NRM BUSH WAR MEMORIES: I was declared dead on radio, says Col. Kuteesa

Yoweri Museveni shook my hands while looking straight into my eyes and telling me the name of my father and some other personal data he had heard about me.

This gesture was significant because I felt he recognized me as a valuable individual and not a statistical number like was the case in the army.

First mission

When we arrived in the bush, plans to attach the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA) detach at Kakiri were underway. I was assigned section two of the five sections. On April 04, 1981, we set off form our hide out to undertake what was to be my first military action against the UNLA.

This operation was successful with Museveni as platoon commander. In that battle, there is an incident involving Paul Kagame, now Rwandan president, whose details I recount in my book.

In search of guns

On June 6, 1981, I comprised a team of five chosen to accompany Commander Museveni to Kenya in search of guns. The journey from Luwero to the Kenyan port of Kisumu crossing Lake Victoria in small canoes as Aide de Corp (ADC) of Hon. Museveni and later back through several roadblocks is the most dramatic, intriguing and dangerous of all journey I have made in life. The details of this journey and the role played by Al Hajji Moses Kigongo are recounted in my book.
It was actually during that trip that the official creation of the National Resistance Army (NRA), a merger between our Popular Resistance Army (PRA) and Prof. Yusuf Lule’s Uganda Freedom Fighters (UFF) took place.

Internal Problems

When we got back to our colleagues in Luwero in December 1981, we found that there had developed a problem of command. We now had a group of intellectuals who had joined us from Makerere University, who questioned commands from illiterate officers. Mzee had the duty of educating all groups about the philosophy of the struggle and sanity returned.

Facing fire

After the May 1982 failed attack by Dr. Andrew Kayira’s Uganda Freedom Movement (UFM), the UNLA launched a massive offensive on our positions. We fought several battles and by August 1982, we had thoroughly defeated them.

By this time, the killings in our periphery zones had intensified and soldiers in the government army from the so-called wrong tribes were being killed.

In one of the battles during this period, I witnessed an incident that remains implanted in my mind. As I was taking bullet chains to the trench of Enock Mondo our machine gunner who was marooned in a hail of bullets and bombs during the battle at Kalongero bridge in Luwero, I met two comrades carrying a dead soldier who was headless.

This headless soldier had just lifted his head to observe what was happening in front of him when an RPG shell severed his head off cleanly; only a small part of his neck was still sticking out and spouting out blood like a slaughtered bird.

As we continued to hold the enemy down, I observed Mondo’s body posture and I noticed he was really angry with the enemy. He was gnashing his teeth as he continued to pick enemy soldiers one by one.
The battle lasted till evening when the enemy withdrew. As we charged the dead soldiers’ uniforms and guns, I realized a phenomenon I was to experience many times in battle.