Ggwanga: A Bush War hero with a coat of many colours

Maj Gen Wasswa Kasirye Ggwanga, one of the most maverick military officers of his generation, has checked out of our earthly space into the world of the unknown.

He leaves an ambivalent name behind. To some, he was a villain; an effigy of a rogue soldier whose abuse of power was boundless, one to whom pulling the trigger against unarmed civilians and sending waves of terror down their spine was the norm. Some road users may as well be winking that one who disregarded the traffic code on account of being armed won’t be using our roads anymore.

To the man whose tractor he burnt on a contested land, one emblem of impunity in our society has fallen. To the orphans whose school fees, out of sheer generosity and kindness he paid, a source of life’s necessaries has been closed. To the news fraternity, a source always available for an interview yet cantankerous enough to raise dust and attract audience interest, is no more. To his family, a father who did the best humanly possible he could, to afford his children the best education the world could afford them, will not be sharing that hearty laughter again.

His life
In assessing Ggwanga’s life, singer Dolly Parton’s Coat of many colours comes to mind, not so much for the lyrical and thematic message of that song but the connotative richness. For that, precisely, was Ggwanga’s life. He lived many lives and held innumerable identities. His life, from youth to adulthood, was dressed in many colours.

In one incident, he told this reporter what he said to a dying soldier whose only worry was the education of his children: “Afande, you can die, I will take care of your family.” He kept that promise. That statement reeks of insensitivity yet the same man cried like a baby on national television, overcome by emotions as he was being interviewed on the death of former Internal Affairs minister Gen Aronda Nyakairima. At that point, he exhibited humanity.

Then, at another incident, such as shooting at the car tyres of singer Catherine Kusasira, he betrayed his otherwise macho, cowboy, man of steel image and exposed that he is, after all, a poor version of a bully who is happy to resort to guns and bullets to settle a quarrel with a woman who possibly only needed assurance that all will be well.

A lot has already been shared about Ggwanga’s journey into Uganda’s military but what one may add, arising from numerous discussions with him, is that he joined the Uganda Army out of a combination of passion for the profession and as an escape route out of poverty. The 20-year-old needed a job.

The army had an opening. The soldier took his job seriously and rose through the ranks of President Idi Amin’s army which posted him in Arua District.

Of Amin’s legacy, a subject Ggwanga was passionate about, it was his considered view that his former commander-in-chief had been the victim of victors writing history and painting the vanquished in the colours of their choice as well as propaganda from his Ugandan adversaries and western allies.

“Yes, he made mistakes, people were killed but he was precise about his targets and went for those who threatened his power. Some people in the system took advantage of his weaknesses and killed even without his sanction,” he would argue.

“You know, the history of this country is distorted. When some of us write our books, people will keep quiet,” he would say.

View on Uganda’s history
On books by Ugandans, he once said: “One time I told Gen Salim Saleh that his brother, President Museveni hurried to write The Mustard Seed. It reads like a movie. Some of the stories in that book are exaggerated and made up and we know it because we were with him.”

Ggwanga was fond of Gen Saleh, genuinely loved him and was proud to associate with him as a friend, always praising him as a phenomenal soldier.

However, he was one to generously describe, especially civilians, as ‘idiots’ and throw around some swear words, possibly trying too hard not to lose touch, in a rather crude way, with his stint in the USA where he attended the prestigious military academy, Fort Leavenworth.

Ggwanga with this reporter started the book discussion in 2012 and last had it in 2020. He quite did not find the time. For a man in his 60s, Ggwanga, like many senior citizens of this great nation, perhaps did not have some aspects of his life in order.

In 2014, he asked this reporter to get him a gifted technical writer who could write for a business plan for a mineral water plant. The water, he excitedly dreamt, would be called ‘Ggwanga Water’. That project remained on paper yet close to his heart because to him, “the next wars the world will fight will be about water. So, we must invest in water.”

At the same time, he needed to develop chunks of land he had in Mukono, Mubende and Mityana into modern farms. How a peasant got these hundreds of acres of land was a matter he was never shy to discuss. “When we captured power, the President called a few of others and told us to get a few things. We had to reward ourselves, so I went for land while others went for houses in Kampala. This was war booty.” This outright admission of thuggery, contrasted with his public disapproval of corruption, leaves one with a split image of the man.

