NRA government’s purge of UFM and Fedemu soldiers

Not again. When the NRA/M came to power 26 years ago, it was well aware that other parties were interested in power and, therefore, looked for ways of including them in government or defeating them.

As narrated yesterday, the NRA’s capture of power in January 1986 had been greeted with relief and optimism in central and western Uganda.
At first, the NRA and its main rival, the UFM, appeared to get on well. The leader of UFM, Dr Andrew Kayiira, was given the position of Minister of Energy in the new NRM government.

Nearly all the UFM and Fedemu officers and men were deployed in army barracks and military installations far from Kampala, most of them ending up in Gulu, Lira and Tororo in the north and east of Uganda.
The 35th Battalion of the NRA in Lira was composed almost entirely of UFM and Fedemu officers and men.

In mid September 1986, there was a sudden series of arrests of senior UFM and Fedemu officers and men in several parts of the country.

Capt. Godfrey Nsereko, a former chief bodyguard to Capt. George Nkwanga, the commander of the FDA/Fedemu, was arrested in Fort Portal and brought to Luzira prison in Kampala. Capt. Kamya Nkima of the UFM was arrested on the streets of Kampala, tied with ropes in the infamous “kandoya” style of the NRA, and also detained.

Major Aloysius Ndibowa of the FDA went into hiding after three of his FDA bodyguards were arrested and sent to Luzira.

Major Fred (“Mpiso”) Kiberu, who was the commanding officer of the Fedemu forces based in Tororo, was arrested as well.

Capt. Paul Kavuma, Major Nsubuga, and Lt. Nansera Lubega, were former UFM commanders, who were absorbed in the NRA’s 19th Battalion.

Coup
According to the NRA’s head of the Directorate of Military Intelligence, Gregory Mugisha Muntu, an attempted coup of some sort had been uncovered in September 1986 and was being spearheaded by the UFM and Fedemu.

There was, according to the army, an attempted coup against the NRM government by Baganda Army officers and politicians, most of them either from the UFM or Fedemu.

On October 3, 1986, the army broke up a meeting at Colline Hotel in Mukono Town being held by six former UFM and Fedemu officers.

The former vice-president in the second UPC government, Paulo Muwanga, was arrested at his home in Entebbe. Also on October 3, Kayiira was arrested at Tank Hill in Muyenga, a Kampala suburb.

The following day, October 4, the chairman of Fedemu and Minister of Environment in the broad-based NRM government, Dr David Lwanga, was also arrested.

On October 5, 1986, Evaristo Nyanzi, a Democratic Party member and Minister of Commerce in the NRM government, was arrested at Entebbe International Airport as he was about to board a flight to Yugoslavia.

On top of these prominent ministers and Fedemu and UFM officials, a large number of other Baganda politicians and media figures were also arrested.

They included the editor of the Citizen newspaper, Anthony Ssekweyama, the vice-chairman of the UFM and Democratic Party lawyer, Mr Francis Bwengye, Dr Charles Lwanga, an obstetrician at Rubaga Hospital in Kampala, Joseph Musaka-Mubiru, a businessman in Kampala, and Joseph Ssozi-Ntambi, an assistant District Commissioner at
Namugongo.