Lies drove Amin to strike Tanzania

April 2012 marked 33 years since the downfall of Idi Amin’s government. Bernard Rwehururu’s book, Cross to the Gun, gives an eye witness account and sheds light on the factors that contributed to demise of Amin’s regime.

Bernard Rwehururu’s book, Cross to the Gun, reveals that international isolation, nepotism, internal divisions and weakness in the Uganda Army top brass, corruption, ignorance, trickery, and brutality are among the factors that contributed to the downfall of Idi Amin Dada’s regime in April 1979.

“A review of what happened revealed that we had not been defeated due to lack of military skills. We recognised the fact that some of our units and departments had shown a lot of commitment and given the war effort their best,” Rwehururu admits in his book.

“We realised that a bad image on the international scene had combined with illiteracy, nepotism, ignorance, internal divisions, trickery, and brutality to form a perfect recipe for our down fall.”
“Long before the war, a couple of gruesome atrocities, including the murder of Arch. Bishop Lumum and involvement in the PLO hijacking had reduced Uganda and the Amin government to pariah status,” Rwehururu, who was at the battle front, adds.

The cream of the army was composed of mostly illiterate Congolese and Sudanese nationals who had been rapidly promoted after the 1971 coup. “Most of them were fully aware of their deficiencies and suffered from inferiority complex. So acute was this awareness that the educated officers were always warned against speaking English while in Mess lest risk the wrath of superiors who were prone to working themselves into unnecessary fits of rage,” Rwehururu recalls.

“The few educated and better trained Ugandan officers played second fiddle to them. We could not make any military plans or tender advice on military matters for fear of being misunderstood,” Rwehururu, a graduate of the Indian Military Academy, adds.

Rwehururu, who was recruited in the Uganda Army in March 1965 and went on to serve in all the regimes, including the UPDF as Chairman of the General Court Martial, Commandment of Uganda military academy Kabamba and Defence Attaché in Kenya, among others, argues that discipline was also lost after Amin declared his economic war and expelled British nationals, Uganda Asians and other British protected persons and nationalised their industries.

“Most of our illiterate colleagues who had just been commissioned found themselves appointed to top managerial positions in the industry while others were given business to run for personal gain. The yardstick for such appointments was never academic qualifications or experience. What mattered was what tribe one was from or how close he was to Amin and any of his numerous right hand men.”

According to Brig. Rwehururu, “It therefore followed that more officers who should have been sent out for refresher courses ended up channelling their energy towards managing or mismanaging the nationalised industries or their personal business. This inevitably opened the way to smuggling and the black market, known in Uganda as magendo.”

Curbing smuggling
Much as there were efforts to curb smuggling of Ugandan grown commodities, bodies like the economic crimes tribunal which had been expected to contain the situation found themselves in an impossible position, he writes. “They had no way of taking disciplinary action or prosecuting some of Amin’s most trusted henchmen who were the main players in the smuggling of coffee and other commodities to neighbouring Kenya.”

Other officers, who were not so lucky to get away with smuggling, were not amused by a legal system that left one category off the hook and severely punished another category for similar crimes. “We also realised that by the time we fled into exile, most Ugandans had come to resent the regime so much so that they could cooperate with any one who attempted to rid them of the establishment. This resentment arose from the senseless brutality that some of our colleagues and members of the State Research Bureau (SRB) meted out on Ugandans with such abandon.”

Following the January 1971 coup and Milton’s Obote’s subsequent acceptance of political asylum in Tanzania, relations between Uganda and Tanzania hit an all time low. Governments in both Kampala and Dar-es-Salaam traded accusations of subversion on a monthly basis. Amin was quick to respond to the accusations from Tanzania. Hardly a month after taking power, he slapped a ban on air travel between Uganda and Tanzania.

A combined force of guerillas of Yoweri Museveni’s Front for National Salvation (FRONASA) and the late Oyite Ojok’s Kikosi Maluum forces invaded Uganda in 1972. The guerillas were beaten and retreated back to Tanzania. Amin ordered the air force to carry out reprisal air raids on Tanzanian towns. Bukoba and Mwanza were ferociously bombarded forcing Tanzania to reach a truce with Uganda. Hostilities were ceased and the two countries accepted to pull back their troops from the border by at least ten kilometers. “Despite the fact that the two countries had signed a truce, many of us believed that it was only a matter of time before Amin ordered a full scale invasion of Tanzania…,” Rwehururu recalls.

In the middle of 1978, as tension at the border increased, a Tanzanian spy, who was obviously an amateur, was arrested at Masaka Technical School, which over looks Kasijjagirwa Barracks. After the spy’s arrest and subsequent death under SRB boys, reports that an attack on Uganda was in the offing, kept filtering into the headquarters of Masaka Mechanised Specialist Reconnaissance Regiment which was also known as suicide headquarters.

Rwehururu says that reports seemingly incensed the foreign legions, especially the Sudanese and Congolese, who had by then taken up high positions in the army’s high command. Led by Brig. Malera, Taban Lupayi now a Marine’s commander; Amin’s most trusted and best equipped regiment, and Juma Butabika, they started calling for a swift pre-emptive attack on Tanzania.

“Even Amin who had all along been itching for a fight against Tanzania seemed to develop cold feet. He surprisingly urged restraint and firmly stated that he could only be drawn into such a war if Tanzania attacked Uganda. However, in October 1979 (1978), Juma Butabika, with a handful of some of the Malire troops, left his unit and took over command of the troops that had been permanently stationed at the border before advancing into Tanzania,” he writes.