � save for one or two who became privy to such classified information � including those who were training the fighters, knew nothing about the mission of the dissidents and role the Museveni government was playing to prop them up. In fact, the trainers were made to understand that they were training fighters for South Africa�s Africa National Congress (ANC).
That meant that even the Fera soldiers had to be careful not to expose their activities to some intelligence operative in Uganda. Those made such mistakes � even exposing their guns to Uganda�s uninformed officers � got quickly arrested. Whenever one got arrested, it meant that only the ISO officer in Luakhakha or the senior military officer could come to their rescue. This was an arrangement that the fighters had to learn as soon as they were recruited from Kenya and taken to Uganda.
While in Bungoma, families were encouraged to form war councils, the young recruits who were taken to Uganda as fighters were also organised in small training groups of 10 to 15 people.
They had several training camps both inside Uganda and at the border of Kenya and Uganda. The main camp was in Mbale District in Uganda at a place called Nabumali, which was headed by a Mr John Muiruri. Because Odongo rarely visited the training camps � he for example appeared at the Nabumali camp only twice � Muiruri came to grow in stature and became the de facto military head of Fera till 1995 when he was killed at night by Kenyan intelligence officers while sleeping in a house in Bumbo village.
The other camp was at Mukono, 21 miles from Kampala, the Ugandan capital. Perhaps because of its proximity to the city, the Fera men would be allowed to train only at night. Apart from the two camps that were deep inside Uganda, the other camp was in a cave at the foot of Mt Elgon just a short distance away from a natural bridge in that area known by the residents as Daraja ya Mungu. It was at this camp that Fera fighters would converge whenever they planned an attack on the Kenyan side.
In total, the three camps had approximately 600 fighters. Although small in number, the Fera boys are said to have been good soldiers. Some GSU officers we encountered in Sirisia, conceded to this fact. "They were well trained in military combat and with proper organisation, they were capable of causing havoc in this country," said one officers.
Perhaps one of Fera�s biggest undoing was the fact that, other than Odongo and Wangamati, it had no high profile personality in its ranks. This explains why, with the help of Museveni, it is understood that Fera operatives severally tried to reach out to the late Michael Wamalwa to become its political head in vain. They gave up on the idea when, even after reassuring them Wamalwa failed to show up in London for a meeting with Fera leaders that had been arranged by Museveni in 1994.
The need to recruit a politically conscious leader other than Wangamati who would instil some vision and create a political rallying point is an idea that Museveni is understood to have been desperate about, especially when he realised that Brig Odongo lacked what it takes for such a task.
For Odongo lacked proper organisation and paid little attention to the fighters both in the bush and the training camps. He was also a spend thrift who diverted much of the money donated to Fera to his own personal use.
When he got the first batch of finances from Museveni, for instance, he used it to set up a shop on the Uganda side of Busia on a block known as Mzalendo. His lifestyle also changed drastically as he indulged and spent lavishly.
In the meantime, his soldiers were struggling to acquire even the most basic needs such as food, leave alone the weapons. In the case of cooking utensils in the camp, it is understood that, in spite of having acquired sufficient financial support from Museveni, Fera only managed to buy them when Hon Paul Muite donated Ksh20,000 when he met some Fera leaders while on his tour of Uganda to give a talk at Makerere University.
As far as the acquisition of weapons is concerned, it was Museveni�s policy not to supply full hardware to the many rebel groups he financed. He would give them just a few guns and would then expect them to grow, become independent and acquire for themselves the rest of the weapons they needed. This is what groups such as the Rwanda Patriotic Front of Paul Kagame did � they got the backing and training ground in Uganda but the became fairly independent and autonomous.
When Koigi started his Kenya Patriotic Front (KPF), for instance, Museveni gave him only two pistols that he was later to transport to Nairobi in the boot of an Eldoret Escort bus with the assistance of a driver who now works for a foreign mission in Nairobi.
Initially, Museveni donated only about 10 guns to Fera, which they were to use in training and general defence. Its leadership was then expected to make wide contacts, raise money and either buy weapons or get other donations.
But again, this was not to happen with Fera as Odongo had diverted all the money to other things. The state of affairs is said to have annoyed President Museveni who, apart from telling Odongo off severally in meetings along with Wangamati, finally decided to detain him in 1992. Although other sources say the main reason Museveni detained Odongo was because some of the guns given to Fera had been found with groups such as the Lords Resistance Army.
He was to be released a few weeks later after negotiations between government representatives and Fera leaders. Because of the lack of vision and direction in the camps, the recruits became indisciplined and started struggling to escape from the bush.
Quite a number of them defected to join Koigi�s KPF and Adhu Awiti�s Uwake, though Fera also received a few defectors from the two groups. However, those who joined Fera quickly got disaffected when they noticed what was going on and either decided to quit or confronted Odongo with the truth.
Those who were in the Mt Elgon camp and who probably had learnt how to survive amidst such disorganisation, decided to start raiding villagers in Bungoma for food. Because they did not have enough weapons, they also decided to carry out a raid primarily for that purpose. The first Fera raid on Sirisia Police Station in 1995 � in which they made away with seven guns � was actually just meant for that � to acquire weapons.
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