Paulo Muwanga - No one’s hero, just a patriot

For 26 years I have listened to and read with keen interest all that has been written about the late Paulo Muwanga not least because he is my father and I am a political scientist by profession. I am convinced that many of those who have so liberally proffered their opinions and views about him have little interest or knowledge of Uganda’s history. So as we celebrate Uganda’s jubilee and all that the last 50 years have entailed I feel compelled to throw in my two shillings’ worth of opinion alongside those of many others.

I write not to challenge what has been said or written because I am a democrat and believe that people are entitled to their opinions no matter how biased they may seem or how painful and distasteful they may be to those who believe they know better. I write because sometimes we get carried away with the emotion of the moment and leave not only our thinking caps at home but prefer to go with the flow and repeat untruths because we are too lazy to challenge them or correct them.

As the title suggests, the issue is not whether or not Paulo Muwanga should be considered a hero or even an important part of Uganda’s current history but rather that his life as a public figure should not be reduced to one event- the outcome of the 1980s election. Nor is the purpose of this note to wrestle an apology for all that has been wrongly ascribed to him or a commendation for his contribution to Uganda’s history from the hands of the current administration.

But if my memory serves me right, and if the colonial records of events were not written by biased individuals then it seems important to put the record straight on a few things.

Paulo Muwanga’s fascination, interest and active political career began long before the 1980 elections. His exile for three years by the British in 1957 was not a projection into the future and the possibility of the 1980s election event but because he and many other Ugandans began to articulate a different vision for Uganda than that of colonial rule and were willing to fight for it.

They did not go to the bush but rather fought an anti-colonialist war which was as vicious and protracted as any guerrilla war. They lobbied their fellow citizens, they mentored young men many of whom populate the current government and administration, they resisted being subjugated to rules that made them second class citizens in their own country and robbed them not only of their dignity as Ugandans but also compromised their rights to livelihoods.

To this end they started newspapers and used them for propaganda to rally support, wrote protest notes, and actively demonstrated and for some the only colonial solution was to exile them from the centre of power and politics– Kampala - to what were then deemed distant territories – Soroti.

As a civil servant in the newly independent Uganda, his position as Ambassador took him to foreign places where he reconnected with friends and comrades in arms to reminisce about their struggles for independence and what this meant for the future of Uganda.

When politics took another turn, he willingly resigned and lived in exile surviving on the income of the only member of his family allowed to work – his wife - for close to a decade before he left his family for an uncertain future as a much older freedom fighter to fight alongside like-minded Ugandan and Tanzanian comrades.
This new call to arms and rebellion took a little shorter than the fight against the colonialists but it was nonetheless a struggle whose outcome was uncertain. The triumph of Ugandan political and military groups of whom he was an important player along with the bakombozi toppled the Amin’s regime and opened a new chapter in Uganda’s political history.

Serving as Chairman of the Military Commission and with President Museveni as his vice chair, they kept the lid on festering political conflicts to pave the way for Uganda’s second ever post-independence elections. The elections in 1980 over which he presided were contested and much has been written about both the lead up to them, their conduct, and ultimately their outcome and it is here where there are many different interpretations of events. Two parties which contested and were aggrieved by the results have had their say over the years mostly believing that both were robbed of a victory resulting in the subsequent bush war, violence, and political uncertainty that ensued.

All these years, the parties have held on to their electoral loss like a trophy, periodically taken out, polished and used both as a raison d’etre and as a weapon to condense Paulo Muwanga’s political career spanning over four decades by the time of his death in 1991 (six months after his release from a prison term) to one event lasting no more than three weeks.

The lengthy commission of inquiry that followed his imprisonment did not unearth any new earth shattering information or details about the 1980 elections, their management/mismanagement or their outcome. But it did provide listeners and viewers alike with important lessons about the government’s views and perceptions on what constitutes corruption and excessive wealth for a public servant on a civil servant’s salary.

The jibe by the Commission of Inquiries’ moderator about Paulo Muwanga’s ownership of three houses – one in town and two at his ancestral home in Mawokota, two cars – a Mercedes Benz for his wife and one other, him affording to eat sausages, bacon (though anyone who knew him knows that he never ate pork) and bread with butter for breakfast every day immediately come to mind as the primary evidence used to demonstrate his excessive wealth and corruption.

Since then, our ideas of corruption and the amassing of wealth have undergone some serious revisiting and transformation. Also Uganda has held three elections that have been hotly contested with court battles and rulings and violent riots in their aftermath about their true winner. How will history judge these more democratic elections and those at their helm? After all and as we all know judgment is not the preserve of man but rather history – which is seen as the best judge of people and events.

Today as we celebrate 50 years of independence, let us, as Ugandans and especially our political elite, pledge to move on and to accept history as it presents itself rather than selectively using it to project a dominant view of Uganda’s history as we choose to see it or as it serves peculiar interests for political expediency.
For us ordinary Ugandan men and women, let’s refuse to have history interpreted for us and fed to us in manageable sound bite morsels – let’s choose to read more broadly on our history, place issues in context and independently interpret them for ourselves to avoid distortions.

Why use one event to describe him?
To use one event 32 years ago to continue to vilify one individual – Paulo Muwanga – to rob him of all that was due to him including his pension for a 45-year civil service career, to bully those he left behind not to demand what was his due or to legally challenge the deliberate dissecting and appropriation of land and other assets belonging to him with impunity in the name of vindicating the losers of the 1980s election sets a dangerous precedent.

So, please do not give him a medal or commendation, do not remove his remains from the comfort of his ancestral burial grounds and put them among the chosen heroes and yes continue to debate whether or not he’s entitled to his due pension, and yes you may even continue to use him as a scapegoat for even the most mundane of political problems afflicting our country today.

But do us, his family and friends, as well as all those colleagues who fought with him in the trenches in the 50s for independence and again in the 70s to “liberate” Uganda, a favour - let history tell us the story of his life and contribution so we can better interpret it for ourselves - and accept that your vision is so much clearer today because he represents one of the many shoulders leading to Independence on which you stand.

The writer is a senior lecturer at Makerere University