Apollo Milton Obote: What Others Say 9789970026166, 997002616X

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Apollo Milton Obote What Others Say

Editor Omongole R. Anguria

FOUNTAIN PUBLISHERS Kampala

Fountain Publishers Ltd P. O. Box 488 Kampala E-mail:[email protected] Website:www.fountainpublishers.co.ug

Distributed in Europe, North America and Australia by African Books Collective Ltd. (ABC), Unit 13, Kings Meadow Oxford 0X2 ODP, United Kingdom. Tel: 44-(0) 1865-726686, Fax:44-(0)1865-793298 © Omongole R. Anguria 2006 First published 2006 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN (13) 978-9970-02-616-6 ISBN (10) 9970-02-616-X

Dedication I dedicate this book to the presidency of the Republic of Uganda with the hope that the presidents of Uganda will be able to put priorities on physical and social development and the provision of social services, build upon the foundation laid by Obote, and also learn from his mistakes as a human being to make Uganda a better society.

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Contents

22 23 24 25 26

Blame the Times, not the Man Asumatt Bisiika

104

How Obote Leamt of the 1971 Coup Henry Kyemba

107

Don't Condemn Obote, Learn from His Mistakes M ichael Okema

113

Museveni Got it Real Bad on Obote Cawaya Tegulle

116

There is Time for Everything, Says President Museveni Yoweri Kaguta Museveni

118

27 Buganda is Equally to Blame for the 1966/67 Political Crisis Andrew M. Mwenda 123 PART FOUR: OBOTE THE MIXED BAG

127

28 29

128

Short Letters Baganda and Obote! Ivan Okello 30 Was Obote a Killer or a Patriotic Leader? Nasser Mubonde 31 32 33 34 35

133 135

A Founding Father Adored, Dreaded in Equal Measure Timothy Kalyegira

137

Mixed Feelings about Apollo Milton Obote Ronald Kayanja

140

Extremists Fight Return of Obote's Remains Charles Onyango-Obbo & Peter Mwesige

143

Obote: The Last Days David Mukholi

148

The Last Obote Saw of Uganda Sheila Kulubya

151

viii Apollo Milton Obote

36

Obote Funeral Split Cabinet — Museveni Rehema N akabiri & Peter Nyattzi

156

37

The Man who Gifted Uganda to Amin Phillip Ochieng

38

The Lessons of Obote's Death: Ugandans Will Never Learn Charles Onyango-Obbo 163

39

NRM Won't Use his Bogey in Elections again but Will Gain from his Death John Kakande

165

I Will Cry for Obote; I Will not Cry for Obote Charles Onyango-Obbo

168

Can UPC Emerge out of Milton Obote's Shadow? Victor Karamgi

171

Which Way UPC after Obote? Joshua K ato

175

Museveni Snared in Milton Obote's Web N orbertM ao

179

Obote Had Taste for Cute Women Jesse M ashate

181

40 41 42 43 44 45

Miria: The Lady Who Shared a Life with Obote for 40 Years Arthur Baguma 184

46

Man of the Collar Remembers Obote Sylvester Kaddu

188

Like a Coin, Obote Had Two Sides Nick Twinamatsiko

194

Does Obote Have a Case to Answer? Omongole R. Anguria

196

47 48 49

Conclusion

208

Acronyms / Abbreviations BBC CA CP CSC DP DRC EAC FOBA FUNA GSU ICC IMF KANU ICCPR KY LEGCO LRA Maj. Gen. NASA NHCC NPCP NRA NRM NUSU OAU PAP PMA PMB PPC PRC PSC

British Broadcasting Corporation Constituent Assembly Conservative Party Constitutional Steering Committee Democratic Party Democratic Republic of Congo East African Community Force Obote Back Again Former Uganda National Army General Service Unit International Criminal Court International Monetary Fund Kenya African National Union International Convention on Civil & Political Rights Kabaka Yekka (King only) Legislative Council Lord's Resistance Army Major General National Security Agency National Housing & Construction Corporation Nairobi People’s Convention Party National Resistance Army National Resistance Movement National Union of Students of Uganda Organisation of African Unity Poverty Alleviation Plan Plan for Modernisation of Agriculture Produce Marketing Board Presidential Policy Commission Party Representative Council Public Service Commission

x Apollo Milton Obote

QC RAFU SRB TBN UCB UCTU UFM UN UNAK UNC UNLA UNLF UNRF UPC UPM UPP UPU USA UTV VIPs

Queen's Counsel Road Agency Formation Unit State Research Bureau Trinity Broadcasting Network Uganda Commercial Bank Uganda Transport Cooperative Union Uganda Freedom Movement United Nations United Nations Association of Kenya Uganda National Congress Uganda National Liberation Army Uganda National Liberation Front Uganda National Rescue Front Uganda People's Congress Uganda Patriotic Movement Uganda People's Party Uganda People's Union United States of America Uganda Television Very Important Persons

Acknowledgement I should like to aknowledge The Monitor and Neiv Vision n ew spap ers, the original publishers of the articles compiled in this book. I would also like to acknowledge the individual contributions o f the various authors of the articles herein, but most importantly m y publishers Fountain Publishers Ltd. Godfrey Mayanja and the amiable Badria Namiiro, who w en t an extra mile, contributed a lot of efforts in research. Finally, I would wish to acknowledge Beatrice Kyalimanyi w h o word-processed the original manuscript and all those who contributed in one way or another, for their efforts were invaluable.

Introduction For some, Obote is the founder of the nation, the nationalist, the panAfricanist, the socialist — in short, a hero. To others he is a tribalist, regionalist and power maniac who resorted to intrigue, manipulation and the use of the army to monopolise politics and terrorise opponents. The Baganda see him as a man who destroyed and humiliated Buganda, imposed a one-party dictatorship, grabbed people's property in the name of socialism and nurtured Amin, who later foisted reign of terror over the country. For them, Obote, in his life in exile (1971-80) like the Bourbons of old, learnt and forgot nothing, continued his politics of intrigue and manipulation, destabilised the UNLF, stole elections and imposed what they call the disastrous Obote II regime, culminating in civil war and the coup of 1985. To others, Obote was a victim of circumstances, of problems inherited from colonial rule, of intrigues and machinations of rival politicians, of foreign interests and powers, of his own indecision, timidity and procrastination, etc. To others still, Obote was a mixed bag — a man with achievements to his credit but also a man who committed avoidable blunders and mistakes that ruined his country. This book is a collection of newspaper articles and commentaries by politicians, friends, workmates (ministers) of Obote, journalists from within and without, analysts, foes, family and President Museveni, Obote's long-time nemesis, about Obote from the time of his death in South Africa to his burial in Akokoro, Apac district. The articles reflect a pouring out of emotion for and against Obote during this period . Others reflect on the leadership of Obote right from 1962 to his second coming in the 1980s, later exile and, finally, to his burial at Akokoro. The articles are a true portrayal of controversy by Obote's admirers, sympathisers and adversaries, and mirror his leadership of Uganda, both from 1962 to 1971 and then from 1980 to 1985 which was shrouded in political, military and economic controversies. Yet the Obote

Introduction

xiii

controversy is not likely to end soon. UPC is divided and in d isarray , the party performed dismally in the 2006 presidential and parliamentary elections, as its most prominent members, especially from the L a n g o sub-region, the home area of Obote, abandoned it in the wake o f th e election of Obote's wife, Miria, to the party presidency. Now that Obote's son, Akena, is a member of parliament, hopefully the party will pick up the pieces and learn to live without its founder and only leader for 45 years. Obote and the controversy surrounding his leadership are likely to continue impacting on Uganda beyond th e grave and historians will debate the pros and cons of his legacy u n til the end of time. This compilation of articles and commentaries reflects an extensive review and analysis by the commentators and constitutes an imperative piece for historical evaluation of Obote. The death of Obote marks the end of an era in Uganda's history. His death was an opportune moment for his admirers and adversaries alike to reflect on his deeds, his achievements and failures, his genius and shortcomings, his blunders and his legacy. Obote's career confirms the dictum that one man's meat is another man's poison, one's statesman is another person's traitor, etc. This compilation aims at striking the balance between the pros and cons of Obote's life and career, capturing the mood of friends and foes alike. The selection of the articles and commentaries is representative of all shades of opinion about Obote, the perspective of his party, the views of his dear wife, Mama Maria, the anger of the Baganda over their kingdom and the Luweero civil war. This book, therefore, is structured into six parts. Part I contains views and commentaries of those to whom Obote was a national or personal hero. Part II is the perspective of those who saw no good in Obote's leadership, and to them he is just a villain. Part III contains the views of those commentators who saw Obote as merely a victim of circumstances —the people, the politics and other forces that influenced his leadership —while Part IV shows what we have called, for lack of a better word, the mixed bag, portraying Obote's record as a mixture of achievements and failures — of good and evil.

xiv Apollo Milton Obote

In this collection of articles and commntaries, I have taken the liberty to make editorial stylistc and typographical corrections for purposes of accuracy and clarity without altering the tone and emphases of the original compositions.

P art I

obote the Hero

1 Apollo Milton Obote: A Life of Commitment to Uganda and Humanity (1925-2005) The following article was published by the Uganda People's Congress Constitutional Steering Committee (CSC) during the burial arrangements of Dr Apollo Milton Obote. Apollo Milton Obote is dead. He died on 10 October 2005 at Momingside Hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa. As Uganda mourns this great loss, we print in our collective memory the ardent commitment he had for the people of Uganda in particular, and humanity at large, which was through the Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC), a party he founded and led for the last 45 years, shaping the momentous events in Uganda. Obote was bom on 28 December 1925, the son of Stanley Opeto and Pulisikira Opeto in Akokoro, then Lango district. He attended Ibuje and Boroboro Primary Schools, Gulu Junior Secondary School and then joined Busoga College, Mwiri, in 1945. He was admitted to Makerere University College in 1947, but left two years later because of his political activities against the colonial government. His interest to subsequently enter Khartoum University on a Lango government scholarship to study Law was similarly blocked.

The struggle for independence Thereafter, Obote secured employment with the East African Railways as a clerk. In this role, he joined the workers' union and, because of his organisational and leadership qualities, quickly rose in the union leadership. This brought him into contact with Kenyan political 1

2 Apollo Milton Obote

activitists who were agitating for independence for Kenya. He interacted with people like Jomo Kenyatta, Tom Mboya, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, among the Kenyan independence freedom campaigners. Obote returned to Uganda in 1957 and the following year w a s elected to the Lango District Council, then known as the Native Local Government. These local governments were in turn represented at th e Legislative Council (LEGCO) the then parliament in Kampala. When a seat fell vacant in the LEGCO, as a result of the resignation of Yokosafati Engur, Obote was elected to fill that seat. It was during this tenure that Dr Obote distinguished himself both as a nationalist and Pan-Africanist. He was an articulate legislator who captivated his audience, and soon became a noticeable member of the Uganda National Congress (UNC) led by Ignatius Musaazi, which he had joined in 1958. The undercurrents of the politics of these times were the friction between the traditionalists and the nationalists. In the late 1950s there were three prominent parties, whose members were broadly divided in favour of one or the other sentiment. There was the Democratic Party (DP) led by Benedicto Kiwanuka; the Uganda Peoples' Union (UPU) jointly led by William Rwetsiba and William Nadiope; and the Uganda National Congress (UNC). Soon the ultra-conservatives (traditionalists) formed the Uganda National Movement, which favoured Buganda's secession from the rest of Uganda. The political confrontation with the colonial government by the political parties led to the appointment of the Wild Constitutional Committee to look into universal direct representation to the LEGCO. This institution had been mainly the preserve of White and Asian representatives and nominated Africans representing 15 districts. Dr Obote championed the nationalists' cause and it was then that his political acumen and patriotism came to the fore. At the time of the Wild Committee inquiry, Obote presided over one of the factions of the UNC. Thereafter his UNC faction and UPU merged into UPC in March 1960, electing Dr Obote as its president. It was through his brinkmanship that he averted the intended secession by traditionalists and persuaded them to join hands with the rest of Ugandans at the

Apollo Milton Obote: A life o f Commitment to Uganda and Humanity

3

forthcoming constitutional conference in London as a united front. By then Dr Obote was Leader of Opposition, having been returned to the LEGCO in 1961. In the elections that year, contested by UPC and DP, the DP won the majority of the seats and Benedicto Kiwanuka formed the pre-independence self-government of Uganda as Chief Minister. This was a preamble toUganda's Relationships Commission of 1961, chaired by Lord Munster, which recommended a constitutional conference that was held in Lancaster House in London. That conference in which the two political parties, DP and UPC participated, was also attended by members of the LEGCO, traditional leaders and their advisers. It was because Dr Obote had established politically amicable relations with the traditionalists that they accepted to go to Lancaster. All parties agreed to fresh multiparty elections in 1962, which were held in April, leading to Uganda's independence. In alliance with Kabaka Yekka (KY), the UPC won the April 1962 elections and Dr Obote formed the government that led Uganda to independence on a 9 October 1962.

The first UPC administration The UPC government moved in quickly to transform society from colonial vestiges to a free society and a developing, productive country. It articulated comprehensive short -, medium- and long-term economic policies under its initial two 5-year term development plans. These were the formative years of a united, prosperous and peaceful country. Dr Obote and the UPC government gave wholehearted attention to the development of infrastructure, education, health, agriculture and other aspects of social and economic welfare. It was then that the following were accomplished:

Road and rail transport network Tarmacking of roads, which covered the Kampala-Kabale, KampalaGulu, Kampala-Soroti major motorways, just to mention a few. Also undertaken was the construction of Pakwach, Karuma and Tirinyi bridges. The railway line was extended to Kasese at the southwestern end and Pakwach via Soroti and Gulu at the northwestern end.

4 Apollo Milton Obote

Buildings and industrial establishments Many buildings and industrial establishments that are the landmark of Uganda's development today attest to the industriousness of UPC. Bank of Uganda, Uganda Commercial Bank (now Stanbic), National Insurance Corporation, National Housing Corporation (NHCC), Bugolobi, Wandegeya and Bukoto flats, the International Conference, Centre and the Nile Hotel (now Serena Hotel Kampala), Crested Towers, Uganda House, Entebbe International Airport, Coffee Marketing Board (Bugolobi) and Lint Marketing Board (Farmers House), Uganda Transport Cooperative Union(UCTU), Lira Spinning Mill, Kibimba Rice Scheme, Uganda Peoples' Transport Company, and Apollo Hotel (now Sheraton). These are some of the commanding establishments among a host of others, most of which have been sold in a flawed process. Education The education sector was expanded and equipped, coupled with the construction of many primary, secondary schools' and other tertiary institutions, such as district farm institutes and technical schools. Among the many schools built or expanded were first the girls secondary schools: Mary Hill High School, Mbarara; Immaculate SS, Nyakibaale; Kyebambe Girls School; St Catherine SS Boroboro; Wanyange Girls Secondary School; Mt St Mary's College, Namagunga; Trinity College Nabingo; Nabisunsa Girls Secondary School and Tororo Girls Senior Secondary School, to mention but a few. The boys secondary schools were: Bukedi College, Kachonga; Teso College Aloet; Duhaga Senior Secondaiy School; Moyo Secondary School; Lango College; Kibuli Senior Secondary School; Gombe Secondary School; Ndejje Secondary School; Gulu High School; Mbarara High School; and Kigezi High School among others. In the tertiary sector, Teacher Training Colleges (TTCs) were expanded from Grade III to Grade V; scholarships were extended on admission to Makerere University College, which was upgraded from a mere constituent college of the University of East Africa to a national university and the intake increased. More laboratories were constructed in schools, equipment and scholastic materials and bursaries were taken

Apollo Milton Obote: A life o f Commitment to Uganda and Humanity

5

for granted. This period witnessed a significant increase in the number of primary schools throughout the country. Agriculture As the mainstay of the economy where the majority of the people of Uganda get their sustenance from, the UPC government put great emphasis on agricultural extension services to bring to the peasant farmers the advantages of the crop and husbandry research at research facilities such as Kawanda, Namulonge, Namalere and Serere Research Institutes. The formation of the Co-operative Bank and extension of credit institutions to the people through the Uganda Commercial Bank, which had been a mere credit savings society, was meant to facilitate the sector and that is why co-operatives and district farm institutes were put in place to increase the rural agricultural productivity. The Coffee, Cotton and Produce Marketing Boards were strengthened and mandated to look for international competitive markets for Ugandan farmers and to stabilise prices. Health sector This was the most visible achievement of the UPC government. Obote built 22 rural hospitals around the country that have stayed as a landmark in the health sector. Mulago Hospital was expanded as a referral hospital and for a time was the biggest hospital in East and Central Africa. There were other health units and training institutions to cater for health workers who were well motivated with personal emoluments commensurate with the cost of living and the availability of drugs and good working facilities in those health units and hospitals. Defence and security infrastructure Not only did the UPC government professionalise the security services, it also established most of the existing military and police infrastructures. The UPC administration built the army barracks at Moroto, Mubende, Mbarara, Masindi, Bombo, Magamaga, Gulu, Nakasongola and Entebbe. The UPC also built police barracks at Nsambya, Naguru and Moroto. The police air wing and marines were established by the UPC. Prison farms, workshops and showrooms were established in all prison units.

6 Apollo Milton Obote

National unity Obote had a strong sense of and dedication to the unity of Uganda right from his early political days. Nevertheless there were other factors that militated against this unity he fought so hard to maintain. The issue o f Bunyoro's "lost counties" of Buyaga and Bugangaizi was a culmination of the struggle between the old traditionalists and nationalists. That issue had been referred to and decided by the Lancaster Constitutional Conference, which, in turn, referred it to a referendum. The president of Uganda, who was also the Kabaka of Buganda, Sir Edward Mutesa II, had a contradictory role to play. As Kabaka of Buganda, he had an interest in the counties being part of Buganda. As president of Uganda, he was mandated to assent to the outcome of the referendum, whatever it would be. In the event that he was unable to do so, the mandate passed on to the prime minister. By signing the Buyaga-Bugangaizi Referendum Act of 1964, Obote as prime minister was merely carrying out his constitutional obligation. Indeed, the prime minister signed the Act and this quickly created a misunderstanding between him and the president. This was the genesis of the 1966 political crisis. The result of the misunderstanding led, among other things, to the collapse of the KY UPC alliance, the Lukiiko resolution to throw the central government out of Buganda land, culminating in the Mengo battle in May 1966 and the going into exile of the Kabaka who was also the president of Uganda. That was the political environment in which the 1966 constitution came into being as an interim constitution. The interim 1966 constitution and the 1967 republican constitution were meant to re-establish constitutional order, in the face of a conspiracy involving Ugandan and foreign actors to overthrow the government by force of arms. Subsequent to this was Obote's political ideology of transferring the control of the national economy into the hands of the people. This was bolstered by a set of documents he wrote commonly known as the Common Man's Charter. The other piece of writing is the "Letter to a London Friend", which partly expounded on this.

Apollo Milton Obote: A life o f Commitment to Uganda and Humanity

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Other achievements The list is endless. In the information sector, the UTV was established and expanded. Radio Uganda, too, was expanded; and there was a vibrant press with the leading papers such as The People and Uganda Argus. These were at the forefront of reporting and commenting on the human rights record and respect for life and personal property. That the Public Service Commission is celebrating its 50 years of existence is in large measure due to die UPC governments' Africanising and expanding the civil service. It is one institution which has maintained a form of professionalism against immense odds. Regional and foreign relations Obote's 20-year exile in Lusaka, Zambia is a clear testament to the development of the good-neighbourly relations that he nurtured in his two terms of leadership. In his capacity as Prime Minister in the early 1960s, he was one of the founding fathers of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which embraced the principles and ideals of the United Nations Charter, specifically the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights." Because of his belief in the sanctity of and right to self-determination, Obote was an inspiration and committed himself to the liberation of African countries of Southern Africa, and his involvement in the Mulungushi Club brought together the East African states Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, and Zambia. Under his just administration, the East African Community became a strong factor in fighting the ideological theme besides explaining the lies surrounding the 1966 crisis. The concept of "nationalisation" and the question of dual citizenship by Asians residing in Uganda at the time of independence raised great concern among Western powers and their local agents. All this opposition to the consolidation of national unity and independence was to usher in Amin's coup of 1971 in which peaceful transfer of power through the ballot was brought to an abrupt end. Amin's regime led to the destruction of the democratic institutions and the infrastructure that the UPC government had painstakingly built. Rule by decree replaced rule by law and popular consent, political parties were proscribed and UPC party cadres murdered in their thousands. For the next eight years, Obote stayed in exile in Tanzania.

2 The Second UPC Administration In exile, Obote worked tirelessly to remove the regime of murder and terror that Idi Amin imposed on the people of Uganda. He did not want to return as a military ruler, but as providence would have it, Amin invaded Tanzania in 1978. In the war that followed, Obote's fighting force, Kikosi Maalum, partnered with the Tanzanian Peoples' Defence Forces and toppled Amin. There were deliberate and orchestrated attempts both inside and outside Uganda through the manipulation of the transition period to stop Obote from taking any leadership position in the politics of Uganda. However, in the 1980 general elections, Obote was convincingly elected as president. The second UPC government inherited a shattered economy dilapidated by eight years of misrule and neglect. Amin's "economic war", depleted the country's reserves, antagonised Uganda's trade partners and estranged the country from bilateral and multilateral donors such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Nevertheless, the UPC government rose to the occasion of leadership and the task of national management of the economy as promised in its 1980 election manifesto. It immediately instituted the 1982-84 Recovery Programme and followed it with the Revised Recovery Programme of 1983. The programmes addressed the fiscal issues and the need to arrest the galloping inflation of more than 240 per cent; it aimed at revamping the productive sector, rehabilitating and reconstructing the infrastructuring; and improve the social services. By 1983, the economy was on the mend with a growth rate of 6.3 per ecent measured at the 1966 price index. In only four years the UPC government's achievements included the political liberation of Africa, and also fostering strong economic ties in the region. It has been argued that the involvement in 8

The Second UPC Administration

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the fight against the apartheid regime in South Africa diverted him from national affairs, such that when he was attending the Commonwealth Conference in Singapore in 1971 and leading the fight against apartheid South Africa, he was overthrown by ldi Amin. As the economy stabilised the annual inflation rate dropped to 16 per cent by 1984. Agricultural production revived to the extent that by 1985 in the coffee sector, Uganda exceeded its quota of 2.5 million bags by 1.8 million bags. Industrial production was revived and "essential commodities" such as sugar, soap, edible oil, soft drinks, textiles and beer became readily available. As the economy picked up, civil service salaries were increased by 50 per cent in the 1982/83 budget to an average of 4.5 times in the 1983/ 84 budget. Education and health sectors were rehabilitated, including the creation of Kyambogo Institute of Teacher Education and Nakawa Business Campus of Makerere University in 1984. With the takeover of the so called "Tata schools", the secondary school sector ballooned. From 1981-83 a total of 151 secondary schools were established and upgraded throughout the country. Of those, 37 were upgraded to HSC level. More teacher training colleges were created and the tally went up to: 12 Grade II; 16 Grade III; and 4 Grade V. All these schools were adequately equipped and well staffed. Obote made legislation for the return of expropriated properties to former owners and started the actual process of return. Pipe and clean water was made available on a 24-hour basis in Kampala, Jinja, Masaka, Mbarara, Tororo and Mbale. Programmes for the rehabilitation of boreholes, springs and wells for the rural water supplies were drawn up and equipment procured. Feasibility studies were done for the rehabilitation of Kilembe Mines, establishment of a cobalt plant and also for oil exploration. Obote built the Nalukolongo locomotive workshop with the capacity to serve East and Central Africa.

Third liberation (1985 to Obote's death) All these achievements and future plans for economic take-off were being interrupted, first by Yoweri Museveni's "bush war", then ruined

10 Apollo Milton Obote

by the military junta of the Okellos —Gen. Tito Okello and Brig. Bazilio Okello. Museveni launched his guerilla war in Luwero district after his Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM) party miserably failed in the 1980 general elections. It got only one parliamentary seat; Museveni himself lost the election in his constituency to the Democratic Party (DP). But though he diverted the UPC government from carrying out its development objectives, he was not able to overthrow the UPC. That treacherous task was left to the Okellos. In the next six months, till Museveni's National Resistance Army (NRA) came to power, Uganda was plunged into the mayhem of devastation, destruction and bloodshed not experienced before. Thereafter the National ResistanceMovement (NRM) took over power, too, through the barrel of the gun. The political environment became extremely hostile, especially for the political parties. Many UPC members were displaced, thrown in jail or killed. The Uganda House party headquarters was attacked and the members dispersed or arrested. Consequently, the UPC members and its leadership assumed a low profile to save the party and its members from annihilation. When the NRM formed a government in 1986, they had no idea about economic planning. They experimented with the unworkable policy of barter trade with disastrous consequences. The IMF and the World Bank withdrew funding till 1988 when the NRM plagiarised the UPC revised recovery programmes and re-issued them as a new economic policy. Owing to ineptitude, indiscipline, mismanagement, lack of patriotism and corruption, the NRM regime was incapable of implementing the remaining aspect of the recovery programme. Instead, when abandoning its initial poorly thought-out socialist policies, it turned round full scale into capitalist privatisation policies in which it has surrendered the economy to dubious investors and their local cronies. Uganda is now managed on an ad hoc sectoral basis without any conceivable attention to due planning. Instead, there exists the uncoordinated Poverty Alleviation Plan (PAP); Plan for Modernisation of Agriculture (PMA); Land Sector Strategic Plan (LSSP); Road Agency Formation Unit (RAFU); Defence Review; and a host of other projects,

The Second UPC Administration

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plans, services and reviews covering different time frames managed by foreign "technical advisors". The problem of government adopting this overseer approach to projects is that there is no coordination, and as such wastage and unnecessary duplication is the order of the day. The attendant consequences are corruption and the endemic poverty that has been visited upon the entire population, leaving only a tiny clique attached to the cabal of State House as the beneficiaries. It is against this corrupt and inept management of state power that the UPC undertook the struggle for restoration of multi-party democracy for the last 19 years. By 1990, the party had been weakened due to NRM prohibitions to the extent that the party could not have been reactivated using the formal structures. As such Obote and the UPC leadership established the Presidential Policy Commission (PPC) as the central executive, and the Party Representative Council (PRC)as the parliament of the party. Through this pragmatic improvisation, UPC was able to make contact with the grassroots and articulate the party position on important issues of national interest. The UPC took a firm stand on the NRM constitution-making process, the banning of political activity, the insecurity and the genocide committed against the people of the North and East of the country, the greed and the mismanagement that characterised the hitherto good-neighbourly and international relations. It was on this basis that UPC challenged the Constituent Assembly (CA) Statute for denying citizens the basic human right of freedom of assembly, association and expression. UPC filed a case in the High Court and challenged the constitutionality of the CA Statute. UPC was denied justice on the grounds that the restrictions against the enjoyment of fundamental rights and freedoms were temporaiy. Nevertheless, individual members who wished to do so could participate in the elections. Because of the NRM regime's manipulations, the regime "won" a majority in the CA and from hence dictated terms by constitutionalising a dictatorship with draconian provisions in Articles 269,270 and 271 in its 1995 constitution. With these provisions in place, the outcomes of the 19% presidential and parliamentary elections

12 Apollo Milton Obole

were predictable. Against this rank dictatorship, the UPC adopted a survival strategy. For the 1996 and 2001 presidential elections, UPC coalesced with the DP, and CP and the Reform Agenda (RA) (in 2001) to form a loose co-operation to challenge the dictatorship. The NRM dictatorship's reaction was to introduce unprecedented violence into the electoral process, with intimidation and murder of members of the opposition. Needless to say, Museveni "won" the 2001 election, which was adjudged "stolen''. The coalition candidate, Kizza Besigye, petitioned the Supreme Court, challenging the outcome of the election, but a hung judgement decided to confirm Museveni's flawed victory on the ground that the fragrant violation of the electoral laws and principles, "did not affect the results of the elections". The UPC has not been unduly daunted by the shenanigans of the NRM, and has gone ahead to champion the interests of the people of Uganda against the insensitivity and callousness of the NRM dictatorship. The UPC took the regime to the Constitutional Court to seek a declaration of the legality of the procedures through which the regime came to power and challenged other unconstitutional laws through which the NRM sustained itself in power. Under the generic name "Agenda 21", the UPC set out principles, objectives, goals and ideas on which it seeks to mobilise the grassroots, as well as the local and international community to support the multi-party struggle against the dictatorship. In preparation for and sensing victory in the re-establishment of multi­ party democracy, the UPC and its party president, Obote, on 1 April 2005 established the Constitutional Steering Commission (CSC) to reactivate the moribund party branches and other organs, review the Party Constitution and launch the process for the holding of the Annual Delegates Conference. This was also part of the exercise meant to prepare for the return of Obote from his Lusaka exile. The whole endeavour was going on well and according to plan, when shocking news of the demise of Apollo Milton Obote was received in Uganda with consternation. Obote succumbed to kidney failure at a Johannesburg hospital at the age of 80. The South African government recognised his contribution to the liberation struggle in Southern Africa by according

The Second UPC Administration

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him a befitting funeral service. Equally, the Zambian government accorded Obote a fully fledged state funeral and a national holiday. It is now the duty of the NRM government to accord the father of the nation an equally befitting state funeral inclusive of a public holiday as his remains are interred at his ancestral home at Akokoro in Apac District. (Editor's Note: Government did grant a state funeral and public holiday after pressure from public opinion.) As the family, the party, the nation and friends of Uganda mourn the passing away of the selfless father of the nation, the Uganda Peoples Congress expresses its sincere gratitude to the millions of friends throughout the world that have supported Obote and the party throughout his illustrious decades of service. UPC is deeply touched by the support that has been accorded to the party president while he was alive and to the family, party and friends ever since he passed away. As a party, we pledge to continue vigorously with the noble work and mission of Apollo Milton Obote. May his soul rest in eternal peace. Constitutional Steering Commission, Uganda Peoples Congress, 21 October 2005

3 My Husband Inspired a Sense of Oneness On Friday 21 October 2005, during a funeral servicefor former President Apollo Milton Obote at Kololo Airstrip, his wife, Miria, described her husband as a true Pan-Africanist who loved all Ugandans. Below is her speech. Sunday Vision 230ctober 2005. Fellow mourners, these are very difficult moments. Twenty years in exile is a very long time. It becomes even longer when you fear for your life. Every day that passed we hoped and prayed for conditions conducive to our return home. The recent political developments in the country encouraged us. Not long ago, my husband announced our intended return. We very much looked forward to it. My family and I are overwhelmed by the care and support extended to us since the demise of my husband. We are gathered here as a nation to say farewell to my husband, Apollo Milton Obote. I am awed by the mass turnout to this occasion. This may be an indication of the various ways in which he touched people's lives. My husband led a very intense life, with much foresight. Upon leaving Makerere, he obtained a scholarship from Lango Local Administration to study law in Khartoum. Regrettably, this scholarship was cancelled by the colonial administration. He then went to work for a construction company in Jinja. Later he moved to Nairobi where he worked for several companies. While in Kenya he embraced the anti­ colonial struggle, rising to national leadership. He returned to Uganda in 1957. He immediately plunged into politics and joined the UNC. He joined the Lango District Council and became its speaker. He stood for the LEGCO elections and won with a big majority in 1958. In the LEGCO, he distinguished himself as the most outspoken 14

My Husband Inspired a Sense o f Oneness 15

critic of the colonial administration. For this the Langi nicknamed him Loti Much Me Lang’o which means "The burning embers from Lango". As a result of internal contradictions within UNC, he got elected leader of the party. In March I960, the Obote faction of UNC merged with Uganda People's Union to form UPC. My husband was elected president of UPC and he remained so until his death. It was the eve of independence. Various social and political forces were at odds with each other. As such they were an impediment to the attainment of independence. How could these contradictory forces be reconciled? My husband worked relentlessly to bring about a working relationship between various interest groups. As a result, UPC and Kabaka Yekka forged an alliance. Following this, independence was attained in 1962. As head of the new independent government of Uganda, my husband embarked on the process of nation-building. This included improving and expanding the transport and communication infrastructure. Twentytwo rural hospitals and health centres at county level were built. The government took over and approved the religious denominational schools. The government also built new schools. For the peasants, the government introduced co-operatives which improved the marketing of produce. The government recognised the plight of the working poor, and formalised methods of collective bargaining. There were tasks on the political front too. The independence constitution had mandated that a referendum to determine the position of the "lost counties" be carried out not later than two years after independence.The referendum was held as scheduled. The people in the lost counties by a large majority, decided to be part of Bunyoro. The Kingdom of Buganda unfortunately did not accept the verdict. This set off a chain reaction which culminated in the 1966 confrontation between the central government and the Kingdom of Buganda. This confrontation has been seriously misunderstood. It has also been used by divisive forces. They have portrayed my husband as a person who hates Baganda. That is not true. I can testify. My husband loved all Ugandans. He liked Baganda and many of his close friends, colleagues

16 Apollo Milton Obote

and advisers were Baganda. He also liked Mutesa and many people in Mengo. He did not have any personal problems with either the Baganda or Kabaka Mutesa. At that time there were many forces at play. My husband was the leader of government. He had to bring all these forces together to move the country forward. Even if he personally did not want to attack Lubiri, as head of government, he had to listen to his advisors. For example, it is his Attorney General, Godfrey Binaisa, who advised him that the only way he could resolve the differences between the central government and Mengo was by suspending the 1962 constitution. The admirable thing about Milton is that once he had signed on to the decision as the leader, he took personal responsibility for it. Secondly, Mengo itself was not an innocent party to this confrontation. That is what many people forget. Kabaka Mutesa had requested the British government for massive military assistance, including arms and ammunition. He had also placed an order for a large quantity of weapons with a company called Gailey and Roberts. There had been intelligence reports that the Lubiri was full of arms. After the Lukiiko passed a motion that Buganda had seceded from Uganda, Mengo encouraged people in Buganda to ambush army lorries, to dig trenches in the middle of major roads in Buganda, and to attack police posts. The government had to act. I want to ask my fellow Baganda one question: If today the Lukiiko passed a resolution that Buganda is breaking away from the rest of Uganda, and then the Kabaka's palace began to openly encourage people to rebel and the people responded by attacking army lorries, police posts and digging trenches in roads, creating an atmosphere of rebellion, what would President Museveni do? Would he sit in Nakasero and simply watch such events without taking action? When the authority of the state is challenged by armed insurrection, the government has to act. Baganda have been mistaken to think that my husband hated them as a people. That is not true. Milton had political differences with some people in Mengo, not everyone in Mengo, but some people. Secondly, as a leader of government, he could not sit and let Buganda secede.

My Husband Inspired a Sense o f Oneness 17

Any leader in his position would have acted as he did, or in an even worse form. So, it is not true that Obote hated Baganda. All 1can say is that he had political differences with some forces at Mengo. For the last 20 years we have had rebellion in northern Uganda. The Government of the day has responded to it with an "iron fist". In 1969, there was an assassination attempt on my husband. I was shocked by this. After approximately 34 years, The Monitor interviewed one of the convicted would-be assassins. In the interview, the man, a fellow Muganda, revealed that he was filled with much hatred and venom when he saw my husband receive the instruments of independence. He further revealed that he felt like rushing to the stage to destroy instruments. Seven years later the same man attempted to kill my husband. Fellow countrymen and women, why would a person hate an elected leader for merely performing his duties? Is it because of who he is, or where he comes from? In 1971, my husband was overthrown in a military coup. The coup devastated all that my husband had achieved since independence. Those who initially were happy with the coup soon realised that their happiness was short-lived. Likewise foreign interests involved in the coup were soon to be disappointed. I now turn to a most important matter. This is the issue of reconciliation and the way forward for our country. Reconciliation has always been the centrepiece of my husband's politics. On the eve of independence my husband worked hard to reconcile the interests of the kingdom areas and those of the non-kingdom areas. This enabled us to attain independece as one country and one nation. Reconciliation was once again a conerstone of the UPC mandate of 1980. More recently, my husband has personally and through his party, the UPC, made it clear that the only solution to the political problems in our country is a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This, he believed, would be the only way in which the truth about some of our distorted history would be told. True healing will commence and a decent future for us and our children would be realised. Only days before he left us, he was taking about this.

