NRM BUSH WAR MEMORIES: Otafiire; the bush mobiliser

While I was busy mobilising, the Obote forces tried to arrest me and I went underground for three months from March until I linked up with bush war colleagues at the end of May and then joined them in Matugga in June 1981. I joined when they were a small group.

Coping was not a problem because I had done some bit of training and when I joined, I embarked on further military training. Then, at the end of July 1981, I was appointed the chief political commissar for the army.

My job was teaching political education, army discipline and then mobilisation of the population. Later on, I was appointed NPC (National Political Commissar.)

Creation of RCs

As NPC, my job involved a combination of responsibilities dealing with the army and then the population as a whole. As a method of having the population participate more actively in their self-governance and to actively participate in the war effort, we organised the population in the liberated territories into RCs.

The genesis of the RC system was actually the war. The system’s key objective was to mobilise the population to support our cause, co-operate with the army and actively participate in protecting the population.

Organising peasants was not difficult because (as you may know) they may not be educated, but they are not stupid. When you explain and remind them about their interests, they will fight for them.

The majority of the population actually appreciated our role because they were tired of bad governance, undisciplined armies and so on. From our conduct of the war and our politics, the population saw hope for the future and anticipated the redemption of their country.

They quickly realised that our army was exemplary, while our politics and our line of argument were correct. We stood for national unity, for democracy, for equality and we were for justice for all. You find all the principles we fought for contained in our ten-point programme. But I must emphasise that the discipline of our army set us apart. Ugandans had never seen such a situation where armed people did not have rights to anything. I consider the discipline of our army to have been the linchpin of the struggle.

Ten-point programme

As the war progressed, we always made it clear to the population that our war was not a partisan one. It was for everybody. We had all political opinions participating in the war. Therefore, we had to adopt a minimum programme, which rallied everybody.
Since we were multi-ideological, we wanted a minimum programme for the restoration of peace in the country. We therefore came up with a programme on which everybody was agreed. Everybody agreed that we needed democracy, security, national independence, a good national economy, redress of previous mistakes and so on.

These are the general issues on which we were all agreed and they formed the ten-point programme. As NPC and a member of the high command, I was part of the process to form the ten-point programme. I, however, cannot put a date when it was formed because it was a result of a series of meetings throughout our stay in the struggle.

Our political and military leadership used to sit together regularly to think out these issues, write them down and review them. By the end of the liberation struggle, we had eventually come up with our minimum programme.

Population troubles

But in every struggle, you always get some problems with people who get discouraged and always see dark clouds hanging over their heads.