Those GSU Tutsis who fled Uganda after Idi Amin took over, organized an exile group names FRONASA. Its leader was Yoweri Museveni, and it was based in Dar es Salaam. Although that group attracted a number of hard core leftist UPC supporters, its core members and main objective was to consolidate Tutsi power, according to information from an ex-wife of one of the inner circle members of the organization. A network of Tutsis purporting to be Banyankole or Bakiga used that organization to mobilize and crystallize their political agenda for the entire region.
Within FRONASA a group of militant Tutsis working jointly with Himas was formed to organize and carry out a grand plan of taking power in countries of the Great Lakes Region starting with Uganda which was to be used as a base and spring board. That group included the following: Yoweri K. Museveni, Fred Rwigyema. Paul Kagame, Ezra Bunyenyezi, Emmanuel Bunyenyezi, David Tinyefunza, Jimmy Muhwezi, Otafire, Barihona, Rwandali, Rwehibanda, Keitonga, Ghashizi, Ezra Suruma, Muchunguzi, Kaharwa, Ruhakana Rugunda, Mathew Rukikaire, Perez Kamunanwire, and many others. Ahmed Sseguya, a Muganda, led the FRONASA military trainees at Nachingweya. He was later killed at the order of Yoweri Museveni in Luwero during the war. The people he ordered to kill Sseguya were Muchunguzi, Julius Ayime and Mugume.
The political disintegration in Uganda, to which those killer squads contributed significantly, opened up new opportunities for Tutsis to take advantage of the situation in their long term plan of taking political power, commencing with Uganda which they were to use as a staging point to capture neighboring countries. Under the banner of FRONASA, Tutsis purporting to be Banyankole or Bakiga, participated in the Moshi Conference which created <?xml:namespace prefix = st2 ns = "urn:schemas:contacts" />Yusuf Lule’s regime after the fall of Idi Amin in 1979. While in a Da es Salaam hotel, Yoweri Museveni gave Yusuf Lule a list of 18 people out of whom he could pick 14 Ministers; all names were of purportedly “Banyankole”. His justification for that glaring bias was, “Those are the only people I know”. Subsequently Museveni became Minister of Defense – a position he used to plant his fellow Tutsis into positions of control but he was quickly disarmed by a stronger Nilotic power clique led by Oyite Ojok.
It is important to remember that soon after Idi Amin was overthrown in 1979, Yoweri Museveni became Minister of Defense. His FRONASA clique in the National Liberation Army (NLA) recruited many Tutsi/Hima from Ankole and Kigezi area. Those were strategically stationed at Lubiri Army Barracks and Makindye Military Police Barracks from where Rwandali and Rweibanda conducted a random killing rampage of civilians. They utilized a bus which was called “Mpawo Atalikaaba” in which the killers rode every night, picking up their victims and smashing their heads with hoes and littering the surrounding areas with corpses.
Although Museveni was removed from the Ministry of Defense, his other comrades who had infiltrated other newly formed security organizations remained and continued their acts of sabotage which undermined and weakened Yusuf Lule and G.L. Binaisa regimes.
Those crimes of random killings of civilians terrorized the country at the same time discrediting and weakening Binaisa rule.
In 1980 Baganda political militants started a guerrilla war which eventually overthrew Obote’s second regime. At that time Museveni was Vice Chairman of the ruling Military Commission. Repressive policies of terrorizing and torture, mysterious and random killings of civilians, robbing and stealing from the public were daily occurrence. Forcing people onto trucks (Panda Gali) to be taken to be tortured and others killed was common in and around Kampala under the watchful eyes of a consenting Museveni. In 1981, Muuseveni was ousted by the Muwanga/Obote/Oyite Ojok camp. He, together with a number of Tutsis whom he had groomed joined the ongoing bush war which had started a year earlier.