18 Apollo Milton Obote

I am therefore pleased that President Museveni has now begun to respond to suggestions made to him about reconciliation and unity. The death of my husband in exile is a national scandal. My husband was at the helm of our struggle for independence. He received the instruments of independence. As the first leader of independent Uganda, he laid the foundation of the nation and its sustained development and progress. He inspired a sense of oneness and national pride. In other countries such a person would be treated with much honour, respect and appreciation. Instead my husband has had to die away from home. Many Ugandans have done soul-searching and now view exile as a scourge on our nation. This should not be taken lightly. There is a widespread expression of desire for national reconciliation and unity. None has expressed it better than President Museveni and Members of Parliament. This is welcome. However, for genuine and meaningful reconciliation to occur, certain conditions must be obtained. These include a climate of trust. It is incumbent on the government to create such a climate. It is also necessary to adopt political methods of work in place of the military. During his speech in Parliament yesterday (Thursday 20 October) President Museveni enumerated the many military battalions the NRA/ NRM created since it entered Kampala. For reconciliation purposes, it would be better for the government to replace military battalions with political ones. I mean for meaningful reconciliation, we need to adopt political methods of work. President Museveni informed us that two methods of reconciliation have been mentioned to him. A National Reconciliation Conference and a Truth and Reconciliation Commission should be established. I would like to add my voice to these. Before I conclude, I would like to express my deep gratitude and thanks to the government and people of Zambia. They provided us a safe haven for the last 20 years. They were indeed their brother's keeper. I would also like to extend the same thanks and gratitude to the government and people of the Republic of Tanzania. They too provided my husband and I with a safe haven from 1971 to 1980. In

My Husband Inspired a Sense o f Oneness 19

the case of Tanzania, they also helped create conducive conditions for our return to Uganda. I further extend my gratitude and thanks to the government and people of Kenya for providing a similar safe haven for my family. Also, to the government and people of South Africa for providing medical facilitations in an effort to save my husband's life. Goth South Africa and Zambia honoured my husband with accolades. They described him as a founder member of OAU who contributed much to the liberation of Southern Africa. Indeed, he was a true PanAfricanist. Finally, I would like to thank the government for bringing the body of my husband home. My family and I were deeply moved that the people of Uganda, through their representatives in Parliament, honoured my husband at a special session of Parliament. We thank you very much. To the people of Uganda and the mourners who have turned up in great numbers to pay respects to my husband, my family is very grateful. May God bless you all. Miria Obote

4 I Pray for a Fraction of Obote's Memory "He was humane and a nationalist with incredible brainpower." Dick Nyai was for a long time a UPC Member of Parliament who crossed over to the Movement in 2005. He wrote this article in The New Vision, Wednesday 12 October 2005. 1 first met Obote at close quarters when I was General Secretary of Makerere University Guild for the 1964/65 academic year. He had come to officiate at the graduation ceremony in the company of presidents Jomo Kenyatta and Julius Nyerere, because then Makerere was a college of the University of East Africa. What struck me is that as we were greeting Obote, he greeted some young lady and said, 'Aren't you the daughter of so and so?’ She said 'yes' and looked very surprised. Then she asked, 'Where did you see me?' Obote said, 'I saw you with your father and mother’ and mentioned the place and day 13 years earlier and described how they looked then. That episode remained in my life until today. It showed Obote's strong memory. He had a fantastic memory. I wish I had a quarter of it. I used to go to Obote's house in Dar-es-Salaam on a daily basis during the liberation war to find out what was happening in Uganda. He loved information and usually said knowledge was strength. And he was very humane to us. As chief editor of The People, I came to know Obote very closely and found that he could work flat out at times for five days without sleep. He liked detail and he loved argument. Obote had a larger-than-life personality. In fact, most people in his presence would be mesmerised. He had an incredible aura. Sometimes he would float ideas to see what his ministers would think. I would write a spotlight on something, a centre spread, and then take it to Obote to critique before 20

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publication. Then one time, a secretary was called in to take a dictation. Obote dictated for 15 minutes and told the secretary to go type it out and return it to him. We waited 30 minutes and nothing came. Obote chuckled and said the girl was possibly so mesmerised that she didn't write anything and it was true. Eventually we called her back and the girl said that she did not take the dictation. He just let her do it again and did not admonish her. The Obote I will always remember is the person who read widely and was very informed on most issues. Some people say Obote was a fool because he was not a graduate. Forget it. He had incredible brainpower. He had the power to listen to a report very patiently and then ask questions to test its validity. One word we could say he never trusted anything at face value. He checked it for loopholes and then he would argue. I used to watch parliamentary debates and I have never known a better debater. I hear people saying Obote hated Baganda. I know someone suggested a scorched-earth policy in Luweero, just like the Scorpion policy in the Biafran war in Nigeria, but Obote said, "If we kill all the people in Luweero Triangle, then whom do we rule?" He used to invite us for lunch when we were in Dar-es-Salaam. You could see love and understanding with his wife and we never heard him raise his voice to his children. In public life, he was dedicated to perfect accuracy. He was also extremely proud to the point of real arrogance in the capacity of the African person. In his speech at the Singapore Commonwealth Conference in 1971, he was so scathing against the British that the British Foreign Secretary was overheard saying that "some people are talking very hard, but they may not go back to their countries as leaders." Indeed, by the time Obote got to Nairobi, Idi Amin had taken over. Obote was a nationalist who thought about Uganda as a family and not in its disparate parts and he was a great orator. He could make a five-hour speech at a rally having written five words on a small piece of cardboard paper. He was a very clean person and liked smartness. He had a sense of humour, but he also had a temper. It was long to activate, but when it exploded, don't be around. But he was also quick to forgive.

22 Apollo Milton Obote

Obote really cared. When I was very sick early this year he sent people to my home to see me. I will miss him as a friend. To me he was a father, a friend. He never accepted the diminutive of my name. He never called me Dick. He said I am Richard. When other people referred to me as Dick in his presence he told them, "No, he is Richard." The writer was Chief Editor of The people newspaper.

5 Obote the Nationalist: His Vision Enabled Buganda to Remain Part of Uganda Patrick Rubaihayo The New Vision, Wednesday 12 October 2005 He was a former Minister in the Government o f Milton Obote. He was interviewed by A.G. Musamali. Apollo Milton Obote was an illustrious dedicated son of Uganda, a Pan-Africanist who loved his country. His first political activities were exhibited at Makerere University College from 1946 to 1947. He tried to join Khartoum University to study Law but was blocked by the colonial administration because of his political views. He then moved to Nairobi, where he secured employment with East African Railways and quickly become a leader of the workers' union. This enabled him to interact with the political activists of the day, including Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Tom Mboya and others. In the later part of the 1950s he returned to Uganda and was elected to the Lango District Council. As a district councillor, he ably articulated the concerns of the population and when a seat in the Legislative Council (LEGCO) fell vacant he was elected to represent Lango District. He distinguished himself as a nationalist, a Pan-Africanist and an orator. By that time he had joined the Uganda National Congress (UNC) led by I.K. Musaazi. He was a prominent member of the Wild Constitutional Committee set up to consult the population and make recommendations for the political evolution of the country leading to independence. It was during this period that African members of the LEGCO decided to 23

24 Apollo Milton Obote

get together and fight for independence. This meant that the political parties of the day would merge to form a solid united front. The main political parties were UNC, the Democratic Party (DP), and the Uganda People's Union (UPU). In March I960, the Uganda National Congress and UPU merged to form Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC). Obote was elected president of the party. Obote returned to the LEGCO with a formidable team of elected members and became leader of the opposition while Benedicto Kagimu Kiwanuka was leader of government and later Chief Minister when Uganda achieved internal self-government status. During this period Uganda was politically at a crossroads. On one hand, there were conservative traditionalists who insisted on maintaining the status quo while, on the other hand, the nationalists agitated for immediate independence. To reconcile the two conflicting views, a Relationship Commission headed by Lord Munster was set up. The Commission's recommendations led to the Lancaster House Constitutional Conference. It was at this conference, attended by all stakeholders, that Uganda's political future was moulded. Obote played a critical role at this conference, which enabled Buganda to join the rest of the country to move together as a united country towards independence. Among other things, this conference agreed on holding fresh elections prior to independence. The general elections were held in April 1962 and the UPC in alliance with Kabaka Yekka (KY) decisively won the elections. Obote as the leader of the UPC was invited to form the government. On 9 October 1962, Obote received the instruments of independence from the Duke of Kent amidst pomp and splendour befitting the occasion. Thereafter, Obote and his government settled down to transforming the society from colonial vestiges to a productive and free society. His government embarked on the development of social services, infrastructure, trade and commerce in pursuance of the party's manifesto to fight ignorance, disease and poverty. In this respect he built schools, hospitals, constructed roads and established parastatal bodies. Because of the vital role of agriculture in the livelihood and the economy

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of Uganda, his government expanded the cooperative movement. He established government institutions, including a competent and an effective public service. Obote's commitment to pan-Africanism led him to commit Uganda to the liberation movement of non-independent African countries, especially countries in Southern Africa. Indeed, it was mainly because of this commitment that his first government was overthrown in January 1971. One other decision arrived at during the constitutional conference, at Lancaster House, was the resolution of the Bunyoro "lost counties" issue through a referendum those counties to be held within two years after independence. This decision was incorporated in the 1962 independence constitution. Accordingly, in 1964 the referendum was carried out in the two counties of Buyaga and Bungagaizi. The majority of the people in the two counties opted to return to Bunyoro, It must be remembered that in 1963 Uganda decided to replace the British Governor General with an indigenous head of state as president. Parliament elected Sir Edward Mutesa, the Kabaka of Buganda, to be the head of state of Uganda. The dual role of Sir Edward Mutesa created a conflict of interest regarding the implementation of the constitutional requirement on the resolution of the Bunyoro "lost counties" issue. Therefore the inability of Sir Edward Mutesa to sign the Buyaga Bugangaizi Referendum Act of 1964 was not a surprise. However, the law had provided an alternative where the prime minister could sign the Act in such circumstances. Indeed the prime minister signed the Act, which quickly created a misunderstanding between him and the president. This was the genesis of the 1966 political crisis. The result of the misunderstanding led, among other things, to the collapse of the KY-UPC alliance, and the Lukiiko resolution to throw the central government out of Buganda, culminating in the Mengo battle in May 1966 and the exiling of the Kabaka. That was the political environment which the 1966 constitution came into being. The new constitution established the office of an executive president. In many ways, the 1966 constitution was an emergency measure to save the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Uganda.

26 Apollo Milton Oboli’

A year later steps were taken to regularise the interim measures which led to the adoption of the 1967 Republican Constitution. Having restored the constitutional order, Obote moved swiftly to put the instruments of production in the hands of indigeneous Ugandans. Details of these measures were contained in a set of documents commonly known as the Common Man's Charter. The aftermath of this action raised great concerns among the Western powers and their agents. This became another focal point against the party and Obote's leadership by the same powers, all of which contributed to the overthrow of the government in 1971 through a coup. The events of 1964, 1966 and 1969 created political enemies for Obote and the party, so much so that there was an attempt on his life in 1969. Obote returned from exile in Tanzania on 27 May 1980 and quickly embarked on the task of reviving the party in preparation for the general election later that year. Under his leadership, UPC swept the polls in December , and Obote formed his government on 6 January 1981. A month later Yoweri Museveni went to the bush to fight the newly elected government ostensibly to protest against rigged elections, contrary to the observations of the Commonwealth observers and in complete disregard of the due process of law. The Obote II government inherited dilapidated social services, infrastructure and econmoy. The government quickly drew up rehabilitation programmes and, by 1983, the economy had largely recovered. The economic growth at that time was rated at 6.3 per cent per year. Obote will be remembered for his commitment to nationalism, regional cooperation and pan-Africanism.

6 Death of a Great Statesman Bob Astles Daily Monitor, Thursday 13 October 2005 The author was an adviser to both Presidents Milton Obote and Idi Amin It is a sad day for Africa when one of its black pioneer sons departs this planet without any salute to his greatness.This seems likely to happen in the case of Milton Obote of Uganda, its first prime minister, after battling his way to lead the country of forty tribes to independence and who later twice became the president of this great nation which today is seldom out of the news. I served Milton Obote through thick and thin and was to witness the struggles he had to keep some stability in the country at the time when both the Eastern and Western blocs were forcing doctrines upon his people that verged on anarchy. I have even stood by his side when the only other person in that room was his private secretary, Henry Kyemba, and all seemed at a loss as tribal alliances with support from North America were debating the final plans to get him out of office.

Saved from assassins Then there was the occasion in the far north of the country when one of his dissident countrymen, Lobidra, sent for me just after midnight whilst I was in the Obote camp covering a 'Meet the People' tour. I found him hidden away amongst a group of his faction. He had had "a change of heart" and he told me that Obote was to be assassinated later that day on the road from Vura (in Arua district) to Warr by a group led by western Ugandans, a part of the country never to be trusted. (Editor's note: Obote that night slept in a tent in the compound of the home of

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28 Apollo Milton Obote

the then Lopirigo (paramount chief) of the Madi, Angelo Izama, when the assassination plot was to be carried out.) The warning was too late. When I returned to the District Commissioner's house in Arua, I found that Obote and his ministers had already left for the Congo border and only that stalwart Henry Kyemba was to be found. Henry made an immediate decision; we should drive through the ambush area from the rear, confirm that our information was right and halt Obote before he drove into the machine guns. The ambush was there alright, and much larger in military numbers than we had expected. We managed to stop Obote when he was only a mile away from the killing fields.

Calm in the face of death As usual I was to find him unafraid, yet his life was at risk continually from such tribal rivalry, and one such incident that was recorded happened outside the Lugogo sports centre when a pistol was placed against his head and the bullet smashed into his jaw. I saw it happen. Yet with all that pain and blood, Obote stood there defiantly showing he was the leader of the nation. And he was a great leader in his first presidency of the diverse forty peoples of Uganda. Obote had little time for me and during his second presidency I remained detained for years in his maximum security political prison at Luzira outside Kampala. Being a citizen of the country, I had to take what came as did hundreds more. That is Africa and nothing has changed. Even so, I never lost entirely my faith in him. I know enough about politics in Africa not to blame the leader himself for everything that goes wrong. It is those around the leader who do all the mischief and killing and these tribal barons are extremely clever at covering up their own involvement. I saw it all. Even today I note that President Museveni of Uganda is accusing the late Obote of being responsible for the deaths of over 300,000 people. Amazing! Museveni was equally to blame and I do not just believe this: I know it is true. Read his own book Sowing the Mustard Seed in which he

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writes about his own direct involvement in leading a guerrilla war of Westerners against the Northerners "to bring democracy to this Pearl of Africa". This war brought great misery and hardship to the rural communities and he is nowdetermined to remain in power for life.

Obote's greatness Milton Obote was one of the greatest leaders at the time Africa was flexing its muscles in the wars for freedom. He had integrity and great intellect and courage. I have often wondered why he carried on so loyally when twice he had to escape from military coups. He described one such episode during the 1985 coup and said that he was first stopped at Mukono, 15 miles from Kampala, and later on the Nile dam road that crosses from Buganda into Busoga. At Mukono his personal and loyal doctor, Henry Opiote, told the soldiers that he was on his way to find the president's wife [Miria] and bring her back to the city. Obote, who was in the following car, was not recognised and he had an even luckier break at the dam when the soldiers again concentrated on the doctor and Obote's own car was let pass without a search. (Incidentally, I believe he can thank Chris Rwakasisi (then state minister for Security) for saving his life by remaining in the president's office to make it appear that he had not escaped from the city. Chris told me this when we shared political imprisonment and where I found him to be a man of dignity with all the odds stacked against him. He remains in prison to this day and bravely continues to believe that sanity will return to his country. Obote eventually spent 20 years in exile in Zambia, a country that treated him more generously than it has some others, and until last month he still was fighting for real democracy in Uganda. Today, in that dark, high-walled, overcrowded prison, Chris Rwakasisi will be the one who will walk around saddened by Obote's death. But these are Africans and most have a core of steel. I salute them all.

7 He was Adored by Many as the Father of the Nation with Solid Achievements; Obote Mastered Political Rivalries Charles Etukuri The New Vision, 13 October 2005 The 1962 Drum magazine described him as "a pipe-smoking level­ headed man with a track record of solid achievements”. Obote was described as the spokesman of Africa and well remembered for his oratorical genius. He is adored by many as being the founding father of the nation for his role in Uganda's independence whilst at the same time he is demonised for massive deaths under his rule. His death came as a shock to members of his own party and, as Joseph Ochieno, the London Bureau Chief, puts it, "He was scheduled to make a comeback later this year to hand over the party leadership after the delegates conference and retire peacefully to his home area. We wanted to fly him directly from South Africa to Uganda later this month." Obote did not finish his studies at Makerere. He is reported to have been expelled during a second year of a Bachelor of Arts course. He got a job with the British engineering and construction company Mowlem, and was transferred to Mowlem's branch in Kenya where he met Tom Mboya who had been his tutor in Makerere. Together they formed the Nairobi People's Convention Party (NPCP). Obote came back and started getting involved in Ugandan politics. He joined the Uganda National Congress before breaking a way later to form the UPC. 30

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At every stage, Obote seemed to have outsmarted the various political forces array against him. Obote succeeded largely by persuasion. He exploited their political rivalries and religious differences. Obote's skilfulness was to be exhibited during the London Conference when the Baganda formed a political organisation called Kabaka Yekka (KY). Obote used his fellow northerner, Daudi Ochieng, to negotiate with the Mengo traditionalists. Ochieng, a former schoolmate of Kabaka Mutesa II, and who had now become a Kabaka Yekka MP, called the negotiations "bridging the gap". He used his alliance with Kabaka Yekka to defeat the Democratic Party led by Benedicto Kiwanuka and thus became the executive prime minister whilst Mutesa was appointed ceremonial President. Having secured his hold on power, Obote's suspicion of the Baganda never ceased. In fact it was heightened by the conflicting roles and status accorded to the Kabaka in a post-independence Uganda. The tension started building up between both within the UPC, and between the central government and Buganda, until the final showdown came in 1966. In February, while Obote was touring the northern region, senior government figures, most notably Grace Ibingira, set out to stage a "palace revolution". The plotters rekindled a 1965 allegation that Prime Minister Obote, Defence Minister Felix Onama, and Deputy Army Commander Colonel Idi Amin were involved in smuggling from Congo (now DRQ. They had the National Assembly pass a resolution bitterly attacking Obote's leadership. Only one government MP, John Kakonge, voted against the motion. At the same time, troop movements and other counter­ movements began in Kampala. The chief of staff, Brigadier Opolot, had been requested to intervene on the side of the plotters should the parliamentary option misfire. The Kabaka, one of the leaders of the anti-Obote forces, had reportedly requested military assistance from Britain. The 1971 coup by Idi Amin found Obote in Singapore. He came back and lived in Tanzania where he started a long and protracted liberation struggle against Amin. With the help of his Tanzanian counterpart, Mwalimu

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Julius Nyerere, Obote organised an invasion to oust Amin from power in 1972 without success. With the ouster of Amin and the fall of Yusuf Lule and Godfrey Binaisa, Obote came back, contested the 1980 elections and won, defeating the DP led by Paul Ssemwogerere and The Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM) led by Yoweri Museveni. He was installed as president for the second time on 15 December 1980. The elections which were alleged to have been rigged, became a subject of dispute and heralded the start of a protracted war by several guerilla groups, including the NRA/NRM led by Museveni, in the bush. The guerilla war brought Museveni to power in 1986.

8 Obote, Master of the Soundbite Joseph Beyanga Sunday Monitor, 16 October 2005 Milton Obote was always a hit on radio: very articulate, combative and eloquent. It was always a joy listening to him pull off a defence for the actions of his governments. Every sentence of his always purposed to win over a new voter, or at least a sympathiser. I first "met" Obote in 1997 on BBC Focus on Africa. The man had not given any radio interview to anybody for some time. The last person he had spoken to was Robin White of the BBC at State House Entebbe at the peak of the NRA guerrilla war in 1984. Thirteen years down the road, it was Robin White again. In his trademark style, the combative White had squeezed passionate opinions out of Obote about the then political trends in Uganda after the 19% presidential elections and Kony's LRA rebellion. Below are excerpts of the BBC interview with White: Obote: Goodbye and don't call me again. Robin White: Why? Obote: Because you are a colonialist and you support African dictatorship. Robin White: Me? Obote: Yes, you Robin White and the BBC... Goodbye and don't call me again. To me, who was listening to Obote for the first time, he won me over; not with his stinging attacks on Museveni's NRA and allegations of labelling Museveni a killer, but just with his sign-off with White. From then, I kept waiting for a moment when I would hear Obote speak again. And yes, the next time I heard Obote speak on radio was on Andrew Mwenda Live talk show on 93.3 KFM on 15 May 2001. The 33

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unmistakeable, sharp and very provocative voice was back on radio. This time, I wasn't a mere listener, but the producer on the controls. That day, the old man unleashed countless guided missiles on the person of Museveni (some of them too wild to be believed). But all through, Obote was a master of diction and intonation. He knew which words would paint Museveni in devil colours and he in the angel's colours. Check this one out: Mwenda: How do you rate Museveni the soldier and Museveni the president? Obote: You are asking me to talk about Satan. I am a Christian and any other Christian you ask to say anything positive about Satan will not find anything positive to say. Mwenda: Dr Obote, you stayed with Museveni in Tanzania, did you ever to get to deal with him and what impression do you have of him? Obote: 1 knew him as a consummate liar, an intriguer, a social climber... But the man was not always acerbic, at least when not talking about Museveni. On 9 October 2003, Obote was linked to Godfrey Binaisa, the man who was his Attorney General in the 1960s and went on to become president from 1979-1980, on Andrew Mwenda Live, and Obote exhibited a change from the usual. It was very warm, as the excerpts below reveal: Binaisa: Eeeh, hello, Comrade Obote. Obote: Oh, Godfrey! Binaisa: That's me. Obote: Attorney General, QC... Binaisa: Yes. Obote: You are still alive... Binaisa: I am still alive, I am still kicking. Obote: I am very happy to hear your voice. I am very, very happy to hear your voice. Binaisa: So am I.

Obote, Master o f tlte Soundbite

35

Obote believed in democracy and he always thought our Parliament was full of nationalists. On that 9 October show, he appealed to nationalists to stop the Kisanja Bill: Mwenda: Any last message you would like to give to Binaisa your old friend? Obote: 1 want Godfrey, with his experience... to advise the nationalists in parliament to block the third term. We cannot have... a life president. It's dangerous. Mwenda: And you Godfrey? Binaisa: Dr Obote, 1think he is still capable of making contributions to the advancement of Uganda. He should continue. On all the three occasions that he appeared on 93.3. KFM, Obote was consistent on the conditions for his return to Uganda and his desired final resting place. Mwenda: What plans do you have for the future of Uganda and for your own future? Obote: When the dictatorship falls, I'll come back home; I want my bones to be buried at Akokoro, my home area. Now the future of Uganda is going to be determined when the dictatorship falls...

9 He Had a Knack to Enrage, Baffle Political Opponents Wilson Okwenje Wilson Okwenje served as Minister o f Public Service and Cabinet Affairs in tlte Obote II government. In the last piece in The Monitor 'Serving obote' series written before the president's death, Okwenje talks about the highs and lows o f the governmentfor which he worked.(Sunday Monitor, 16 October 2005) I am 66 years old. I was bom and raised in Samia-Bugwe (now Busia District). I went to Lumino Primary School, Masaba Secondary School in Budadiri, and Nabumali High School in Mbale. I entered Makerere University College in 1959 and for two years studied for the preliminary or intermediate (My class being the last group to do so following the introduction of Higher School Certificate in Ugandan schools). I was then admitted for the BA honours course in Geography with Economics as a minor. I graduated in 1964. I joined the civil service as an administrative officer in 1964. After a period of training in administrative law at the then Entebbe Law School, I was posted to the Prime Minister's Office at Entebbe to work as an assistant secretary. I got to see some of the movers and shakers both in politics like Prime Minister Milton Obote, and Minister of State Grace Ibingira), and in the civil service Frank Kalimuzo and Z. Bigirwenkya, both powerful permanent secretaries. In 1965,1 transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I simply moved across the corridors because both my new ministry and the Prime Minister's Office were located in the same building, and Obote happened to be the substantive Minister of Foreign Affairs. After a 36

He luid a Knack to Enrage, Baffle Political Opponents 37

while I proceeded to undertake postgraduate courses in international relations, diplomatic law and practice and international economics at the University of Dar-es-Salaam and later at the UN Institute for Training and Research in Geneva, Switzerland. I was then posted as third secretary to the Uganda High Commission in London, and later as second secretary to the Uganda embassy in Washington, DC. In between I had a stint at the UN headquarters in New York where for several weeks I attended the UN General Assembly and served as a representative for Uganda on the Second Committee of the Economic and Social Council. I returned to Uganda from Washington in 1970, pending a new posting to the Uganda High Commission in Accra, Ghana. However, just before I was due to leave I was informed that I had been tapped by the Office of the President to be acting head of the Research Secretariat.

Mixed feelings I had mixed feelings about this sudden turn of events because I enjoyed my services and experiences as a foreign service officer. On the other hand, the lure to the seat of power was irresistible. In the 1960s Obote set up the Research and Planning Secretariat in the President's Office as a sort of in-house think tank that would undertake the study and research of key social, political and economic issues of the day, prepare policy proposals and advise him directly as well as other policy-makers on various programme alternatives and strategies. Up and coming intellectuals, such as Picho Ali, Ateker Ejalu, Edward Rugumayo, had worked there before my time. It was in my capacity as head of research in the President's Office that I met Yoweri Museveni for the first time in 1970. He had come to us after graduating from the University of Dar-es-Salaam. We worked together up till the military coup of 25 January 1971. At that time, as an assistant secretary, his was just another face in the crowd, as a matter of speech, although I came to know that he harboured political ambitions and I suspected that he was using his work at the President's Office merely as a stepping stone.

38 Apollo Milton Obote

I returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after the Idi Amin coup. He had no need or appreciation for the kind of work that we had been doing. However, my career as the new acting deputy chief of protocol in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was short-lived because our new Foreign Minister, Wanume Kibedi, had a pathological fear and suspicion of people in the ministry who had foreign service experience, like myself. In May 1972 he used his influence with his brother-in-law, Idi Amin, to get me fired from both the foreign service and the public service. Soon after the Mutukula incursions from Tanzania in September 1972, some friendly people in the intelligence community warned me that I was one of the persons targeted for elimination on suspicion of collaboration with the so-called guerrillas. I fled into exile. During the years 1974 to 1979 I worked with the International Planned Parenthood Federation in Nairobi.

1980 elections In 1980,1contested the general elections as the UPC candidate for Tororo South Constituency (now comprising Samia Bugwe North and South). I won the election with a comfortable majority. Before I was appointed a minister in December 1980,1was summoned to meet President Obote at State House, Entebbe. On arrival, I found lots of people, many just milling around in the corridors and clearly anticipating favours of one sort or another. When I was ushered into his office, I found Obote had sent out everyone except Chris Rwakasisi. We chatted a little. Then he cut to the chase. He said he was considering appointing me Minister of Public Service and Cabinet Affairs. Would I accept? I thanked him and said I would.The public service that we inherited in 1980 had been more or less destroyed by the Idi Amin regime. Civil servants were demoralised, untrained and unmotivated. Appointments to jobs were done without regard to qualification or experience, and the pay was miniscule, so civil servants engaged in corrupt practices to make ends meet. Experienced people had fled the country and were in no hurry to return. With the support of the president, I decided to take a multi-faceted approach. First, I sought to restore respect for the Public Service Act and for

He Itad a Knack to Enrage, Baffle Political Opponents 39

the institutions under that Act. We re-established the Public Service Commission (PSC) and gave a departmental directive demanding that henceforth all appointments, promotions, and disciplinary actions in the public service would be in accordance with the law as well as the established procedures and the delegated authority of the PSC. In order to give the PSC the respect and dignity it deserved, we appointed highly respected and experienced individuals to run it. They included John Bikangaga as chairman, with James Aryada and Valeriano Ovonji as deputy chairmen. They were assisted by J.B. Walusimbi, a very able civil servant whom I knew and respected as Secretary to the Commission. The second institution to receive attention was the Institute of Public Administration, now the Uganda Management Institute. This was the training arm of the government but had been neglected, understaffed and starved of funds. We took a decision to quickly give it leadership by appointing an able director, recruit more lecturers and provide a reasonable budget for its rehabilitation. The third measure we took in order to restore order was to completely revise the Standing Orders. These were the age-old rules by which the civil service was governed. Many aspects were outdated. We appointed Permanent Secretary Sam Serwanja to undertake the review. He performed exquisitely. Steps were taken to attract and fill top permanent secretary positions with highly qualified and experienced Ugandans. Accordingly, we appointed talented individuals, such as Henry Barlow, Peter Ucanda, Ignatius Barungi, Owaraga, and John Okoboi. Training was our next focus. We recognised that unless civil servants were given opportunity to acquire new and innovative development skills they would not meet the challenges ahead and as a government, we would not succeed in our policies. For example, the perennial question of the government's absorptive capacity was raised on several occasions, including by the Paris Club and the European Union. We had to address it promptly. Training activities, seminars and workshops were carried out within the country as well as overseas.

40 Apollo Milton Obote

The stage was then set for the review of civil service salaries and terms of service. By the time we left office, performance in the civil service had improved. Part of my portfolio involved cabinet affairs. Essentially it was to follow up on cabinet decisions to ascertain implementation, co-ordinate the terms and conditions of service for all ministers, and to provide advice on ministerial etiquette, including the relationship amongst the ministers and how they as politicians related to other public officials. Obote respected the traditional separation of powers between the executive, the judiciary and the legislature. He did not interfere with judicial decisions or intimidate the branch. As for parliament he viewed it as one of the most important institutions of democratic governance. He was an effective parliamentary debater, a skill that he honed right from his LEGCO days. In the 1980s the Democratic Party provided a truly effective parliamentary opposition in a multiparty system. The opposition front bench had some sharp politicians who kept us on our toes and always demanded accountability, especially on policy, and on budgetary and fiscal issues. We enjoyed locking horns with such tough cookies as Kafumbe Mukasa and Yoweri Kyesimira, Ssebaana Kizito, Abu Mayanja and Sam Kuteesa. Within the executive branch, Obote respected the policy-making powers of cabinet. He attended and chaired cabinet meetings every Thursday, unless he was out of the country or otherwise indisposed. He demanded respect for cabinet decisions and emphasised the concept of collective responsibility. Cabinet meetings were always challenging in the sense that discussions were deliberate, unrestrained and sometimes combative. Ministers were expected to do their homework and to defend their policies and programmes. The president was subject to the same rules when it came to his own portfolio of Finance, especially before budget presentation or a submission to the World Bank or any other international financial institution. He argued and defended the measures he proposed. In the president's absence Vice President Paulo Muwanga chaired the meetings. He was often itchy. He seemed not to enjoy intellectual

He had a Knack to Enrage, Baffle Political Opponents 41

debates. Meetings would last only a fraction of the usual time. For some ministers, the end of cabinet meetings on Thursdays was always a relief. It marked the end of the working week to them because thereafter they often left for their constituencies. As Minister of Finance, Obote often controlled public expenditure tightly, scrutinised departmental budgets, personally approved travel requests for ministers and public officials, and demanded reports and accountability. He believed in the budgetary proposals and never went on a spending spree out of the budget. You never heard anybody announce, "the President has given a million shillings to so and so or such and such project". It was not his money to give out. It was the taxpayers' money, and Obote understood that. The president's management of the economy was imaginative. First, he retained for himself the Finance portfolio because I believe he wanted to be personally accountable for the economic recovery programme. Second, he chose Ephraim Kamuntu ( the euphemistic ambassador) to run day-to-day affairs of the finance department. I suspect it was because Kamuntu was said to be be an expert in political economy. Most importantly, Kamuntu, whose status was ministerial, was charged with co-ordination of inputs from a team of technocrats in charge of economic departments and institutions such as the Treasury and the Bank of Uganda. Following a few years of hard work as well as economic and financial discpline, the country began to enjoy increased access to goods and services and to come to grips with and reduce inflation. Investments and technical assistance began to flow from the World Bank and other bilateral and multilateral sources. The economy was beginning to turn around; it registered a handsome annual growth rate in 1983/84, and it was solidly on the wing. The international community was beginning to appreciate our interests and to give credit. However, Tito Okello and Basilio Okello brought all this to a rude and premature end. Homeland security, as exemplified by the Luweero crisis, constituted a very sad chapter in our nation's history. It left a permanent scar on the body politic of the nation. It is an example of the dictum "where politics stops, war begins". The genesis of this regrettable chapter is

42 Apollo Milton Obote

well documented. Museveni and his cohorts failed to access political power through legitimate democratic processes. Therefore, to achieve his ambitions he resorted to the gun.

In Luweero In Luweero and Nakaseke, we knew and understood that the insurgency had to be contained militarily. Every government has the right, indeed the responsibility, to protect its citizens. The problem, in our case, was that details of the execution were either lacking or scanty, especially as regards performance of the armed forces. While our administration has been labelled 'killers' the NRA/M have gone largely scot free. The management of information by government agencies was weak and inept. We did a poor job of counteracting information. Public information on the war was inadequate and we did not do a good enough job to publicise the administration's policies and viewpoints. I believe that Ugandans as a whole would have been appalled and outraged if they had the real facts about the activities of Museveni's guerrillas. As it happened, the NRA discovered the power of the media and used it to the maximum to disseminate tainted information. I believe that the overall policy on security could have been managed differently by our government. Unlike other policy areas where there was debate and collective responsibility in cabinet on the economy, health, education, social services, public services, energy, and transportation, internal security somehow became the preserve of a small group of cabinet members, namely Minister of Defence Paulo Muwanga, Minister of Internal Affairs Luwuliza Kirunda, Minister of State for Defence Peter Otai and Minister of State for Internal Security Chris Rwakasisi. The majority of the ministers were not engaged. Repeated questions on security were glossed over. I do not know if the president himself was well briefed. But I can say that this was the first time in his political career, to my knowledge, that Obote uncharacteristically put his political fortunes entirely in the hands of others. My assessment of the situation is that the government army (UNLA) was severely weakened following the death of the Chief of Staff, Maj. Gen. David Oyite Ojok, and the long period it took to appoint his

He had a Knack to Enrage, Baffle Political Opponents 43

replacement plus the inter-ethnic squabbles that followed. The chain of command was weakened, hence the army proved too weak and divided to cope with a determined insurgency. I believe that the death of Ojok, a brilliant military commander, as well as a trusted and long­ time friend of the president, had a shattering effect on Obote. It took away someone that was irreplaceable to him. Ojok had been the glue that held together the different pieces. On his death the nation embarked on a slippery slope.

On the man Let me make a few personal observations about Obote the leader and the person, as I knew him. It was a joy and a challenge to serve under him both as a civil servant and later as a government minister. He was demanding but inspiring as well. He was a devout believer in the unity of Uganda. He believed in widening opportunities for all Ugandans regardless of their origins and in investing in all our communities. He loved the youth of Uganda and made tireless efforts to develop them, including some of those who pour scorn on him today. He was supremely confident of his own abilities. He could be tough and decisive. He appeared to be guided by certain core beliefs, perhaps borne out of his own humble upbringing: to treat everyone equally, to respect others, to listen, to tell the truth and to take responsibility. Obote could occasionally forget names but he never forgot faces and incidents. He had the uncanny ability to internalise events. He dealt harshly with those who dared cross him. Obote was charismatic. He charmed the majority of Ugandans with his eloquence and nationalistic vision and his supporters around the country greeted him with unusual fervour. I saw it in my own constituency and everywhere he went. But he also baffled and enraged his political opponents, especially conservatives in monarchical areas. His bitter attacks on monarchies in the 1960s alienated many people, especially in Buganda. Later, in public speeches, when addressing issues such as the abolition of kingdoms, he would alternate between contrition and defiance. That he was able to negotiate the UPC/KY

44 Apollo Milton Obote

alliance in the 1960s under those circumstances speaks of his immense political skills. During our administration in the 1980s, Obote did not dispense patronage. He was not parochial in his appointments. The composition of our cabinet and of the top people in the civil service and public corporations testifies to that fact. He was not motivated or driven by cronyism. He devised and implemented policies that benefited all Ugandans in all regions. Above all, he was not corrupt. As for as 1know, he has no fortune stashed away in foreign banks. I would know because for three years after the overthrow of our government I lived in Lusaka, Zambia, and witnessed the suffering of the man and his family.

