UGANDA: Understanding role of external envoys in struggle against dictatorship

UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF EXTERNAL ENVOYS IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST A MILITARY DICTATORSHIP

CHANGE OF GUARDS - World over, political organisations struggling against oppressive regimes do establish branches/offices often referred to as chapters based in foreign capitals. They appoint envoys to those offices whose task is defined by the situation pertaining back home. Currently Uganda's main opposition, the FDC has such envoys based in foreign capitals more especially in the western world.

When Museveni's NRA was struggling against the 2nd UPC/Obote regime, it also had such envoys who were referred to as the External Committee. To fully appreciate the role of such external envoys, here below we bring you excerpts of personal narratives by two such Ugandans who served on Museveni's External Committee.

1. MATHEW RUKIKAIRE

When I got to Nairobi, I found there a young man called Maj. Katabarwa (RIP). Museveni had sent him there prior to the launching of the armed struggle to do some security work. I also found Sir John Bageire and Chris Mboijana, both of whom are now dead, and we formed a nucleus. From that time on, Ugandans started flocking in. We formed a nucleus external committee, which continued to operate as an informal organisation.

We went on sending messages to people; talking to some people in the Kenyan government, etc, until later in 1981 when Museveni came to Kenya under cover. We then formalised the external committee of which I became chairman.

The Kenyan authorities were extremely suspicious of NRM: this was a group whose track record was not known. But while they were suspicious, they also knew that things were not well in Uganda and they could not ignore us.

So they gave us some kind of lukewarm reception. Somehow they were not so hostile to NRM. They were more hostile to UFM – Balaki Kiirya’s group. Later, Kiirya was actually repatriated to Uganda by President Arap Moi. And soon people started moving away from Nairobi. But it was a blessing in a way because where they went, they created new cells to popularise and explain the cause of NRM.

In Nairobi we did talk to some embassies – they listened and perhaps sent reports to their home countries, but there was no money from embassies. The money that we had, largely came from ourselves and was mostly used to sustain Ugandan exiles. It was also used on soldiers who were sick or injured; people like Elly Tumwine – he had lost an eye, Henry Tumukunde – he had virtually lost his leg. Nairobi was also used as an intelligence centre because Museveni was trying to create a network of political support in Africa. One of the key elements in the whole thing was Nyerere and countries like Mozambique.

When people fled Nairobi after the Kirya incident, I didn’t leave – because if I left, who would be left? Anyway, I had a little business and so I was viewed by the Kenyan government as someone who was continuing to pursue his private interests, although they knew that I was chairman of the external committee. Eventually Eriya Kategaya came to Kenya and we continued to do the work we were doing. Before that, Museveni, myself, Sam Njuba and Ruhakana Rugunda travelled to Libya to solicit support from Muammar Gaddafi. It was a very useful discussion both politically and also (in terms of) getting some commitment about modest military support.

At that time, Gaddafi was actually bent on supporting UFM because he thought that they were more active, stronger and were made up of older people. But we broke the ice with Gaddafi. I am happy Museveni was able to tell him very clearly why he had to fight Idi Amin, because as you know, Amin was very closely associated with Gaddafi.

We came back and Gaddafi honoured his undertaking. He did send us some arms through a neighbouring country and I had to travel to that country to receive those arms. The guns had earlier been taken to a connection in that country. I went there and loaded them physically into some petroleum tanker secretly, with a friend. We then travelled by road to another country B. We waited for about three days at the border before the arms finally entered Uganda. That was the first consignment, which was very useful to our fighters. Subsequently, Gaddafi continued to support us especially when he knew that the struggle was gathering momentum.

Earlier, when Kategaya came to Nairobi, he and I travelled to the United Kingdom and to various cities in America mobilising our supporters. In London we even appeared on the BBC around 1983. We continued to do this kind of work until 1985 when we had the peace talks in Nairobi.

2. ALI KIRUNDA KIVEJINJA

Thereafter, I got in touch with other members like Dr Frank Nabwiso and John Ndege. I then contacted Rukikaire and Bakulu Mpagi who had already started publishing the Resistance news. By then, there were no funds for the publication but it was through individual contribution. One committed individual was Jotham Tumwesigye who was working in Mombasa and would send me money every month to buy stationery for the publication. After a short while, I started travelling out of Nairobi to places like London, Libya among others to follow up on the earlier trips done by Museveni. I made several trips to Libya, but on one trip, I realised there was a heightened propaganda that Museveni was anti-Muslim. They made me wait for a much longer time before I could be attended to. I suspect it was for this reason that when they gave out arms, we received less than Andrew Kayira’s UFM.