Their first action was to steal weapons from other fighters by pretending to join together and share whatever equipment they had. They then started killing the leaders and finally took over the operation. That is why Museveni has always lied that the bush war started in 1981 when it started in 1980. That war against Obote’s repressive regime was very popular among Ugandans. Tutsis saw this as a golden opportunity to take over the liberation struggle and eventually claim to be the ones who saved Uganda from Obote. Then they can rule Uganda and eventually use it to conquer other countries, starting with Rwanda. They made no secret of their regional plan to dominate and control the entire Great Lakes Region. People who were with them during the fighting recall that Tutsi/Hima High Command frequently discussed plans to invade Rwanda after they have taken over Uganda. After that, Congo/Zaire was next and be followed by Tanzania in that order. Among their objective was to eliminate and /or reduce the numerical superiority of Hutus through mass killings and any other means, to wipe out the Nilotics of Northern Uganda who they called “Obusoro” (little animals), and turn all other Bantu tribes into a controlled mass of servants or slaves. The plot against Nilotic tribes was also revealed to me by the late Grace Ibingira in 1986 just before he joined NRM’s regime as Special Advisor to Museveni.
TUTSI INTEGRATION IN UGANDA
Uganda has always been a country founded on an unwritten policy of inclusion; not exclusion. Museveni’s era has forced many Ugandans to wonder what went wrong. Tutsis were well received by the people and were rendered assistance and acceptability more than any immigrant group could ever expect. They quickly established themselves, acquired land for settlement and intermarried. Educational and employment opportunities were open to all without any discrimination whatsoever. Some attended Makerere University in Uganda and other universities in Kenya and Tanzania and abroad as Ugandans camouflaged as Banyankole or Bakiga. Case in point is Edith Ssempala, now Ugandan Ambassador to USA. She studied Engineering at Lumumba University in Moscow on a Ugandan scholarship. Yet when she was in Moscow, she did not want to identify herself as a Ugandan but rather as a Rwandese.
There were many Tutsi families who came to Uganda prior 1959. Many of those families had established themselves among Ugandans. Teacher Karugendo of Kyakanyomozi village comes to my mind. He was my schoolmate at Busubizi Teacher Training College from 1955 till 1958. His children participated in the RPF invasion of Rwanda in 1990. Mr. Nyakamwe raised livestock at Kasali village where he lived till death. His children were also among those who invaded Rwanda in 1990. Why should their children who were borne in Uganda, whose parents migrated before the Kayibanda revolution, join RPF in the invasion of Rwanda?
The integration of Tutsi refugees was thorough and comprehensive. Each person had an opportunity to make the most out of life according to his/her ability. There were many refugees who had good education and training. Among them was Mr. Avigimana who later shortened his name to Avigima and taught at numerous Secondary schools in Masaka area starting at Bikira Junior Secondary School. He later became Headmaster of Kabwoko and Kyamulibwa Junior Secondary schools. Mr. and Mrs. Leo Magulu are rural people who obtained land at Bikira village where they live up to now in total harmony with the local Baganda.
There is a Tutsi I met in Boston, MA who had a good job with Uganda Coffee Marketing Board. He purchased a profitable ranch in Mawogola. He is among those who invaded Rwanda in 1990 together with his children and relatives. At the request of Fred Rwigyema, his ranch was used as military training and supply base for RPF.
The Catholic Bishop of Kigezi, Rt. Rev. Barnabas Halem’imana used his residence as a safe haven for the officers of RPF during the invasion of Rwanda and also as a training camp for RPF spies and torture agents. One of the people who trained at the Bishop’s residence informed me what she witnessed. She narrated about their evening discussions with the Bishop and other RPF officials discussing the glory and destiny of Tutsis and why they must struggle hard to regain power, not only in Rwanda but throughout East and Central Africa because they were destined to be rulers. Hutus and other Bantu people, according this doctrine, were created to be servants. The people of Kigezi were angry at the Bishop when they found out his involvement with RPF. First, there were clandestine letters from priests and lay people complaining to high Church officials in Uganda and to the Vatican. That was followed by a popular revolt which drove him out of the Diocese for his safety and sought refugee in Kampala from where he officially requested the Pope to accept his resignation from the post of Bishop of Kabale. His request was granted.
Obote’s regime in the 1960s needed the Tutsis to carry out the bulk of his secret agency work because of their callousness, adaptability and propensity to brutality with a straight face. Obote recruited many of them into the infamous GENERAL SERVICE UNIT, a spy and torture arm of his regime similar to the GESTAPO of Adolph Hitler. Tutsi girls together with numerous Ugandan girls, who were selected for their loose morals or wickedness, were deployed in strategic places to spy on the public. Others were assigned to foreign visitors and diplomats.
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