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.

After the fall of Masaka, Rwehururu says the enemy propaganda machine went into over drive. Several news items broadcast on Radio Tanzania in Luganda, English, Lugbara and Kakwa kept hitting the Ugandan airwaves, seriously denting the morale of the soldiers. “Uncertainty, coupled with the numerous difficulties that the troops were experiencing on the war front aggravated the already fragile situation.”

Rwehururu admits that the fall of Masaka clearly had an effect on troops on both sides of the war divide. “While the Tanzanian’s morale rose higher than before, ours hit an all time low. While they seemed to be growing from strength to strength, our military and organisational strength was clearly on a nose dive. We were simply in total disarray. The ease with which our troops on the Masaka–Kampala axis fell prey to the enemy was testimony to this bitter and sad sate of affairs.” “From maps and documents that we had earlier captured from the enemy and the pattern of the attacks, we were able to establish that the enemy was fighting according to their original plans.”

Four months later Amin’s government eventually fell on April 11, 1979 when TPDF and their Ugandan allies captured Kampala. Many Uganda Army soldiers sought refugee in Kenyan, Zaire (now DR Congo) and Sudan.

On their way to exile, first in Zaire and later Sudan, Rwehururu and his colleagues went through Arua District. At the White Rhino Hotel in Arua, many of the officers that they found were completely ignorant of what was happening at the front line and how close the enemy was. “Most of them had deserted their units as early as either the bombardment of Kyaka Bridge or the fall of Mutukula and they had turned to making money by smuggling Skol and Primus, brands of Congolese beer into Uganda…”

“For the first time in a long time, I shed tears because it was apparent that if our colleagues at the hotel had put as much energy into the war as they were putting into their business discussions, gulping beer and swallowing pieces of roasted meat, the enemy would not have pushed us that far,” Rwehururu laments.

At that time, Amin had sought sanctuary in Libya. Before his departure, he had convinced some of his most trusted men that he was going to solicit for more troops and arms to enable him repulse the enemy. “However, not long after he made the promise, instead of sending the Gulf Stream jet with which he had fled to bring in arms and a few commandos, he sent it to pick up some Kakwa traditional food stuffs with emphasis on ground sim-sim and smoked and sun dried fish,” he says.

While in Sudan they plotted against the new government in Kampala after information coming out of Uganda was not encouraging. There were numerous gruesome stories of torture and murder at the hands of the TPDF and their Ugandan allies. They made incursions into Uganda and even disrupted the 1980 elections in parts of West Nile and even set up a temporary government in Koboko.

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