For a man in the evening of his life, Ggwanga’s life was only starting. He had the fantasies of an adolescent, aspirations of a teenager and dreamt big like a statesman, imagining a better country where corruption was not the new normal, mechanisation of agriculture and irrigation are given more attention, Parliament is a house for august debates and the youth do not graduate into massive unemployment.

“I would also want to be like an American General, at my Camp David in Mukono and not be bothered about the problems of your city but we cannot leave you guys to yourselves,” he liked to say. It is not clear what his political ideological disposition was since his views changed with the weather.
Let us, however, take an about turn and say a thing or two about the controversial life of this general.

Controversial views
There are two ways to look at it. Ggwanga was everything but not a fool. He understood the governance architecture of Uganda and Ugandan society like he did the mannerisms of his famous exotic dog, Bo, with whom he loved to travel in the car, reminding civilians that his dog was cleaner than them. Bo died a few years ago. Ggwanga wept. Bo, he would say, was his only true friend in the world.

Often time, in causing chaos and acting the reckless general with impunity, a sense of entitlement and others would even say, a mad dog, Ggwanga concealed a level of smartness and shrewdness that a few, like his commander in chief, Gen Museveni, knew.

Once, his neighborhood of Makindye had Born Again Christians praying all day and night. At night, he had been tipped off, young men and women indulged in random sex and alcoholism while music blared to the inconvenience of neighbours. Ggwanga sent his aide de camp to ask the group to reduce the noise. Thrice he was ignored. He jumped into his car, threw the gun on the passenger seat and drove, fired a few shots and every living organism there scampered for dear life. That incident made news.

The President, Ggwanga later told this reporter, sent Lt Gen Ivan Koreta to deliver a message to him. The First Lady was being pestered by the born-again community to rein in Ggwanga and she in turn transferred the pressure to the President who asked Koreta to tell Ggwanga to apologise so that the matter is put to rest. He did.

Then, Daily Monitor in May 2013 ran a story in which Ggwanga, commenting on the President’s son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, remarked: “Let me warn that boy not even to think of taking over Uganda. Uganda will take care of itself.”

Days later, Gen Nyakairima, then army chief, telephoned Ggwanga to summon him for a meeting at State House whence he found President Museveni, UPDF legal chief, Brig Ramathan Kyamulesire and Gen Nyakairima waiting for him.

The President had a copy of the Daily Monitor and asked him to explain the story. Reading the environment, Ggwanga turned the heat on Monitor, saying he had been misquoted and that he meant, “Muhoozi can be president of Uganda if people elect him but the father should not bestow the presidency to him because Uganda is not a monarchy.”

Mr Museveni, satisfied with the explanation, asked him to make this clarification to Monitor but Ggwanga remarked: ‘If I do that, they will write that I came here and you gave me some kiboko (strokes of the cane).” Museveni and Aronda laughed their hearts out.

The meeting ended on a jolly note, with the President instructing that the General be given some money and a new car. He got both.

To the mind watching events from outside, Ggwanga’s statements were reckless but sometimes they were calculated steps to catch the boss’ eye and the boss knew he meant no harm and was incapable to causing trouble, anyway. The boss probably knew some of these utterances were sometimes a product of Dutch courage traceable in ethanol.

Ggwanga may not have had the military exploits of Gen Saleh or Fred Rwigyema. If anything, he felt he was underutilised by the system and that the President did not trust him enough. His legacy may not earn him a statue or get Colville Street renamed Kasirye Ggwanga Street. He may not deserve all that.

If there is a point, however, that especially younger soldiers can pick from his drama-filled life, it is to serve one’s country with loyalty, commitment and devotion and not to be consumed by the culture of primitive accumulation of wealth. The other lesson is to know that there can only be one Kasirye Ggwanga. If you said 10 per cent of what he said on radio and television, or burnt a tractor or fired bullets on Kampala Road, you will go to jail.
May he rest in peace.

his quotes
On notoriety:
“I am not violent but I know how to live in the 21st century.”

On his farming
“I don’t shop for anything. Everything I eat comes from my farm. In fact, I have awarded myself a PhD in agriculture; I do not wait for Makerere to do that.”

On Gen Tumukunde’s arrest
“You don’t arrest a general like a dog. When you arrest a general like that, you’re embarrassing fellow generals and the entire army.”

On Dr Besigye comments on Kasese killings
“Besigye should keep quiet. He is only using this for his politics. We, the professionals in the army, don’t consider him a colonel. He is only a civilian in army uniform who accidentally got a gun out of anger and adventure so let him leave this to us the professionals,”

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