A memorable day Saturday 27 July 1985 is memorable. Early that morning I was driving from Kampala towards Jinja on my way to a prearranged meeting in my district of Tororo. Just after Nkokonjeru and before the Nile Breweries factory near the Owen Falls Dam bridge, I encountered a rowdy, hostile and uncontrollable company of soldiers, evidently loyal to the Okello and Okello coup-makers. They accosted me and proceeded to arrest me together with my driver, bodyguard and two aides. I was robbed of all my money, car and possessions, humiliated and threatened with guns pointed at me, while they shouted menacingly: "This is one of them, Obote's ministers running away." I was roughed up for a while until Col. (now Maj. Gen.) Fred Oketcho rescued me. We had known each other from our Nabumali High School days where we were fellow students and used to call one another 'OB'. Yet to my shock and dismay, I was bundled into a military Land Rover and driven at high speed to the notorious Gadaffi Barracks to await my fate. I was detained there for weeks alongside hundreds of other innocent citizens, in crowded, squalid and unsanitary conditions. The stench was difficult to bear. I was periodically mocked and humiliated as "former minister, now nothing". I never saw my friend Oketcho again. Not knowing what was happening on the outside and hearing each night the noisy and drunken shouts of the military guards, I often

He liad a Knack to Enrage, Baffle Political Opponents 45

thought of each day as my last. However, much later, in an inexplicable way, a certain army major came banging on my cell door and asked if I was "Okwenze". He then ordered me to accompany him to Kampala, apparently on the instructions of the newly promoted Lt. Gen. Basilio Okello. I had a sense of foreboding. However, leaving the nasty barracks and its primitive conditions, I felt relieved. I breathed some fresh air and once again saw our beautiful blue skies. What happened thereafter is a story for another day. Suffice it to say that I was led to Basilio Okello in the Nile Mansions and later to Paulo Muwanga who had by then morphed into a prime minister. He showed absolutely no pity or remorse. In my unkempt state I was like a ghost but it did not matter. Freedom was far more important. Pityingly freedom was denied to my friend and colleague Chris Rwakasisi who I left behind in the barracks and is today being held in Luzira. The anger has dissipated. A lot of water has passed under the bridge. I now live in Canada. I have read somewhere that Pierre Trudeau, former prime minister of Canada, had a motto hanging prominently in his office. It read, "Reason over Passion" I believe such a motto would have suited Obote just fíne. Trudeau talked about a just society. Obote believed in an egalitarian society. Trudeau was an enigma. So was Obote.

What Obote's ministers said For three months, The Monitor ran the series "Serving Obote", to mark the 20th anniversary of the second military ouster of former president Milton Obote, who died on October 10. In this section, there is a selection of what the former ministers said about their boss.

Yona Kanyomozi Cooperatives and Marketing Obote was a dedicated Ugandan and a nationalist. He looked at this as a nation and wanted to develop it as such. Secondly, the man was not corrupt. You cannot say there is a company that he gave his friends. Where he made a mistake, I think, was bad judgement of character.

46 Apollo Milton Obote

Edward Rurangaranga Prime Minister's Office Obote was never corrupt. He was humane. During his two reigns, he never signed any warrant to cause death to anybody. Nobody died by hanging. He was caring. One time, I visited him in exile and he did something that caused me to cry. He gave me a piece of cloth to take to my wife in Kenya. He told me: "I bought this material and have even washed it so that customs officials do not disturb you. Take it to your wife and say, 'This is what you can get from a friend in exile.'" I pictured Obote washing that cloth and preparing it for my wife. I felt touched. That was great.

Samwiri Mugwisa Agriculture and Forestry He was a good listener. He could listen to everyone; he kept quiet until one was done with what he had to say. He would not interrupt saying he had understood you, never. He worked very hard. As president, Obote liked his job and a number of his ministers liked him. I cannot accept the claims that he was a drunkard.

Ezra Nkwasibwe Health Obote believed in open discussions. Obote was not corrupt. We used to share fun and light moments with him. At one time, I was wearing a Kaunda suit which did not fit me well. Two days later, when we were having a light conversation, Obote said, "Ah, how can a whole minister of health be shabby?" Yes, he used to drink some wine, but I never saw this man drunk. I am a doctor, but I never looked at Obote's face and concluded that he was drunk.

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Patrick Rubaihayo Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Forestry He was jovial and an honest man. However, I doubt he was a poor president though he had a problem of taking decisions on the war because of fear for civilians. He was a hard-working man, a workaholic.

Henry B. Makmot Deputy Finance I have never seen a fine man with such intelligence. You just needed to brief him for say an hour, by the time you returned, he would discuss the same subject as if he had known it all along. I should add though that besides his extraordinary intelligence, analytical mind and sharp memory, in crisis, he would fizzle out. 1 saw that on the night of 26 Julyl985, the eve of the coup. He was indecisive and restless. He was no longer the president or the Obote we knew.

Wilson Okwenje Public Service, Cabinet Affairs The nation has lost a great leader, a committed nationalist and a man of great wisdom and vision. Even his detractors recognise that he was a nationalist at heart. He was the most dominant political figure of his generation. We shall miss him dearly. As far as the Uganda Peoples Congress is concerned, the party has lost its visionary founder, but it must move on. It must now strive to solidly unite behind a fresh, committed, and enlightened leadership. That would be a tribute to Obote. He deserves a proper legacy. (Written after Obote's death)

Abner Nangwale Works Even under circumstances where you would expect the president to rebuke you, Obote would just talk to you like a father. I do not remember

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any moment where I, or any of my colleagues, was criticised in public. Unlike in some cabinets, where we are told ministers have to rubberstamp whatever the president tells them, it was not the case with Obote. He would instead listen to us.

Aliro Omara Commerce That man had a brain, the fellow was intelligent. I think that he was more educated than those with degrees. The fellow had these facts in his head in terms of political history, in terms of political philosophy. He was a lover of scrabble. After work, he would call a few of us who loved scrabble and we would go to his Impala Avenue home in Kololo and settle on scrabble. He was very good at it.

James Rwanyarare Community Development He was a very generous man. He had that capacity, which many people don't have, to get people to feel at home and be able to work for him. He wasn't that type of person who imposes ideas. He had a good sense of humour. He was a well-read man. He was a workaholic. He didn't want sycophants around him.

10 Obote Related Best with Civil Servants Jenkins Kiwanuka,Sunday Monitor, 16 October 2005 To partly paraphrase Mark Anthony, I write not to disapprove of what others have said about Obote nor to defend him for the atrocities he is alleged to have committed in Mengo and Luweero during his two terms in power. I only write what I know about a man some of us once admired, although in some of our people's hearts, the cause for mourning him disappeared long ago. "When the elephants fight," so goes the saying, "it is the grass that suffers." Similarly, when Milton Obote broke away from the Uganda National Congress (UNC) to eventually form the Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) 46 years ago, I was one of those who were affected by his decision. I was vice president of the UNC youth wing, but some of us were not aware of what was happening within the top leadership of the party. Upon hearing about the split, I went to the Uganda Club Nakasero where the African members of the Uganda Legislative Council (LEGCO) used to socialise to check on the situation. Obote was a member of the LEGCO then, having won 40,081 votes in his constituency, one of the largest votes in the country at the time. He was seated alone in a comer of the Club lounge. I went and told him that I had heard of the split and the proposed formation of a new party, and that I would be delighted to continue working with him. Possibly because I was most of the time in the company of Jolly Joe Kiwanuka, the UNC chairman, with whom he had just parted company, Obote showed no interest in what I was saying. He looked as cool as a cucumber, pretended to be listening, but he never uttered a word in return. Even when I finished talking, it was like he had not been around. 49

50 Apollo Milton Obote

This was the same Obote who would quietly watch the brawls that had almost become a regular feature at the UNC executive committee meetings and who, upon request, would happily take over the chair and guide the meeting to a successful conclusion. He consequently replaced Ignatius Musaazi as president of the party and it is no wonder that the British press often described him as Uganda's most "shrewd" politician. I was to see and hear much more of Obote after our UNC encounters. Before he got married, we would meet at bashes in Kampala and its suburbs, especially at the White Nile Club. And when he was Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, we (foreign service officers) were regular visitors at his lodge in Entebbe after work. My greatest experience with Obote though was when he led a 26-man delegation on a two-month visit to 10 West and East European countries in 1965, starting with Britain. I was the Press and administrative officer to the delegation and with Henry Kyemba, the prime minister's private secretary, I was in charge of the airline bookings and welfare of the delegation. Because the schedules of the visits to the various countries would change from time to time, the bookings were not easy to handle. I was also in charge of the contingency fund for the tour, and owing to the co­ operation I received from the prime minister and other members of the delegation, I returned to Kampala with a balance of about Shs 130,000 out of the Shs 160,000 ( a large amount of money then) that I had taken with me. Thrift apart, I was greatly impressed by the concern Obote showed for the security of each member of his entourage. Many tribes were represented on the delegation, including Prince Lincoln Ndawula, brother of Kabaka Mutesa II, who Obote used to refer to as Omwana wa Daudi (son of Daudi Chwa, father Mutesa). One morning, when we were setting off by road for another city from Zagreb in the former Yugoslavia, Obote, whose car was ahead in the convoy, discovered through a bodyguard that one of his ministers, Lameck Lubowa, was missing. Upon checking, the minister was found still soundly asleep. His colleagues helped him to dress up, while the prime minister was waiting in the convoy. On another occasion, as the plane was about to take off, Obote insisted that I was not on board. And I was not.

Obote Related Best with Cwil SeriKints 51

The airport tax collectors had delayed me and the crew had to recall the stairs for me to board. But Obote could also lose his composure. On our arrival at Heathrow Airport from Entebbe, a British customs official walked to him in the VIP lounge and demanded to check the luggage of the delegation. Obote, who was chatting with a British minister who had come to receive him, blew up. "Odaka," he called out the name of the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, "from now on, the luggage of British ministers arriving at Entebbe Airport, including that of Harold Wilson (the then British prime minister), should be checked by our customs department. This is an insult." Obviously embarrassed, the British minister pulled the customs official aside and reprimanded him. On our way from China, we found in Denmark some English papers that had carried a Reuters report on Obote's discussions with Chairman Mao. The report was partly incorrect. However, its author had mentioned that he got his story from Munyagwa Nsibirwa, a member of the Uganda delegation and Deputy Minister for Information. We were seated in a public lounge when Obote publicly queried Munyagwa about the report. The minister claimed that I referred the reporter to him. "Did Jenkins put these words in your mouth?" Obote asked angrily. "Being your subordinate, he did the right thing to refer the reporter to you, but he surely could not have dictated what you said to the reporter." An intimate friend of Obote, Munyagwa was so humiliated that he did not talk to me for the rest of the day. Solomon Asea, our High Commissioner to London at the time Kabaka Mutesa fled into exile in 1966, suffered the same fate when he claimed that the statement about the future of Buganda kingdom that had been attributed to him by a Uganda Argus correspondent based in London was actually made by me. I had organised the press conference that Asea addressed, but he obviously said the wrong things and, when he was summoned home by his boss to explain himself, he offered me for a scapegoat. Obote did not believe him. Obote's relations with the public service were the best ever in post-independence Uganda, especially during his first regime.

52 Apollo Milton Obote

Probably through personal experience and the fact that his cabinet was filled with young people, including himself, he discouraged his ministers and senior officials from making unsubstantiated accusations against their subordinates. He hated witchhunting and believed that the young should be given a chance to learn from their own mistakes. I thank Milton for creating the opportunities that enabled me to meet the great leaders of his time like Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia, Mao Tse Tung, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Toure, Jomo Kenyatta, Julius Nyerere and Queen Elizabeth. May God rest his soul in eternal peace.

11 Obote Belongs at Kololo Dani W. Nabudere, Daily Monitor, 17 October 2005 Professor Nabudere wrote this article at the height o f the controversy as to ivhether Obote should be accorded a state funeral. I congratulate the President and the cabinet for the decision they have taken regarding the funeral arrangements for the burial of the late Apollo Milton Obote who died recently in South Africa. 1 received the sad news of Obote's death while I was in Windhoek, Namibia, and feared that our government might still be infected by the kind of hateful feelings we heard when Obote had expressed a wish to return home not so many weeks ago. The Namibian press reported that public opinion in Uganda regarding Obote's death and his return to Uganda for burial were "mixed" and that the Uganda government was meeting to discuss what decision to take on the matter. I am glad that this decision has been made and, in my opinion, the reasons given by the cabinet for the decision are sound and balanced. Obote's death has had a healing effect on the minds of some Ugandans, including those who disagreed with him and even hated him. Here I do not include those Ugandans who were reported to have "danced" and "celebrated" Obote's death. I wonder where these kinds of hateful feelings come from in situations of death of a human being. African cultures as well as modem religions call upon us to respect the dead however much we may have disliked them. We are all enjoined under African cultures to give a decent burial to such a person and to pray so that his soul could rest in peace from the turbulence of the world. Such a call to respect the dead and bury them decently is not for the sake of the dead person but for the moral sake of the living and the unborn for whom the living are responsible. After all, the dead person 53

54 Apollo Milton Obote

is by then long gone and however much we may want to express our hateful feelings, such feelings and expressions would have fallen on deaf ears since such a person would no longer be with us. Such expression of hate would only hurt those who are alive, especially the family members and those who liked such a person when he/she was still alive. So the African cultural requirement that we respect the dead and bury them decently is partly to express our sympathies with the stillliving that have lost their dear one. It is also to express our continued humanness and respect for the norms and ethos we recognise as the basis of our human existence. In so doing we differentiate ourselves from beasts that devour one another.

Observe norms I was saddened that some Ugandans would have done such a thing and my appeal to them is that they reflect on what they did and ask their souls whether what they did was in conformity with their inner human norms and ethos. We become better human beings when we observe those norms and virtues, which in Buganda are referred to as obuntu bulamu. If we cannot respect the spirits of the dead, we can never have a peaceful existence since our own beingness will always be infected with the evil of hate that undermines the spirit of reconciliation that is a prerequisite to our human existence. We are enjoined to love our enemies in the same way we love ourselves. That is why I congratulate our president and his colleagues, the ministers, for not having fallen victim to these base sentiments of hatred, which we had heard in the past about Obote being arrested on his return. We also heard these same sentiments when former President Idi Amin died in Saudi Arabia and the government refused to allow him the same treatment they have now given to Obote, citing the crimes Amin had committed against the people of Uganda. The majority of Ugandans would have gone along with the decision to give Amin a decent burial despite his brutalities and this would have been done not so much for the good of the dead Amin but for the sake of Uganda.

Obote Belongs at Kololo 55

Right decision The government correctly appraised this matter and pointed out that the history of our experience of our turbulent past requires that we seek erconciliation by giving Obote a state funeral. All Ugandans should draw a positive lesson from this experience and avoid the hateful expressions coming from those loud voices that seek revenge. They should remember that they too will need respect when their own days come and the same considerations we are applying to Dr Obote of giving him a decent burial will apply. My own worry is that after agreeing to give Obote a state burial, we have not made a policy regarding the future burial of heads of state. In my opinion, we need a public cemetery where we can bury former heads of state for the sake of the unity of the country. We recognise that regimes in power will decide as a matter of political expediency that particular individuals be recognised as "heroes" to be buried in particular places. But surely unless such regimes think of themselves as permanent (which is impossible), they should be trying to put in place a public space where all public officials of a particular rank in the country would be buried, unless they themselves decide otherwise in their wills.

Recommendation My recommendation is therefore that having taken the correct decision to give Obote a state funeral, the NRM government should have also decided that he would be buried at Kololo Airstrip, alongside other public figures, unless in his will he had really decided otherwise. This should not be a decision of only one member in the family and even then, such a decision should be made with the full knowledge that there is a public state policy on the matter. If this is not done, then those leaders who were buried at Kololo will always be regarded as partisans of the NRM bush war and future governments may be inclined to disregard them and even be tempted to remove their graves, which would be a sacrilege. So to avoid such future occurrences it would be better to make a public policy on the matter and Obote's family can decide otherwise but with the full knowledge that a public burial place was available for his final rest.

12 Kaunda Weeps for A.M. Obote Olga Mauda and Musamali in Lusaka The Monitor, 17 October 2005 Zambia's first president, Kenneth Kaunda, yesterday broke down several times during his speech as he wept for Apollo Milton Obote. Kaunda was among dignitaries attending Obote's funeral service at Lusaka's Cathedral of the Holy Cross. Also present at the two-hour church service were President Levy Mwanawasa and his predecessor Frederick Chiluba. Uganda was represented by Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Augustine Nshimye. Weeping and wiping away tears with his trademark white handkerchief, Kaunda, wearing black, accused the British government of orchestrating Obote's overthrow by his army chief, Idi Amin. Giving the life history of a man he descried as "my friend", Kaunda said, "Britain's Prime Minister Edward Heath at a Commonwealth meeting in Singapore told Nyerere, Obote and myself that one of us would not return home." Kaunda said the trio had confronted Heath over Southern Rhodesia's (now Zimbabwe) independence. "The British government later invited that thug (Amin) to the Commonwealth after he deposed one of our legitimately elected colleagues. How do you act like that and call yourself a democrat?" he wondered. Kaunda said if he had not forced Obote to travel with him and Julius Nyerere to the Singapore meeting, Obote might not have been overthrown. "I have a sense of guilt. Milton never got back home," he said as he sobbed. He said he worked together with Nyerere and Obote to liberate southern Africa. "This man lying here was one of the fighters. We worked and fought together in the struggle for Africa." He urged the Uganda Peoples Congress to continue with the Obote spirit. "Now you have a right to engage in politics," he urged. 56

Kaunda Weeps for A.M. Obote 57

The widow, Mina's voice could hardly be heard as she sobbed. "Life as a refugee is not easy. Many young people at home will not recognise us. This is the saddest moment in my life. Zambia will always be my second home. It is sad I'm leaving but I'm going home. There is no place like home," she said. The Zambian army played dirges at the highly charged funeral characterised by solemn songs from the ruling party and church choir. Mwanawasa led the Zambian government ministers and his ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy members. Diplomats also attended. He urged the Ugandan refugees in Zambia to heed Nshimye's call to return home to develop Uganda. "Home is home," Mwanawasa said. He said the refugees need not fear for their safety because President Yoweri Museveni emphasised that many times through their meetings. Nshimye said, "Let me invite Ugandans here to come home so we can develop our motherland." He said it was in the spirit of reconciliation and in honour of what Obote did for Uganda that the government decided to give him a state burial. He described Obote as the 'Father of Uganda' and paid a special tribute to Miria for sticking by her husband during his most troubled times. Earlier, the Ugandan residents in Zambia said they could only return home if their safety and human rights were guaranteed. Meanwhile, over 100 artisans yesterday had a field day when the works ministry started emergency repairs on Obote's house in Kololo. Obote's body arrives at midday today from Lusaka. It will be taken direct to the house, which soldiers had occupied for 20 years. The Ministry of Works projects quantity surveyor, Jenario Odok, said the government had not costed the repairs. He said full repairs would come after the funeral. "We are going to work overnight so that the house is in fairly good shape when the body arrives," he added. UPC diehards yesterday dashed to the party headquarters to buy Obote T-shirts and vowed to "paint the city red" as the remains are flown in today. "We have been overwhelmed by the numbers turning up to buy the T-shirts. Some are making their own shirts and dresses," said Prof. Patrick Rubaihayo, a top UPC official.

13 I Admired Obote - Kaunda Kakaire A. Kirunda Mbale 18 October 2005 Former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda has said he never attempted to reconcile the late Dr Milton Obote and President Yoweri Museveni for fear of being misundeistood. "I didn't try at all. 1thought I should keep out because 1 was with Obote. By looking after Obote, I had a responsibility not to let Museveni think I was doing it for Obote. My task was just to look after Obote," Kaunda said during an interview with the BBC yesterday. Kaunda, who was answering questions on his relationship with his fallen colleague, said the matter was also complicated by the fact that he was close to both men. Obote and Museveni have been having sharp exchanges until the death of the former last week. While still president, said Kaunda, neither the Ugandan government nor President Museveni personally complained to him about hosting Dr Apollo Milton Obote. Kaunda said even fellow African leaders never protested against his hosting of Obote. Despite the badmouthing against Obote over the years, to Kaunda, the former Ugandan leader was "a lover of human beings, a lover of people and therefore I admired him, I adored him." Kaunda described Obote as a great African leader and a freedom fighter who played an enormous role in liberating several African countries from colonial rule. Kaunda said today's African leaders should emulate the continent's founding fathers by keeping it in mind that "they are serving God's people".

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14 Dr Obote is no Ordinary Personality George Bita, Daily Monitor, 21 October 2005 1have said it before, and will not hesitate to say it again: Apollo Milton Obote was no ordinary personality as far as Uganda and the entire African continent's political history is concerned. Obote who died in South Africa recently has been accorded a state funeral and his body lies in state in parliament and will be honoured at Kololo Airstrip where Obote received the instruments of Uganda's independence 43 years ago. The Zambian government has already declared a day of national mourning on 24 October when Obote's burial will take place in his home village of Akokoro, Apac district. With newspapers giving us front page pictures of the Zambian President Levi Mwanawasa and his wife paying their respects and former President Kenneth Kaunda shedding tears over the demise of Obote, the Zambians seem determined to accord a respectable send-off to Uganda's former leader. It is quite baffling how the Zambians are going to mourn with Ugandans who have not declared any period of national mourning. There is a local saying that "the owner of the dead body must be the one to hold the smelly part". Our constitution is clear on what to do under the circumstances and, needless to say, government has gone some reasonable distance in abiding by the stipulated law. Zambia cannot set aside a day to mourn a Ugandan Pan-Africanist while Ugandans have failed to fix such a day for their own! Agitation for the same by UPC members and Obote's family has failed to yield positive results with government representatives hurrying to refer to the already set cabinet position. If our government can afford to grant 59

60 Apollo Milton Obote

a day of national mourning for a dead vice president of a neighbouring country, as it did in August, then Obote deserves similar or even better treatment. The much-talked-about national reconciliation with government opponents cannot just be on paper. It must be seen to be practised. If it is a state funeral for Obote, then let it be one with full honours, including a period of national mourning. This campaign for a national holiday by the Obote group should not be perceived by the government as a bit of 'Oliver Twisting' (being given and asking for more) since it is constitutional to send off such a gallant son of not only Uganda but Africa in such a way. A national mourning holiday for Obote will not only show we have touched "the smelly parts of his body" through true reconciliation but it will also prove that the government respects each and every word set out in the constitution.

15 The Consummate Politician That Was Milton Obote Anyang' Nyong'o Nairobi, The Daily Monitor, Tuesday 25 October 2005 (extracted from the Daily Nation 23 October 2005) The first time I heard of the name of Milton Obote was when I joined Alliance High School in 1962. Uganda was then just about to get its independence, and Milton Obote, Kabaka Mutesa II, Grace Ibingira, Adoko Nekyon, and many others were becoming familiar names for us in the columns of the Daily Nation and the East African Standard. The radio also boomed with them in the 1 o'clock news. We also heard of the jostling among political parties and politicians in Uganda. There was the Democratic Party, the Kabaka Yekka (Kabaka only) and the Uganda People's Congress (UPC). During holidays, as the Luo students at Makerere came home and displayed their smart suits at their annual "League" dance in Kisumu, we heard them talk endlessly about UPC and Obote. I first saw Obote at the Kenya independence celebrations in December 1963.1 was in the joint Alliance High School and Alliance Girls High School choir with people like Victor Ongewe, Richard Baraza, Atieno Odhiambo and 21 others who were the first to sing the Kenya National Anthem.

Young leader Tom Mboya was welcoming dignitaries. I remember the Zanzibar prime minister arriving late, and Mboya was at pains to find him an appropriate seat. I believe he sat next to Apollo Milton Obote, the 61

62 Apollo Milton Obote

young leader with a lot of hair on his head which made him stand out among the dignitaries. When it comes to hair on the head Obote was only rivalled by Kitili Mwendwa, who I later learnt was his friend. I entered Makerere in July 1968, as a Bachelor of Arts student, studying English, Political Science and Philosophy. Uganda was hot with politics. In 1966, Obote had become president by abrogating the independence constitution, ending the alliance between Kabaka Yekka and the UPC and forcing the Kabaka to go into exile. Juma Odundo, the Nyanza-born musician, whose songs were then very popular in Uganda and Kenya, made a record which was like an anthem to Obote fans. It was called "UPC ita Obote: Obote Ameleta Mnendeleo Uganda". On the grounds of Livingstone Hall where I stayed, my friend, Daudi Mulabya Taliwaku, loved to sing this song. When we had dances on Saturdays, Obote frequently came as the guest of honour. There was always a table for him and his ministers and friends Akena Adoko, Picho Ali, and Sam Odaka where they drank beer, met students and talked politics. Obote also smoked heavily. (Prof Ali Mazrui would pass by to say hello.] The Uganda Army Band was our favourite. And if Obote was there, they would be playing, "Aduong ma Uganda, Milton Obote; Tick mae be, Milton Obote. We will never surrender, Obote; Oh we will never surrender Obote!" One of the most powerful speeches I saw Obote give at Makerere's Main Hall was when he launched his crusade for the Common Man's Charter, the document that was to set Uganda on a new path of socialist development to keep up with Tanzania's Ujamaa. The theme of his speech was why this change was necessary after Uganda became more or less a one-party state in the post-1966 period. Obote argued that the old feudal society prevented the birth of this new society. Force was, therefore, a necessary midwife to give birth to this new society. The charter was there to provide Uganda with a revolutionary ideology.

The Consummate Politician Tltat Was Milton Obote 63

Obote the Leninist His arguments were powerful, and Prof. Mazrui later told us that Obote, like his friend Nkrumah, was a 'Leninist'. I had to read hard to learn who a Leninist was, and I added Valdimir I. Lenin to my list of fascinating thinkers! There was a section in the Common Man's Charter which fascinated Daudi Mulabya, Joshua Mugyenyi and me. It read: "The Common Man's Charter is hereby published to guide the misguided and inform the misinformed." Mazrui also told us that Obote added the name Milton to his other first name Apollo because of his love of Milton's Paradise Lost, while he was a student at Makerere. After being thrown out of heaven by God as a result of disobedience, Satan remarked: "Though heaven be lost, all is not lost." This sense of defiance and determination fascinated Obote. And as a young man, fed up with authoritarian colonial politics, Milton's poetry gave him inspiration, and he also became a Milton in Ugandan and African politics. I was elected president of the Makerere Students Guild on 10 October 1969 on my birthday. And Obote died on 10 October 2005 as I was celebrating my birthday in Nairobi. As president of the guild, I dealt mainly with Obote's close confidants like Odaka (a charming man), Adonia Tiberondwa, and Frank Kalimuzo, who later became the first Vice Chancellor of Makerere University. When Edward Heath decided to sell arms to the apartheid regime in South Africa, we decided to hold a demonstration. But Police Commissioner Oryema would not give us a licence to go to Kampala. We thought this was obnoxious as Obote, a member of the Mulungushi Club, was a crusader against apartheid. We tried to go to Kampala and police teargassed and dispersed us. I issued a stem statement that if Heath sold arms to South Africa, then we would not be held responsible for what happened to British citizens in Uganda should these arms be used to oppress and kill our brothers and sisters in South Africa.

64 Apollo Milton Obote

I was picked up by the Special Branch, charged with "incitement", and remanded to the Luzira Maximum Prison for a couple of days. When I was tried, with a battery of lawyers defending me, the student body flocked to court and sheer political pressure made me be released on condition that I kept peace for one year! I have never understood why Obote allowed this to happen. But 1 never felt bitter about the incident. If anything, the president had been grossly misinformed about our intentions. At the inauguration of Makerere University in October 1970,1carried the university mace as the president of the guild and Obote was immediately behind me. The mace was the symbol of his authority as the Chancellor. Nyerere, Kenyatta and Kaunda walked ahead of us. As the president of the guild, I felt proud to be walking among my colleagues who were real presidents! Obote was very nervous. Nyerere was very relaxed and was whistling all through the walk from the Makerere Main Hall to the Freedom Square. Kenyatta was calm and collected and Kaunda seemed to me to have a halo of serene wisdom around his face. I heard Obote shout some nervous orders to one of his security details. He was speaking in Langi which, with my Luo, I could decipher. Later, as Idi Amin arrived at the celebrations without being in the programme, I realised why the president was so nervous. Something was going seriously wrong in the government.

1971 coup When Obote was overthrown in January 1971, 1 had ceased being president of the guild and James Oporia Hkwaro took over. We were upset with Amin's leadership. We wanted to demonstrate and show solidarity with Obote. But VC Kalimuzo advised us not to do so. This was now a military government, and their reaction would be different. We did not hold the demonstration. But what shocked us was when Kalimuzo told us that "Obote also made serious mistakes so the army takeover was not surprising." When I was teaching at the University of Nairobi in the late 1970s, I got to know Kitili Mwendwa well through an organisation, the United

The Consummate Politician That Was Milton Obote 65

Nations Association of Kenya (UNAK), which he led with people like Jael Mbogo, Mark Mwithaga and Fitz de Souza. My brother-in-law, G.Z. Owiti, UNAK's treasurer, introduced me to Kitili. I learnt of how close he and Obote were. Kitili, who became Kenya's first African Chief Justice, had many of Obote's qualities: stubborn, determined, a consummate politician and a man of letters. The two men with a lot of hair on their heads are now gone. One went much earlier and at a tender age. The other has left us at an advanced age but having not fulfilled all his dreams. But, as Milton would say: Though the earth be lost, all is not lost for Apollo Milton Obote.

16 Have Chroniclers of History Been Fair to President Obote? Andrew M. Mwenda, Sunday Monitor, 16 October 2005 Former Ugandan president Apollo Milton Obote died on October 10, aged 80. But who was Obote the man? There is a saying that to really know about a man, you need to look at the company of friends he keeps. Obote's closest friends internationally were former presidents Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Samora Machel of Mozambique, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India, and former African National Congress (ANC) president Oliver Tambo. The thread uniting these persons was African unity (thus Obote the Pan-Africanist) and liberation. At the national level, in both his first and second administrations, Obote's closest allies came from all over Uganda. There was John Babiiha from Toro (his vice president in the 1960s), Picho Ali from West Nile, Chris Rwakasisi from Ankole, Luwuliza Kirunda from Busoga, Peter Otai from Teso, Paulo Muwanga from Buganda, among others.

Adored by the youth Abroad, I have met a lot of people in their mid-forties who must have been in their early to mid-twenties when Obote was overthrown in 1985,who are not only strong UPC members in exile but also very passionate Obote loyalists. They come from all ethnic groups of Uganda. Students who ran from Idi Amin's tyranny were assured of a place to call home, Obote's house in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. Obote lived with them, encouraged them, ate with them, played chess with them, smoked and drank with them regardless of their ethnic backaground, 66

Hrnv Chroniclers o f History Been Fair to President Obote? 67

age or religion. Not only that, he found scholarships for them to go abroad and complete their studies or do postgraduate training. Among these people are current central bank governor, Emmanuel Tumusiime Mutebile, Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda (both from Kigezi), Olara Otunnu from Acholi, Karuhanga Chapaa from Ankole, etc. There are also those who say that to really know about a man, you need to speak to his enemies. One of the most critical books I have read on Obote is by historian Phares Mukasa-Mutibwa, Uganda since Independence: A Story o f Unfulfilled Hopes. Mutibwa makes scathing attacks on Obote, some of them highly personalised like when he refers to him as "a lonely man from Lango, unemployed and perhaps unemployable". However, when Mutibwa comes to comment on the Obote he met and worked at close range with, his assessment is telling: As a man, Obote is difficult to assess. However, during my two years' spell as a foreign service officer in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the early 1960s, I myself was impressed by his frank and sincere approach towards his civil servants, who he was prepared to defend against some of his crude and irresponsible ministers. I also was impressed by his wide knowledge of national and international affairs. 1 found in him a politician with a clear mind, intelligent and shrewd, conscientious and even obsessed with detail.

Obote ethos Again relying on his enemies, the other testimony is from President Yoweri Museveni's autobiography, Sewing the Mustard Seed: The Struggle for Freedom and Democracy in Uganda, which is a passionate indictment of Obote's tribalism. According to Museveni, after completing his studies, he sat public service interviews to join the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The next day the young Museveni was called by the head of the public service. "You are a bright young man and performed very well in the interviews," the head of public service told him, "the President [Obote] wants to

68 Apollo Milton Obote

surround himself with intelligent young people. Would you be willing to work with him in his office?" That way, Museveni, an unknown Muhima boy from Ankole, and a supporter of the opposition Democratic Party (DP), was given a job in Obote's office. Obote did not know Museveni, and did not ask about his ethnic background or his political party affiliation. Museveni's testimony says three things about Obote: first, he judged people on die basis of their mental competence, not their ethnicity; second, he recruited staff purely on merit, not political affiliations; third, he worked through formal institutions of state to hire staff, not on back-door connections. Museveni was then put in the research section of Obote's office where, among his duties, he handled intelligence and security briefs, and did policy research and analysis for the president. This tells us a third aspect about Obote: once recruited on merit, he trusted that person entirely. There is a third saying that history is a commonly agreed-upon myth. Many accusations that have been levelled against Obote are myth. This is not to say that Obote was without fault. Like all people, he had many of them. Yet I still think that history has had an unfair judgement of Obote. Museveni's recent political decline is making many people re­ evaluate Obote's record. Does Museveni's Uganda offer talented young Ugandans an opportunity to serve their country regardless of their ethnic background and political affiliation like the Obote government did to him? During my childhood, I heard many stories of how Obote had accumulated a personal fortune in millions of dollars; that he had the largest shares in the Hero bicycles manufactured in India. It was claimed that he had salted away a total of $600 million. When I first visited him in Lusaka during a Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) conference at his house in 1997,1 was struck by the simplicity of his life. It was apparent to me that Obote seemed never to have bought any new clothes as he addressed the conference in an

Have Chroniclers o f History Been Fair to President Obote? 69

old suit which could hardly fit him. I was to visit him several times later whenever I went to Lusaka. He lived a humble life, ate modestly and dressed poorly with staff that had remained loyal and close to him and they came from all parts of Uganda. Yet he never complained about his condition.

The beginning of the road: Milton Obote on independence day before he received the instruments of poiuerfrom the colonial government, 1962

Milton Obote with Sir Edward Mutesa in 1964. The tzoofell out shortly afterwards leading to a military shozvdoiim in 1966 70

Above: Uganda House, UPC's headquaters, and left is Mama Miria Obote; she stood by Obote's side throughout his life. 71

Obote with visiting President Kenneth Kaunda, then President o f Zambia, 1966

Obote hosting Pope Paul VI in 1969

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Among equals at the innuaguration o f Makerere University, 1970; Kenneth Kaunda o f Zambia on his right, and to his left, Julius Nyerere o f Tanzania and Jomo Kenyatta o f Kenya.

Obote with President Julius Nyerere, then President o f Tanzania. He later gave him a home during his days o f exile after he was overthrown by Idi Amin in 1971. 73

Obote waves to crowds in Bushenyi shortly after his arrival from Tanzania in 1980 74

Obote sworn in as President o f Uganda, fo r the second time, 1980

Obote visiting President Moi of Kenya in 1981 75

Ugandans waiting for Obote's casket

President Museveni pays his last respects to the late Milton Obote in Parliament during the latter's state funeral

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17 'We Can't Forgive Obote1 Peter Mwanje, Tlte Daily Monitor, 12 October 2005 These are comments o f the Deputy Katikkiro ofBuganda at the time o f the death o f Mr Obote. He was echoing thefeelings o f the kingdom at the time. Many today still cannot comprehend who to blame but rather the blame depending on which side o f the political divide one is inclined to. Baganda will never forgive fallen former president Milton Obote, the deputy Katikkiro, Godfrey Kaaya Kavuma, said yesterday. He said Obote struggled to crush the Buganda kingdom and its culture, created enmity with other tribes and aimed at turning Baganda into a laughing stock during his two terms in office. "As a Muganda, I cannot forgive Obote because he never apologised. He had a chance when he came back the second time. Instead he vowed to start from where he had stopped, which he did," Kavuma told Daily Monitor during an interview at Mengo yesterday. He said, "He was in a category of his own and can only be remembered for his persecution of Buganda kingdom."

