Former ministers Rwakasisi, Adrisi and importance of documenting history

Rwakasisi in these two-hour discussions dispelled many rumours and reports about him dating back to the second Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) government of Milton Obote.

In National Resistance Movement (NRM) and National Resistance Army (NRA) folklore, Rwakasisi is the embodiment of evil, the evil so many NRA guerrillas fought and laid down their lives to fight.

Mysterious murders
In 1979 and 1980 during the period of the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF) governments, there was a series of mysterious murders by night of prominent Ugandans, from Mulago hospital doctors Jack Barlow, Abuden Obace, to a chartered surveyor Kaija Katuramu, a banker Bagonza, a UNLA officer Lt. Col. John Ruhinda, to Francis Mulyajonja, the father of the current Inspector-General of Government, Irene Mulyagonja.

It has never been conclusively determined who was behind these clearly political murders, but some rumours were spread about that Rwakasisi and Paulo Muwanga might be behind them.

In his two appearances on the Hard Talk programme, Rwakasisi clearly showed in many instances that blame had been put not only on him but on other UPC officials for crimes they did not commit, the best example being the UPC chairman in Luweero, Musa Ssebirumbi, the alleged killer of the NRA hero Eridadi Luttamaguzi.

Besigye arrest, court raid
At the time of Dr Kizza Besigye’s arrest in November 2005, a rumour started that Besigye’s arrest and the Black Mamba raid on the High Court were ordered by Gen David Sejusa (formerly Tinyefuza).

For the last eight years, many in the media, including experienced reporters and editors, took it as a matter of fact that Sejusa had ordered Besigye’s arrest --- only for Sejusa to recently explain that he had been out of the country at the time.

According to Sejusa, appearing on the Voice of America’s Straight Talk Africa programme hosted by Shaka Ssali, the order to raid the High Court was actually given by the highest authority. No one has responded to Sejusa’s charges.

As a matter of fact, the highest authority has remained mysteriously silent about the whole matter called David Sejusa since that letter was first published by the Daily Monitor.

It has been Museveni’s tendency in the past to speak out about plots to overthrow his government, warning that whoever tries to even think about it will be swiftly put “six feet under”.

Even though Sejusa explicitly stated that removing Museveni’s government by force is his intention, as well as taking Museveni’s job at State House, Museveni has remained silent.

A few of us view this as possible confirmation that Museveni knows the Sejusa threat is real and bigger than the many he has faced since coming to power in 1986.

But in all this, it had to take Sejusa to speak from the safety of London and Washington DC, knowing he could not be arrested by the Black Mamba or the army, for us to finally hear what usually would be a right of reply.
There is so much Ugandan history we yet have to hear and it does the country grave harm that so many former civil servants, intelligence, army and police officers in their retirement do not bother to write down their recollections and document their experiences.

Writing memoirs and autobiographies is not simply a chíc hobby meant to make one look urbane and sophisticated.

Gen Adrisi and Amin’s regime
They always, without exception, add major new areas of understanding to a society and a country and there is nothing quite as quenching to the curious and intellectual mind as to find answers to long-standing puzzles and mysteries.

Last week, former vice president Gen. Mustapha Adrisi, died. He was a Regimental Sergeant-Major in the Uganda Army at the time of the 1971 military coup, later made Army Chief of Staff and a General by president Idi Amin, then a vice president.

Our common view of Adrisi is of a semi-literate “Nubian”, one of the many appointed by Amin as he systematically went about cleansing Uganda of well-educated people and turning it into a country run by Muslim Nubian, Kakwa and Lugbara illiterates.

Some of that is true about Amin. But we cannot stop at just that. Now that we have had the benefit of 27 years of the NRM government, we must ask a few questions. The main question is, how is it that these semi-literate army officers, starting with Amin himself, were able to run a country for eight years?

They were under constant attack and sabotage from Tanzania- and Kenya-based guerrillas and a Western economic boycott, but were still able to see to it that all government hospitals in all parts of Uganda were fully stocked with all kinds of drugs, all of the time.

In 1975, these semi-literate soldiers hosted the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) summit in Kampala. Once again, all arrangements were completed well ahead of time, the summit passed without incident and most important (in light of the 2007 Commonwealth summit in Kampala) to this day there has never been a story or report, not even in the anti-Amin propaganda literature from Tanzania, that funds for the 1975 OAU summit disappeared.

How could these semi-literate army officers have acquired prime diplomatic property for Uganda’s overseas embassies, successfully launched a Uganda Airlines, Uganda Railways, Uganda Air Cargo, maintained an airforce with a peak time 65 combat aircraft, and today’s government full to overcapacity with Masters and PhD holders can barely keep the foreign embassies started by Amin equipped with running water and carpets?

You sometimes have to wonder about a man called Amin. Just imagine where he would have taken Uganda had he been educated up to about Primary Seven or Senior Four, never mind university.

Or as one of my friends once joked, what would Yoweri Museveni have been as Uganda’s president had he been educated only up to about Primary Four like Amin, if this is what he is with a degree from Dar es Salaam University.