Things did not move smoothly and I gave a copy of one of the articles I had authored while in London about Islam in Uganda and had published in the Islamic Review in London, to my guide. My guide was shocked to realize that I was a Muslim. The next day, he brought me 100 air tickets for the people we wanted to take to Libya for training. I came back to Nairobi and assembled people like Amanya Mushega, Butime, and Kale Kayihura. I flew them to Libya for training, and I left them under the leadership of Bakulu Mpagi.

On one of my missions in London, I called up my old friend from the days of the student’s Forum in Vienna, Ariwan Lance, the then a minister of internal affairs in Austria, for a meeting.

During the four-hour meeting, I told him how I was involved in an armed struggle in Uganda but I needed a much safer place to operate from. Lance directed his men to get me asylum documents and organise a place for me to stay in Vienna. Around mid 1983, I moved to Vienna and I was put up in a hotel as a refugee. I was entitled to some allowance from the Austrian government. I inquired if there were some Ugandan students. One of them was Dr Peter Jumba. When I showed him what I was doing, he offered to take me from the hotel to his home and linked me to another Ugandan Robert Kitavuja. We would form a group called Evidence, which was bringing battle front news to the outside world. Every Tuesday, I was talking to people in Uganda for updates.

I started my campaign in Austria, and Dr Jumba connected me to a prominent radio show host called Dolores Beaur, who I begged to come to Uganda. Kategaya flew to Vienna to talk to her, and through our system, we guaranteed her safety.

Beaur finally flew to Nairobi and travelled by road to Busia where I had arranged with the Catholic Mission Hospital in Iganga, where my wife was working, to go and pick her in an ambulance. The next day Beaur was driven in the same ambulance to Rubaga where she stayed with the nuns. The nuns at Rubaga must have become jittery when communication with our contact in the bush broke. They instead took Beaur to Hoima. What she saw was enough to give her a one and half hour programme which helped us put our case forward. With this, I managed to mobilise for drugs and send them to the nuns in Rubaga for distribution to Ugandans.

While attending Yusuf Lule’s burial in London, people who turned up demanded for more news than rumours about the struggle. We tried to bring the

London Observer and BBC to Uganda in vain, until Matoogo got in touch with a freelance journalist William Pike. I talked to Pike, so did Kategaya. We wanted him to come to Uganda, go to the war zone and get an inside story. We assured him of his security and bigger things if he could come.

He accepted to come through Nairobi. Our people brought him to Kampala and took him to our areas in Luweero where he stayed for 10 days. From there, he wrote a striking story in the Observer

titled “ The killing fields of Kapeka ” it boosted our quest for having our cause understood.

After the fall of Obote, Museveni suggested to find a safe place to have a leader’s reunion. Vienna was chosen. I and Kabayo organised the meeting at a small country hotel north of Vienna and it was here that the 10-Point Programme was formalised.

WILLIAM PIKE - the British Journalist.

"Museveni had started fighting in February 1981. They wanted someone to go and interview him in the bush. Because I was friends with Ben Matogo, in June 1984, I got a phone call from Eriya Kategaya telling me to come to Nairobi next week. So, I came to Nairobi and went to interview Museveni in the bush. By the time I got back a month later to England, it became a very big story on the front pages of many British and international newspapers, on lots of TV stations and radios, the BBC. It was a big shake-up for the Obote II government, and by that stage, I had become very supportive of the NRA."
------------------------------------------------

Though for selfish reasons Museveni tends to underrate the role of external envoys in his struggle, fom the above two narratives there is no doubt it plyed a crucial role. As usual someone out there will argue that the other one had been a war situation as opposed to the current "non violent opposition" against Museveni's military dictatorship.

Is gruesome physical tortures, arbitrary arrests, detention without trial in safe houses, kidnappings by Museveni's security agents, state inspired killings, mass murders, and raids on courts of law, parliament by security agents and merciless plunder of public resources acts of a peace time situation? What about the abnormally high military expenditure that accounts for the total breakdown of service delivery notably in the health and education sectors? What is only missing in the current situation that existed during Museveni's Bush War time is an armed group fighting his regime. If such a group was to emerges, God forbid, then it will be hell. Otherwise, the current opposition external envoys would have a lot to do more than was the case during Museveni's armed struggle if only they get serious and focused. Where are the sustained protests and demonstrations at Uganda's foreign missions??? What about petitions to foreign governments, the UN, ICJ ICC??? How many Ugandan victims of Museveni's excesses have they helped by providing a "safe corridor" for them to escape to safety??? Sincerely, even with abundant modern technology they have even failed to initiate a newsletter or a documentary highlighting the ever growing gloomy dark cloud that is hovering over the country!!!

Though not an external envoy, at least at one time Beti Kamya courageously coordinated the passing of satellite phone sets to the LRA. This is before he defected to Museveni.

INFORMATION IS POWER AND THE PRIBLEM OF UGANDA IS MUSEVENISM