Jubilation Kavuma's remarks come after many communities, especially in Buganda, spent nights jubilating when news about Obote's death reached them. Kavuma narrated the bitter experience Kabaka Edward Mutesa underwent when Obote attacked his palace. Mutesa, the first Ugandan president, was forced by Obote to flee into exile and later died in London. Obote reportedly refused to return Muteesa's body after his death in 1969."He constituted a policy of hatred and persecution of the Baganda, their culture and anything to do with them and made sure they remained speechless," he said. 80

We Can't Forgive Obote 81

Other elders and officials at Mengo described Obote as a case of "the end justifies the means". Many Baganda Daily Monitor talked to were bitter that Obote stormed the Kabaka's palace in 1966.

18 His Mistakes Have Cost Uganda Dearly Kintu Nyago, The Sunday Monitor, 16 October 2005, Was Apollo Milton Obote a hero or a villain? That is the question. Unfortunately, this debate is likely to further divide rather than unite Ugandans. Obote ruled this country twice for a total of 13 years. His years were a time when Uganda's turbulent political life was most tumultuous. It was a time when we experienced three constitutions without constitutionalism and two military coups! Rather than peddle revisionist interpretations of our history, we need clearly to take stock and examine what went wrong and draw correct lessons from the Obote legacy if not for ourselves, then at least for posterity. Obote abrogated the popular independence constitution and imposed two others — the one of 1966, the other of 1967 — on Ugandans. He also promoted the murderous and undeserving Idi Amin and Bazilio Okello as senior army commanders with all its tragic consequences. Then there was the formation of the extra-judicial General Service Unit(GSU) and National Security Agency (NASA). Detentions without trial and the general infringement of the law were turned into an art by UPC Secretary General and close Obote confidant John Luwuliza Kirunda. A perpetual state of emergency was dutifully imposed on Buganda by a cowed parliament throughout the late 1960s in the wake of the 1966 crisis. The mass expulsions of citizens into exile as was the case in the West Nile region was the norm in the 1980s. Close to 250,000 people fled for dear life into DR Congo and southern Sudan, simply because they originated from Amin's region! There were state-inspired murders whose scale, as for massacres in early 1981 or the killing fields of Luweero, literally left the excesses of Amin's State Research Bureau 82

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(SRB) looking like a Sunday school picnic. For if the pattern with the State Research Bureau was to target a small urban-based elite for murder and torture, under Obote, especially during his second tenure, state organs with UPC party operatives — the notorious 'chairmen' and 'youths' — acted outside the law with impunity. In fact, they were the law, in the anarchic Hobbesian context where "life was short, nasty and brutish"!

Down the tubes The tragedy of Idi Amin can be explained as an inappropriate individual accessing control of an abusive post-colonial state. Inappropriate because Amin had been trained by his colonial masters to be at best a regimental sergeant major. However, through political opportunism, Obote promoted Afande (literally senior sergeant) Amin at breakneck speed to the rank of major general and Chief of the Defence Forces. By the late 1960s Amin was regularly attending cabinet and UPC executive meetings! And not that Obote had not been warned of Amin's lust for blood and propensity to work outside the established law, by a departing governor. The rest is history. Obote had been better trained and exposed to lead Uganda. Tragically, however, he opted to push this country down the drain so long as he stayed in power. He was not the only African leader to face a difficult situation. In this regard, we can draw inspiration from Mwalimu Nyerere, Mzee Kenyatta, Kenneth Kaunda and Sir Seretse Khama. These were genuine founding fathers of their nascent nations. The Uganda Obote founded was that of pre-1986. A ruined, chaotic, desolate slaughterhouse of a country with little in the form’of hope or opportunity. Obote and his apologists would want us to believe that he struggled for and obtained Uhuru for Uganda. The truth, however, as Lenin reminded us, is concrete! Facts indicate otherwise Uganda's muchconstrained nationalist movement, led by Ignatius Kangave Musaazi, formed the Uganda National Congress in 1952, the year Obote relocated to Kenya. Many of his latter-day UPC stalwarts such as Paulo Muwanga and Otema Allimadi stayed the course. These two, alongside "prison

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graduate" Musaazi and others, of course, agitated for self-rule. Do note that by the 1950s Britain had long decided to grant its African colonies independence. And their challenge then was how to best prepare them for this reality. Hence Governor Andrew Cohen's reforms. Obote astutely noticed this changed reality. This explains his return in the late 1950s, specifically for the purpose of standing for a LEGCO seat in Lango. For by then the preferred UNC candidate, Yokosfati Engur, had been banished alongside Paulo Muwanga and others to Karamoja for their anti-colonial agitation. In other words, Obote's verbose contributions in the LEGCO had been encouraged by Cohen and protected by the long-standing British tradition of parliamentary immunity.

Disastrous policies Obote's much-lauded economic policies were, from a politicaleconomic perspective, divisive and a disaster. That is apart from during the brief UPC-KY coalition government period. The policies in the latter period were a continuation of late colonialism's attempt to apply state intervention to gradually involve the Africans in all sectors of the economy. Hence, the formation of the Uganda Development Corporation, the creation of the Uganda Commercial Bank and the emerging African entrepreneurs to trade and process coffee, cotton and cereals. In this same period, the state enabled Messrs Mukubira, Kayondo and Kabale Busega Stores space to trade on Kampala Road. Hitherto under colonial apartheid, Kampala had been a preserve for Asian traders and White administrators. After the 1966 crisis, however, the government applied state policy to penalise the Baganda petty bourgeoisie, because the regime regarded them as political enemies. Henceforth, the regime pursued state-centred policies intended to stifle the economic base of the Baganda entrepreneurs by, in part, aligning itself with the better developed but vulnerable Asian business community. Hence the formation of the state monopolies such as the Produce Marketing Board (PMB) to hinder African retail traders from engaging in the programme.

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The PMB mainly dealt with better-funded wholesale Asian traders. The tensions this created explain the support Amin's economic war was to receive in the early 1970s. Besides, Obote was no democrat a point illustrated within the UPC through the 1964 Gulu Delegates Conference, where John Kakonge was rigged out in favour of Grace Ibingira, as party Secretary General. Kakonge's supporters, such as Dani Nabudere, Kintu Musoke and Bidandi Ssali, were expelled from the party. And when President Frederick Mutesa and Ibingira were about to legitimately ease Obote out of power via the 1966 UPC Delegates Conference, he opted to extra-judicially detain five ministers at a cabinet meeting and shortly after, ordered Idi Amin to storm the Lubiri. In 1980, Obote was imposed by the Military Commission, headed by Muwanga and Oyite-Ojok, as party president. It is not by surprise that in both instances when he violently lost power, the revolts had started within the UPC, which imploded owing to the absence of internal democracy and conflict-resolving mechanisms. Given that the "leopard does not change its spots", this explains the recent machinations intended to rig out UPC stalwarts Cecilia Ogwal and Omara Atubo in the party grassroots elections.

Leopards and spots During his tenure, Obote forcefully co-opted religious and civil society as, for instance, with the student movement through NUSU or the trade union movement, where party members were imposed as bosses. He formed and generously funded the National Association for the Advancement of Muslims headed by his cousin Akbar Adoko Nekyon and Idi Amin, the intention being to fragment Muslim solidarity, while undemining Prince Kakungulu's authority in this community. But his enduring legacy, and the cause of his habitual loss of power, concerned his attempt to marginalise Buganda. This he did in different ways. The first was the Buganda-only state of emergency for five years from 1966. All political rights were virtually suspended. This worked hand-in-hand with the detentions without trial, where anybody who was somebody in Buganda, and a non-UPC member, got jailed. Then followed the replacing of Buganda's established chiefly infrastructure with UPC

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cronies. These were generally marginal anti-people elements. Many were urban unemployed elements, hawkers and lumpens. It is these types that became county chiefs, for instance, in Busiro, Kyaggwe, Singo and Bulemezi. Such chiefs had neither the interest nor a stake in the localities where they had been imposed. This greatly explains the agrarian crisis that had befallen Buganda before the NRM's decentralisation reforms. The decision to accord Obote a state funeral is ultimately political. In my view, it's undeserved.

19 In Relying on the Military, Obote Created a Monster that ate Him The Daily Telegraph Milton Obote, the former president of Uganda who died on Monday aged 80, led his country to independence from Britain in 1962, then laid the foundations for what was to become, under Idi Amin, one of the most brutal tyrannies in Africa. On the eve of independence from the British, it seemed that Uganda might avoid the bloodshed and ethnicity that had hampered the development of other newly independent African states. Unlike Kenya and Tanzania, which had achieved independence after violent insurrection, Uganda's transition to independence was a peaceful one. Obote saw himself in the mould of Jomo Kenyatta, the man of destiny who would rise above petty factionalism and bring unity and prosperity to his people; after his election as prime minister in 1962, he attempted to maintain a balance between the disparate ethnic and regional factions within a multiparty democracy. But when democratic methods did not work, Obote imposed unity by force, stamping on the opposition, building up the power of the army, taking all powers into his own hands and building up the apparatus of a repressive one-party state. By relying so heavily on the military, Obote created a monster which ultimately he could not control. In 1971 he was ousted in a military coup by Idi Amin, his one-time protege whom he had promoted to army chief of staff. Obote's return to power nine years later, in the wake of a Tanzanian invasion of Uganda, was widely welcomed by the West after the devastation inflicted by Amin; but 87

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Obote was no more successful in curbing factionalism and insurrection than he had been during his first term of office. Before long he had resorted to the brutal methods of his predecessor in a campaign of mass killings, murders and torture. Once again, though, it was Obote's failure to establish control over the army that proved his undoing; and in 1985 he was ousted from power in another military coup and forced into exile a second time. Apollo Milton Obote, the third of nine children, was bom, probably in 1925, at the village of Akokoro beside Lake Kwania, in the Lango district of northern Uganda. His father was a small farmer and minor chieftain of the Langi ethnic group; his mother, Puliskara, was one of his father's four wives. The young Obote helped tend his father's flocks of sheep and goats until, aged 12, he was speared in the shoulder by a bandit, after which he was sent to the local primary school. In the early 1940s he attended the Lira Protestant Mission School and Gulu High School, both in northern Uganda, and from 1945 to 1947 he was at Busoga College, Mwiri, in the eastern part of the country. Obote was not an outstanding scholar, but he was known for his imperious manner as well as for his firm belief that he was destined to lead his country. In 1948 he went on to study English, economics and political science at Makerere College, Kampala, but left after two years without taking a degree. He then won a place to study law at an American university, but the British authorities refused to support him. Also denied the opportunity to study in Britain or the Sudan, Obote completed his studies through correspondence courses. He was determined to enter public service through the trade union movement and went to neighbouring Kenya, where he took a menial job in a sugar works near Kisumu. Later he worked as a clerk and union organiser with a construction company. He became a founding member of Jomo Kenyatta's Kenya African Union and, after political parties were banned in Kenya by the British authorities, he helped to organise the so-called social clubs that continued to hold clandestine political meetings. Obote returned to Uganda in 1957, becoming head of the Lango branch of Uganda's first political party, the Uganda National Congress

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(UNC). The following year he was directly elected to represent Lango in Uganda's colonial legislative council, which the British had expanded to include nominated African representatives in 1945. He was noted at the time for his outspoken opposition to colonial dictates and for his tactical skills in the "black Byzantium" of African tribal politics.

UPC formed Obote and his followers split with the UNC in 1959, and a year later he and his supporters merged with the Uganda People's Union to form the Uganda People's Congress (UPC), with himself as president general. As British rule neared its end, the main obstacle to national unity was rivalry between the new nationalist parties and the hereditary rulers of Uganda's kingdoms Bunyoro, Toro, Ankole, Busoga and Buganda who resisted independence as they feared the loss of their power. Foremost among these kingdoms was Buganda, whose ruler or Kabaka was Sir Edward Frederick Mutesa II, known as "King Freddie". In March 1961, King Freddie's boycott of the first country­ wide elections to the legislative council enabled the predominantly Roman Catholic Democratic Party under Benedicto Kiwanuka to form a government, with Obote's UPC relegated to second place. During the months that followed the elections, Obote skilfully negotiated with King Freddie, eventually winning the Kabaka over to the cause of national independence by promising Baganda federal autonomy. In September 1961 he concluded an alliance with the new Kabaka Yekka ("King Only") party of Buganda. In the pre-independence elections to a national assembly, held in April 1962, the UPC won a majority of seats in the rest of Uganda (outside Buganda), and the UPC-KY coalition formed a government, led by Obote. The new constitution provided for a federation of four regions, Buganda, Ankole, Bunyoro and Toro, each with considerable autonomy. In October Uganda became independent, and a year later, on 9 October 1963, the country became a republic, with the Kabaka of Buganda as non-executive president.

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Promising start At first things seemed to be going reasonably well: Obote declared that his country was ready to take its place in the Commonwealth and the United Nations; that it would remain neutral between East and West, and would support all African nationalist movements. Thousands of political prisoners were granted amnesties and members of Uganda's Asian and white minorities were assured that they had nothing to fear. To keep the various regional parties content, Obote granted them special concessions, such as choice development projects, in exchange for their support. Despite his avowed socialism and friendly relations with Moscow and Peking, he encouraged private investment and development aid from the West. In May 1963 he joined other African heads of state in signing the original charter of the Organisation of African Unity. The same year he succeeded in suppressing a separatist revolt in Uganda's western province. But the uneasy coalition between the UPC and the Kabaka Yekka soon ran into trouble, because Buganda opposed the constitutional requirement to hold a referendum in a disputed area of Buganda ("lost counties") claimed by Bunyoro. In 1964 the Kabaka Yekka left the coalition, but by that time, due to defections from the opposition, the UPC held a working majority in parliament, and Obote remained in office.

Military reliance The tensions in Buganda might eventually have been calmed had the army not chosen this time to rise in revolt. Demanding promotions and higher pay, the military attempted a coup d'etat that was averted only with the aid of British troops. Although the British saved Obote, the coup attempt demonstrated the military's might, and Obote eventually granted them their demands in exchange for their support, establishing a precedent for the armed forces to dictate government policy. To strengthen his hold over the army, Obote chose a low-ranking and illiterate soldier, Idi Amin, as his protege. In 1965 he sent Amin

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on secret missions to the Belgian Congo to provide support for Simba rebels, support for which Amin was paid in looted ivory and gold. Amin flaunted his wealth, and in 1966, when he tried to deposit the looted Congolese gold in his bank account, opposition parties accused Obote and Amin of corruption. With the military on his side, Obote found less reason to be accommodating to his political opponents and did not bother to respond to the charges. While he was on an official visit to northern Uganda, his government issued a vote of no confidence in him, ending his presidential term. Obote asked Amin to perform a coup d'etat against his own government. The coup worked, and Obote dissolved his government, passed a new constitution and instituted martial law to combat any resistance. On 15 April 1966 he declared himself executive president for a five-year term. As the country's head of state, the Kabaka of Buganda immediately declared the new constitution illegal and ordered the government to leave Kampala, which lay in Buganda territory. In retaliation, Obote instructed Amin to attack the Kabaka's palace on Mengo Hill. Supported by artillery, troops stormed the palace, killing 200 of the King's bodyguards and reducing the place to ashes. While his men fought a rearguard action, King Freddie escaped dressed as a beggar, and after walking and hitchhiking 400 miles to Burundi, eventually flew into exile in Britain. In 1967 Obote introduced yet another constitution, which abolished the four hereditary kingdoms and concentrated power in the hands of the president. On 8 September Uganda formally became a republic after the National Assembly rubber-stamped the new constitution. By August 1968 the opposition had dwindled to six out of 91 assembly seats.

Short-lived calm For a short time Uganda experienced a period of stability and relative prosperity. In 1966 Obote had launched a five-year development plan, and in December 1967 he led his country into the East African Economic Community. He won international prestige in helping to broker peace in the Nigerian civil war in 1968-69; and in 1969 he welcomed Pope Paul VI to Uganda, the first visit of a pontiff to an African country.

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But in the same year Obote turned his back on the Western capitalist model and instead embraced a socialist programme of "Ugandanisation" of the economy, involving extensive nationalisation and central planning. There was mounting unrest, and in December 1969, while attending a UPC conference in Kampala, he narrowly survived an assassination attempt. Several Baganda were arrested and convicted, although Obote declined to sign the execution orders. Meanwhile, there was growing distrust between the president and Idi Amin, who had steadily been recruiting soldiers personally loyal to him from his home province. In 1970 Obote placed Amin under house arrest for misappropriating military funds, but did not give the final orders for Amin's arrest until the following year while he himself was attending a Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Singapore. Word of the orders leaked to Amin, and he and his troops moved quickly, seizing the capital. Many of Obote's supporters were executed, martial law was declared and Obote had no choice but to go into exile in Tanzania, where he remained for the next nine years under the protection of President Julius Nyerere. At first the overthrow of Obote was welcomed by many Ugandans after Amin assured them that he had no personal political ambitions. But before long Amin seized absolute power and embarked on an eightyear reign of terror during which some 500,000 people are thought to have been massacred or murdered, and hundreds of thousands more tortured or driven into exile. Amin was obsessed with the idea that Obote would try to regain power with Nyerere's help, and there was constant tension in die border region. In 1979 a border scuffle between the two countries led to war. Within months the Ugandan army had been routed, and Amin had fled into exile in Saudi Arabia.

In Obote's favour Obote had been regarded as the most likely succesor to Amin, but there was opposition to him from the political parties that had been formed in exile. Following Amin's downfall, the most important of these, the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF), a broadbased coalition,

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installed a provisional government to reverse the damage of Amin's years. The UNLF, however, was plagued by rivalries; as its leaders bickered over policy, soldiers continued to consolidate in the field. The rival groups within UNLF, one of which was led by Yoweri Museveni, attempted to outmanoeuvre each other and to build power bases by recruiting their own soldiers into UNLA. Efforts to curb rival military factions culminated in a coup d'etat in 1980. A military commission was set up to oversee new elections, and Obote returned to launch his campaign for the presidency under the UPC banner. The elections held in December 1980 were contested by four parties: the UPC, under Obote; the Democratic Party, led by Paul Ssemogerere; the Uganda Patriotic Movement, a regrouping of the radical faction of the UPC, led by Museveni; and the Conservative Party, a successor to the Kabaka Yekka. The commission's chairman, Paulo Muwanga, was a close friend of Obote and took care to load the dice in Obote's favour. Electoral districts were drawn up in a way that gave an advantage to the UPC strongholds in the country. Seventeen opposition candidates were disqualified, giving the UPC a free run in those constituencies. Even so, after Ugandans went to the polls on 10 December 1980 in the first elections for 18 years, it seemed that the Democratic Party under Paul Ssemogerere might be winning. Things changed after Muwanga took personal control of the vote counting, and four days later Obote's UPC was declared victorious with a clear majority. Obote was sworn in as president for a five-year term on 15 December 1980 and promised a government of national conciliation. Apparently cured of socialism by his time in Tanzania, he won promises of Western aid by agreeing a reform package, which included floating the currency, raising cash crop prices, courting Western investors and Asian businessmen who had been thrown out of the country by Amin, and agreeing to a wide-ranging programme of privatisation. The package achieved initial success in the agricultural sector, but Uganda's performance fell short of its economic targets, and the assistance was suspended in 1985.

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Museveni fights Meanwhile, due to alleged vote-rigging by Obote, several former anti-Amin soldiers led by Museveni fled to Luweero in Buganda and launched a guerrilla war against Obote's regime. The disorder was exacerbated by ethnic unrest, indiscipline in the armed forces and the vacuum left by the departure of 10,000 Tanzanian peacekeeping troops. Obote responded by reactivating the notorious National Security Agency, a successor to the state Research Bureau, Amin's chief instrument of torture, by clamping down on newspapers and ordering the arrest and torture of opponents. Western diplomats reported that the Nile Hotel and conference centre complex, a drab building in Kampala, had become the centre for tortures far worse than those meted out even by Amin. Obote also encouraged mass attacks by the army on civilians mostly in areas in where there had been guerrilla activity, attacks which in the case of the West Nile led to thousands of refugees flooding across the border into southern Sudan and eastern Zaire. During the years of Obote's second period in power, as many as 200,000 are said to have died from starvation, massacre or warfare. But as the guerrilla war raged on, so did ethnic conflicts within the Ugandan army between the Acholi and the Langi. Obote appointed officers from his own Langi ethnic group to senior military posts, angering senior officers from the Acholi who had been passed over for promotion. Trouble finally came to a head when Lt Col. Smith Opon Acak, a Langi, was promoted over the heads of brother officers to become brigadier and chief of staff. In June 1985 a consignment of weapons from Bulgaria was captured at Entebbe airport by Acholi army officers. Subsequently, an Acholi brigadier, Bazilio Okello, and his 10th brigade rose in rebellion and, joined by others, marched on Kampala, toppling Obote for a second time. Obote fled to Kenya and later received asylum in Zambia. After Museveni led his rebel army to victory in 1986, the true nature of Obote's regime was revealed with the excavation of mass graves around Kampala. From exile, Obote remained president of the UPC. However, the UPC was not permitted to nominate or campaign for candidates under the non-party system instituted by Museveni.

20 Obote Did not Fight for Uhuru Peter Mulira, The New Vision, 19 October 2005 Apollo Milton Obote who died recently will not be remembered as the father of the Uganda nation in the same mould Jomo Kenyatta and Nelson Mandela are remembered with respect to their countries but will take his place in history as the first and only president in Englishspeaking east, central and southern Africa, who promoted himself to that high office through unconstitutional means. Normally, when an elected government is overthrown in a coup, the group which perpetrates the coup appoints one of their own to be the new leader. In the case of Uganda's events of 1966, Obote, who was prime minister, just ordered the president out of State House, suspended the constitution and declared himself the new president. He later rammed through parliament the 1966 constitution authored by him, which was passed after he surrounded the house of parliament with soldiers and military hardware. Contrary to popular belief, Obote did not fight for our independence and indeed opposed the clamour for it in 1952, describing self-government in a newspaper letter as a Buganda thing. His ambition to study law at Khartoum University on a Lango district scholarship having been thwarted by the District Commissioner, Obote went to Kenya where he sojourned until 1957 after walking out of Makerere either on his own or under compulsion. Obote returned to Lira in the late 1950s where he became, according to some reports, a member of the district council and joined the Uganda National Congress of Ignatius Musaazi after the party had split into two, with David Lubogo leading a faction which included people like Senteza Kajubi, Erisa Kironde, Godfrey Binaisa and other Young Turks who formed the Uganda Congress Party in 1956. The further split in 95

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UNC between Musaazi and the party chairman, Joseph "Jolly Joe" Kiwanuka in January 1958, saw Obote's break into national politics when Kiwanuka, desiring to neutralise Musaazi's influence in the north, invited Obote to be president of his faction of UNC where Kiwanuka remained the powerful chairman with a lot of ready cash reportedly obtained from China to support his party's activities. In 1959, all the existing political parties, with the exception of DP, joined under the umbrella of the Uganda National Movement and declared a trade boycott as a final push in the struggle for independence but Obote refused to follow Kiwanuka into UNM and remained on a limb in what was now a rabble UNC whose most prominent supporter at the time was Abu Mayanja, whom he later in life detained without trial in an act of ingratitude which became the hallmark of his political style. With the political field virtually left to DP and Obote's rabble UNC, African members of the LEGCO who had earlier refused to join the independence struggle took advantage of the void and formed the Uganda People's Union (UPU) but their initiative was stillborn and with the encouragement of a European member of the LEGCO and his mentor, Barbara Saben, who was motivated by her and the establishment's disdain for DP, Obote was convinced to unite his UNC, not Musaazi's or Kiwanuka's, with UPU to form Uganda People's Congress. After the election of 1961 (which DP won) it became clear that UPC could not win the independence elections without Buganda's support, and the idea of indirect elections for MPs from Buganda to the independence parliament was hatched by Grace Ibingira, the main thrust of which was to ensure that the Lukiiko, which would elect the Buganda MPs, would be manipulated in such a way that all the 21 members from Buganda would be deliverable to UPC to the exclusion of DP. The seeds of instability of our country were planted at this stage because, as is always the case with political unions which are not fully consummated, each party under them keeps an eye open to steal an advantage at the earliest opportunity. Obote was a Machiavellian

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operator who knew that once he had power gained on Buganda's back he could use it to break that very back in order to establish himself as the supreme ruler of the country. Believing that a new Uganda under his guidance would rise from the ashes of a desecrated Buganda, Obote ordered the attack on the Kabaka's palace in 1966 and went on to desecrate the kingdom in a vindictive manner by abolishing the kingdom and its federal government, declaring for good measure in an unguarded moment that a good Muganda was a dead one. Obote then led the rest of the country in a senseless crusade against the community and its culture, which left any future possibility of forgiveness an illusion. The attack on the Lubiri was ordered on the pretext that there was a cache of arms there to be used in a coup. After overrunning the palace Amin found no arms there. The claim that the Lukiiko passed a resolution ordering the government to move off Buganda land is also spurious because no such law was passed according to the standing orders of the Lukiiko. In a statement to parliament on 25 May 1966, Obote reported that after attempts to get Ssaza chiefs to move the resolution failed, an MP who had sat on government benches until 24 August 1964 helped in getting a most obscure member of the Lukiiko to move the resolution and to get into the Lukiiko chambers a gang of hooligans to shout down any member who dared to speak against the motion. Obote went on to say: "The motion was moved last Friday, the speaker of the Lukiiko was powerless, the Katikkiro could not be heard, it was simply impossible for the Katikkiro to speak, it was simply impossible for the Ministers to speak in the Lukiiko. The hooligans were conducting the deliberations of the Lukiiko from the gallery so last Friday a resolution was passed purporting to order the government from Kampala." If the Katikkiro and his ministers as well as the Ssaza chiefs were against the motion and members could not debate the motion freely, how could the Mengo government and the Lukiiko be held responsible for the resolution? In any case, how did a speaker who had no control

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over the proceedings cause voting to be taken and how many voted for and against? The truth is that there was no voting because of the commotion and as such no resolution was passed. Accordingly, Ugandans have been living under a great lie which has led to all manner of skewed policies towards Buganda. It is sad that Obote's legacy is intertwined with this lie.

P art III Obote the Victim

21 Obote's Passing Marks end to an era in Africa Peter Kimani, The Daily Monitor, 13 October 2005 Apollo Milton Obote, Uganda's founding president who died in South Africa on Monday, is the last of the first generation of African leaders whose vision surpassed their own national borders. He was first deposed while on a trip to Singapore attending the Commonwealth summit and where he launched a scathing attack on British arms sales to apartheid South Africa. The British response was swift: Obote says in his memoirs published early this year by Daily Monitor, that two or three days later, the then British premier Edward Heath declared: 'Those who are condemning the British policy to sell arms to South Africa, some of them will not go back to their countries." Obote got the hint, and he immediately phoned his Internal Affairs Minister Basil Bataringaya in Kampala and confirmed his worst fears. He had been ousted by Idi Amin Dada, a former paratroop sergeant and boxing champion. Further, Amin was waiting at the airport to assassinate Obote.

Quest for power That was January 1971, and the beginning of Uganda's decline that would spill into the next decade, when Obote's quest for power was momentarily redeemed. Unifying the various anti-Amin forces under the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF) and forcing Amin to flee the country, Tanzania invaded Uganda and installed Yusuf Lule as president. Lule was quickly replaced by Godfrey Binaisa, who in turn was overthrown by the army in 1980 — the year that Obote returned to the country to lead UPC in the controversial elections. 100

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The polls results would be contested, climaxing in the army coup that brought Gen. Tito Okello to power in 1985, before he too was dislodged by Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Movement (NRM). This ended the season of blood, with an estimated 400,000 said to have perished in the resultant civil war, mainly in what has come to be regarded as the Luweero Triangle. Luweero has become a political watershed, and it is referred to whenever those implicated make a claim on power. Early this year, when Obote declared his intention to return to Uganda ending his 20year exile, President Yoweri Museveni responded by warning him he would face prosecution over Luweero. Obote never made the return journey. That his last trip would be to South Africa, the country whose case in Singapore triggered his fall from power, and on the eve of Uganda's independence day, marks the true end to an era.

Lost in the mayhem And lost in this mayhem that engulfed Uganda was the collective dream of regional economic integration, the East African Community (EAQ which Obote had helped found. But even before Amin appeared on the scene, and drew a wedge to fracture the brotherhood that had cemented Obote to Nyerere and Kenya's founding president Jomo Kenyatta, cracks had already existed on the EAC walls. Independence for Kenya came in the sunset of 1963, after Uganda, which was granted independence in 1962 and Tanzania before that, in 1961. Recognising Uganda's vulnerability as a landlocked country, Obote knew his country would benefit immensely by accessing Kenya and Tanzania's harbours. More than that, the three countries would benefit from the entrenched infrastructure that the British had put in place to support the colonial economy, such as the railway line, airports and banks. The birth of the East African Community in 1967, therefore, was more than a confluence of like-minded intellectuals. They possibly were literary geniuses lost in power, Kenyatta having made his mark in his classic Facing Mount Kenya, and Nyerere translating William

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Shakespeare's Merchant o f Venice into Kiswahili as Mabepari wa Venisi and Julius Ceasar as Juliasi Kaisari. Obote is said to have been influenced by the British poet, John Milton, enough to adopt his name, Milton. But Kenyatta's political grounding at the London School of Economics; Nyerere's socialist leanings, partly traced to Edinburgh University in Scotland and Obote's (unfinished) education at Makerere produced three different minds. Nonetheless, the EAC was a necessity that they all recognised would benefit the three countries and secure their futures.The mini skirts and leopard hats worn by hostesses on East African Airways flights amply reflected the multiple heritage: embracing Western norms punctuated by African sensibility. And the three leaders hugged like loving brothers whenever they met. There may have been genuine affection. For Nyerere was pretty close to Obote, as they were with other African leaders elsewhere on the continent. In the same league were pan-Africanists like Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Egypt's Gamel Abdel Nasser, Ahmed Ben Bella of Algeria and Patrice Lumumba of Congo. Others were Mali's Modibo Keita and Sekou Toure of Guinea. The short-lived Pan-African People's Movement in eastern and southern Africa was based in Nairobi under Mbiyu Koinange, a nationalist whose vision, observers say, was blunted by Kenyatta's inward-looking temperament. That the Pan-African Movement's having a base in Kampala today is a symbol of Uganda's commitment to the broader African struggle. "Uganda, in spite of its many problems, has always been a much more vibrant society intellectually," acknowledges Anyang' Nyong'o in a paper, 'Preconditions and Prospects of an African Renaissance: A View from East Africa', presented in a Munich conference in 2000. But the intellectual drift that sounded the death knell of EAC was Nyerere's Arusha Declaration, where he outlined his vision for his country. "Although when we talk of exploitation we usually think of capitalists, we should not forget that there are many fish in the sea," he said. "They eat each other. The large ones eat the small ones, and small ones eat those who are even smaller."

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Divisions "There are two possible ways of dividing the people in our country. We can put the capitalists and feudalists on one side, and the farmers and workers on the other. But we can also divide the people into urban dwellers on one side and those who live in the rural areas on the other. If we are not careful, we might get to the position where the real exploitation in Tanzania is that of the town dwellers exploiting the peasants." Nyerere told Tanzanians who wished to go to London that they need not take a plane to England; the London of Africa was next door, in Nairobi.This may have been a double-edged statement, for while Nairobi was evidently more developed than Dar-es-Salaam, London was then the world centre of capitalism, and Kenyatta was partly seen as a British stooge. Obote's declaration of the Common Man's Charter, in line with Nyerere's Ujamaa, is said to have scared the British government out of their wits. It scared them enough to plot his ouster. They succeeded. But Obote's ties of pan-Africanism are what survived him in his hour of need, sheltered by Nyerere after the 1971 coup and Zambia's Kenneth Kaunda after the 1985 coup, where he lived till last week. Within this context, it was just a matter of time before things fell apart, and the EAC effectively collapsed in 1977. Thirty years on, the community has been revived with the projected goal of federating into a political union in 10 years. If Amin was a convenient scapegoat for the flop, the teething problems that the revived EAC seems unable to outgrow point to unresolved hostilities that stem from this era. Nyerere was a public-spirited leader who, long after he had left office, came to be regarded as the conscience of Africa. Obote, through his 20-year exile, on the other hand, elicited different reactions from different people in different times. Through the 1970s, he was seen as the greatest leader that Uganda never had, but when he took the reigns of power again in the 1980s, the outcome was not as glorious. In death, there is likely to be adulation from some quarters and relief from others.

22 Blame the Times, not the Man Asuman Bisiika, Sunday Monitor, 16 October 2005 "Founding father of the nation adored and dreaded in equal measure" is how one of the writers described former president Milton Obote. Very representative, but still how ironical? Yet a similar irony runs through the entire contemporary African history. The irony means there is a lot more to Obote than the ordinary. African political leadership has passed through three phases: the phase of the revolutionary African leaders who led liberation movements against colonialism; the one of the soldier-presidents who took over power through military coups in the late 1960s and 1970s; and the neo-revolutionary leaders of the late 1980s and 1990s. Obote falls in the first category. He was among the idealist revolutionaries of the 1960s who lacked experience outside the mould of the lopsided social and political strata of the colonial state. The soldier-presidents just took advantage of these weaknesses and the Cold War ideological dichotomy to mess with the politics and the economics. The neo-revolutionary African leaders with university education and the privilege to reflect on the shortcomings of the idealist leaders, should appreciate the challenges of the immediate period after independence in order to enrich the debate on contemporary African history.

Context important Which is why Obote's actions should be judged within the context of the global, regional and local political challenges and trends of his time, not merely heaping blame on him for the country's problems. How come most of what many people have called Obote's mistakes were also made by other African leaders?

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Obote had a problem with Mengo (the seat of the powerful kingdom of Buganda). Likewise, former president Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana had a shaky relationship with the powerful Ashanti kingdom, while the Nigerian government had trouble with the Igbo community in the 1960s. What happened at Lubiri Palace in Uganda could have happened elsewhere on the continent. Indeed, when the Igbo tried to secede from Nigeria (as Buganda also attempted), they were fought, defeated and brought back into the fold. And by the way, what if the war between Mengo and Buganda was protracted to the level of the Biafran war? Even by his own admission that his major regrettable omission was his failure to control the army, the 1971 coup could still have taken place, perhaps a little later. Coups on the African continent were the result of a multitude of interests and the African leaders were just reduced to pawns on a chessboard. So, however much control Obote would have exercised over the army would not have been a guarantee against a military coup. Most of the armies inherited by the immediate post-independence African leaders had been trained by the colonialists and had the colonial mindset of being surbservient. Their appreciation of statehood was lacking or almost non-existent. The colonial administration wanted the military as far from politics as possible. But with a weak political leadership grappling with the challenges of the newfound power of independence, the military became bolder.

Best constitution? Obote abrogated the 1962 constitution. But if it was the best constitution, why have the governments that came after him not restored it? The truth is that the 1962 constitution had problems that should be judged on their own merit. Obote has been accused of making Uganda a one-party state and opting for a "Move to the Left" (socialism). But most African countries did just that in response to the unavoidable ideological dichotomy of socialism and capitalism of the time. All the East African countries

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were one-party states. "The Move to the Left" can only be appreciated from the background of colonialism. The independence movements enjoyed support from the left and it was logical that they would share a repugnance for colonialism and imperialism. And it is worth noting that most African countries, even those with ideological links to the West like Kenya, had a one-party state. During the Obote 1 regime, global commerce and mercantile regimes were, as would be expected, appendages of the global political ideologies. It was when one bought what mattered notwithstanding the cost, unlike today where there is a call for "value for money". Today, many people are criticising President Museveni for overstaying in power, but in the 1960s, it was fashionable to rule for decades. Museveni is now being judged by the standards of current trends. Thus, to judge Obote, one needs to put his times on trial, but not the man. This is not to say that he couldn't have done any better.

