By Richard M. Kavuma
July 25, 2004
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Mr Chris Opio had just left Uganda House when the shooting started, on July 27, 1985. A member of the Central Executive of the ruling Uganda People�s Congress, Opio was in his private office at the present Orient Plaza on Kampala Road. Together with three intelligence friends, they were discussing the political tensions in the country.
President Milton Obote�s government knew that Acholi army officers like Brig. Bazilio Olara Okello and Maj. Gen.Tito Okello Lutwa were organising soldiers from as far as Gulu to attempt a coup. The coup was a culmination of weeks of mounting tensions and frantic efforts by Obote to save his presidency. According to insiders at the time, an attempt was made to assassinate president Milton Obote on July 6. The president was in Mbale with the then Kenyan president Daniel Arap Moi to mark Cooperative Day. It is said that elements in the military hatched a plot to waylay Obote in Manafwa valley between Mbale and Tororo, as he accompanied Moi to Malaba. Hand of God Dr James Rwanyarare, then minister for Culture and Community Development, recalls that as the convoy neared the scene, very heavy rain started falling �out of no where�, forcing some officials to drive back to Mbale. Visibility was extremely difficult; but the rain stopped shortly after the convoy emerged from the valley. Now Chairman of the UPC Presidential Policy Commission, Rwanyarare reckons the rain was a hand of God to prevent a foreign president being murdered on Ugandan soil. The previous evening, tanks and other heavy guns were moved to several positions in Kampala, such as near the General Post Office and Radio Uganda. From around July 19, cabinet held meeting after meeting to try and defuse the situation. On one occasion, cabinet summoned Army Commander Maj. Gen. Tito Okello Lutwa, and ministers became more suspicious when he turned up with military escort bigger than that of the president. He disregarded Cabinet�s directive to detain Brig. Bazilio Olara Okello, a key player in the ethnic divisions in the army. Obote met senior army officers in Kampala on July 23 but could not defuse the tensions. On to July 27 and, around 11 a.m, the shooting started. Opio recalls that trigger-happy soldiers advanced towards Uganda House from the direction of Uganda Railways, Jinja Road and Obote Avenue. There was shooting everywhere. As gunshots were rocking the city, President Apollo Milton Obote was arriving at the Kenyan border town of Busia UPC officials say that Obote rejected the option of defending Kampala against the coup plotters so as to avoid bloodshed. The Koreans and British are reported to have offered to prop up Obote�s government, but he refused. Former minister Edward Rurangaranga says that President Obote spent much of on July 26 at Nile Mansions (Nile Hotel). From the Conference Centre, Obote addressed the nation on radio and television, making reference to the impending coup. The president warned that anyone who overthrew the people�s government would face it rough. UTV showed Obote�s red chair, which he said was �very hot�. �Let me die here� Meanwhile Bazilio�s troops, marching from the north, overrun government units at Kiryandongo and Nakasongola. It was at this point that a security message was sent to Kampala, that the president should vacate. Obote refused, saying: �I am not going anywhere. Let me die here.� Accounts of what happened differ slightly: some say that in the evening he was driven to his home on Prince Charles Drive at Kololo, while others say he remained in Nile Mansions through the night. In the wee hours of the morning, Obote grudgingly boarded a vehicle (Some say he was physically forced into the vehicle) and the heavily guarded convoy left. First Lady Miria Obote was already in Kenya, attending a Women�s Conference. The president left through Jinja Road, with some of his officials like Security minister Chris Rwakasisi. Rurangaranga has heard (but is not certain) that some soldiers tried to intercept the convoy in Mukono but they were overpowered by the superior firepower from the convoy. At Mbalala in Mukono, Rwakasisi�s vehicle suffered a puncture. He transferred his wife to another vehicle and remained behind to change the tyre. He was later arrested at the Jinja (River Nile) bridge as he tried to catch up with the convoy. He is now on death row in Luzira. Obote�s convoy went safely through Jinja but branched off the main road at Musita, 20 miles from Jinja, driving through Mayuge, Bugiri, Lumino to Busia. Rwanyarare, who was in Kinshasa at the time of the coup, reasons that the president was probably trying to avoid the Tororo route because of the heavy military installations at Rubongi. It is said that the vehicles remained in the �no man�s land� at Busia and the president walked into Kenya, beginning another journey into exile that would end in Zambia. Brig.Apon Acak and a few other army officers are reported to have left by helicopter from Kololo Airstrip. The day after For Rurangaranga, it was a tense day at his home on 6 Kyaddondo Road as the shooting went on. He did not know what would happen to him and his family or where the President was. Around 1 p.m, he phoned a senior police officer (he won�t name the officer), who informed him that president Obote had already arrived in Kenya. Rurangaranga, who was state minister for displaced persons, then went into hiding near his home. He watched in horror as soldiers harassed his wife, took everything in his house and nearly killed his son of only six weeks. The next morning, Chris Opio and his friends were still trembling in Orient Plaza, unsure of whether it was safe to come out. �We actually pretended to be looting my own office,� Opio laughs at the idea, and at the memory. �So we run out carrying cushions.� And no one challenged these clever looters; in Kampala, this was a time for looting. |
� 2004 The Monitor Publications
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