Tension, intrigue as Congo gold scandal splits UPC govt

Uganda’s political scene is yet to shake off the tremors of the gold scandal allegation that shook the nation 50 years ago. The February 4, 1966, motion in Parliament almost brought down the Milton Obote government.
Tabled by Daudi Ochieng, the secretary general of Kabaka Yekka (KY), which had formed a coalition with the Uganda Peoples Congress to form the first government, the motion implicated ministers Felix Onama, Adoko Nekyon and prime minister Milton Obote as accomplices in the looting of gold, ivory and coffee from Congo, now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Genesis
The February 1966 motion was a follow up of a request by the Opposition asking government in 1965 to investigate the bank account of then Col Idi Amin. Amin’s account was found with unexplainable amounts of money compared to his salary. The said money came as a result of the UPC government accepting to have a covert army operation with a rebel group in Congo. By the time the motion was brought to Parliament, Amin had been promoted to deputy army commander in early 1966.

In its early days, the first UPC government agreed to secretly support Christophe Gbenye’s rebel faction in eastern Congo against Moise Tshombe’s government in the region. Tshombe had allied himself with the Americans and the communist-leaning UPC government was not confortable having an America ally in its backyard.

Amin was chosen as the link between the Uganda government and Gbenye’s rebels. It was through Amin that money to purchase arms was channelled. At the beginning of 1965, Amin had no account with the Ottoman Bank in Uganda. However, by March 24 of the same year, according to Daudi Ochieng, Amin’s account had Shs340,000 (About $50,000 at the time).

According to a 700-page report, Obote while appearing before a judicial commission investigating the allegations said: “Because of the security nature of the case, a special board of inquiry under section 10 of the Armed Forces Act of 1964 was preferred.”

“But this was delayed because existing regulations, inherited from the colonial army, stipulated that only persons of rank equal or superior to the officer to be investigated were appropriate, and the only officer senior to Amin was Opolot and there were no officers equal to Amin in rank. The Attorney General’s chambers preferred to re-write all the army regulations rather than regulations specifically dealing with the appointment of the board and the size of that exercise was such that it took time to complete.”

In his 1967 publication titled Gold Allegation Mkombe, Mpambara says “Ochieng then alleged that because of the centrality of Amin in all these activities, neither Obote as prime minister nor Onama, first as minister of State for Internal Affairs, and later as minister of State for Defence, could meaningfully carry out the investigation, hence the delay.”

Akiiki Mujaju’s paper The Gold allegations Motions and Political Developments in Uganda published in issue 345 volume 86 of the African Affairs says while meeting with the UPC Members of Parliament, Obote explained to them how the money on Amin’s account came about.

“Obote reminded the members of a UPC decision in late 1964 that, failing full recognition by the UPC controlled government of Gbenye’s ‘rebel’ government based in Stanleyville, Congo, some support should be given to those leaders. Obote explained that it was during the implementation of that policy of covert support that Amin had received the money to purchase supplies for the rebels,” Mujaju wrote.

In a meeting held on January 30, 1966, Obote told the party MPs and Cabinet that “Amin had admitted the authenticity of the bank account as referred to by Ochieng; that he had said the Congolese had given him the money shown on that account; and that, in fact, the Congolese leaders had given him more than the sum mentioned on that account.”

During the same meeting, it was agreed that as a party they will reject the motion. Soon after that meeting, Obote left Kampala for a tour of northern Uganda. By this time UPC had two factions within itself. Grace Ibingira’s faction was working against Obote. The two factions had members in the Cabinet and in Parliament. The Ibingira faction knew it would easily get support from both Democratic Party and KY in its manoeuvres.

The motion and debate
Less than an hour to the tabling of the motion by Daudi Ochieng on February 4, 1966, an abrupt Cabinet meeting was called in which the earlier decision taken by the party to reject the motion was overturned.

In the meeting, the key figures in government were absent and it was not possible to call the prime minister to attend Parliament during the debating of the motion. According to Mujaju, less than half the Cabinet attended the meeting. The conveners of the meeting to change the party’s position must have been aware of the broader implication of the motion’s motive.

The motion not only accused Amin, but also implicated two ministers and the prime minister who was head of government.

Mujaju said: “The division within UPC on the government’s policy towards the Congo meant that one faction could call on DP and KY supporters. There obviously was some link between KY and Ibingira’s faction in the UPC. It is clear that the Cabinet that met on February 4, 1966, and decided to accept the motion was dominated by the Ibingira faction. Three members accused by Ochieng were not at the meeting.