23 How Obote Learnt of the 1971 Coup Sunday Monitor, 16 October 2005. The original version of this article was just published in the Sunday Vision in 1999. Henry Kyemba served Prime Minister (later President) Milton Obote as Principal Private Secretary from 1963 to 25 January 1971 when Obote was overthrown by Maj. Gen. Amin Dada. It was Kyemba who conveyed the news of the Amin coup to Obote on a flight back home from Singapore, where they had attended a Commonwealth summit. He later served the governments of Amin and Museveni. To mark the 20th anniversary of Amin's overthrow on 11 April 1979, Kyemba granted an interview to Conrad Nkutu on how the presidential delegation in Singapore received the news of the 1971 coup. January 1971: Ian Smith and the racist white settler community had declared Rhodesia's independence from Britain. British Prime Minister Edward Heath was under intense pressure from independent black Africa to regain control of the colony and grant independence under black majority rule to what became Zimbabwe. The Commonwealth summit in Singapore that month promised to be a heated showdown between Heath and Tanzania's President Julius Nyerere, Zambia's Kenneth Kaunda and Uganda's Milton Obote. So heated were the exchanges between the two sides that at one point during the summit, Heath warned that some of the fiery leaders threatening him at the table might not be able to return home. For the Ugandan delegation led by President Obote, the warning would come true only too soon. The delegation, which spent about three weeks at the summit, included Foreign Minister Sam Ngudde Odaka, his Permanent Secretary Sam Baingana, Commerce Minister William 107

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Kalema, High Commissioner to Britain Paul Etiang and Kyemba. The historic events surrounding Obote's overthrow and how it was received by the presidential entourage are still vivid in Kyemba's memory. January 11: "We went to Singapore knowing the situation at home was not good. But Obote felt it necessary to give support to his fellow Commonwealth presidents in pressing Edward Heath to change his policy on Rhodesia." January 23: For Kyemba, the first sign that the situation was serious was the arrival in Singapore of Chris Ntende, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, just before the summit came to a close. "We were due to go home but Ntende had nevertheless been sent to brief Obote on developments since his departure. He stayed with me in my room because the hotel was full up. Next door to us was Obote's presidential suite." According to Kyemba, Obote was later to claim that Ntende had briefed Kyemba on the impending arrest of the army commander, Maj. Gen. Idi Amin, which he had ordered, and that Kyemba had briefed "his tribesman" Wanume Kibedi in Kampala by phone. Kibedi, a brotherin-law of the general, was alleged to have then tipped off Amin who moved ahead of President Obote and mounted a coup. Kibedi was appointed Foreign Minister. But Kyemba denies this outright: "Ntende told me nothing of the kind. He is still alive and can testify. There was no need for Ntende to come thousands of miles to find a tribesman through whom to warn Kibedi when Kibedi was himself accessible in Kampala through many other tribesmen if that was really necessary!" Kyemba says. Ntende told Kyemba he had come to brief Obote on the Asian question, which had apparently attracted concern from world leaders at the summit. There was popular pressure on the Ugandan government to redress the control that the Asian community had over commerce and industry. But Kyemba knew it had to be the Amin security situation. The summit had already ended and the information was therefore too late. It was not the real reason for Ntende's presence.

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He did not fail to notice that Obote and Ntende were repeatedly phoning Kampala from the presidential suite at odd hours. The connections were poor and the two were shouting loudly enough to be overheard. The issue was security. There was a danger of armed action against the government from army commander Amin. Kyemba received additional information from an intelligence officer on their security detail that there was trouble in Kampala. January 24: The PPS immediately informed the president about the troubles in Kampala. Obote directed him to summon the delegation to his suite for a briefing. The president informed the delegation that state security was under threat in Kampala but that the National Security Committee under Internal Affairs Minister Basil Bataringaya was "handling the matter". Kyemba would later learn that Obote had failed to reach Bataringaya who was already being hunted by Amin's troops and was in hiding. In one of the phone calls, Obote had gotten through to the Central Police Station in Kampala and was speaking to one officer Dusman, who was the regional police commander. Dusman had confirmed to Obote that the army was "on the move". Asked what the police was doing to stop them, the commander replied that the police was "on standby". With an amused grin on his face as he told the story, a then worried Kyemba recalls Obote shouting back: "Standing by for what?" Things were definitely going the wrong way. By the time of departure from Singapore, Obote had apparently still not been able to speak to either Bataringaya or to the loyal Lt Col. David Oyite Ojok, by then the quartermaster general of the army. Kyemba would later learn that things moved so fast that the two security supremos, who were coordinating a "response" to the coup, had had to abandon a top security chiefs' meeting and flee the parliament buildings on foot as pro-Amin troops seized the neighbouring Radio Uganda, from where they announced the coup. Ojok fled to Dar-es-Salaam and rejoined Obote. He would return as chief of staff of the rebel army, Kikoosi Maalum, that marched alongside the Tanzanian troops in its overthrow of Amin. Just under

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two years later, Bataringaya met a brutal death at the hands of Amin's murderous soldiers. In an incredible family tragedy, his wife Edith was also murdered by the Amin regime. January 26 (which was still January 25 in Kampala) found the troubled delegation on an East African Airways jet to Bombay, India, headed for Nairobi. Kyemba spent much of the flight in the cockpit, monitoring BBC Radio for news. The initial reports were that there were troop movements in Kampala. BBC reported uncertainty about the fate of the Obote government and that the president was on a flight back home. Radio Uganda was reportedly playing martial music but no announcement had been made. Halfway through the flight, a shaken Kyemba emerged from the cockpit to hesitantly inform Obote that the BBC was now announcing confirmation of the coup. Maj. Gen. Idi Amin had overthrown the government. The army had taken over. Obote fell back into his seat speechless. The PPS moved down the aircraft aisle to inform the Foreign Minister. Sam Odaka, renowned for his sense of humour, quipped: "We are now stateless. We have no country!" Kyemba moved on to inform the rest of the delegation and the economy passengers on the commercial flight, all of whom received the news in silence. There was no emergency action meeting on the flight. The president was silent for the rest of the flight. On arrival in Nairobi, "Obote was treated as a fallen leader. There was no fanfare at the airport. We were bundled into vehicles at the steps of the plane and taken straight to a hotel where we met Akena Adoko, chief of the General Service Unit, the security intelligence service. "Akena had left the country knowing full well there was an impending crisis. Surprisingly, he had been cleared to travel abroad by the president. He must have known what was going to happen and made sure he was outside the country." The initial plan by Obote was to travel by road to eastern Uganda and mobilise but there was no cooperation from the Kenyan authorities. The next morning, the delegation was put on plane to Tanzania. The reception at Dar-es-

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Salaam was markedly different Nyerere had directed Vice President Rashid Kawawa to receive Obote with a line-up of Tanzanian cabinet ministers. Waiting on the tarmac was Nyerere's Rolls Royce, with the Ugandan presidential flag flying in full colours. The delegation was taken to State House, from where most of them proceeded to call their relatives and friends at home. Many members of the delegation would return to Uganda before the week was out. Why did Kyemba risk returning home? "It was a combination of factors. Obote had shown his mistrust of me when we were at Entebbe Airport, departing for Singapore. He called a security meeting attended by Bataringaya, Oyite and a few others at the VIP lounge but did not call me in." The ex-PPS concedes though that it was not necessary for him to attend every meeting. "He would call me in when he wanted me." Kyemba sat outside the VIP lounge with Amin who had also been excluded from a security meeting he knew very well was going on. It was very conspicuous that the army commander had been left out. Some of the people in the meeting were his subordinates. For Kyemba: "I knew I was not particularly wanted in that meeting." He does not say so, but his exclusion from the inner circle must have stuck in Amin's mind. After three days in Dar, the PPS called his relatives. They told him the situation in Kampala was stable and that he should return home. "I called my office at parliament buildings and spoke to my secretary. She told me I should call her back after she had spoken to the general." When Kyemba called again, the new president himself was on the line. "Kyemba, we are celebrating! When are you coming?" asked Amin. For the 32-year old PPS, a career civil servant with no political obligations to Obote, the decision was made. Obote called the delegation and said it was unsafe to return to Kampala "but he knew many of us wanted to go home". Within days, many of the delegation were on an East Africa Airways jet back to Entebbe. They included Commerce Minister William Kalema, who was later murdered by Amin, and Permanent Secretary Sam Baingana, whose brother-in-law, ex-minister Grace Ibingira, had been detained by Obote and was released by Amin. Baingana had to flee to exile

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in 1976. Also on the plane home was Deputy PPS to the president, Jonathan Ekochu. Ambassador Paul Etyang returned to the High Commission in London while several members of the Presidential Close Escort Unit told Kyemba they wanted to return home. They handed their weapons over to the PPS who handed them to Amin's security people at Entebbe Airport. On the tarmac, waiting for Kyemba, was presidential driver (later Minister of Animal Industry!), Ismail Sebbi, who had been Kyemba's driver before he was seconded to the army commander's office. The now ex-PPS was driven straight to "Command Post", Amin's residence in Kololo, Kampala. "His Excellency" was meeting Cardinal Nsubuga and other religious leaders. When he came out of the meeting and saw Kyemba, he broke into a huge smile. "Kyemba, on Monday you report to your office." Which office? asked the nervous ex-PPS. "Your office as Principal Private Secretary to the President and Secretary to the Cabinet." He had been taken back to his old job with additional duties. What were his last memories of the fallen Obote before he got onto the plane home? "I did not have a personal farewell with him. He bade us farewell as a group. Obote put on a very brave face. It was commendable at the time. Apparently, he had hoped some of the battalions would resist Amin and that the military government would last a few hours." But Kyemba does not recall Obote actually taking any action to reverse the coup. "We were doing little more than 'monitoring', he recalls with a grin. Why did he rush back into the arms of an illiterate general who had overthrown the constitution? "We never expected Amin, with all his limitations, which we knew intimately, to even want to be president. We thought he was going to be temporary. The thought that he would turn out to be a killer never even crossed our minds." Kyemba lived to tell the tale. Hundreds of his colleagues and friends were brutally murdered by the Amin regime. For President Obote, Amin's survival skills turned out to be a rude shock. The general was to sleep in Obote's bed at State House for eight long years. It took the Tanzanian army to send him packing on 11 April 1979.

24 Don't Condemn Obote, Learn from his Mistakes Micheál Okema Micheál is a Tanzanian and a columnist in The East African. He wrote this article at the time o f Obote's death. 77i/s article appeared in The East African of 17 October 2005. With the demise of Apollo Milton Obote, Ahmed Ben Bella is now the only survivor of the 34 signatories of the charter of the Organisation for African Unity, who assembled in Addis Ababa, Ethopia, in 1963. This aspect of the OAU is important because we are now forced to take stock of the man and his deeds, or, perhaps, misdeeds. We need to take into account all that pertains to his life. A simple method would be to put the achievements on one side of the scale and the failures on the other. Then we can make a judgement on the basis of which way the scale tilts.This method can only be a rough guide because not all actions have the same impact. So the next best thing would be to weigh those actions qualitatively, on the basis of their impact. This is the instance where one good is heavier than a thousand misdeeds. Tanzanians have used yet another method to judge Mwalimu Nyerere, the father of their nation. Nyerere did many good things for his country. But more than that, he was glorified by his people for his sincere intentions. Anyway, it is customary the world over to remember only the good in a man upon his death. That is why I chose the OAU as the starting point. At that meeting, Obote, then prime minister, offered Uganda as a training base for the liberation struggle of southern Africa that had been agreed upon. It is the irony of history that Obote at that time 113

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was more revolutionary than Nyerere. Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah was so impressed that he paid a fleeting visit to Uganda on his way back from that meeting. Obote was a survivor in a second sense, too. In our troubled Africa few can boast of returning to power after fleeing into exile. There was the case of King Idris of Libya who regained his throne at the end of the Second World War after losing it 22 years earlier. Like Obote, Idris would lose his throne a second time to one Muammar Gaddafi and he would die in exile. There is no denying that Obote was the first political leader of independent Uganda. However, political awareness in the country was so sharp that, unlike Nkrumah or Nyerere, he cannot claim the crown of a Moses. Obote was one among many and was chosen because someone had to be leader. Let us try to think of Obote as a product of his time. What was happening in Africa then? Nkrumah had declared one-party rule in 1963. Thereafter, one-party rule became the fashion. In our region, Tanzania was the first to go one party in 1965. Kenya followed in 1969 and Uganda the following year. Nyerere abolished kingdoms in 1962 but had the wisdom to incorporate all those kings and chiefs into his administration, making some ambassadors, others regional commissioners and Chief Adam Sapi Mkwawa the speaker of the Tanzanian National Assembly for nearly 30 years. Obote was a product of his circumstances too. A plot by his lieutenants to set him aside was very real. It was therefore logical that he would move against them before they did the same against him. His other actions in the wake of that attempt may have been excessive. Like the accession to the presidency, for instance, and the abolition of the kingdoms. But the causes that he used as an excuse were not of his own making. Well he has done his time. Which makes me ask what life is really all about. Let us go back in time to the 1960s. Most of our politicians were then youthful. There they were struggling against one another, taking the tasks before them very seriously. It did not occur to them that an end must come some day. Today, most of them are dead, as we have seen in the case of OAU. It would seem the profession of politics is a cursed one. No politician can decide how history will remember him. And should

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a politician be remembered, it will be more for his moral stance than political craftsmanship. Thus, we remember Abraham Lincoln for the abolition of slavery. Kennedy is remembered more for fighting racial segregation than for his stand-off with the Russians over missiles in Cuba. Let our current politicians learn from those gone before them. It is not enough to condemn their predecessors like Obote. It is more important to learn from their mistakes.

25 Museveni Got it Real Bad on Obote Gawaya Tegulle, The Daily Monitor, 12 October 2005 On the face of it, the Museveni administration has done well to give former President Milton Obote a decent funeral. But the reality is, their good graces have come too little and far too late, when the man himself is not here with us to enjoy it. I doubt that from wherever he is now, Obote can really appreciate all this. The truth is that government should have welcomed Obote back from exile long ago, without any conditions, if they were as sincere in their pursuit of reconciliation as they claim. All the president needed was some humility and sober thought, and the old man would have been back here and spent his last days in the country that he led to independence. Whatever anybody (including the president) says or thinks, they can never take away the role Obote played in leading this country to independence, or in helping groom all of them in leadership. But we lost an opportunity to mend fences in this country by attaching stupid conditions to Obote's return, in a vain and despicable attempt to sound strong and sinless. By saying that Obote could return but face prosecution for his crimes (whatever those were) government showed just how unwise and petty they can get. President Museveni should have shown that he is above such petty sentiment and allowed what was surely a harmless old man to return home. By doing so he would have sown a positive seed for posterity, and appealed to a higher sense of justice, with forgiveness prevailing over retaliation. What we can do for now is make a few gestures to show the spirit of reconciliation. One obvious one is that Obote's burial day should be made a public holiday. If government could have the temerity to declare a public holiday the day John Garang was to be buried, Garang who 116

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was only a friend of Uganda, then how much more should we honour the man who led us to independence 43 years ago? If we are keen on reconciliation, this is a small thing.

26 There is Time for Everything, Says President Museveni Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, The Neio Vision, Saturday, 22 October 2005 “We agreed on a joint structure where Ohote would be the chairperson and I would be the deputy chairperson with a total tnembership o f seven people." This was Museveni's address to the 7th Parliament o f Uganda as Obote's body lay in state in Parliament.

Honourable Members of Parliament On behalf of the government and people of Uganda, I extend sincere condolences to the family of the late President Obote. Honourable Members of Parliament need to know that after our special cabinet meeting of Tuesday 11 October 2005, we decided to accord the former president a state funeral as well as assisting the family in all possible ways. During the lengthy meeting under my chairmanship, we reviewed the turbulent history of Uganda, the continued need for reconciliation and healing of the old, physical and emotional wounds to our society. It is these considerations that guided us to do what we are doing in respect of the late President Obote.

A time for everything In the Bible, the Book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 3:1-8, says, To everything there is a season, and a time for every matter or purpose under heaven. A time to be bom and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build. A time to weep and a time 118

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to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them. A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to search and a time to give up. A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear and a time to mend. A time to be silent and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace. Hence, there was a time for fighting to end the hemorrhage in our society. Even in recent times, there has been the need and time to fight for ending the barbarism in north central Uganda orchestrated by Kony. However, according to the NRM philosophy, strategy and tactics in conflict resolution and management, we always believe that all conflicts must be followed by principled and rational reconciliation in order to heal them completely. Even during the conflict we make a distinction between the misleaders and the misled. We make a distinction between inevitable acts of war and war crimes. We in fact mostly grant automatic forgiveness to the misled or people who were acting on orders. If they are soldiers, we automatically integrate them into our own forces. By the time we captured Kampala, we had the following large-size forces whose description as battalions was a misnomer because they were quite big in size.

Battallions The 1st Battalion was then led by Pecos Kuteesa and Mugisha, 3rd Battalion by Lumumba, 5th Battalion by Kashaka, 7th Battalion by Matayo Kyaligonza and Muhangyi, 9th Battalion by Kihaanda. The 11th Battalion was by then led by Ali Chefe, the 13th Battalion by Ivan Koreta, the 15th Battalion by Samson Mande, the 19th Battalion by Peter Kerim, the 21st Battalion by Benon Tumukunde and the Special Force by Jet Mwebaze. Even before the capture of Kampala we started organising the following battalions out of the forces that had been on the opposite side: the 23rd Battalion (former UNLA), the 25th Battalion (former UNLA), and 27th Battallion (Fedemo) which was led by Nkwanga.

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The 29th Battalion (former Teso militias of Col. Omaria), the 31st Battalion (UNLA), the 33rd Battalion (UNLA), the 35th Battalion (UFM of the late Kayiira), the 37th Battalion (UNLA), the 39th Batallion (UNLA), the 41st, 45th, 47th 49th, 51st were for new recruits. The 53rd Battalion up to the 71st Battalion (FUNA), the 73rd Batallion (UNRF Moses Ali); etc. etc. It was through that prompt bulk merging of the forces of the two sides that we, on the one hand, created a nucleus of the new national army.

Dialogue On the other hand, rescued away from potential mischief of a large number of former soldiers, it was easy and correct to deal leniently with the bulk of the forces because they were not the authors of whatever mistakes occurred. At worst, they had been mere executioners. That left us with the task of dealing with former leaders of the other side. There was a need to engage in a serious dialogue with that level of command and control on the side of politics and on the side of the army. We in fact succeeded in talking to some of the leaders like General Tito Okello, former Prime Minister Otema Allimadi, Mr Charles Alai (former Minister in the NRM government), Lt. General Moses Ali (current Deputy Prime Minister), Mr Aggrey Awon (former presidential candidate and Member of Parliament for Samia-Bugwe), Maj. Gen. Bamuze, etc.We were similarly ready to engage in a principled and rational dialogue with the late former president Obote.

Opportunities lost A number of opportunities were lost. I would like to end by re­ emphasising the need for continuing to search for a national consensus and reconciliation. We have not had time to deal with all aspects of our turbulent history mainly because we were in a continuous fight with the Sudanese-sponsored terrorism. Some of the actors, myself included, did not appear before the Commission of Inquiry of Justice Oder(1986-1993). I wanted to appear before the Commission but the former Justice refused. There may be need, therefore, to look at

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additional interaction that may help us to close this sad chapter of our country: a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a Reconciliation National Conference, etc. When we are less busy, we need to look afresh at this subject. As I stand here speaking on this sad occasion, people may not realise that, especially during the anti-Amin struggle, we tried several times to forge a common front with Obote. While I was in Tanzania, I made several attempts. However, unreasonable or greedy elements would frustrate those efforts.

Summoned In particular, I remember two occasions. After the Tanzanian and the Fronasa forces captured Mbarara district on 29 February 1979,1 was summoned by President Julius Nyerere and I was told to go to Dar-esSalaam. When I got to Dar-es-Salaam, I went straight to see Mwalimu (Nyerere) at his home at Msasani. Mwalimu told me that I should meet Obote and agree on a united front. I spent the whole of the following day with President Obote at his house. Mama Miria was there. We even had lunch. We agreed on a joint structure where Obote would be the chairperson and I would be the deputy chairperson with a total membership of seven people. Then I left again for the war front, passing through Bukoba town of Tanzania near the common border. There was a certain UPC supporter in the hotel where I was staying. I briefed him on what we had agreed upon with Obote. He pretended to be happy. There was a Tanzanian internal security officer in the town office that we used to frequent. The following day I went to that office while this UPC official was on the phone with Obote. The official did not realise that I was within earshot. I heard the UPC official shouting, "Milton, do not agree. We do not need unity. We are strong on the ground. This young man is on the cloud nine because of the agreement you entered into with him." I knew they were talking about me. I quietly withdrew to the hotel room. After his phone call, the official came back to the hotel. I asked him "Have you got in touch with Dar-es-Salaam today to know the latest?"His answer was, "No. I have not talked to anybody. It is

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only what you told me yesterday."! was so disappointed. You may heap blame on individuals but you may need to look at the structures of these organisations. The other incident was when Obote came to Kampala for the first time following the defeat of Idi Amin, from Tanzania in May 1980.1 decided to pay a courtesy call on him in the room in Nile Mansions where he was staying. I found the room full of UPC supporters. I told him that I had come to welcome him. As we were starting to converse, Rwakasisi threw in a remark that annoyed me so much. I have tried to remember what it was without success. I stormed out of the room. I believe that was the last time I met face to face with Obote.

Patriotic duty We should take it as a patriotic duty not to squander opportunities for reconciliation. Before the constitutional problems in Uganda started in 1966, Obote played his role of contributing to Uganda's fight for independence as well as economic development of Uganda. Twentytwo hospitals were built and they are still operating today.

Schools built A number of secondary schools were also built. As for the Ugandans who are still alive, there is time for everything. The time for reconciliation has long been here but we have not taken advantage of it. We have, however, not always fully utilised it. Let us go full steam for principled reconciliation. When I talk of principled reconciliation, I do not mean covering up mistakes. I would like to again appeal to Ugandans that are living in self-imposed exile outside Uganda to come back home. There is an amnesty law covering all Ugandans that were in opposition to this government for the last six years.

Review Amin queries Finally, since the determination for reconciliation is growing stronger, we may have to review the question of former President Idi Amin. May the soul of former President Obote who was a long time member of this parliament rest in eternal peace.

27 Buganda is Equally to Blame for the 1966/67 Political Crisis Andrew M. Mwenda, Daily Monitor, 25 October 2005 The death of former president Apollo Milton Obote has attracted celebrations from a section of people in Buganda. While I understand the emotions surrounding Obote's directives to the Uganda Army to attack Lubiri and cause the flight of Kabaka Edward Mutesa II in 1966 and his subsequent abolition of the kingdom of Buganda in 1967, it is certainly in bad taste to celebrate the death of anyone, including an enemy. But why celebrate Obote's death? I have always been intrigued by the tendency of many Baganda to reduce their collective tragedy of 1966/67 to the person of Obote. Possibly it helps quench their anger and frustrations. However, such an approach is not helpful to the kingdom of Buganda or its people generally. In fact, it is precisely because of this that subsequent Ugandan leaders have found it easy to manipulate the population in Buganda in order to reap cheap political popularity and entrench themselves in power.

Shared responsibility That Obote personally contributed to the 1966/67 crisis is beyond dispute. My point, however, is that we should not ignore the sum of political forces at play and the number of actors involved. For example, Mutesa personally, and the clique of the old guard at Mengo that had gained increased influence on him contributed to the kingdom's tragedy. I am deeply conscious of the fact that many Baganda will forever find it unpalatable to accept the role of their own king in the demise of their kingdom, and the wider tragedy of Uganda. That notwithstanding, we need to place that debate in a wider perspective. 123

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The reigning ideologies in most of Africa and the Third World in the 1960s treated traditional institutions as enemies of national unity and progress. On both the left (dependency theory) and the right (modernisation theory), the momentum was against traditionalism. In such circumstances, therefore, Buganda needed a king and a court in Mengo with tact and wisdom to balance the conflicting interests of an entrenched monarchical institution with the wider aspirations of building a unified Uganda led by a man who hailed from a non­ kingdom area. There were many people within the UPC and the opposition DP, from both inside and outside Buganda, who felt that to achieve national unity, the kingdom of Buganda had to be crushed. But there were equally many others who strongly wanted a compromise. And I think Obote belonged to them. At this critical time, Mutesa increasingly came under the influence of the old guard who could not give him wise counsel. Rather than seek moderation and compromise, they advised him to seek confrontation. According to many observers of the time, Mutesa had surrounded himself with the old-guard chiefs led by Amos Sempa, James Lutaaya, Antoni Tamale, Nyanja of Buddu, Ssebanakitta, Kaggwa, and others who told him not what he should hear but what he wanted to hear. Many observers of the time say Mutesa avoided young men who offered him honest and frank advice because they had little to lose.

Expelling government The motion for secession was initially scheduled to be debated on 18 May, but the speaker ruled it out of order, saying it was illegal. However, the plotters succeeded in smuggling the motion onto the floor of the Lukiiko on May 20, even though it was not on the Order Paper. Reading the Lukiiko record for 20 May 1966, when it debated the motion for secession, one is struck by the recklessness of this clique of chiefs. Obote suspended the 1962 constitution and with it, dismissed Mutesa as president of Uganda on 22 February 1966 and on 15 April introduced the "pigeonhole" constitution. Both these actions had left Mutesa's job as Kabaka, the kingdom of Buganda and its power status

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intact. Instead, Kaggwa reads out a motion that "This Lukiiko resolves not to recognise at all the government of Uganda whose headquarters must be moved away from the soil of Buganda." The debate is full of calls for rebellion. Chief Nyanja of Buddu, for example, said: "Red ants live in their anthill and are divided into two: the queen who is one, and many, many soldiers whose task is to see that none touches the queen at all. Should any try to do so, the alarm is raised; war begins and the soldiers fight to the death before the queen is harmed. Thus, Obote's constitution is a move to harm the queen, Kabaka Mutesa II. We have now raised the alarm by calling this Lukiiko. Let the fight begin at once, let all die to save the queen," he said.

Nkangi booed People like Mayanja Nkangi, then Katikkiro, who tried to advise against the path of rebellion were booed and shut down. The motion was passed! How many governments in this world would tolerate this? In fact, his actions further convinced me that Obote was very restrained (or hesitant). It took him three days, that is on 23 May, to arrest the three chiefs involved: Ssebanakitta, Lutaaya and Matovu. After doing this, Mengo sounded war drums and attacked police posts in Kyaggwe, Bulemezi, Kayunga, Buddu, Ssingo, and Luweero; ambushed an army lorry and dug trenches in major roads. That day, cabinet sat at an emergency meeting and gave the prime minister a directive to stop this lawlessness. This takes place in the context of where Mutesa had earlier made a request for arms, ammunition and troops from the British government and had been turned down. Mutesa then ordered arms throughGailley and Roberts to be paid for by Buganda kingdom but for the Uganda Army. The request itself was unconstitutional since as head of state he did not have such power. There were intelligence reports (although later proved to be wrong) that there was a large cache of arms inside Lubiri. I have for years wondered what Obote would have done in such circumstances other than what he did and failed to find it. May I kindly ask Mengo to tempt their "friend and ally" President Yoweri Museveni with such a challenge and we see what music he will play for them?

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28 Short Letters These letters were published in both The Monitor and The New Vision at the time o f Obote's death. They highlight varied opinion, emotion, admiration and anger about Obote.

Was Milton Obote a Statesman or a Villain? T h e N e w V i s i o n , 12 October 2005 Sir, "Son of Akokoro city" is what Milton Obote preferred his home town to be called. He was a distinguished gentleman, charismatic, eloquent and an articulate speaker. He was one of the few Ugandans you would love to listen to during an intellectual debate. He led Uganda to independence. He was the first elected prime minister and the first executive president of Uganda. In his administration, 22 government hospitals were built and were evenly spread across the country and so were health units in various sub-counties. Government schools and institutions spread across the country. Many government projects were hatched during his tenure in office though implemented in subsequent governments. I have lived most of my childhood years and my adult life under the current government. I never had experience of the past regimes, but over the years, reading Ugandan history, I got to learn a lot about past governments. Obote was an honest and credible man, a true statesman and a patriotic son of this nation. The individuals who served under him say a lot of good things about him. Obote as an individual has done a lot more for this nation than most of us have done for our country. We need to give credit where it is due. All human beings in their lifetimes do both good and evil. Obote must have done some evil but that should not stop us from talking about the good he has done for this country. In my opinion, if there exist any 128

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statesmen in this country Obote is the greatest and there is no doubt in my mind about that. History or individuals should not rob him of the good he did for this nation. May those he wronged find a place in their humble hearts to forgive him. May his soul rest in peace. Afayo Victor Draman, Kampala I Screamed for Joy! Sir, I learnt of the death of Milton Obote from the BBC. For the first time in my life, I screamed for joy for the death of a human being! My jubilation for Obote's death is based on the following reasons and for these only 1 will never forgive him and I condemn his soul to roast in hell: • He drove Sir Edward Mutesa into exile where he died. • He destroyed villages of Luweero Triangle, including my wife's home village. • He has been a master of political intrigue which he passed on to his loyal students, including very prominent people in the present government! The taxpayers' money should not be wasted to accord this villain a state burial but should serve as a lesson (as it did to Amin) to politicians who know how to stand up and don't know when to sit down. Abudullar Mulumba - USA The New Vision, 12 October 2005

Obote's Death Should Unite Nation Sir, The death of our former president, Apollo Milton Obote, should unite Ugandans to understand the importance of our national independence. Ugandans should remember him for uniting them against colonialists. May Allah forgive him for the bad he might have done in defence of his country and reward him abundantly for all the good he did for his country. Kirarira Issa

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Declare Two Days o f Mourning The New Vision, 13 October 2005 Sir, I call upon the government to prepare for the return of the body of our former president Apollo Milton Obote. The former leader, regardless of what he did, is part of our history and should be brought back and buried in Uganda. I don't think Obote did bad things only. We should learn to consider our history, whether bad or good. Uganda's independence was not achieved in the current government. We should even declare two days of national mourning in remembrance of the first executive president of Uganda. Nsubuga Sula Makerere University Sir, Following Uganda's political history, it is unavoidable to declare two days of national mourning for the fallen exiled leader, Apollo Obote. Obote deserves to be recognised by the current government as an irreplaceable nationalist, due to his endless struggles against the colonialists. During his administration, the country enjoyed social and economic transformation, the fruits of which are still visible to this day. He should be remembered for his contribution no matter what people in the present government say. He was the first executive president of Uganda and is the one who led the country to independence. It is sad that during this transitional period, Uganda has lost such a historical figure who could still be consulted on national issues even though he had grown too old. It is a great loss to Uganda as a whole and UPC in particular, where he has been at the centre of administration since 1960. However, Obote's death in exile should be a lesson to Ugandan leaders not to allow power to go to their heads. The end is always one fleeing their motherland, living in distress, frustration and loneliness. Uganda's political leaders should learn to live in harmony with opposition leaders. Ronald Lulijwa Kampala

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"A Good Muganda Is a Dead One" Sir, As the country mourns the death of "a great democrat" Milton Obote, I wish to comment on some of his deeds. I particularly recall his assessment of one of the major ethnicities in Uganda upon which he bestowed the great honour of marrying from — the Baganda. Obote with a straight face said that a good Muganda is a dead one. Since he is now dead himself, he can probably re-assert his research findings that indeed a good Muganda is a dead one. He did demonstrate this patriotically at Nakulabye in 1964. The evils that men do live long after them. May he rest in eternal peace. K.J. Nyombi

Flags Should Fly at Half-mast Sir, I feel that I should appoint myself a presidential adviser on just one issue. I suggest to President Yoweri Museveni to consider declaring days of mourning by having Uganda flags flying at half-mast. I also advise him to declare Milton Obote a hero and accord him a state funeral at the burial site for Uganda's political heroes. Whatever mistakes Obote made should not overshadow his achievements, especially leading Uganda to independence. No leader is perfect as we have already seen but let us leam to respect past leaders. Obote has many critics but that is the right decision. We have to start from somewhere! Gregory Ndzaawa Kampala

Uganda is a Political Nuisance in the Region! Sir- The death of former President Apollo Milton Obote has come at a very psychological moment in the history of our country. Say what you will, Uganda has become a political nuisance and an embarrassment in the East African region. It has become a culture for its leaders to die in exile! Is that a record to be proud of? What is the use of studying history if we cannot draw any lessons from it? Every successive leader claims to be smarter than his predecessor only to make the same blunders and flee his homeland. Edward Mutesa died in exile and was followed by

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ldi Amin and now Obote has followed suit! Why is this so? Uganda has totally failed to handle political transition because of greed for power! All the leaders start off well only to disappoint the citizens bitterly. Arrogance is their stock in trade and no amount of advice can make them see sense until it is too late. Ruling a country is more complex than supervising affairs in one's own home, ldi Amin overthrew Obote and immediately promised that there would be elections and power would be returned to civilians. He was welcomed with euphoria because people were fed up with Obote. Within less than two years he had declared himself life president of Uganda and started doing what he knew best — butchering people as a hobby. He claimed he feared nobody except God although he hightailed it to Saudi Arabia when ordinary mortals from Tanzania took a closer look at him. He died in Jeddah and was buried there. Obote declared that he was the only African leader who did not fear a military takeover but almost immediately was shown the door. When he came back, he declared that he was going to start from where he had left off — and he did! In less than five years, he was back in exile, this time for good. Museveni came back and declared that a fundamental change had been ushered upon us. For the ten first years, everybody believed him and Uganda started regaining its former reputation of the 'Pearl of Africa'. Uganda was paradise on earth. Today, that is history. The constitution, which he had so painstakingly helped to formulate, all of a sudden was found wanting and voices started rising until they became a din. Now in his infinite wisdom, by self-assessment, he is the only person of all the 24 million Ugandans with a vision to lead Uganda! What else can I say? Things fall apart! I wish our leaders could give the country a fresh start, if not for ourselves, at least for posterity. Past leaders should have no reason to flee their countries and die in misery and loneliness. They should be granaries of wisdom and guide their successors instead of dying lonely in foreign lands being cursed by their countrymen, all the good they did forgotten! Tingasiga Tasigantomi Fort Portal

29 Baganda and Obote! Ivan Okello, The Monitor, 16 October 2005 I am shocked by the arrogance of some Baganda over Milton Obote's death and the government's intention to accord him a state funeral. I wish to remind those misguided individuals that they do not need to forgive the late Obote. It is of no consequence. His case is before his God. Have the Baganda ever apologised for conniving with the British to send King Kabalega of Bunyoro into exile in the Seychelles islands? Have they ever apologised for occupying part of Bunyoro's land, referred to as the 'lost counties'? Have they ever apologised to other Ugandans for committing treason when they supported then rebel leader Yoweri Kaguta Museveni to wage war against the government of the day? This war resulted in the loss of several lives. The rebels, their collaborators, and Obote's government are all responsible for those deaths, just as Museveni's government, Joseph Kony's LRA rebels and his collaborators are responsible for the loss of life in northern Uganda today. Each should take a share of the blame. Do the Luweero people realise that Entebbe International Airport and the road through Luweero belong to all Ugandans and that they cannot stop the body of the late Obote from being transported through such routes? Those who are celebrating Obote's death are free to do so because it is their right. Those that are mourning are also free to do so. After all, who of us is immortal? The Baganda should shape up. We can only have genuine reconciliation if everyone, including the Baganda, accepts his or her mistakes. Ivan Okello I have been forced to ask myself some hard questions after hearing and reading what people are saying about Milton Obote after his demise, 133

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especially with regard to the 1966 crisis, the Luweero crisis, and how Luweero people gleefully took alcohol and sounded drums upon hearing of his death. I neither lay claim to the facts nor am I trying to be an Obote apologist. I am basing my views on what I hear and read in books. Ponder this question about the 1966 crisis. When you are a prime minister with executive powers and you have a president who, for some reason, refuses to take a hard political decision, while you have on your hands a defacto state within a state, complete with intelligence reports that the "state within" is threatening rebellion against the "state without", do you just sit around and twiddle your fingers? Fast forward to the 1980s. When you have on your hands a group of 'bandits' (today we would call them 'terrorists') who have holed up in the bushes of Luweero, not very far from the seat of government, and are hiding amongst the population and seriously threatening the existence of the government, do you just look up in the sky and whistle? Move onto the 1990s. Twenty years ever since the 'Luweero Crisis' there is now the 'Northern Crisis'. Would it help if the people of Luweero and the people of Acholi sat and compared notes? Should the people of Acholi also take out their drums and drinking straws if Yoweri Museveni were to pass away? I am just pondering and seeking the right answers so that my mind can be put to rest. J.M. Omara Ogwang, Kampala

30 Was Obote a Killer or a Patriotic Leader? The Neiv Vsion, 17 October 2005 Sir - 1 read with dismay the article in which Luweero residents were reported to be celebrating the death of former president Milton Obote. Death is not something to celebrate. Although they argue that they will never forget the scars he inflicted on them during the liberation war, they have forgotten that Obote did not order the killing of civilians but was protecting the state against an uprising. This is provided for under the constitution of Uganda. A state must protect and defend her interests and citizens against rebels. If the guerilla leader Yoweri Museveni had been caught in the bush, he would have been charged with treason. What Obote did was in defence of the constitution and is exactly what President Museveni is doing now to protect the state against Joseph Kony's rebels. If Kony overpowered the UPDF and took power we would not be right to blame Museveni for the death and suffering of the people in northern Uganda. War always means death and suffering. Even if the people of Luweero were killed by Obote's soldiers, we have to bear in mind that it is not Obote the person who killed them. So we have to forgive him for his failure to discipline and control the army. This was always his weakness. Obote has died with all his country's history, since he is the one that led us to independence in 1962. So we should not forget the past and look at the present situation and the future of Uganda. May his soul rest in eternal peace. Nasser Mubonde Kampala

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Sir - 1 refer to Augustus Nuwagaba's article entitled "Blame Obote's evils on British colonialists" published on Friday. While I find his piece useful on some issues, I disagree with him that Amin's attack on the Lublri marked the beginning of the militarisation of Uganda's politics. The militarisation of politics in Uganda (and the marriage of politics with religion) dates back to Lord Lugard's involvement in the 1888-1890 religious wars in Buganda. Nuwagaba's article would have been stronger if he had also informed the readers that the colonialists tactfully left the thorny issues of the "lost counties" for the new (and somewhat inexperienced?) government to sort out. Secondly, in post­ colonial Uganda, Sir Edward Mutesa, the Kabaka of Buganda, was the first high-ranking political figure to introduce military methods in Uganda's politics. Reference is made to two main incidents in which Mutesa was a key player. The first one was in a Buyaga market (Buyaga being one of the "lost counties") when the Kabaka shot demonstrators, before the 1964 referendum and the Ndaiga palace shooting, after the referendum. There have also been claims of attacks on the central government police posts within Buganda just before the storming of the Lublri in 1966. History also indicates that there was a clash between the central government forces — military police — and some Kabaka supporters in Nakulabye. Again, both men, Mutesa who was the president, and Obote, who was the prime minister, sought military support to solve political issues. Mutesa had the support of the army commander Shaban Opolot, while Obote had that of Opolot's deputy, Idi Amin. Christopher Muhoozi Kampala

31 A Founding Father Adored, Dreaded in Equal Measure Timothy Kalyegira, The Monitor, Tuesday 11 October 2005. It is impossible to compute the extent to which Apollo Milton Obote evoked the feelings of millions of Ugandans and hundreds of thousands of others further a field of Uganda's borders. In many quarters, there was felt outright, almost hysterical hatred and fear; in the other, such adoration that parents named their boys "Milton" or "Apollo" after Obote. Fittingly, his last day of life was 9 October 2005, the 43rd anniversary of the independence that he ushered in that night at Kololo Airstrip in Kampala.

