NRM BUSH WAR MEMORIES: Risking all to avenge a brother's death - Col. Ggwanga

By then the machine was ready. I went to Lugazi, got the electric [power] people, connected three-phase and all that then I came back home.

During the night, Andrew Kayira and his group, UFM, attacked Lubiri [Barracks]. This was February 1982. People were getting excited, oh the boys have come, the boys have come. But when I heard the machine-gun, it was a 50-calibre. From the way they were shooting it, I knew these were amateurs. Kabisa!

And when they planted their 60-mm mortar to shoot into the Lubiri, they put it on Rubaga Hill. How do you put a mortar on top of a hill shooting down in a valley? Are you sick? If they wanted to hit their target, they should have put that one in Natete and used a map and a protractor to shoot the hell out of that place.

But now here they were because they want to shoot direct. Direct? A mortar person shooting direct! After about two hours the fire fizzled out.

Very early in the morning I walked to town and met my brother. He was an air force pilot. I asked him what had happened. He said, ‘I don’t know.’ He was a carefree person like me. He said, ‘Ah, that’s crap. Those guys don’t know what they are doing. They are going to get people killed.’

He was staying in Wandegeya. That evening they [government soldiers] picked him up. They were looking for me because they knew I am an artillery person and I had been released. They took him to Makindye. [Captain] Ageta ordered his beatings. From morning to evening they were asking: Where is your kid brother? They killed him.

I got the news two days later. By then I was sleeping in – I had made a small tent – right in the bush around Lungujja. What! They killed my brother James! Flt. Lt. James [Kasirye]? I told my sister who brought the news [that I was] going to kick ass. She said, ‘Please, we are making arrangements. You’ve got to get out of the country.’

I said no I am going after those people who killed my brother because I was not involved and he was not involved with the Kayiras.
That is why I went to the bush. Forget about this f****** patriotism. It doesn’t work with me. Not after they [the bush war leaders] had left me and my friends to rot in jail. Good enough when we were fighting in 1979 I knew we were going to lose the war.

So we buried some guns. Grenades, anti-tanks. I buried a heavy load. So I got [a gun] plus some anti-tank and I went hunting. I stayed six months alone hunting those guys and I killed some [UNLA people].

With Kayira

But then I was stacking a lot of weapons. So I looked for these guerrilla groups and I happened to get to the Kayiras first. When I saw Kayira, I said to him: Why did you attack [Lubiri Barracks]? My brother got killed. You look so disorganised. How can you have more than 3,000 people 15 miles from Kampala? What are you feeding them on? You are stealing people’s food.

When you are fighting a guerrilla war you are in groups. Squads. Because you sting, you sting, you sting, and you run. But you’ve got 3,000 people: kids, women, what, what.

They said, ‘That’s Amin’s soldier!’ But then the Amin boys who had joined them earlier came to me. I was a staff sergeant. They said they were from the frying pan into the fire. We stuck with [the Kayiras].

I found the Kayiras in Bujjuko on Mityana Road in forests near River Mayanja. They were just doing nothing. I said I am in trouble.
So I sneaked out of the country.

I went to Nairobi trying to find out about these [guerrilla] organisations – Museveni’s and Kayira’s. I looked at Kayira’s organisation and saw trouble. So I wanted to know more. Who was financing them, their political affiliations.