Could Obote have stopped his second fall?

The major cause of the 1985 coup was a rift between President Milton Obote and Paulo Muwanga which started with a divided support of two Muslim factions. Obote was behind Obeid Kamulegeya while Muwanga supported Ali Mulumba.

Matters later headed for a new but bizarre angle and became personal when Muwanga lost his brother- in-law. It was only Samwiri Mugwisa who attended the burial. I was kept in the meeting called by the president until late and missed the burial.

When Obote was celebrating his 59th birthday on December 28, 1984 at State House, Muwanga didn’t show up and instead went to Kireka to release bandits. His absence confirmed what many of us in the government had feared that the two had fallen out.

Eventually, the rift between Muwanga and Obote - orchestrated by Luwuliza Kirunda, Peter Otai, Chris Rwakasisi and Brigadier Smith Opon Acak - drew Gen Tito Okello away from the president. The same people had isolated Tito Okello because he was in good terms with Muwanga.

Tito Okello manifests
The gesture would affect Tito Okello’s reputation among junior officers, yet it was written over the horizon that some were loyal to Brig Smith Opon Acak, who had been appointed Chief-of-Staff. This soon manifested in Acak’s behavior when he would reluctantly show up for meetings called by Tito Okello.

Acak was doing the same thing to Muwanga who was vice president and defense minister, whenever he was called to the minister’s office for briefings. He would go with one of the regalia of a military officer missing so that he would not have to salute the vice president. However, Muwanga did not draw our attention to these developments only until after the coup.

I personally did not support the appointment of Opon Acak, although my colleagues in the ministry like Ambassador Kamuntu and others supported him ostensibly because he had reportedly performed well in western Uganda where he was the commander. But to us who knew him, we were opposed to his appointment because of his love for alcohol when he was chief of staff.

While on a tour of eastern Uganda with the president towards the mid-1980s, the famous uncoordinated movement of troops happened. But Obote took the matter lightly. This was followed by incidences of internal rivalry within the army, with one tribe being seen to be suffering more causalities in the battle field against the then National Resistance Army (NRA) rebels.

Ojok death
The president also did not work closely with Tito Okello, on the suspicion that Muwanga and Tito Okello could have been responsible for the death of Oyite Ojok on December 2,1983. Obote had drawn this assumption basing on rumours that when the news of Ojok’s death reached the military offices at present-day Bulange, the two were seen sharing pleasantries in the corridors.

During one of the finance meetings in the president’s office attended by myself, Aliro Omara, Luwuliza Kirunda, and Leo Kibirango, I proposed to Obote to transfer Muwanga from the Defence ministry to Finance and the Defence docket comes under him. Obote’s reaction was “you don’t know Paulo Muwanga, he will finish the money.”

Why Obote said that was because as the Defence minister, Muwanga had contracted, among others, a private company to supply the ministry with timber worth Shs240m even when the ministry had no construction projects. But we had to pay the money.

Mwanga a pain
Muwanga was increasingly becoming a pain in the neck for the government. At one time Rwakasisi planted a security agent on him while delivering meat to several places in Kampala. It emerged that Muwanga had been diverting 15 cattle every day at the expense of the government.

At the beginning of January 1985, Muwanga hosted the outgoing ambassadors of China and Korea, at his residence in Kololo. Towards the end of the party, I requested to have a word with him and during the discussion, he told me: “I have nothing against Milton [Obote], but for him to allow Rwakasisi and Kirunda to abuse me and hide under his armpit is what’s making me unhappy.”

The July event was a culmination of the different occurrences. The actual coup was as a result of the inactivity of the administration. The uncoordinated movement happened when I was with Obote in Bugiri.
Had Obote put his foot on the ground and tried to find out what had happened and why, maybe the situation would have been different.
Upon return to Kampala, the president called a meeting in his office, which I had the privilege to attend and I was requested to act as secretary. The meeting had been called to iron out the outstanding issues within in his leadership.

The second meeting was to take place the following day at Nile Mansions in room 211, present-day Serena hotel.

Those to attend were Obote himself, Muwanga, Otema Alimadi, Opon Acak, and Tito Okello. But when Muwanga arrived at the reception and found that Rwakasisi and Luwuliza Kirunda were also in attendance, he turned back and the meeting aborted.