Eloquent crescendo His booming voice and eloquent crescendo of a delivery that echoed that of the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill made Obote an enthralling speaker to listen to. He would become one of the most formidable political leaders Africa has ever produced. The 80-year old Obote had been living in exile in Zambia since he was deposed in an army coup in July 1985. For many in the older generation, the return of Obote to the news headlines harks back to a period, both turbulent and inspirational, in East Africa's history when there was a greater sense of oneness than at any time since. Obote's standing in East Africa goes back to the 1950s. After he left Uganda's Makerere University (reportedly expelled during the second year in the Bachelor of Arts course), he got a job with the British engineering and construction company, Mowlem. He was transferred to Mowlem's branch in Kenya were he soon took up a kin interest in Kenyan independence politics.Tte Grolier 137

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Encyclopedia states that Obote was one of the men who helped form the Kenya African National Union (KANU) party in 1960. Obote originated from Uganda's Lango district and, like one of Kenya's leading political figures at the time, Tom Mboya, was an ethnic Luo. KANU would go on to lead to independence in 1963. Obote was one of the founding leaders of the Organisation of African Unity in May 1963. As one of the three East African leaders of the immediate post-independence period, Obote strode the map of the region involved in the mode towards an East African federation which, in 1967, was created and named the East African Community. This spirit of an East African troika abruptly came to an end in January 1971 when Uganda's army commander, Major-Gen. Idi Amin, staged a coup that ousted Milton Obote. Telling of the affection that even some of his chief enemies held him in, during his first press conference, on 26 January 1971, Major Gen. Amin said: "Obote was a good man" but had been surrounded by opportunists.

Far East trip Obote, who was in the far Eastern Asian island nation of Singapore attending a Commonwealth summit meeting flew straight to Kenya where at Embakasi International Airport (today known as Jomo Kenyatta International Airport) he was received by the Kenyan Vice President Daniel Arap Moi. He later re-located to Dar-es-Salaam where his friend Nyerere accorded him what dignity and security could be given an ousted head of state whom Nyerere insisted on regarding as Uganda's legitimate leader. His presence and shadow hung over the March 1979 Moshi Unity Conference in Tanzania as groups of exiled Ugandans prepared the way for a post-Amin era. Obote returned to Uganda from a nine-year exile spell in Tanzania on 27 May 1980 aboard a Tanzanian Buffalo military transport plane and landed in Mbarara, driving on to Bushenyi where he delivered one of his trademark soaring speeches. For all the neutral appearances kept up by Tanzania, Obote's return was widely regarded as a dress rehearsal for his eventual return to power, which he did in December 1980 after

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one of the most controversial elections in Africa's post-independence history. One of the most unforgettable lines in his inaugural adress on 15 December 1980 was his statement that this would be a "government by law and not by men". During his second administration , a number of Ugandans left to start a guerilla war. The two best known were former presidential candidate Yoweri Museveni and a former Minister in the first postAmin government, Andrew Kayiira. More than 20 years since leaving office, Obote continued to be a key player in Ugandan politics, his hold on the Uganda People's Congress party that he founded in 1960 never wavering. He was the centre of all the drama and high politics that informed Uganda and East Africa from the 1960s to the twentyfirst century. Kenyans would find Obote fascinating for the aforementioned history with Kenya and the nostalgic imagery of the heyday of the East African Community. Tanzanians would be intrigued by Obote for these same reasons, in addition to the fact that he spent his entire first exile period in Dar­ es- Salam. Zambians would recall the so-called "Mulungushi Club", a frienship between presidents Kenneth Kaunda, Nyerere, and Obote, symbolised by their meeting anually to exchange views and re-affirm their sense of pan-Africanism. Ugandans would, of course, continue to be fascinated by this man who mentored both Idi Amin and Yoweri Museveni; Idi Amin he appointed as army commander and Yoweri Museveni worked as an intelligence agent in Obote's General Service Unit.

32 Mixed Feelings about Apollo Milton Obote Ronald Kayanja Lusaka The author is a Ugandan working and living in Lusaka, Zambia and wrote this article in The Daily Monitor of 13 Ocrober 2005 I happen to be in Lusaka, Zambia, where Apollo Milton Obote has lived for the last 20 years of his life in exile. Growing up in Buganda, I was always conscious that the greatest enemy to Buganda was Obote. That he wanted us dead. I do not recall a formal session when my parents told me about the atrocities of Obote, but there was usual talk about the 1966 crisis and the death of Sir Edward Mutesa, which the Baganda link to Obote. I recall during the 1980 presidential campaigns there was a rally in Nakulabye and Samwiri Mugwisa said "nebwemunaakola mutya, Obote ye mufuzi" (irrespective of what you do, Obote will be president). That brought shock waves into my young system. I was not eligible to vote then, but I first sympathised with the Democratic Party (DP) which I thought had a clear chance of winning the elections.

Military backing But 1 saw that the UPC had the backing of the military and DP did not, so I thought Yoweri Museveni, who had some military backing as well, was a better option. However, I also noted that Museveni was not that popular, so I wished DP and UPM could merge to spare the country the return of Obote.

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After he won elections, fear gripped me and all those that I stayed with. We used to hear rumours that Obote had declared that he would start from where he had stopped with killing Baganda.

Dangerous times With the advent of the bush war, perilous times came. People I knew got killed/ and I narrowly escaped myself. Twice I was picked up in Panda Gari operations and taken for 'screening' in Nsambya, only to be spared by God's mercy. Many never made it to their homes alive. We lived very miserable lives of fear and agony in the period 1981 to 1986, fearing for the worst each night. Yet I was living in the suburbs of Kampala. I am not sure whether to blame this squarely on Obote, but he was the leader of the country then, so I cannot fully absolve him. Just like the people of Gulu who have not seen peace in nearly two decades can be justified to blame Museveni for their woes, part of me blames Obote. However, as I started engaging in political discussions, I found that some of my friends not only liked Obote but actually adored the man. They saw him as their hero, a great orator and the person who gave Uganda a solid foundation for economic progress only to be shattered by Idi Amin and others. They point to the many schools, the famous 22 hospitals and other social infrastructure which boomed during Obote 1. Indeed, one can argue that Obote probably led the least sectarian governments. How about the question of Buganda? How come a man who is believed to have hated Buganda with a passion was married to a Muganda? The alliance he made with Kabaka Yekka notwithstanding, he kept working relations with many Baganda and, indeed, appointed many as cabinet ministers. Was his problem with Baganda or the Mengo establishment? Is there a difference between the spirit of Buganda and being a Muganda? That to me is a contradiction even today.

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Progress for all I do not really like the Mengo establishment that much, but I like Buganda and want it to progress just like other nationalities in Uganda. Could the Buganda question have arisen even without Obote? Will it be settled now that he is dead? Therefore, I have mixed feelings about Obote. I witnessed a high level of ingrained hatred between Arabs and Israelis when I worked in Syria. Even mentioning the word Israel would bring goose pimples. The hatred is so much that Arab children grow up being told that their enemies are Israelis. This is similar to Buganda and Obote. We grew up knowing, without much rational judgement, that Obote was Buganda's enemy. This is why in 19% the media just carried stories that the then DP leader Paul Semogerere was to bring back Obote because of the coalition with UPC and this is believed to have changed the hearts of Baganda voters.

What is the truth? But how much of this is rumour-mongering? Yes, Obote presided over an atrocious regime in 1980-1985. But how about Baganda who were therein like Paul Muwanga and Samwiri Mugwisa? How about the war-perpetrators- tumed-liberators? This Obote factor haunted me for a long time. As a Christian, I was told to love my enemies. At one time I did a personal evaluation to identify if I had an enemy in mind in order to take remedial steps as the Bible commands. The only enemy I could think of was Obote! Well, as a Christian, I fully forgive Obote. But I warn leaders that irrespective of what you personally do, people will like or hate you depending on how their lives are impacted by your period in power.

33 Extremists Fight Return of Obote's Remains Charles Onyango Obbo and Peter G. Mwesige, Daily Monitor, 15 October 2005 The two leading journalists made a news analysis o f Obote's death and the intricacies o f the burial, politics and other developments. The government has decided that it will give former President Apollo Milton Obote a state funeral, and his family says they will bury him in Akokoro, Apac, next to his grandfather, as he wished in his will. But will all this happen? If it did, it would be the first time events surrounding Obote and involving his Uganda People's Congress were so straightforward. Since Obote, 80, died in Johannesburg, South Africa on Monday, family and party members have been involved in a struggle over whether his body should be returned to Uganda. Obote's son, Jimmy Akena, confirmed to Daily Monitor on telephone from South Africa Thursday that there were "extremists" in all camps (the ruling Movement, the family and UPC) fighting the return of his father's body to Uganda. "There was a group pushing Museveni to block the return. The group argues that Obote committed many crimes; he doesn't deserve to be buried in Uganda," he said. "In the other camp, some extremists don't want Museveni to take the credit for allowing my father's body to return," Akena said. Another Obote confidant, Joseph Ochieno, also confirmed that there was pressure on the family and party officials not to allow the former president's body to return to Uganda.

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"Yes, it happened soon after the death," he said. "I received calls, texts, and email from people opposed to dictatorship. They didn't want the body to return under what they called Museveni's dictatorship," Ochieno said. But Ochieno said the party leadership had managed to convince them. Ochieno is a member of the Constitutional Steering Committee that Obote created earlier this year after he disbanded the Presidential Policy Commission that was headed by James Rwanyarare. Akena said they had to fulfil his father's wish to bury him in Akokoro next to his grandfather.The ruling Movement has for its part accused rivals UPC of politicising the issue of Obote's return and his funeral. "It's regretful that there are those who see political mileage in his body not coming back," said government spokesman James Nsaba Buturo. "But we are working with the clan to make sure that his send-off is befitting of this man. The clan has been very cooperative." Obote's Oyima clan is headed by his cousin Adoko Nekyon, who has been the major go-between in negotiations with the government over the modalities of the body's return, the funeral and payment of the former president's emoluments and benefits. "We are not terribly bothered by those politicians who think they can get political ground by using the name of the deceased," Information Minister Buturo said. Buturo, who served as a district commissioner in Obote's second government, said politicising the former president's funeral would not help the UPC. He said, "This is purely a national issue. That is why cabinet accorded former president Obote a state funeral. Regardless of his shortcomings, he made his contribution." Party sources in Johannesburg, South Africa, said Obote's body would return to Uganda from Zambia on 18 October. According to a tentative programme, burial is set for Friday 21 October at his ancestral home in Akokoro, Apac District. [Burial took place on 24 October 2005.] The chairman of the Constitutional Steering Committee, Hajji Badru Wegulo, said if the burial is not held on Friday 21 October it would be on Sunday 23 October. Before that, a memorial service will be held at

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Kololo Airstrip, where Obote received the instruments of power from the British colonialists as he led Uganda to independence in 1962. A state burial would upstage the UPC, whose activists would have lost a perfect opportunity to reach the multitudes expected to attend. That is why, sources close to the negotiations say, the family and the party are insisting that the burial should be a private function. UPC politics is probably the most complex in Uganda. It did not come as a surprise, therefore, when Obote's family demanded that before the burial, the 20-year salary, due to him under the law, and his houses that have been occupied by the government and army without paying rent, should be returned. Members of the negotiating team have reportedly asked for $lm (shs 1.8bn), although former party official James Rwanyarare dismisses this as a very small figure. He said a team that was negotiating with the government for Obote's return earlier this year had asked for shs 25 billion. According to the Third Schedule of the Presidential Emoluments and Benefits Act, benefits to be granted to a former president include an allowance of shs 2 million per month, a fully furnished house, a government-paid , chauffeur-driven car, free medical treatment for self and immediate family, four government-paid security guards, a secretary, utilities and two domestic staff. In benefits alone, what is due to Obote would be over a billion Uganda shillings, and considering the rent of properties in Kololo, where one of his houses has been occupied by the military for years, that would bring in several other hundreds of millions of shillings. The government's final response will reveal a lot about how the politicians value the political dividend that will come from Obote's death. The Museveni cabinet's decision to honour Obote with a state funeral was a surprise. This is the man whom the president, while opening Hotel Africana some years ago, said woud be shot on sight the day he sets his foot in Uganda. Museveni has also preserved some of the most vicious abuse to have come from his mouth for Obote. And there is no man whom Obote, and the UPC in exile, have vilified and demonised more than Museveni.

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Obote's move from Enemy Number One, to an honourable former leader, in the eyes of the Museveni government cannot just be explained by the ingrained African practice of flattering and pampering the dead. Rather the political spoils in Obote's passage are easy pickings. The timing couldn't have been better for the government. Uganda is going to its first multi-party elections in less than six months after 20 years of virtual one-party rule under the Movement. It is a very uncertain terrain, and Museveni would surely need the votes in northern Uganda, an area in which his regime has been deeply unpopular. Giving Obote a state funeral will go down well with the ordinary party members, and cut some legroom from under the UPC campaign in next year's elections. And a dead Obote cannot compete with Museveni, or mobilise people against him. For the UPC, the benefit is not clear. The death of Obote has thrown the already noisy and acrimonious contest for the party leadership wide open. And even if his body returns, it is not likely to re-energise the party base. The UPC, particularly the external wing, would be best served by Obote's body not returning. The radical wing of the party in exile has always been of the view that Uganda under Museveni will always be a dictatorship, and they were not warm towards the old man's plans to return. Their view was that it would "legitimise the dictatorship". As they gather in South Africa and Zambia, they will be the dominant voices, and it cannot be ruled out that they will continue pushing that Obote is buried in Zambia, and his body receives a hero's return (which he will not get even with the state funeral) only after Museveni has left power the way it happened with Obote's foe, Kabaka Edward Mutesa, and NRM's first chairman, former President Yusuf Kironde Lule. However, the conditions being set for Obote's return, make it very difficult for Museveni to reap political capital from the UPC founder's death on the cheap. The demand that what is owed to Obote be settled before his body returns, is a smart one. For, going by past form, the government would probably not honour any promises to settle after Obote's coffin is placed in the ground.

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Yet, if Museveni went out to meet all the conditions, he would look too desperate to appease the UPC base, and could alienate anti-Obote strongholds like Luweero, where he based his guerrilla war and whose votes he once could afford to take for granted. Obote's mystique would then probably simply live on and grow if no deal is done, as the great man, the founder of the nation, who is buried in some faraway land, and whose remains shall be returned one day, once his political heirs have inherited their right place as the leaders of Uganda again.

34 Obote: The Last Days David Mukooli, The Sunday Vision, 16 October 2005 On 8 July 1985 in the early hours, Kampala was thrown, into panic, gunfire rocked the city at about 3.00am. The epicentre of the shooting was at Mbuya barracks and Bugolobi flats, where some army officers lived. The vice president and minister of defence, Paul Muwanga told the press at his Kololo residence that the shooting had been triggered by uncoordinated troop movements. As the VP cleared the air, President Milton Obote called the Baganda in Bugiri to join Uganda People's Congress in large numbers like the Basoga had done in 1982. That year all the MPs in Busoga, except Yoweri Kyesimira, crossed from the Democratic Party to UPC. I do not want tribal groupings in the house, Obote said. A tribal group is dangerous. Today we face one tribe the Baganda. This is very painful. It appears the whole of Uganda is against the Baganda. I call upon them to come for the leadership they deserve, he said. But Obote cautioned that the leadership could not be given to them on the silver plate. Two days later Obote said he was not ready to imprison his number one political challenger, DP President Paul Ssemwogerere. He described Ssemwogerere as a weak politician who needed treatment. Obote was speaking at a rally at Masafu, near Busia town. On his way there, hundreds of people lined along the dusty road chanting, UPC no change, Obote no change, Okwenje no change. Wilson Okwenje was the area MP. On 17 July Conservative Party President Jehoash Mayanja Nkangi asked Obote to explain why he thought the Baganda "deserved leadership". Nkangi asked, "Why did Obote single out the Baganda? Why not pick on the Acholi, the Alur, the Madi or any other tribe?" Five 148

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days later (21 July) the VP, a Muganda, had to explain his disappearance from the public eye. Muwanga dismissed rumours that he had been put under house arrest following the "uncoordinated troop movements" of 8 July. Muwanga reassured the public that he and Obote had been close for 30 years and explained that he was staying indoors on doctors' advice.

Prelude to the 1985 military coup Concerned about the chaos on the eve of the coup, the Bishop of Namirembe Diocese, Misaeri Kawuma, wrote to Muwanga the following letter: I am writing to inform you to express the great worries people have these days. It is my request that you clear the situation by telling the country what is happening. We have heard and read a lot of reports indicating the many dangers the nation is faced with as far as peace and security are concerned. We have also heard of wrangles and squabbles among members of the security forces. The people of Uganda have suffered long and painfully enough. We should not like to see any more blood spilled, be it the civilians or soldiers. It is our prayer that all those with cause for squabbles adopt humility, where all those concerned parties discuss their differences for the sake of bringing peace. Unity is strength. Together we can build Uganda and not destroy it. Well as the church are parents of all Ugandans because we are all children of God, unity and cooperation is the only way to save our people. The power of the gun has reached its peak. Let us lay down the gun and unite.This way we shall have glorified God. Blessed are the mediators. The next day (27July) Obote had vanished. Muwanga was, however, still around and the military appointed him executive prime minister. On 9 August, Muwanga had to explain why he had not fled with his boss. He gave an account of his involvement in the overthrow of Obote. Muwanga revealed that he had struggled against the chief of staff, Brig. Smith Opon Acak, and this had precipitated the coup.

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Muwanga said Acak was rebellious and disrespectful. When he had summoned him to explain the uncoordinated troop movements Acak did not turn up, but the chief for defence forces, Lt Gen. Tito Okello, Minister of State for Defence Peter Otai and Internal Affairs Minister Luwuliza Kirunda turned up. Acak was later reported to be addressing troops in Makindye, Lubiri and Summit View barracks, urging them to prepare to fight anti-government troops and their political allies. Muwanga had since early July backed a section of the army that demanded the sacking of Acak, Ogole, Otai, Rwakasisi and Kirunda, but Obote refused.

35 The Last Obote Saw of Uganda Sheila Kulubya, The Sunday Vision, 17 October 2005 The story of Apollo Milton Obote's narrow escape reads "like a script out of a movie". The only difference is the plot of escape from Kampala to Nairobi which involved real people, not fictitious characters. Several rumours had been doing the rounds over the years, especially one alleging that Obote, who died in a South African hospital on Monday, was smuggled out of the country in a coffin during his daring escape after being ousted in a military coup. But according to one of his trusted bodyguards, who spoke to Sunday Vision on condition of anonymity, nothing could be further from the truth. "We never took that man in a coffin. We took him in broad daylight," says the bodyguard who stayed for many years with Obote in exile before returning to Uganda.

Early reports The drama of Obote's escape started unfolding early on the morning of 26 July 1987. Obote reported for work as usual at his office on the fourth floor of parliament building, where he continued to receive news of a mutinous section of the army led by chief of defence forces, Gen. Tito Okello Lutwa. The force had overrun Lira town on 25 July and was advancing on Kampala to capture power. But in spite of the imminent danger, he still had hope that some sections of the army still loyal to him would squash the coup. His chief of staff, Brig. Smith Opon Acak, was put in charge.

Crisis meeting A flurry of activity filled the President's Office at Parliament till late in die evening. At about 10:00 pm the Minister of State for Security, Chris Rwakasisi, the Minister of Public Service and Cabinet Affairs, 151

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Wilson Okwenje, Brig. Opon Acak, Col John Ogole, Maj. Olwol, Lt Col John Opor and Col Orotha met to map out a strategy to contain the Okello troops. Col Ogole was assigned to set up ambushes along the Kampala-Karuma road to beat off the mutineers. Shortly after midnight Obote retreated to Nile Mansions (present-day Serena Kampala Hotel) to sleep.

More defections At 2:30am, he was woken up and informed that the soldiers who had been deployed to squash the coup had thrown in their lot with the plotters. Obote summoned his bodyguards. "Let's go,"he said. Fearing for Obote's life, his protection unit whisked him off to the residence of his personal doctor, Henry Opiote, where he held marathon meetings with Brig. Acak, the commander of the special forces, Ahmed Ogeny, Inspector General of Police, Okoth Ogola and Ogole, the commander of the 50thBrigade. Some ministers, including Rwakasisi, also attended. At the meeting it was decided that the president should be moved out of Kampala. When it was suggested that he leave the country, Obote objected vehemently. Rwakasisi convinced him that it was important for him to stay alive. An agreement was reached that he be relocated to Jinja. At 5.30pm Obote was heading out of Kampala. Silently, his bodyguards, the Presidential Guard Unit, an elite outfit with a superb system of gathering information and analysing threats to the president, had different plans. The destination was Kenya via Busia. Obote's bodyguard says a contingency plan of travel was hatched, and was supposed to "draw as little attention as possible". The highly trained bodyguards took control of the lead car since they had mapped out the route and destination. His usual convoy was scaled down from 10 to four cars, including the big Mercedes Benz (model 600) in which Obote normally travelled, two smaller Benzes (model 380) and a jeep, which, was mounted with a large antiaircraft gun. Likewise, his usual team of nine bodyguards was reduced to six and it was agreed that they wouldn't use the walkie talkies so as not to alert the coup plotters to Obote's whereabouts. The team visibly had fewer guns but there were extra weapons in the boots of the cars.

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"We hit on for Jinja at breakneck speed/'says the former bodyguard, who laughed heartily when asked whether Obote was worried that his escape would be detected.

The roadblocks However, when the convoy arrived in Mukono, it was detained for 15 minutes at a roadblock manned by heavily armed soldiers who were under orders not to allow anyone through, especially not Obote, "Sisi yote takufa hapa, akuna anakimbiya," they said in Swahili, meaning "All of us should die in the country". Surprisingly, they did not bother to search the presidential convoy for Obote, who was huddled in the back seat of the big car with a bodyguard. The car's windows were heavily tinted and the curtains had been drawn for added protection. "We had all decided that we would fight and defend the president if the soldiers attempted to search the car," recalls the bodyguard. After a lot of haggling, Opiote lied that the convoy was going to the border to pick up Obote's wife, Miria, who had been in Nairobi attending a conference for first ladies. But they were let off the hook mostly because the soldiers were convinced Obote wouldn't possibly have travelled at such an ungodly hour without his full presidential security detail. This convoy once again ran into another group of soldiers at the bridge in Jinja, but was left to go on without further incident until they got to Busia. The convoy drove into Jinja town, avoiding Kyabazinga Way, which is close to Gaddafi Garrison. In Jinja, Obote protested when he learnt that he was not being driven to the presidential lodge but was heading out of the country. By the time they reached Busia, the news had already spread that Obote had escaped from Kampala and all army units had been put on alert to look out for him. An Acholi officer, working with the National Security Agency, had locked the gates at the border crossing, one with a padlock and the other with a sisal rope. The rope was quickly loosened to allow Obote and the bodyguards safe passage to the Kenyan side.

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Safely across According to the bodyguard's testimony, all weaponry and ammunition which they had carried with them during the escape was left on the Ugandan side of the border. It was deemed wrong to cross the border dressed in military fatigues and some of the escorts had to take off their shirts. "We never took any gun of Uganda with us. We left everything behind. Some people crossed without shoes,"says the bodyguard who also claims that Obote did not carry any money with him at the time of escape. Obote stayed for a few days at the dingy Teachers Hotel in Busia before finally leaving for Kakamega. His bodyguard says Opiote and one of the bodyguards rafced $600 between them to buy fuel for the cars. Later Obote and his entourage were transferred from the Kakamega Golf Course Hotel to the State Lodge. By then, Obote was still holding out in the hope that his loyalist forces might still pull it off. But all his hopes went up in smoke when he received word that Brig. Smith Opon Acak, James Odongo Oduka, Maj. Olwol, Col Ogole and two air force pilots, Lt Okello and Maj. Peter Nyakairu, had landed at Embakasi Military Base with two helicopters. "When Obote heard this he knew the game was over," says the bodyguard, who could not say whether Obote had been heartbroken at being ousted twice in a military coup. Obote reportedly consoled his dispirited men saying. "We have lost a government, but there is nothing to do. It happens."

Seeking sanctuary The following day Obote met with Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi at Nakuru State House. Moi considered giving him a place to live but Obote opted to go to his friend, former Kenyan chief justice Kitili Mwenda, in Nairobi. Both Moi and Ethiopian president Haile Mengistu Mariam are said to have offered him sanctuary, but Obote opted for Zambia, arguing that he wanted to stay out of the region. He left for Zambia with about 150 people, 10 days after the coup. Before he left Nairobi for Zambia, another battle had been going on to reunite the family, as two of the children, Benjamin Opeto and Tony Akaki,

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had been left behind in Uganda when Obote escaped. Opeto had been left at State House Entebbe and Akaki was at Namasagali College, where he studied. The Indian High Commission and the headmaster of Namasagali, Fr Damian Grimes, assisted in re-uniting the two boys with the rest of the family.

Obote's security That Obote was able to slip through two army roadblocks undetected was not only down to sheer luck, but a combination of good intelligence, proper planning and training of his elite Presidential Guard Unit. Before his escape, Obote had survived several daring assassination attempts, some orchestrated by very senior officials in government. The bodyguard recalls an incident in 1984, during Labour Day celebrations in Jinja, where Obote was officiating. One of the women dancers entertaining guests moved close to Obote and, when apprehended, was found with a knife in the folds of her clothing. In the same year, there were other incidents. Someone sent the president a book which, when x-rayed, was found to contain explosives. Another present of a Kenwood food processor was laced with radioactive material. Then a soldier was caught with a stick grenade in a paper bag, which he had planned to hurl at Obote during a function at Fairway Hotel. The unit uncovered a plot to down Obote's plane on return from Italy. A Pakistani assassin had camped for days in a swampy location in Entebbe and was planning to shoot down Obote's plane as it came in to land at Entebbe. He was locked up in Luzira. According to Obote's bodyguard, although security for the president would often be shared amongst all the security agencies, the elite Presidential Guard Unit would always take the lion's share of responsibility. The bulk of the presidential guards had received their training in North Korea, Italy and India and were skilled in the art and craft of VIP protection. The Presidential Guard Unit also had a state-of-the art German-made Telefunken telecommunication system, which had telephones and a fax machine to enable the president to stay in constant touch in any part of the country. "We were the ones who were keeping the pot, as we used to call him them", the bodyguard recalls.

36 Obote Funeral Split Cabinet —Museveni Rehema Nakabiri & Peter Nyanzi, Daily Monitor, 17 October 2005 President Yoweri Museveni has revealed that some members of his cabinet were not happy with giving former President Milton Obote a state funeral. "But there were also others who were praising him for his contribution to the country. So I had to use my wisdom to bring the two sides together," he said. Museveni revealed the split in cabinet over Obote's death while speaking at Nakaseke Core Teacher Training College in Luweero district on Saturday. He was touring the killing fields in Luweero with a visiting television crew of the Christian Evangelical Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). Museveni was responding to complaints raised by the energy minister and area MP, Syda Bbumba, that her constituents were not happy that Obote had been accorded special recognition and a funeral costing hundreds of millions of hillings, "yet the schools in Luweero were in a sorry state." Museveni said even during the bush war between Obote's forces and the National Resistance Army (NRA) rebels, "the NRA would bury the enemy's bodies unlike Obote's forces, which would simply leave bodies to rot by the roadside." He said every professional army would accord the dead a decent burial even if they were bodies of the enemy combatants. Quoting Kinyankore proverbs, Museveni said Ugandans should trust him to handle the Obote matter well because "a chicken raises its chicks yet it has no breasts, a plane flies in the air yet it has no support and a river flows at night without fearing the hyenas." "1 know what I am doing," he said, "leave that to me." The body of the 80-year-old Obote, who died of kidney failure in South Africa on 10 October after living 20 years in exile in Zambia, is expected in Kampala tomorrow. 156

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Obote led the struggle that earned Uganda independence from the British colonial government in 1962. Four years later, he took over as executive president but was overthrown by Idi Amin in a military coup in 1971. He bounced back to the presidency in December 1980 and was again toppled in a coup in 1985. In a press statement, the secretary to the cabinet, Hilda Musubira, said cabinet had "a long discussion lasting more than five hours" under the chairmanship of the president. She said that cabinet, having reviewed the history of Uganda, came to conclusion that the Milton Obote be accorded a state funeral. "Since the Movement Government, supported by the broadest sections of the population of Uganda, has achieved peace, economic recovery, reconciliation and security of person and property, it was considered appropriate that given the past turbulent history of Uganda, Government reiterates its commitment to national reconciliation," Musubira said. Sources who attended the cabinet meeting told Daily Monitor that the State House meeting was a heated one as a cross section of ministers strongly objected to a state funeral because of atrocities Obote's forces allegedly committed in Luweero during the NRA war. As a rebel leader, Museveni fought a five-year war against Obote's government in which an estimated 300,000 people are believed to have been killed. The press secretary to the president, Onapito Ekomoloit, yesterday said the president succeeded in convincing the people of the need for national reconciliation. "The president simply repeated what the cabinet endorsed that the move was in line with the need for national reconciliation. He made it clear that there are so many people who made mistakes in the past but have now been forgiven," he said on telephone yesterday. Onapito refuted claims that the people of Luweero were angry with Museveni for honouring Obote. "The mood of the people was well appreciated by the president. Of course you cannot stop people from holding their opinions but the president helped them to understand the need for national reconciliation," he said. In Luweero, Museveni took TBN, the world's leading Christian television network, with 6,000 TV stations, 46 satellites and viewed by 4.1 billion people around the world to film Makulubita where more

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than 1,400 Luweero war skulls are kept. Museveni, who laid wreaths at the place, told the film crew that there were 33 mass graves scattered all over Luweero. At Semuto, the crew filmed a deep latrine hole in which people who were suspected to be rebel sympathisers would be dropped alive and grenades dropped on themSamia Bugwe MP, Aggrey Awori, said officials of Obote's party, the Uganda People's Congress (UPC), and members of Obote's family had objected to taking the film crew to Luweero because of the political implications as the country was in a state of mourning. "We had objected to it in the meeting we had with the government side on Friday. We thought it was not proper and that the timing was not appropriate. But they explained that the programme had been set three months in advance and there was nothing that could be done to change it at the last minute," Awori said. But Onapito said the issue of Luweero "was a fact of history that cannot be changed." Earlier on Friday, Museveni had hosted TBN's famous hosts Matthew and Lowrie Crouch, at a mammoth overnight prayer ceremony at Namboole, on the theme "Uganda has risen from the ashes". The three hour programme was beamed to a global audience of 4.1 billion people. Matthew Crouch, the son of TBN's proprietor, Paul Crouch, said he would continue publicising Uganda's good image through TBN to the rest of the world. A Bile-clutching Museveni, with his wife Janet, rapped what he referred to as "evil forces" that were deliberately selling bad publicity on the country to the world. He thanked TBN for coming to "detoxicate the toxins." From Luweero, the TV crew heads to the war-ravaged north today before it returns to interview Museveni at parliament on Wednesday.