That included Onama on whose shoulders as Defence minister fell the task of replying, on behalf of the government, to the Ochieng motion.”
Ochieng’s motion read: “…this House do urge government to suspend from duty Col Idi Amin of the Uganda Army forthwith pending conclusion of police investigations into the allegations regarding his bank account which should then be passed on to the appropriate authority whose final decision on the matter shall be made public.”

During the debate, Ochieng explained his motion, this time implicating the prime minister and two ministers.
“Unnamed person had intimated to him that the prime minister could not have Amin court-martialled for fear of the possibility that Amin would then reveal that Obote had got £50,000 worth of gold, ivory and apparently coffee, while Onama and Nekyon had got £25,000 each, and that the money that Amin deposited in the Ottoman Bank was, in fact, a gratuity given by Obote and his colleagues to Amin for his role in conveying the loot,” Ochieng said, adding that that the unnamed person also told him that Amin was promised the post of army commander, again in appreciation.

According to the National Assembly debate records volume 58 pages 1008-9, Ochieng said: “Amin got the money in course of the operations of the Uganda Army in Congo.”
During the same debate, a Member of Parliament stated how while travelling through London he was told by a British member of parliament that Uganda had been only second to South Africa in exporting Gold from the continent the previous year.

Contributing to the debate, M. Arom, Member of Parliament from Lango who had a company dealing in gold, confirmed an increase in gold in the country but attributed it to influx of refugees.
He said: “This was a function of the influx of refugees who left their countries such as Rwanda, Burundi and Sudan and brought with them whatever valuables they could.”

More allegations
Beyond the gold, Ivory and coffee allegations, Ochieng went on to say Amin had been involved in training a group of 70 youth in Mbale with view to overthrowing the Constitution and bringing about a revolution.

Mujaju in his paper says this new allegation, besides the gold, gave Ibingira and his supports all the ammunition they needed to oust the Obote regime.

“Ibingira, by no means a simple-minded man, considered these to be the more important allegations, not those about the looting of gold and ivory. It is now clear that Ibingira’s group in Cabinet and in Parliament, supported by KY members and its ultimate leader, Mutesa II the Kabaka of Buganda and President of the country, was then planning a coup with allied factions in the Uganda Army,” Mujaju wrote.

“It was part of the strategy of eroding the credibility of the prime minister. Yet, the motion was not about the plot to overthrow the Constitution, it was about the gold allegations; and the leader of a faction in Cabinet that would benefit most from Obote’s downfall dismissed the gold allegations.”

In his paper Mujaju, went on to say: “After making the charges against Obote and his colleagues and linking them to looting during the army’s covert operation in the Congo, and after Parliament had turned these allegations into substantive issues for discussion, Ochieng tried to clarify the main substance of his motion and noted in passing the House’s reaction to the allegations against Obote. He was trying to underplay those allegations at a time when the House was about to take a vote.”

Having learnt of the change in the party’s position on the motion, the MPs voted for the motion save for John Kakonge who voted against it. Kakonge had been a party’s secretary general, a post he had lost to Ibingira four years earlier. He was in Parliament as a specially elected MP, but even to get that spot he had battled it with a one Mashate who had been fronted by Ibingira.

With what seemed to be a unanimous vote against the government, the level headed Cabinet members who had voted for the motion took time to explain why they did so.

But the message had been sent, writing about the outcomes of the vote on the motion Kabaka Muteesa II in his book The Desecration of my Kingdom said, “The country was against him, his party was against him, and he retained the control only of the army.”

The government reacted by creating a judicial commission of inquiry into the allegations. And as the unnamed person had told Ochieng that Amin was to be promoted to the army commander, it came to pass.

That same month the entire pro-Ibingira group in Cabinet was arrest and both the president and his vice were suspended from duty.

In part two next Sunday, read about the findings of the judicial commission of inquiry and confessions of the
Gbenye rebels

About Gbenye

Christophe Gbenye was a Congolese rebel who, along with Pierre Mulele and Gaston Soumialot, led the Simba Rebellion, an anti-government insurrection in the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the Congo Crisis, between 1964 and 1965.

Gbenye was born in Orientale Province in what was then the Belgian Congo. At the time of Congolese independence on June 30, 1960, he became Interior Affairs minister under Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. Following Lumumba’s removal from power in September 1960, Gbenye and many of his former supporters relocated to Brazzaville in the neighbouring Republic of the Congo. There they set up a revolutionary movement under the title of Comité National de Libération, headed by Gbenye.