The next day, Tito Okello left Kampala with a heavy military convoy to join Bazillio Okello in Gulu where he was the commander.
During the times of military instability in Uganda, the head of the American mission in Uganda was Ambassador Allen Clayton Davis who had come from Guinea Bissau immediately after the coup that brought Joao Bernardo Vieira into power. Hardly a month after the coup against Obote, he was withdrawn before the end of his official term of three years.

I strongly suspect that the reason America wanted Obote gone was his refusal to allow them have a base on Lake Victoria, because during the IMF meeting of October 1984 in Washington, I, in the company of the late Joseph Okune, Richard Kaijuka and Ivan Mulindwa, then of the Bank of Uganda, were asked to deliver the American request to the president, asking to have ’a presence on Lake Victoria’.
When I reported to the president, he asked for one week to consider the request. A week later, ambassador Kamuntu and I met him and he said he would not allow the Americans in Lake Victoria. His reason was that an American official, Abraham Eliot, had published an interview he had with Paul Semwogerere, then leader of opposition, saying Uganda was having high levels of Human Rights violation and indiscriminate killings. And Obote intimated it to us that had the American government not gone ahead to repeat the same allegations on the international scene, probably he would have considered their request.

The Mutiny
When Bazillio Okello defied the orders of the Commander-in-Chief, Obote went public, saying “this chair is hot.”
Brigadier Bazillio Olara Okello and Tito Okello demanded for the dismissal of Opon Acak, Peter Otai, Chris Rwakasisi and Luwuliza Kirunda before they could sit down for discussions. Obote rejected their demand. By coincidence, those were the same people that were anti- Muwanga. And that is why many people connected Paulo Muwanga with that coup.

During the time of their preparation in Gulu, Bazillio gave orders that no military vehicle should be allowed to cross Karuma. One officer, Major Okwera, who had the audacity to drive from Kasese was killed when he reached and his vehicle full of sacks with money was burnt.
All this time Obote had the belief that he was still in position to win the war.

Last 24 hours
Obote did not believe that Bazillio and his men were up to anything serious as he was kept in the dark by his security advisers, who kept on telling him that the forces loyal to him were capable of controlling the situation. When they got passed Karuma, I told Obote: “Mr President, we as a tribe we don’t have many people in the army and you should not expect one Acholi to stand on our side and another on the other and start shooting each other. Why don’t you leave the government to the vice president for a short while or suspend two of the four officials named by Bazillio in order to pave way for negotiations with the Okellos.”
He refused and instead told me: “If I do what you suggest, you and I won’t be alive tomorrow.”

The British offered to send troops to disarm the mutineers, simply calling them gunmen. Obote’s security advisers persuaded him against accepting the British support, remembering the 1971 assistance they provided to Amin. He turned down their offer and he instead dispatched Otema Alimadi and Luwuliza Kirunda to Zambia to request for military support from Kenneth Kaunda, then Zambian President.

I understand Kaunda had agreed. Unfortunately, by the time the coup took place, they had not even boarded the plane to Entebbe.
After the mutineers crossed Karuma, the next defence line was at Kafu, which was a walkover for the Okello’s, and the other defence line was Bombo. And it became clear to me that the government was going to fall anytime.

The overthrow
On the eve of the coup, Bazillio’s men reached Bombo, where Opon Acak’s last defence line for Kampala was. It was overrun at around 9pm and Opon Acak took off for Kampala, while we were at president’s office waiting for him to give us a report on the state of affairs. But he did not; he just went home to sleep and even switched off his walkie-talkie.

After failing to get him on the Walkie-talkie, one of Obote’s aides suggested to call the house, and to our surprise, the wife picked the phone and said Opon Acak was home resting.

Out of disgust, Obote lifted some books and banged them on the table, saying, “There you are. These are the type of commanders we have. Oyite Ojok would have reported to me first before going to bed. Let us go and sleep and hope we shall wake up alive tomorrow.”

Muwanga later told me that when he learnt that Bazillio and his men had reached Bombo, he telephoned Obote, telling him they needed to meet and forge a way forward. Obote agreed but when he reached Nile Mansions he found him gone. Obote could not wait for Bazillio and company to reach Kampala and probably harm him. His end was eminent.