37 The Man Who 'Gifted7 Uganda to Amin It was naïve of him to leave the country after ordering a probe into allegations that Idi Amin was involved in smuggling gold from Zaire. Phillip Ochieng analyses the rise and fall of Milton Obote. This article appeared in The East African of 17 October 2005. At the weekend, I often sneaked out of my high school near Nairobi, to call on Jathura Tom Mboya. It was during one of those visits to Mboya's Ziwani house that I first met both Daniel arap Moi and Milton Obote. Moi was an inarticulate politico with no apparent self-assurance. Obote, clearly the more educated, spoke with a tad more arrogance (though both seemed to defer to Mboya). Yet I did not recall these impressions until many years later. The two had been so unimpressive that, as soon as I returned to my books at Alliance, they went completely out of my mind. When I next heard of Obote, two years later (by which time I was an undergraduate student in Chicago), he seemed to have become a bitter enemy of Mboya. I never understood why until I returned home in 1962. The colonial regime had by now allowed Kenya's nationalists to form parties, but only on a district basis. At least two had been formed in what was then called the Nairobi Extra Provincial District. The one, instigated by Mboya, was called People's Convention Party. The other, led by Cheido Moa Gem Argwings Kodhek, a young UK-trained lawyer, one of Kenya's first, was known as the Nairobi People's Congress. Apparently, Obote, who had been working in Nairobi after having been expelled from Kampala's Makerere University College, had broken ranks with Mboya and played a central role in forming Kodhek's Congress. One day, the story is told, a bitter argument arose between 159

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Kodhek and Obote. Kodhek was so miffed that he challenged Obote: "This is my party. If you are so clever why don't you return to Uganda and form your own?" It is reported, perhaps apocryphally, that the next morning Obote packed his belongings and without even waiting for his salary, took the first train to Kampala. Some years later it was reported by The East African Standard (with its colonial disdain for things African) that a congress party (like Kodhek's), the Uganda People's Congress (UPC), had been formed in Kampala, the brainchild of a certain Milton Apollo Obote. Unlike Kenya, Uganda was not a crown colony, but a "protectorate", of Britain, made up, in the main, of internally autonomous kingdoms. The most important of these was Buganda where the Kabaka (king) enjoyed overwhelming feudal loyalty. The UPCs main challenge was how to influence a following in these kingdoms, especially in Buganda where a party called Kabaka Yekka (Kabaka only) had been formed as a counterfoil to UPC. After the 1961 pre-independence election, Obote formed an electoral alliance with KY, the alliance which in 1962 led to independence, with Obote as prime minister and Kabaka Mutesa II as head of state. It was a remarkable achievement in such a short time. It perharps embarrassed Kodhek who was not yet even a member of Kenya's Legislative Council (the colonial parliament). But, apparently, Obote did not feel comfortable that he shared power with a feudal potentate. So he systematically undermined the Kabaka's position as national president. By 1966, Obote had overthrown the independence constitution, militarily overthrown Mutesa both as Kabaka and as president, declared Uganda a unitary republic and made himself the executive president. The dirty work of invading the king's palace at Mengo was done by a practically illiterate soldier called Idi Amin Dada, who helped Britain to fight Mau Mau in Kenya and whom Obote had swiftly promoted

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through the ranks to the position of defence chief. Feeling a lot more secure, Obote could now turn his attention to regional andpan-African affairs. Tanganyika's Julius Nyerere had tried to delay his country's freedom so that the three East African countries could go into independence together and then immediately emerge as the Federation of East Africa. In 1963, Obote and Nyerere had played a central role in the formation at Addis Ababa of the Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union). Much more than Kenyatta, Nyerere and Obote devoted many national resources to African nationalist causes in those parts of Africa still under the yoke of colonialism and white supremacism. And Tanzania and Uganda had inherited a British-created East African economic system in which most industries were based in Kenya and Kampala and Dar-er-Salaam served as mere satellites of Nairobi. These facts had naturally drawn Obote more towards Nyerere than towards Kenyatta. It was as Nyerere and Obote demanded rationalisation of the East African Common Market by giving Dar-esSalaam and Kampala equal say that Britain intervened, through Kenya, to trigger the chain of events that led to the community's collapse in 1977. The growing alienation between Nyerere and Obote, on the one hand, and Kenyatta, on the other, was sharpened by what was seen as ideology after Tanzania's Azimio (the 1967 Arusha Declaration) on socialism. By 1970, Obote had produced his own Common Man's Charter by which he set out to nationalise much of Britain's industrial and agricultural property in Uganda. It was most unfortunate. At least subjectively, Nyerere was much more genuinely committed to socialism, though his own ignorance of the objective situation had pre-condemned him to failure. Obote's commitment, even subjectively, was half-baked to say the least, causing his extremely ill-advised "move to the left" programme to pit him squarely against Britain, the world's principal imperialist power in East Africa.

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During the 1972 Commonwealth summit in Singapore, British Prime Minister Edward Heath told Obote to his face rather undiplomatically not to talk too much because he would not be Uganda's leader for too long. Obote never returned to Uganda. In hindsight, his naiviete looks bewildering. He had left for the meeting after ordering a probe into allegations that Amin was involved in the misappropriation of funds in the army. And yet he was leaving the country in the hands of just that man who controlled all Uganda's guns but a man whose personal secrets he had just threatened to expose. Moreover, Obote was going to a meeting of a club dominated by a country whose property he had just threatened to grab. In this way Obote had given Amin and Edward Heath a common cause. And he had given Amin the means with which to execute it. Later, Heath virtually admitted that he had instigated Amin to overthrow Obote to kill two birds with one stone. The prime minister probably had no idea that he was ordering the murder of 500,000 Ugandans. I met Obote again during his exile in Dar-es-Salaam, where Benjamin Mkapa and I worked as editors of Standard Tanzania (now Daily News) and where a young graduate called Yoweri Museveni was a frequent member of Obote's retinue. Museveni would part company with Obote and take part in Amin's overthrow in 1979. After a series of interregnums, including a Military Commission to which Museveni was central, Obote returned to power in 1981. But as the philosophers say, history repeats itself the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. It was in this farcial drama that two Okello soldiers overthrew Obote and paved the way for Museveni to romp home in 1986. You know the rest.

38 The Lessons of Obote's Death: Ugandans Will Never Learn Charles Onyango Obbo, The East African, 17 October 2005 As exiled former president Milton Obote died in a South African hospital where he had been flown from his Zambian base, outgoing Tanzanian president Ben Mkapa arrived in Kenya to say his farewells. Mkapa had a few weeks earlier been in Uganda too, doing his swan­ song. At about the same time in 2002, former president Daniel arap Moi was also doing the rounds, ahead of his retirement. Obote never got to do a farewell tour when he left power in 1985. He fled to Kenya barely six hours ahead of mutinous soldiers. In 1971 when he first lost power in a coup, he was luckier he was away in Singapore attending a Commonwealth summit. That pattern has never been broken. No Ugandan president has left office peacefully. When Prime Minister Obote overthrew the 1962 independence constitution in 1966, the king of Buganda, Freddie Mutesa, who was also president of Uganda, hid in the bush for several days and eventually made his way out to a life in exile in London, where he died. Field Marshal Idi Amin was chased into a life in Saudi Arabia in 1979 by a combined force of Tanzanian troops and Ugandan exiles. (Amin died in exile in 2003.) The soft-spoken Yusuf Lule, who replaced Amin, was kicked out by a combative interim parliament. To prevent him from reclaiming his seat, the Tanzanians, who were calling the shots in Uganda then, imprisoned him in a guest house in Dar-es-Salaam. That was after the man had been president for 68 days. A Military Commission overthrew Godfrey Binaisa, who took over from Lule, one and a half years later. 163

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He was kept under house arrest in State House for several months and took off into exile when he was released. Binaisa eventually returned home where he goes about his business without much fear. The leader of the second coup against Obote, Lt Gen. Tito Okello, hightailed it to the hills of southern Sudan, and eventually London, in January 1986 as Museveni's guerillas advanced on Kampala. The elderly Okello, considered as an essentially harmless man, was allowed to return to the country after some years. He became the first former president to die at home. Museveni's childhood friend and one time staunch ally, former deputy premier and foreign affairs minister, Eriya Kategaya, says Uganda must put an end to the embarrassment of having all our presidents fleeing into exile with armed opponents at their heels. For that reason, Kategaya opposed the push by Museveni to amend the constitution to scrap presidential term limits, a move that has now effectively created a president for life. For his pains, Kategaya was bundled out of cabinet. All the signs are that Museveni is set to stand for president next year, and win (by hook or by crook). By the time the next elections come up in 2011, he will have been president one year longer than the previous seven combined. Mkapa and Moi's farewells to Uganda failed to teach the politicians that it's possible to pack your bags and leave State House when your time is up and live happily ever after. Mutesa's, Lule's and Amin's deaths in exile failed to have any demonstration effect either. Obote's death too will have been in vain. The reluctant government announced it would grant him a state funeral. But it couldn't bring itself to declare a public holiday even though it did so for the victims of the recent helicopter crash that killed Sudan VP John Garang. (Government later granted a public holiday on 24 Monday October, the day of the burial, and has accorded the honour before to a chief kadhi, and a Catholic archbishop.) In Uganda, forgiveness tends to run skin-deep.

39 NRM Won't use his Bogey in Elections Again but will Gain from his Death John Kakande, The New Vision, 17 October 2005 The death of former president Apollo Milton Obote marks the end of an era in Uganda's politics. Obote has had significant influence on the country's politics over the past four decades. The death of yet another former president in exile is unfortunate. Strangely, Obote has died at a time when the country is in transition from the Movement to multiparty politics and when he was considering returning home. His contribution to Uganda should be judged objectively. He faced a lot of challenges when he was in charge of Uganda's state affairs. He made some contributions to the country and Africa. He managed to hold the country together even though in the process he also committed serious political mistakes. While his "move to the left" pronouncements under which he partially nationalised private companies was misconceived and hurt the national economy, he made efforts to "Ugandanise" the national economy. Obote must be credited for his unwavering support to the liberation movements in southern Africa. It was his firm stand against the Ian Smith minority regime in the then Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and apartheid in South Africa that eventually caused a serious rift between him and the former colonial master, Britain, which culminated in his overthrow in 1971. Nonetheless, Obote fared badly on governance. One of his blunders was to use the military to cling to power after he lost the support of the majority of Ugandans. He exhibited no respect for constitutionalism, 165

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the reason he used unconstitutional means when he disagreed with Mengo. He was ruthless with his political opponents, who eventually filled Luzira prison. It was disastrous for Obote to regain power in 1980 through a fraudulent election. He should have returned and retired in 1980. But he strongly believed it was only him best suited to lead the country. Our leaders ought to nurture a culture of voluntary retirement and not treat leadership as a lifetime calling. This is why I believe the recent constitutional amendment abolishing the presidential two-term limit was a mistake. What are the implications of Obote's demise for Uganda's politics? In April this year, I stated that if Obote returned before the 2006 presidential and parliamentary elections, as it had been announced at the time, the opposition would be in a politically awkward situation. I argued that Obote's presence in the country and his political activities would be a blessing for NRM as it would galvanise it particularly in areas like Buganda. Obote's demise is not necessarily an advantage to the opposition. The demise of Obote could actually negatively impact on the UPC in particular and the opposition in general. True, the NRM won't use the Obote bogey again to win support as it did in previous elections. But this does not mean that Obote's demise would help the opposition, particularly in the short term.The NRM politicians in Lango gain more from it as they will now argue that it was unwise for the Langi to continue supporting UPC. We are going see an aggressive campaign in Lango by the NRM following Obote's demise. By granting a state funeral for Obote, the government has made a shrewd move. In my view, a lot will also depend on whether UPC will hold together after the demise of Obote. His demise has left UPC at a crossroads just months to the presidential and parliamentary elections. The party is likely to experience upheavals as rival factions wrestle for control of the party in the coming weeks. It is unlikely that UPC will quickly get a strong leader capable of effectively reconciling the rival factions. The death has come at a time when UPC was in the process of holding grassroots elections expected to lead to a delegates conference and election of new leadership at Uganda House. These grassroots elections have been a subject of serious internal disagreements.

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The Kabaka of Buganda was the first high-ranking political figure to introduce military methods in Uganda's politics. Reference is made to two main incidents in which Mutesa was a key player. The first one was in a Buyaga market (Buyaga being one of the "lost counties") when the Kabaka shot demonstrators, before the 1964 referendum, and the Ndaiga palace shooting after the referendum. There have also been claims of attacks on the central government police posts within Buganda just before the storming of the Lubiri in 1966. History also indicates that there was a clash between the central government forces, specifically the military police, and some Kabaka supporters in Nakulabye. Again, both men, Mutesa, who was the president, and Obote, who was the prime minister, sought military support to solve political issues. Mutesa had the support of the army commander, Shaban Opolot, while Obote that of Opolot's deputy, Idi Amin. People are singing that Milton Obote was the father of Uganda. Augustus Nuwagaba wants us to blame all Obote's evil on the British colonialists. I would suggest that we also credit Obote's success to the same British colonialists. With or without Obote, Uganda would have got its independence from the British because it was the order of the day in that period. It was the norm rather than the exception.

40 I Will Cry for Obote; I Will not Cry for Obote Charles Onyango Obbo, The Daily Monitor, 19 October 2005 Every year after the official opening of parliament during the Obote II government, there would be a cocktail for MPs and VIPs in the parliamentary gardens. A high table would be set up near the back wall. And President Milton Obote would, after the party began, walk in. Obote was a spare-bodied man, and walked almost shyly, with his hands clasped together in the fashion of Mahatma Gandhi. His security was light. If you were too engrossed in conversation, he would pass by right behind you and you wouldn't be aware that a president had just gone by. Almost unbelievable, considering the heavy security around President Museveni today, and that there was a war going on in Luweero and bombs sometimes went off in Kampala. Nothing demonstrated this better than on one occasion during a cocktail in the parliamentary gardens. Obote was already seated at the high table. A booze-happy UTV journalist chose to crash the party by scaling the wall. He landed with a loud thud right behind Obote! What followed next was even more amazing. The security people hassled the UTV man through the gate and told him to get lost. That was all. Another version of the story has it that Obote ordered the guards to allow the fellow to drink until he could take no more.

Simplicity exemplified On another occasion, I was visiting an elder from Tororo in Nakasero when a car pulled up in the driveway. In came Miria Obote. She was carrying a bundle of ndagala (fresh banana leaves) for the lady of the house, a long-time friend of hers. She had been visiting in the village, where she picked up the leaves. The car she had come in was a Benz, 168

Will Cry for Obote; I Will not Cry for Obote 169

rented from Spear Tours. She had a single security guard sitting in the front. Miria rarely had an escort car. Again, to people accustomed to the entourage of Ugandan first ladies today, that might seem something from a totally different age. Maybe it is. Then there was one of Obote's sons, Jimmy Akena. He took this simplicity to absurd levels. He used to wind his way about on a scooter. Not even a motorbike. A lot has been made of the fact that Obote lived in exile in very modest circumstances, in a house with an overgrown lawn, stained and frayed sofas, and curtains with holes. However, if it had been anything luxurious, it would have been out of character. With no material gifts to offer, Obote lived in Lusaka with a contingent of supporters who nevertheless remained deeply dedicated.

Tragedy And therein lies the tragedy. This Gandhian austerity didn't lead to Gandhian greatness. No Ugandan president ever had the makings to be truly eminent like Obote. Yet, no Ugandan president so badly failed the test. His opportunity to craft a legacy having been interrupted by Gen. Idi Amin's coup of 1971, history gave Obote a second chance in 1980. But Obote's second rule was a disaster. So we ask: Was Obote's failure the inevitable result of the 1980 election theft? Would he have done better if Museveni didn't launch his guerrilla war? Could his government have prosecuted that war more wisely? Why did Obote so dismally fail to make peace with Buganda the second time? On one cold rainy morning, as I went to the International Conference Centre, a pick-up belonging to the security services sped past. It left a trail of spattering blood, which set off steam as it hit the cold road. (As we learnt later) the blood was oozing from the body of a suspected guerrilla collaborator being held in the torture dungeons in Nile Hotel. He had escaped, jumped from a top floor, and died immediately upon impact. Maybe he decided that that was the best way to end his pain.

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Panda gari At a personal level my younger brother and I endured the horrors of panda gari when we were rounded up and taken to the Nsambya police grounds, and having UNLA shoot up the inside of our house. Obote's own response to these abuses, and the killings in Luweero, was to blame Museveni. For sure the Museveni guerrillas killed. But in failing to muster the moral courage to acknowledge these wrongs, Obote took away the only reason he would have had to do something about them. Now he will never get a third chance to put things right. If there was ever a contradictory politician, Obote was it. Shrewd and inept in equal measure. As accessible as he was remote. As loveable as he was loathsome. A man whose death was celebrated in parts of the country, and mourned as the end of the world in others. Ironically, the times he truly dominated Ugandan politics was when he was out of power. The fear of Obote shaped nearly every action of the Amin regime. Obote also obsessed Museveni and his lieutenants. His name appeared in the media more times when he was in exile, than in State House. Therefore, if I were to write on Obote's tombstone, I would simply say: "Born 1925. Died 2005". Then, "Ruled Uganda from 1962 to 2005".

41 Can UPC Emerge out of Milton Obote's Shadow? Victor Karamagi, The Daily Monitor, 19 October 2005 The mood at Uganda House, the national seat of Uganda People's Congress (UPC), is gloomy. And with good reason: their father is no more. Since news of the death of Milton Obote broke, UPC supporters have been crestfallen. Such is the influence Obote had that despite having lived in exile since July 1985, he remained the UPC symbol in Uganda. But the man's legacy, his strengths and failings, are not UPC's biggest concerns today. What the party should worry about is how it ensures continuity, for in most instances, Obote was UPC and UPC was Obote. "It is indeed a huge challenge. We have to look for a leader as charismatic as Obote was. He is the best we have had," says Peter Walubiri, the Secretary General of the Constitutional Steering Committee (CSC), the body administering the party. What Walubiri does not tell is the rather obvious fact that the fallen party president happens to be the only leader UPC has ever known.

Tough challenge The real challenge, therefore, facing the party is the succession question. Who takes over the leadership? Walubiri says that the succession question will be solved when the party holds a delegates conference. Under normal circumstances, this question should not be a problem. But these are not normal circumstances for UPC. Allegations that Obote was grooming his son, James Akena, to take over the party presidency have been around since August. Party diehard Cecilia Ogwal was 171

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locked out of grassroots elections to make way for Akena. Prominent party members have vowed to fight the scheme. With Wegulo insisting on keeping the top position while Awori, Henry Mayega and James Rwanyarare all say they are interested, the battle lines are already drawn. Worse still, people such as Ogwal and Rwanyarare have indicated that they think the CSC may come up with something sinister during the delegates conference. "At the time Obote died, Hajji Wegulo was heading the committee administering the party and nothing has changed. We are running business as usual," Walubiri says. The problem, however, is that the current CSC has always been seen as an Obote clique. In fact, the committee derived its legitimacy from the appointing authority. As per the party constitution, the committe's legitimacy is debatable. Nor is the CSC pegged on the goodwill of the membership. The party faithful will not judge the CSC basing on the authority the committee bore as a result of their appointment but on whether it can perform in elections. At the moment, it does not appear likely. Does the larger party membership trust the CSC to carry the mantle of driving the party forward after Obote's death? On the other hand, the demise of the UPC leader presents the party with a rare opportunity to start a new era without Obote's influence. In Buganda, where even people such as the deputy Buganda Katikkiro have no kind words for Obote even after his death, this will prove the ultimate test. For years, everybody has portrayed Obote as the bad guy. From President Museveni to the Buganda monarchists, Obote has been painted black at every opportunity. Inevitably, all his actions have been pegged onto the party he fought to keep together. As a result, the attack on the Kabaka's palace has for decades been seen in Buganda as a UPC act. In Luweero, allegations of mass killings by the army were also giving the party, with Obote at its helm, a negative image in the region.

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Why new image? Says Walubiri: "We do not have to create a new image. We must attend to misinformation by a few people. There is nothing significant that Obote did wrong. It is a matter of correcting the facts." Can the UPC leadership now use this opportunity to steer clear of the party actions that were almost solely blamed on the person of Obote as the president of the party and portray a new image in the regions in question? Whether this is achieved depends on how the leadership moves fast to reinvent itself.

The scenarios But depending on what course Wegulo and his team take, the party could find itself in different situations. There have been gestures by disgruntled members that point to reconciliation. Rwanyarare says that the best way the party can go forward is to take the course of reconciliation. "It is in the interest of all of us," he says. After the debacle that resulted in the rigging of grassroots elections to lock out party faithful Ogwal and Omara Atubo, the party badly needed something that could bring the two sides together. Obote's death has clearly done that. Rwanyarare, who had vowed to fight the fallen UPC leader in the CSC, has instructed his lawyers to drop the court case he had filed against Obote. Should the bickering parties within decide to bury the hatchet, reconcile and regroup, UPC could re-establish itself as a major player in Uganda's politics. However, Obote had played a big role in keeping the party together, despite some breakaways. Even in exile, for the players at Uganda House, his word was always final. It was he that hired and fired at will, sending ripples across the pool.

Factions could emerge Now, there is a danger that each faction could try to assert itself over the other. The Wegulo faction appeared to have established an edge over those allied to Ogwal, a former powerful assistant secretary general. But this was simply because it had the backing of Obote, whose authority

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resonated throughout the party. With his demise, the Ogwal faction could emerge stronger than previously thought. Should this happen, UPC could find itself going down the drain. The more likely scenario is that party members could show that every effort at reconciliation is being made. On the surface of it all, the party will appear to have come together. But on the inside, it would be a different story with suspicion and mistrust being the order of the day. This could leave it afloat but limping, a similar situation it has been in. Whatever the course UPC takes from now, the death of its leader is both a challenge and an opportunity. What happens in the long term remains to be seen. The death of Obote represents perhaps the biggest challenge UPC has faced in decades. From his Lusaka base, he oversaw the affairs of the party as if he were in Kampala. He sacked and appointed officials of his choice at will. Those who opposed his decisions did so at their own peril. That party officials in Uganda had to first seek his counsel on all the major issues shows how much influence he commanded. How those he has left in charge handle this challenge will determine whether the party sinks or stays afloat.

42 Which Way UPC after Obote? Joshua Kato, The New Vision, 13 October 2005 In the short run, it will be an absolute miracle if the Uganda People's Congress (UPC) puts up an effective candidate in the 2006 elections. They are like a family that has just lost a father. Worse still, the father left no will to declare his preferred successor. The family has now got to fight among themselves to select an heir. It is a hard task. If he has gone with the famous "99 political tricks" that he so much boasted of in the 1970s and 1980s, then his party, the Uganda People's Congress (UPC), is going to die with him. But if he passed on the tricks to one of his people, then UPC will survive. However, going by what has been happening in the party in the last few months, it is unlikely that Obote passed on these tricks to any one. Internal conflicts have become more pronounced than before and factionalism is digging more and more trenches in the party. It was through Obote's wit and scheming that UPC became the party it is in the history of Uganda. Even with 20 years in exile, Obote has almost effectively controlled the party. He, for example, ordered all party supporters never to take part in any election organised by President Museveni. This meant that UPC supporters were not part of the Constituency Assembly (CA), which debated and promulgated the 1955 constitution, neither were they part of the first elected National Resistance Council (NRQ in 1989. Some of them, for example, Kefa Ssempangi, decided to defect to the ruling Movement. In 19% when a few of Obote's supporters rebelled and stood in parliamentary elections, Obote reacted angrily by excluding them from active party leadership. This group included MPs Cecilia Ogwal, Aggrey Awori, Ben Wacha and Omara Atubo. Obote has died at a time when UPC is broken into different factions. He has died at a time 175

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when he was due to appear in court, not to answer charges brought against him by Museveni or any of his other enemies, but by James Rwanyarare, a member of his party. Although he has been a dividing factor in the party, he has also been the main uniting factor. "There are very many people here who would have either rebelled against him, but because of his influence on the party, they opted to stay here. In the last few months the appearance of his son, Jimmy Akena, caused speculation that, perhaps, he was preparing him for bigger things in the party," a party supporter said. But with the death of his father, it is very unlikely that Akena can win any of the top seats in the party. "He has been riding on the back of his father, and to make matters worse, he is personally not charismatic enough to create his own political niche. Without Obote, Akena is nothing in UPC," another party faithful said. There is likely to be an even much bigger power struggle that might destroy UPC. There are several party supporters who exercised restraint from claiming the top seat for fear of Obote. But Chairman of the UPC Constitutional Steering Committee (CSC), Haji Badru Wegulo, said Obote had not left the party in threads."The party has got institutions and it is through these institutions that it will move forward,1"he said. UPC has got its institutions all right, but they have been stronger with the presence of Obote. He was by no means no longer the man of the 99 tricks, but many supporters of the party feared him. They are going to become even more divided. Each of the people at the top will try to take the now-vacant seat of party president and in the end worse factionalism will rock the party. Moreover, some of the senior members of the party do not believe in the institutions which fire running the party. For example, James Rwanyarare is in court challenging the CSC. It is unlikely that Rwanyarare will respect an institution he has been challenging in courts of law. Night Kulabako, a senior member of the party, thinks that the party will survive through these trying times. "The party has not died with the chairman. It will lift itself up,"she said.

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By failing to hold out an olive branch to the better-known UPC supporters like Atubo, Ogwal and Wacha, and instead appointing seemingly political lightweights like Wegulo and Peter Walubiri to top leadership party positions, Obote showed that he was out of touch with local politics. It was the UPC supporters whom he did not like most that kept the party afloat throughout the last 20 years. Rwanyarare, whom Obote threw out because of his growing influence, was the man that singlehandedly registered die party under the new law. Political observers think that the likes of Ogwal, Atubo and Awori should have been at the forefront of running the party because they hold important elective offices in the country. But those Obote chose to run the party like Wegulo and Walubiri do not have the people's mandate in any forum. Joseph Ochieno, one of the young blood in the party, is brilliant but he still has to get to grips with rifts in the party. Some of the people Obote dropped from the top leadership positions blame Ochieno for orchestrating their fall. At 42, Ochieno is also considered too young to effectively lead the party. Besides, UPC has got a big pool of educated and firm politicians who cannot accept to bow to a very young politician like Ochieno or Akena. Stalwarts like Wegulo, Walubiri, Rwanyarare and Yona Kanyomozi, who have been in party leadership since its early days, and have all shown interest in the top position, would be better choices. Walubiri, secretary for CSC, says there is no vacuum in UPC. He says there are so many level-headed leaders in the party. However, the trouble is how to pick the best of them to fit in Obote's big shoes. Already village party primaries have been marred with serious irregularities. Samwiri Mugwisa, Obote's former minister of agriculture, says, "UPC was started by Musaazi in the 1950s, it survived through the 1980s. it now has a strong group of youth who can take over its leadership." However, those youth are also as divided as they come. Led by their chairman, Kyeyune Ssenyonjo, they have already threatened to put up their own presidential candidate, if the party does not solve its problems.

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In Uganda, there is no precedent of a major political party finding its feet again to capture state power after losing its head. After the Democratic Party (DP) lost their leader, Ben Kiwanuka, in the 1970s, they remained a weak party and looked to have risen again in the 1980 but still could not take power. In Tanzania, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) of Julius Nyerere has remained a strong party without him because he left behind powerful institutions. Jomo Kenyatta's Kenya African Union (KANU) also retained state power for 20 years owing to similar reasons. Kenyatta and Nyerere were Obote's buddies. The question is whether UPC learnt from these parties. UPC got a bad image when Obote abolished kingdoms in 1966 and failed to control his marauding soldiers during the Luweero war in the 1980s. He has died before apologising to Ugandans for these two evils. A new leader will have no choice but to apologise and accept past mistakes or to carry on with the denial stance that has cost the party support for the last 20 years.

43 Museveni Snared in Milton Obote's Web Nobert Mao, The Daily Monitor, 19 October 2005 For years President Yoweri Museveni has spun a web of hatred around Obote. No adjective was too mean to be hurled at the old man. Even when Obote threatened to come back the first time, Museveni made it clear that if he dared he would end up six feet under! Earlier this year there were again reports that Obote would return. The arrogant tone of the government ensured that it never took place. Now the man, who has been Museveni's bogeyman in mobilising political support through polarisation, is dead. Yet even in death he has turned the courtroom of history upside down. It is no longer Obote on trial but rather Museveni! In Luweero, ghosts of years gone by have come back. Victims of brutality in Luweero have found their voice. "Obote cut off my hands,"one victim said in the pages of Bukedde while displaying the stumps that used to be his hands. The chairman of Luweero has declared an energetic campaign to ensure that Obote's casket does not pass through Luweero. One does not have to agree with any of the extremes that now contend for acceptance. There are those who see a saint's halo around Obote's head and would not hesitate to canonise him. There are also those who see him as a vampire complete with Lucifer's horns. As Mazrui once famously remarked, "Obote was a great man who made great mistakes". No lesser person could bear responsibilities for some of the follies over which the great man presided. Yet he also made an indelible mark by putting in place the pillars of our nation. Like a book of accounts before an auditor, Obote's record now stares Uganda in the face. Assets and liabilities contend. But whether the good outweighs the bad, it remains for historians to decipher. In 19% I moved 179

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around Wobulenzi, Bamunanika, Zirobwe and Kikyusa. A friend of mine owns the homestead where one of the first National Resistance Council (NRC) meetings was held in the bush. The evidence is there. The counterinsurgency tactics of the government were reckless and visited unnecessary brutality on the people, the reason the trauma in Luweero has been so difficult to overcome. There are those who want to take the time to judge Museveni too. Since every dog has its day, the day to judge Museveni will also come.But what about Uganda? True, nations are shadows of their leading figures and we cannot deny that modem Uganda is in the image of Mutesa I, Obote, Mutesa II, Ben Kiwanuka, Amin and Museveni all enmeshed. But nations can also be reborn. The future can be redesigned. _ The bile coming out of Luweero shows that this country is still bleeding from old scars, hence the anti-Obote and anti-North rhetoric.We need a truth and reconciliation approach if we are to heal this land. What will we say about the two decades of suffering in the north? Is there no government in Kampala? We have to teach our children that there is something called individual responsibility for individual crime. Just like it would be wrong to heap the blame for the suffering in the north on Museveni's clan, it is wrong to condemn all who hail from the north in this, re-awakening anti-Anyanya feelings. In a way, therefore, Museveni has to learn that when all is said and done the chickens have come home to roost. Sow hatred, reap hatred. News of big African statesmen praising Obote and planning to come for the funeral must be extremely embarrassing for Museveni. Moi, Kaunda and Mandela have been unequivocal in paying tribute. So far he has braved it. He chaired the cabinet meeting that made generous concessions to Obote's side. At least three cabinet ministers are almost full-time working on the arrangements for the funeral. The immovable colonel who has been occupying Obote's Kololo house finally collided with an irresistible force and is out. Museveni is now like a spider caught in his own web. In death, Obote has slipped through the web and into the sunset. To close, I turn to the bard. "The evil that men do lives after them. The good is often interred with their bones". So let it be with Obote. ♦

44 Obote Had Taste for Cute Women Jesse Mashate, The hAonitor, 19 October 2005 One of my earliest childhood memories is periodical, but the brawny presence of Milton Obote in our family house in Mbale. Milton Obote, Adoko Nekyon, Felix Onama and others were colleagues of my father, Mashate, as founders of the UPC. Adoko Nekyon and Felix Onama once reminded me in Kampala in the late 1980s of how they used to lap me. Our home was the fulcrum of UPC in the area. I remember Obote would leave his friends to sit with us children. He once said to me, "I can assure you that you shall one day become the Prime Minister of Uganda." Everyone at home was excited with his prophecy that later proved inaccurate as I have never engaged in politics except criticising poor political performers I recall Obote had befriended my mum's younger sister, Nancy. I think he later helped her to work as a welfare officer in Tororo. One day Obote joked to my mother: "How come that your father only produced the most beautiful daughters?" And we all joined in laughing at this joke. Later, Obote slept at the house of my maternal uncle, Kidasa. Obote used to wear wavy trousers that I think some of his friends jokingly called a "wind vane". One UPC activist called Nakiganda (local district councillor) once joked to Obote, "Kyokka Milton eyo empale gyoyambade bagiyitta masavu gabayindi" (those trousers of yours are called the thin fat of Indians). Obote took no offence at that distasteful joke and he joked back, "Oyagalla nyo omukyomo" (you really love roast beef)." Obote understood and spoke relatively good Luganda.

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In his early days, Obote frequently shared my dad's personal items, including clothing. He enjoyed smoking and a good drink. Obote was full of humour and the desire to win over the younger generation. I recall as I had learnt my alphabet, I routinely joked to Obote saying, "You are both AM and PM" (for Apollo Milton and Prime Minister). He liked the jokes. I remember Obote used to joke often that DP lived in one of his pockets and he could decide to throw it away at will. In the early 1990s in London, I contacted Obote and Amin wishing to write their honest biographies. Obote refused on the grounds that "Uganda's problem is Museveni and not personal biographies. You should join UPC for us to fight Museveni out of power and biographies can come later." I insisted that he (Obote) owed the future generations an insight of his into facts behind the machinery of his government on matters like the abolition of the kingdoms, abrogation of the constitution, the Luweero war and other important political developments attributable to his rule. Obote was angered and said, "You are one of the worst people Uganda has ever had. You concocted FOBA calling it Force Obote Back." This helped Museveni kill many innocent people. This is not the time for biographies. It is time to fight Museveni. You should join UPC to do this." I again contacted Obote in late 1997 and early 1998 seeking to enlist him amongst the world leaders opposed to the proliferation of nuclear weapons in Africa. I was a consultant for the State of the World Forum, San Francisco, under the late Senator Cranston, of Los Altos, California. Obote refused, suggesting that Africa faced small arms proliferation and not nuclear weapons. I shall remember Milton Obote as a man that was argumentative, less conspiratorial and more manoeuvring and occasionally cunning for effect. He was a nationalist who never promoted his own community above others. Obote took tough decisions to streamline Uganda from its British image, which included giving back Bunyoro its land, giving Bugisu back its urban centre of Mbale, enabling a republican state and removing the ingredients of a civil strife that had latently bedevilled Uganda.

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Museveni's biggest mistake is to try, without success, to reverse Obote's abolition of monarchies and Amin's expulsion of Asian traders. By expelling Asians, Amin had immensely helped achieve true national independence. Obote's main blunder was to undermine democratic institutions for his political ambitions. This weakened political opposition and led to rhe militarisation of politics. This mistake backfired and sealed his political life. Obote remains a great imprint in my mind.

45 Miria: The Lady Who Shared a Life with Obote for 40 Years Arthur Baguma, Saturday Vision, 22 October 2005 True love was almost thrown to the winds. The pressure was unbearable. Her father was against the relationship from the start. Relatives and friends thought she had gone to the extreme. The beautiful young girl was tom between love for her man and love for her family. It was a real story that you only watch in movies. Despite protests from her father to marry Milton Obote, a nonMuganda, Miria Kalule turned a deaf ear. "Some of her friends thought it was the excitement of a young girl from a poor background meeting a famous man," recalls Mzee Muhammad Garusanja of Wandegeya. She would sooner or later come to her senses and return home. "How do I face the Kabaka to tell him my daughter pictured at her husband's has gone to Lango?" Miria's father allegedly told his wife. Miria was a product of a conservative upbringing based on Buganda norms and tradition. Residents in her home area knew her father as a staunch Kabaka loyalist. Miria was told to go slow, but she had made up her mind. And indeed she made the right decision. After marrying Obote, the two have had a happy marriage stretching over 40 years. It has only been halted by the death of the man she almost rejected. A story is told of how Obote eyed Miria. Obote reportedly saw Miria in Katwe where he used to hang out with other politicians over drinks. Katwe was a popular political meeting place then. At the time, Obote was residing in Ntinda. There is another story that Obote snatched Miria from the heart of Buganda (Mengo); something that did not go down well with staunch 184

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Baganda. It is rumoured that Miria had a relationship with a former senior official in the Buganda government before Obote snatched her. When Miria was in love with Obote, then a young politician from Akokoro village, she never accepted to be called Mrs Obote until the two were wed in church. The press often referred to her as the fiancee of the prime minister. The Uganda Argus of 13 October 1963 described her as a young, gorgeous woman who set the dressing trend. In the world of trendy dressing, she remains in a class of her own. She carried herself with tremendous grace. Columnist Charles Onyango Obbo once related Miria's fashion to that of the Nabagereka Sylvia Nagginda and First Lady Janet Museveni. That the three are fashion icons in Uganda's history of first ladies. Although quite apolitical, Miria accompanied her husband to all political rallies. On a number of occasions she officiated at public functions as chief guest. Patrick Rubaihayo, a close friend of the Obote family, says Miria was and is still a kind person. "She is so motherly and kind. Her philosophy in life has been a passionate belief in equity. That all people are bom equal," Rubaihayo says. Every visitor to her home left with a smile. "Even when her husband was not home, Miria would make you feel comfortable. She knew the favourite drink and food of every minister,"recalls Rubaihayo, a former minister in the Obote II government. Those who interact closely with Miria describe her as a humble person who steered clear of controversies during her husband's political reign. She didn't indulge in politics and preferred to concentrate on looking after her family. Some ministers found it strange that she was so friendly to everyone. Even in Kenya where she has been living in exile, Ugandans who visit praise her kindness and hospitality. After over 40 years, Miria has to let go of her love. At Obote's requiem mass in Lusaka, Zambia, she sobbed a climax of what might be her worst moment in life. Miria described her husband as a kind,

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loving and selfless political leader who placed the interests of Uganda above his own and even those of his family. The start of the journey that has ended with the death of her husband was memorable. Obote (then prime minister) travelled to Nairobi to pick his love 40 years ago. The couple travelled by train back to Kampala and arrived at 2:30 pm on 13 October 1963. The couple stepped on the carriage platform to make their first public appearance. "Obote has chosen a remarkably striking woman, Miria, for a wife/' a diplomat was quoted as saying in the Uganda Argus. Miria had just returned from New York where she worked as a secretary with the Uganda delegation to the UN. There was an outburst of cheering as Miria gracefully put her right foot forward. Donning a straw hat, Miria looked attractive in a cream suit. For 40 minutes the crowds gathered and surged forward as the then minister of works, Balaki Kirya, with the help of police, tried to maintain order. The two lovebirds had made a big statement. It was official and sooner or later they would say "I do". Before the wedding, the two often appeared together at public functions. On 21 October 1963, they were pictured all draped in black looking jovial at the Mayor's Ball in Kampala. With Obote and 300 other people, Miria attended the premiere of Sammy Going South, a British movie that was shot in East Africa. The premiere was held to raise funds for Save the Children's Fund. Observers said this was proof of Obote's love for Miria. Obote had no time for simplistic entertainment. He loved engaging in intellectual debates and reading. Taking him to a theatre was like telling your master to serve you. He had melted under Miria's feet! In the months that followed, speculation and anxiety were ripe among the public, as to when the two would wed. Finally on 9 November 1963, Kampala went into a frenzy of excitement as the two walked down the aisle at Namirembe Cathedral. The colourful ceremony was graced by Kabaka Mutesa II (then president). Their reception was held at Lugogo Indoor Stadium. Miria wore a green dress with a decorated front and a turban-style hat. Leslie

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Brown, the then archbishop of the Church of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Boga Zaire, wed diem. In his sermon Brown said, "We hope and pray Milton and Miria Obote find joy and security in each other. May their house be full of the noise of their children." Indeed, the couple was blessed with four boys. Their honeymoon saw them traverse five African countries. But when they returned after three weeks, newspapers flashed an interesting headline, "They return after a three-week working holiday which included state discussions with African leaders." Bom to Bulasio Kalule of Kawempe in Kampala, Miria was known for her chocolate flawless skin and a passion for hats. She attended Gayaza High School. Kalule adored Kabaka Edward Mutesa II so much that he couldn't give away his subject (Miria) to a non-Muganda. But ironically the Kabaka was among the dignitaries who blessed Miria's wedding. Could this explain another story, that actually behind closed doors, Miria convinced her father to allow her to marry Obote? "No girl can marry without the parent's consent. Miria kept close ties with her family. Even when she was first lady, she used to drive to their home in Kawempe. To date her relatives still visit her in Nairobi,"said a source close to the family. But what did the family get from their in-law who was twice the president of Uganda? Kalule died a poor man. "Ask his closest relatives, his brothers and sister. What did he give diem? The man never believed in material things. Obote was not a man who believed in big things," says a former minister. Residents of Kawempe remember Kalule as a man who used to ride a bicycle and proudly told everyone around the village that he had rejected a house and car from Obote. Kalule worked with the department of road maintenance in the Ministry of Works. As some Baganda jubilate over her husband's death, Miria has stood firm and accompanied the remains of her husband to the final resting place. True love indeed!

46 Man of the Collar Remembers Obote Sylvester Kaddu, Sunday Monitor, 23 October 2005 I first met Milton Obote in 1961. At the time he was leader of opposition in the transitional government led by Chief Minister Benedicto Kiwanuka. 1 found him in the foyer of St Ermin's Hotel in London where the British government had housed the opposition delegation at the London constitutional conference of 1961. He was sitting alone by a low coffee table, smoking a pipe and looking very frail, although it was early morning. Before introducing myself, my junior schoolmate, Grace Ibingira, descended the staircase. I shouted out to him to introduce me to his leader, for he was their legal adviser. When he introduced me fully by name and title as secretary of the Uganda Students Association of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, of which Grace had been a member before returning home, Obote, who it was said at the time was afraid of intellectuals, became nervous. So much so that his pipe fell on the floor, from which, with Grace, we retrieved it. Recovering, he said, "This association, which political party do you support?" Rendering apart, the question was too much of a howler and of annoyance to me and I showed it so that Grace ran away leaving me with his principal. For my assignment from our president, Chango Machyo, was to invite both the chief minister and the leader of opposition to jointly address the students body. The previous evening I had started with the Chief Minister, in his usual great Cumberland Hotel suites, next to East Africa House where I was residing. This night he had suddenly declared, "Your only fault is not taking out a DP card!" My reply was immediate: "After returning home if I deem it necessary I will." 188

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He agreed to come provided Obote, whom he said was in the habit of delegating his lieutenant Ibingira to represent him, would this time come in person. So here I was the following morning being asked by Obote which political party our association supports. I proceeded, with righteous anger, to lecture him. I ended with the question, "Who will work for Uganda if we must all belong to political parties?" Realising I did not belong to any camp, Obote, who had patiently listened to it all in silence, concluded, saying, "Then you are wasting your time."

Returning home I returned home in April 1962 to work in the public service. By December 1969,1 was a principal lay administrator in the Ministry of Health. While opening Yumbe Hospital in Koboko that month, Obote saw me walking to the launch pavilion and shouted from some 50 feet away, "Kaddu, would you like to come to Parliament?'' Flanked as he was by his minister of health, I found it difficult to reply. He called out again, adding, "Someone wants to bring you to Parliament." Unaware I had acquired influential friends who had his ears, I replied very softly, "I wouldn't mind if you so decided." Not having heard, he repeated the third time and it was Alex Ojera, his information minister, who, being nearer where I was, shouted back my previous reply. Back in Kampala I found out that they were looking for a replacement for the clerk of the National Assembly where I had previously worked. Shortly after though, an assassination attempt on his life took place, and I did not pursue the appointment. But he had tried to reach out to me. Just over a year later Amin toppled him.

'Final' meeting By then an ordained church minister, 1 did not go near Obote in his second presidency until 2 December 1984, when, without knowing it, it was nearing the end. I had gone to Mukono at the installation of Mpalanyi Nkoyooyo as its first bishop, expecting to link up with a convener of a State House ecumenical carol service planned for the end of the month.

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He had been writing to me for the past four months that our usual venue in the Entebbe park would change to State House. I would be master of ceremonies and my wife, being at the time Uganda's representative on the World Council of Churches, would move a vote of thanks to the choirs. Intending to tell him we would not be available, that year I did not see him. Instead 1found Obote had been invited and he was seated in church. The very clever bishop who preached said he did not need an interpreter because he would provide a summary in English after preaching in Luganda. Concluding his sermon in Luganda, he turned to the bishop being installed and declared in translation "These people have been stringently ruled, they do not need another ruler. Do not be a ruler." When giving the promised summary in English, he did not include this portion. Although married to Miria, a fine Muganda woman of her generation, Obote missed this allusion, for when invited to speak he said, "When I saw in the programme that the scheduled preacher was a bishop of an area tom up by government forces fighting bandits, my heart sank within me. I feared he would castigate the government I lead. I have listened very carefully to his sermon and I thank him for not attacking government." At the sports field luncheon pavilion, while sitting with my wife in the back row, a clergy messenger walked up to say Archbishop Yona Okoth wanted my wife so he could introduce her to the president. Far back as I was, I could see Obote cast his sharp eyes in my direction, a constant stance he was to repeat as he gave his famous speech which the press titled "Saul Can Become Paul". "When the church teaches forgiveness and Saul can become Paul why don't we forgive?" he said. He then rode on the back of a Land Rover, round the sports field, much to the amazement of spectators. I left Mukono that evening converted to preside over the ecumenical Christmas carols in State House later that month. At which, starting with the First Lady as hostess, the president joined us in the second part as all were standing for the Gospel reading.

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The reading over and before I announced the next event, I went over to the new arrival who was seated next to his wife and said, "Welcome back, Sir, from exile." Looking at me and his wife in turn, his body language expressing surprise, for it was 23 December 1984, and he had returned from exile in 1980,1 explained. "This is the first time I have come near you since then, as I couldn't go through the security cordon round you." He smiled. After making some announcements I returned and said to him, "I have never told you, we are basangi affines by marriage." He quickly looked at my wife a short distance away, then cast an eye on his wife and declared, "You resemble!" Miria affirmed, saying in Luganda, renderable as, "I know her, she is my clanswoman muganda wange." Then, speaking in Luganda, she said, "Since my husband has joined us, being a better speaker than me, he should speak in my place." Her husband caught what we were plotting in Luganda and said to his wife: "No, you are in the programme as speaker, you will speak." They disputed. Not wishing to get more entangled in the president's domestic affairs, but wishing to breathe a lighter air on the matter, I said, "Friends, sort it out for me", an.d I walked away to attend to the proceedings of the function. In moving the vote of thanks, my wife said, "In biblical times the cross of Jesus was planted on Golgotha hill. Today we have planted it in State House." The crowd cheered. She continued, while pointing at a huge Christmas tree placed in the State House compound: "I don't see why we use these pines as Christmas trees when we have our natural banana plant, which we could use." More cheers from the crowd. Standing next to the seated Obote, I saw him excitedly declare with amazement, "Oh, she is good!" Naturally, I did not relay that compliment to my wife until now although it was such speech sharpness which hooked me on to her at our first meeting. Anyhow, the president ruled his wife should speak, which she did, and then cut a mammoth cake which must have served the numerous ecumenical choirs. I then went to him to ask him also to speak. He refused saying, "Madam has already spoken." I said to him, "Wouldn't

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you like to wish the choirs gathered and the nation a merry Christmas and happy New Year?" Obote chirped, "You've got a point/' and he went to the microphone and made a superb confession. He said, "This message," which I understood as that of Jesus Christ which the Christmas carols and lessons had clarified, "has come to me in the evening of my life, but it is beginning to have an effect on me. I hear you've been planning to return next Christmas. There are several Sundays between now and then. Return sooner. Thank you." Even 1,10 years standing in the ordained ministry at the time and the son of a clergyman from birth, had not fully grasped the consequences of the mission of Jesus on politics. It was the chasm which Obote's second overthrow from power only seven months later, left in my mind, and providential intervention, which forced me through research to discover the truth of God's rule. "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel." (St Mark 1:15). At the end of the carol service Obote revealed to me another streak of humanity. I asked for a copy of the speech he made at the installation luncheon of Archbishop Okoth of Namirembe earlier in 1984. He readily said I could pick it up in his office in Kampala the following day at 8:30 am. But then he said, "That will be too early for you to have travelled from Ndejje!"

In Obote's office My wife being head of a woman's teacher training college there at the time, Obote had assumed that I lived there and that was where we would be returning that night. I told him, simply, that I would make it, and I did. Getting out of the lift, I was greeted by his British personal secretary whom I was surprised to find there, for I knew her husband. She said, "We were expecting you, His Excellency told us." She then showed me to the waiting room as the copy was being run off. Without a jacket, revealing trouser braces, His Excellency looked into the waiting room and said good morning to me. Fare thee well. Join Saul who became Paul and then wrote Romans 8:37-39: No, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through him who loved us. For I

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am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ jesus our Lord.

47 Like a Coin, Obote Had Two Sides Nick Twinamasiko, The Nero Vision, 12 October 2005 A former minister in Milton Obote's second government recently said Obote was fond of quoting William Shakespeare in cabinet. I hope Obote read Shakespeare's quote that" the good that men do dies with them, the evil they do lives long aftpr them". Of course Obote had some remarkable merits. He played a significant role in the attainment of our independence. He was very influential in the liberation struggle of the 1970s. And he presided over some significant economic strides. With regard to oratory, we have not had his match in State House again. Nevertheless, Obote had another side. He will be remembered as an ambitious manipulator who seemed to love power so much that he could do anything to obtain and retain it. He was a poor learner in the school of experience who could not master the art of retaining power and was twice toppled by his own army. Obote was a discretion-deficient leader, who nurtured a tyrant and paved the way for the most ignominious chapter in Uganda's history. History may paint the picture of a president who put the bottle above duty, who looked on helplessly or in approval as countless citizens were murdered in cold blood, who ailed but did not want to relinquish the presidency of UPC. The beloved Nyanturunga is alleged to have denounced his in-laws, saying, "a good Muganda is a dead one." He initiated the culture of violence when he sent Idi Amin to attack the Lubiri. The liberation war of the 1970s intended to expel Idi Amin, but Obote cannot escape blame because he had groomed Amin in the first place. The Luweero rebels claimed to have been instigated by the rigging of the 1980s elections and it is probable that Obote was among 194

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the architects of the rigging because he became the chief beneficiary of the malpractices. In a country whose motto is "For God and my Country", Obote seems to have been chiefly motivated not by piety or patriotism but by an insatiable thirst for power and prestige. As he accepted the Nobel Literature prize, the atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell remarked that the love of power is not necessarily unfortunate since it can motivate both the reformer and the despot equally. But if Obote's passionate pursuit of power is not to be held against him, neither can it be held in his favour. He must then be weighed, not on the basis of the authority he sought and won, but on how he wielded that authority. President Museveni has the opportunity to stand out in history as the true hero of his country. But he must remember Shakespeare: "The good that men do dies with them, the evil they do lives long after them".

48 Does Obote Have a Case to Answer? Omongole R. Anguria This article was written at the height of the debate about whether A.M. Obote should be allowed to return to Uganda from exile a free man. The article analyses the would-be criminal charges if Obote were to return to Uganda alive and face the law. Finally, the President of Uganda, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni (YKM), broke the silence on the supposed return of his predecessor and lifetime nemesis, former President Apollo Milton Obote (AMO). The president (YKM) is quoted by the media to have said that the Zambia-based AMO will answer for the crimes against humanity that were committed in his time when he returns. YKM was confirming to the public that his minister for information, Nsaba Buturo, the second time round, was simply echoing the feelings of the president after the initial green light for AMO'S return by some overzealous ministers, who in organs where the statement of the main man has to be awaited before everybody parrots it, risked being hanged as UPC sympathisers. The president was quoted by The Daily Monitor of 11 April as saying: I have heard that Obote wants to return. 1have no problem with that but he has to give an explanation of the intentional killing of people. The president's position, though a little toned down from that of his Minister Nsaba Buturo (I hear it means "I ask for refuge"), implies that Obote has to face the wrath of the legal machinery for his alleged role in the death of an estimated 300,000 Ugandans as guerillas of the 1%

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National Resistance Army (NRA) battled an elected UPC government. The minister's statement though more brutally frank than that of his appointing authority at Plot 1 Nakasero had the same essence and spirit: Given the massacres that took place in Luweero, that desire to return on Mr Obote's part has to be further scrutinised since he had no immunity from prosecution. Obote's role in the massacre of Luweero has to be handled before the issue of his return can be finally resolved. The Daily Monitor quotes the minister as saying this. There are a number of pertinent questions raised by the statements of both His Excellency and the honourable minister. For example, were the actions in Luwero played unilaterally by the government of Obote? Did the guerillas have any role in the massacres? Was the guerrilla force's launching of the war against an elected government legal/ constitutional? But most importantly, did Obote in his person or as the president commit a crime(s) triable by laws of Uganda or under any world body with the requisite jurisdiction? While the questions largely fall within the realism of politics, I want to answer the last one which invites legal exposition. Legally, there can only be two dimensions to the alleged crime/ offence of Obote; under municipal (Ugandan) law and under international jurisdiction. Under the Ugandan laws, an offence, according to the Penal Code Act Chapter 120 Laws of Uganda (the law that largely addresses the offences/ crimes committed in Uganda), "is an act, attempt or omission punishable by law". In view of Obote's role as the president of the Republic of Uganda and commander in chief of UNLA, the then national army, was there an act, attempt or omission punishable by law committed by him? Though it's apparently difficult to separate Obote the person from Obote the then president of Uganda, his alleged offence can only be seen in the light of those two perspectives either jointly or severally. Obote the person and former president would be tried under the Penal Code Act; for crimes relating to offences committed against the person, but particularly murder and manslaughter.

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Under section 187 of the Penal Code Act and I quote:

1.

Any person who by an unlawful act or omission causes death of another person commits the felony termed manslaughter.

2.

An unlawful omission is an omission amounting to culpable negligence to discharge a duty tending to the preservation of life or health whenever such omission is or is not accompanied by an intention to cause bodily harm.

In relation to Obote, Section 187 of the Penal Code Act has to be viewed vis-a-vis his role as the president of Uganda and commander in chief of UNLA when his forces were in Luwero. Was there an omission on his part that led to the massacres? To establish the guilt of an accused person, the prosecution should be able place him/her at the scene of the crime. This means that the evidence must show that an accused person was actually at the scene of the crime and he was the one, on the strength of that evidence, who committed the alleged crime. Obote's omission, in the context of manslaughter in Luweero, should be able to place him at the scene of the crime where he, acting within his human abilities, could have averted the massacre but did not or failed to do so when he had the actual ability to do so. In the Obote case, it would be a very heavy burden for the prosecution to place him at the scene of the crime and, at the same time, establish that he had knowledge and authority to do so. Forget about his power as president or commander-in-chief whose effectiveness is very difficult to prove in situations of war and one's absence from the battlefield. As the president and commander-in-chief, he sent forces to Luweero to rout all bandits/guerillas fighting a legitimate government, which was his constitutional role. Yes, lives were lost in the crossfire, by erratic actions of certain soldiers, by bandits and probably a systematically designed guerilla tactic to bring mass resentment of the masses against the government of the day and consequently gamer misinformed support from the masses for the guerilla forces. Manslaughter, therefore, leaves a lot outside the legal requirements of "beyond reasonable doubt" as actions in Luweero were not carried out personally, nor was Obote's conduct criminal for reasons of his

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constitutional role and duty as the president defending the peace and security of the nation. Obote or his lawyers will probably argue that he did not omit to do anything within his actual ability to stop the massacre. Secondly, the defence of alibi (the defence that one was not at the scene of the crime as the crime was committed) is available in the circumstances as all Obote will say is that he was not either as a person or president present in Luweero (he says YKM was there) at the time the killings took place. This raises the defence of alibi and poses a problem legally but obviously not politically. The supreme court of Uganda in the case of Mukwaya Mannase i>s Uganda SCCA 7/94 stated that " when an accused person sets up an alibi he does not thereby assume any burden of proving its truth. It is the prosecution to disprove or destroy the alibi". Remember this is a criminal trial and not a political one, and so Obote has to answer charges personally for acts he is alleged to have committed personally as Obote the person or as Obote the president in person. The burden of proof for the prosecution is, therefore, so high that I am sure the prosecution would need some divine help to place him at the scene. Of course this is not an issue for morality, which would simply require asking for God's mercy. There is no room for morality in law and therefore every case or incident must be proved beyond reasonable doubt. According to Section 188 of the Penal Code Act: Any person who out of malice aforethought causes the death of another person by unlawful act or omission commits murder. Section 191 goes ahead to define the circumstances under which one can be adjudged to have acted with malice in his mind as follows: Malice aforethought shall be deemed to be established by evidence providing either of the following circumstances: a)

An intention to cause the death of any person, whether such person is the person actually killed or not or;

200 Apollo Milton Obote

b)

Knowledge that the act or omission causing death will probably cause the death of some person whether such person is the person actually killed or not although such knowledge is accompanied by indifference whether death is caused or not or by wish that it may not be caused.

Regarding the offence of murder and particularly mass murder amounting to estimates of 300,000 people, the prosecution has a burden to prove beyond reasonable doubt. As Kato J. argued in the case of Uganda vs Harry Musumba, Criminal Case No. 17 of 1990, that the following ingredients for one to be guilty of the offence have to be proved: a) A human being was killed. b) The killing was unlawful. c) The killing was with malice aforethought. d) The accused participated in the killing of that human being. Looking at the above ingredients in relation to our current offender, Apollo Milton Obote, the former president of Uganda and commanderin-chief, difficulty is created in attaining the legal requirement of burden of proof in criminal offences which is 'beyond reasonable doubt', a principle in the trial that places the onus to prove the guilt of the accused beyond doubt not on a mere scintilla of evidence. A prima facie case must, therefore, be made out against the accused. A prima fracie case "must mean one on which a reasonable tribunal, properly directing its mind to the law and the evidence could convict if no explanation is offered by the defence." (Ranaulal TVs R 1957 EA 337) In analysing of the said ingredients vis-a-vis the offence allegedly committed by Obote, the state (prosecution) will have to direct its mind legally and not politically and be aware that insufficiency of evidence entitles the accused to be acquitted. To relate the above ingredients to Obote, obviously human beings were killed in Luweero but the million dollar question is: was the killing carried out by the person of Obote? Again obviously any killing is

Does Obote Have a Case to Answer? 201

unlawful save for one under the death penalty prescribed by the laws of Uganda. However, die issue is: did Obote take part in the killings? The third ingredient is that if Obote did kill it was with malice aforethought. But what was the malice aforethought by the commanderin-chief who went to flush out bandits that were committing treasonable actions of fighting an elected government. Who had the malice aforethought? Malice in its ordinary sense denotes the existence of some improper motives or desire and in its legal meaning denotes merely the intentional and voluntary doing of a wrongful act without justification or excuse. Why was Obote's government fighting in Luweero? Was it out of malice or did they give a justification to avert somebody's wrongful act? That is for you to answer. The conduct of Obote as far as Luweero was concerned does not make him a criminal if he did not have a criminal mind in sending the national troops to Luweero. He had the constitution and the provisions of the Penal Code that criminalise treason and associated crimes on his side. In determining criminal responsibility courts in Uganda do not look at acts alone, but also at the state of mind ( known in law-speak as mens rea or the guilty mind). It is going to be extremely difficult for the prosecution to establish a guilty mind of a commander-in-chief who was carrying out his constitutional duties though inadvertently death of some innocent civilians occurred. Murder (massacre if numbers are involved) is killing "with malice aforethought". Were UNLA soldiers under the command of Obote in Luweero for that? The last important attribute for the charge of murder to stand is that the accused person participated in the killing. In our instant case this would call for a lot of factual evidence about the accused's personal participation in the killings and linking Obote direcdy to the acts for him to be found guilty, under this ingredient. Remember it is not on mere scintilla of evidence" nor political correctness or moral righteousness. It's proof beyond reasonable doubt that he participated in the planning or actual killings.

202 Apollo Milton Obote

It is therefore my considered opinion (for which I ask no one to hang me ) that within the legal parameters provided by our penal laws at the time, if Obote is said to have committed the crimes, the courts will return a verdict of a 'no case to answer' just on analysis of the evidence and circumstances under which Obote is said to have massacred or become responsible for the massacres. He may then have the political offence to answer which may be punishable either militarily through extra-judicial killing. As for the moral case, I am told this has a judgement day if you believe in the omnipresent being. Not withstanding the spirit of Article 98 of the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda which reads: Civil or criminal proceedings may be instituted against a person after ceasing to be President, in respect of anything done or omitted to be done in his or her personal capacity before or during the term of office of that person; and any period of limitation in respect of any such proceedings shall be taken to run during the period while the person was President. Again Obote who falls outside the realm of this clause as far as his past reigns are concerned do not fall within the ambit of the 1995 constitution which has no retrospective effect will walk out of Buganda Road court a free man like he survived the coup plotters' noose. This therefore takes me to examine whether international law makes a case for Obote to answer. The time Obote was in power in Uganda, the International Criminal Court was not yet established. The UN Charter was and remains largely inadequate for individual trials whether for violation of human rights or for serious offences like genocide, which was given a specific and limiting definition. More so, the UN Charter considered such actions as the Luweero deaths as matters of domestic jurisdiction — Article 2 (7) of the UN Charter thus states. Nothing contained in the present charter shall authorise the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.

Does Obote Hm>e a Case to Answer? 203

The UN thus viewed such actions as of a domestic nature though a number of treaties such as the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) grounded the protection of right to life as adapted from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There was therefore lack of forum (court) to try Obote before the establishment of the International Criminal Court(ICC). Can Obote therefore be tried under the International Criminal Court today? The option open to those who strongly felt that Obote should have been tried was to request for a special UN tribunal on Luwero to try Obote and company for the crime of genocide. However, genocide within the UN was given such a restricted definition to mean any of the following acts committed: With intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such; a) Killing members of the group. b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part. d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group. e) Forcefully transferring children of the group to another group. But were people massacred in Luweero, maybe unfortunately by all the players in Luweero, targeted as a group, when he had a vice president belonging to the same ethnicity, a number of army men and officers, a wife and probably children? Genocide therefore calls for a relation of the events in Luweero with the above definition. The International Criminal Court, commenced a few years ago, was established as a permanent institution with powers to exercise its jurisdiction over persons for the most serious crimes of international concern with a complimentary attribute to the national criminal justice systems. The court with powers over the territory of any state, including non­ state parties, by way of agreement would have been the appropriate court to try Obote.

204 Apollo Milton Obote

However, under Article 5 of the ICC Statute, the court's jurisdiction is limited to most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole. Such crimes as defined in the statute are: a) Crime of genocide b) Crimes against humanity c) War crimes d) Crimes of aggression This implies that the actions contemplated by the state to prosecute Obote must fit within the definition of the above crimes to be considered by the court. The above crimes fit the situation in northern Uganda. Both players in northern Uganda are not free from the actions by the ICC. But to return to the Obote case, under Article 7 of the ICC Statute: "Crimes against Humanity" mean any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack: a) Murder, b) Extermination c) Enslavement d) Deportation e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty f) Torture g) Rape, sexual slavery, etc. h) Persecution, etc. i) Enforced disappearance of persons j) The crime of apartheid k) Other inhuman acts of similar character ... On reading the above provisions of the ICC Statute, I am sure that the state prosecutors would salivate if Obote set foot in Kampala, just like the war crimes defined under Article 8 of ICC as wilful killing,

Does Obote Have a Case to Answer? 205

torture or inhuman treatment, extensive destruction and appropriation of property, would be fertile for Obote's prosecution. But the son of Opeto has survived two military coups without capture or being killed. Article 11 of the ICC statute put him out of its jurisdiction when it limited its area of operation to crimes committed after the entry into force of the statute. The statute came into force in 2003. So whether under municipal law or internationally the son of Opeto would just ask Nsaba Buturo to give back his refuge. The issue for Nsaba Buturo and company to worry about would therefore be the fact that there is now a law to try the leaders for their criminal actions against their citizens. The ICC Statute, which exercises its jurisdiction without regard to the official capacity of the person or the defence of superior orders, is a threat. I pray that no one soon shares a cup of coffee with the ICC prosecutor. My Lords, so I pray.

Obote's Controversial Pronouncements 1. Political maturity "The politicians have a special responsibility in these difficult times. Intemperate utterances from our politicians will not heal the wounds of yesterday but will open them. Excitement of groups to hate groups or individuals is not only the hallmark of a bankrupt politician devoid of all ideas but also a clear call to violence and loss of lives and property. Any politician who cannot reconcile his differences with others is a positive danger to our future wellbeing and an obstacle to our rehabilitation." Mbale, 14 June 1980. 2. Peace, freedom and democracy "This peace was brought by war; even (your) children were there. Where are the other parties? You sent boys to Tanzania. Our brothers from the DP went to Britain and America. Now that there is peace, they are yelling that they are for freedom, that they are for democracy. What freedom and what democracy?7' Bata, 3 September 1980.

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"Today I hear our friends in the DP talking about democracy and freedom. Do they understand what is freedom and what is democracy? Do they understand when they talk about dictatorship? Amin took away our freedom. Amin instituted (the) first dictatorship in Uganda. We of the UPC went to the neighbouring states to beg them to give us guns so that we (could) come back and fight Amin and reinstall democracy and freedom, but the DP leaders went to Europe, went to America and there they stayed quiet." In Masindi, 17 September 1980. "When Amin took away our democracy, when Amin introduced dictatorship in this country, I announced on behalf of the people of the UPC that we would work until we overthrow Amin. I did not go to exile in Europe, I did not exile myself in America, I went to Tanzania. Why did I go there? There are two reasons; I knew that in Tanzania, we had friends and I knew that those friends would not let us down. Secondly, I went there because I wanted to be nearer to the people of Uganda. "They (the DP) were happy with Amin. They were saying that Amin had brought democracy. They were saying that Amin had brought freedom. They were dancing for Amin. They were eating together with Amin. They were saying "yes sir" "yes sir" to Amin." In Entebbe, 5 December 1980. "The question is the same throughout Uganda. Ask yourselves when Amin took away freedom, when Amin took away democracy, when Amin took away justice and when Amin was killing the people of Uganda, what is it that you, Paul Semogerere, did? What is it that you, leaders, did? The answer is simple. They did absolutely nothing. What do you learn out of that? It means that they do not understand the meaning of democracy. If you do not understand anything, you do not fight for it the moment you lose it. "Fellow citizens, for ten years we did not have leadership and we did not know what to do in those ten years. But now we have leadership and we know what to do. So why don't we do it? I am very happy to report that in the great majority of districts, people are saying we can do it. Collectively we can make Uganda happy and prosperous." In Buwuni, Iganga, 22 January 1982.

Does Obote Haiv a Case to Answer? 207

3. Personal involvement in politics M1 am in politics not because of what I want to get out of it. 1 am in politics because I want to make some contribution to bring peace and prosperity to the people of Uganda. I have never changed my basic political philosophy. 1am in politics to fight three things: one, ignorance; two, I want to fight poverty... and the third one... disease... If anyone tries to stand between me (and these three) I will crush him." In Budaka, 23 January 1982. 4. Party membership "You may feel tomorrow that having spent much of your life in onother party, the UPC will not look at you as class one member. I want to assure you that there is no class membership in UPC. UPC believes in that portion of the recruitment of manpower, which appears in the Bible. Some workers were recruited at 6.00 am, some were recruited at 9.00 am, others were recruited at 12 noon, others were recruited at 6.00 pm and all were paid equally. So there is no question of 9 o'clock, 12 o'clock and 6 o'clock, we are all members of UPC." At Rock Hotel, Tororo, 24 January 1984.

49 Conclusion Whether we go by Prof. AH Mazrui's statement that "Obote was a great statesman who made great mistakes" or whether we do not agree with the statement we get confused and probably will not know what side of the argument to weigh in on. In his lifetime and even after his death, that is what Dr Apollo Milton Obote is, a debateable person, a controversy of sorts. Yet on the other hand both sides — those who agree that he was a great statesman and those who saw him as a man of mistakes or a vilian — will always have something to say about the other side of the man that they do not agree with. It is therefore my considered opinion that Obote was first a human being, prone to mistakes, full of achievements, possessed of emotions and other human attributes such as pride, benevolence, passion, hatred, goodwill, love for his people and country, weaknesses as a person and as a leader, and that he was intelligent, conscientious and mortal as well. It is from this standpoint that I want to agree with Prof. Mazrui and others that Obote, like all humans, made mistakes, mistakes that were costly to the country, mistakes that resulted in loss of life, mistakes that led to deprivation, mistakes that caused retardation of the economy and the country as a whole. During his leadership, he manifested the human attributes of hatred, passion, pride and jealousy, all of which could have had a profound effect on the nation, on the people and on his leadership. Some of them were within his reach and means to control, others were beyond his human abilities to determine the outcome of. Yet as a people we want to judge him for both his human weaknesses and his outright mistakes manifested through his arrogance, hatred, passions and even his love for certain things and people. 208

Conclusion 209

Kintu Nyango points out in this book, some of Obote's mistakes cost Uganda dearly. It is true that Obote's reign was tumultuous for the peoples of the southern part of the country and part of the West where war was going on. He seemed not to take firm decisions on certain issues that could have saved the people of these regions from the untold suffering they went through. Today there are those who want to forgive Obote for that. They argue that this trend of events only changed direction from the south­ west part of the country to the north-east part of the country as regimes changed. The question, therefore, is: Will the country one day see an end to the regional shift of violence? Or are humans simply possessed of passions, emotions and weaknesses so that they will always hate, revenge, and enjoy the suffering of others? We all hope that the country should have learnt from the mistakes of Obote and drawn lessons from his legacy. Obote is accused of abrogating the independence constitution and imposing his will on Ugandans. His love for the illiterate army generals that he employed to both his fair advantage and that led to severe consequences, the formation of alleged extra-judicial units like the GSU and NASA, the acts of detention without trial, were all black marks on the face of the Obote legacy. For the people of Buganda, Obote died without grabbing the opportunity to say sorry to the kingdom and its people for what they see as the desecration of their kingdom and the failure to control certain military officers. The intrigue and 'science' played within the party and the country remains manifest as the party today struggles to find its bearings after the demise of its leader. It is still tom between the good legacy and the tainted legacy of Obote. Fear, rumour-mongering, intrigue, suspicion and division are tearing apart the UPC, one of the equally controversial legacies of Obote. Yet the party's leadership merely sings of reconciliation, peace, unity and democracy, probably a continuation of the human weaknesses, emotions, hatred and sadness that tainted the legacy of Obote both in life and in death.

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Yet when all is all said and done, Obote remains Uganda's greatest leader. Controversial though his contributions to Uganda are, if objectively judged, they remain unmatched. He made a lot of contributions that made the economy belong to Ugandans. Obote's contribution to the country's social infrastructure remains unmatched, his contribution to the common good and the general welfare of Ugandans stands out. Obote's unwavering support for the liberation movements in Africa gave him a permanent place in the history of Pan*Africanism and among citizens of many African nations. The struggle for independence in Uganda in particular and Africa in general cannot be complete without a role being assigned to Dr Apollo Milton Obote. He championed the nationalist cause with his contemporaries with a lot of patriotism leading up to the attainment of independence by Uganda, with him at the helm. It is during the Obote and UPC administrations that most of the country's social infrastructure was put in place to directly benefit the citizenry. The country was transformed into a developing, productive entity with sound economic policies geared towards the development of agriculture, health and education, with the sole aim of improving the socio-economic welfare of the nation. The Obote administration oversaw the tarmacking and upgrading of various roads and the rail network. Today many buildings and industrial establishments that are the landmarks of Uganda's development are associated with the Obote leadership. The education sector thrived and grew under the wings and able guidance of Obote. The mainstay of Uganda's economy from which many Ugandans today derive their sustainance, the agricultural sector, was developed so that it brought in the much-desired foreign earnings. The UPC administration oversaw the construction of 22 rural hospitals which improved the health of many rural poor. Army barracks were set up and electronic and print media houses established to help development though some of these were later abused by errant party and army cadres. Regional relations were at

Conclusion 211

their best so that Obote even became an inspiration to many African leaders struggling for independence so as to have the opportunity to improve their communities. Such is the legacy of Obote that those who personally experienced his administration continue the debate as to where to place him in the history of Uganda. He made great achievements on one hand and costly political mistakes on the other. In fact the debate is not about to end. Omongole Richard Anguria Kampala 29 September 2006

Printed in the United States 81711LV00004B/4-24

A pollo M ilton O bote: W hat Others Say is a collection of newspaper articles and commentaries by politicians, friends and foes, workmates, his ministers, journalists from within and without, analysts, his family and above all, President Museveni, Obote's long-time nemesis, about the man Ugandans loved to hate. For some, Obote is the founder of the nation, the nationalist, the panAfricanist, the socialist —in short, a hero. To others he was a tribalist, regionalist and power maniac who resorted to intrigue, manipulation and the use of the army to monopolise politics and terrorise opponents. The Baganda saw him as a man who destroyed and humiliated Buganda, imposed a one-party dictatorship, grabbed people's property in the name of socialism and nurtured Amin, who later foisted a reign of terror over the country. For them, Obote in his life in exile (1971-80), like the Bourbons of old, learnt and forgot nothing, continued his politics of intrigue and manipulation, destabilised the UNLF, stole elections and imposed what they call the disastrous Obote II regime, culminating in civil war and the coup of 1985. To others, Obote was a victim of circumstances, of problems inherited from colonial rule, of intrigues and machinations of rival politicians, of foreign interests and powers, of his own indecision, timidity and procrastination, etc. To others still, Obote was a mixed bag—a man with achievements to his credit but also a man who committed avoidable blunders and mistakes that ruined this country. To the editor, Omongole R. Anguria, all these conflicting views needed to be compiled, preserved and presented to readers for them to determine on their own what Obote, Uganda's first executive president stood for. Omongole has an LLB and MA (Philosophy) from Makerere University. He is a practising advocate with Kasozi Omongole & Company Advocates. He earlier on worked with Amnesty International (Africa Regional Office) before heading Amnesty's Uganda Office.