Otunnu rubs Amin regime the wrong way, flees into exile amid threats

Olara Otunnu joined Makerere University in 1971 after the coup. And a year later, he became the guild president, but little did he know that his students’ body was to become the only voice for the rest of the country against government excesses as Idi Amin had banned all forms of political organisations in the country. Sunday Monitor’s Henry Lubega caught up with the UPC party president.

At that time, student leadership was not political, there were only two groups; the progressive and the reactionaries. I belonged to the progressive group.
At that time, the university had what I would call militants engaged in a lot of Pan Africanism. We were supportive of almost all liberation struggles on the continent so much to the extent that I led a delegation to Conakry, Guinea to show our support. Students’ affairs at that time were not the priority of the guild. It was the state of affairs in the country, pan Africanism and students’ affairs last.
We started talking openly against the ills of the regime. As the guild president, I was like the face of the opposition in the country, appearing on TV and radio talking about the killings and disappearance of people.
This put me at logger heads with the government. Amin was a very charming man. He cultivated ways of co-opting me into the system, by inviting me to state house dinners, and foreign trips.
These did not silence me and the more I talked, the more Amin sought ways of silencing me. I started fearing for my life at some point.
Late in 1972, I was asked to be part of his delegation during a visit to Somalia. While there, Minister Erinayo Oyrema called me to his room. He took me to the toilet, fearing that may be the room was bugged and he told me, “look you have to be very, very careful because Amin is very angry with what you have been saying and what you have been doing - asking about the disappearance of people and other things. He is plotting to get rid of you. Don’t be deceived by the charming reception that he invites you to State House”. This just helped me confirm what I had all along suspected that Amin’s charm was up to no good.

Fleeing the country
With the minister’s warning, I was on the lookout. But the immediate trigger was the visit of the Somalia vice president to Uganda in 1973.

The Minister of Education, Brigadier Barnabas Kili, arranged for the visiting vice president to come and address the students at the main hall. We did not invite him, the government just decided to bring him there. And as the students leader, I welcomed him, and gave a speech in which I raised issues in the country that were of concern to us as students.

I called for international assistance and support to stop the way things in the country were going. We wanted the friends of Uganda to be concerned about the mysterious deaths and disappearance of Ugandans.

When I made the speech, Brig. Kili did not say much and he did not show any anger, but I later learnt, through a senior civil servant who was among the many that were sympathetic to our course, that he (Kili) was very furious that I had raised such issues before the visiting vice president. He went and reported to president Amin what had happened at Makerere.

The senior civil servant sent me a message, saying: “After Brig. Kili reporting to Amin what happened at Makerere, they have now decided that there is no point of trying to win you over, they are to get rid of you. There is going to be a move to remove you from the post of guild president, ban the Makerere student’s guild, and this evening they are going to send soldiers to Makerere to find you.”

The person who sent the massage also said: “I cannot do much but I wanted to alert you, if you can do something do it, but this is what is happening.”

That very day, an announcement was aired on radio Uganda that I have been dismissed as the guild president and the guild has been banned. I immediately moved from my room in University Hall to another person’s room. Soon after I had moved out, soldiers came to my room, searched everywhere but didn’t find me. They remained at University Hall and all over Makerere campus. They came to the room three consecutive nights but I was not there.

By this time, there was a small group working from my hiding place on what to do next. They included Godfrey Kazungu, Mwakasongola, (from Tanzania), Alfred Ogada (from Kenya), and others.
The group decided I was not going to hide forever, the best thing was for me to get out of the country. There were both uniformed and plain clothe soldiers at the university manning roadblocks within the campus.

I had several options - going through the lake to Tanzania or through Masaka to Tanzania and through the north into Sudan - or go by air to Nairobi. In the end, we decided to take the most risky but at the same time the quickest and that was going by air.
The reason for this option was that if I went by road, the authorities could get wind that I had left campus and track me down before I could cross the border.

On the agreed day of departure, I was disguised and an organised car was brought to University Hall. There were soldiers at the gate of University Hall, and roadblocks from the main gate all the way to the airport. I assumed the identity of a Kenyan who was a member of my cabinet, Alfred Ogada.

I had become a Kenyan from a particular family, village, and tribe. I boarded a Kenyan airways plane as Alfred Ogada, the plane was delayed for some time. In my mind, I thought they (government) had got wind of my escape and they were on their way to come and get me. We finally took off and when the pilot announced that we were flying over the rift valley, I knew I was safely out of Uganda.

The following weekend, I was supposed to be the best man to my good friend John Sentamu, then chairman of Uganda Makerere Students Association (UMSA), now bishop of York.

Life in exile
At the airport, I lined up as a Kenyan National not a foreigner not knowing what would happen, but I was cleared. The relationship between Kenya and Uganda was good, and it was known that there were Ugandan security operatives working in Nairobi.

I was advised to go underground for about three days.
The person receiving fleeing Ugandans in Nairobi, James Oporia- Ekwaro, made contacts with counterparts in Dar es Salaam, Masete Kuya and they organised for my travel from Nairobi to Dar es Salaam. This is when I assumed my real identity now.

When I got to the airport, there was a group waiting for me, and I was driven to Msanani bay where I was taken to a home I later got to know belonged to Milton Obote where I got to meet him shortly after. I was housed there for several weeks and I also got to know that other student leaders ( Rugunda , Tumusiime-Mutebile, Matsiko, Omwony Ojwok ) who had fled Uganda earlier had passed through that home.
While there, I made contacts with my former teachers at Kings College, Budo, who had gone back to the UK. I explained to them what had happened. They and Prof Ali Mazrui helped me make contacts at St John’ Oxford University and University College London were I was invited for interviews. With the help of some friends in the UK, I managed to get a ticket to go for the interviews.
I was admitted to both universities, but at Oxford I also did an interview for the overseas scholar, a special scholarship and I won it, that’s how I ended up there.

However, Amin did not give up on his pursuit of me.
One fine morning, the president of the college, together with my tutor, called me to his office. They told me that they had got serious information that they wanted to discuss with me. That afternoon, an intelligence officer said to me in their presence that they had intercepted information that Amin had sent a team of people to London, to execute a project concerning me.
Measures were taken by both the intelligence and the college administration to protect me. I was moved from private accommodation outside college to stay inside the college, and instructed to inform the intelligence officer whenever I was to move outside Oxford or if I saw anyone suspicious.

After studies during a meeting with Archbishop Janan Luwum while on a visit to London, he advised me to apply to Harvard Law School. So in 1976, I joined Harvard College as a Fulbright fellow.
While in America, I linked up with other Ugandans who were active in the crusade against Idi Amin and held a number of discussions which culminated in the creation of Uganda Freedom Union (UFU) with Andrew Kayiira as chairman and me as secretary general.

It was not a political party but an organisation that brought a number of patriotic Ugandans together in the struggle against Amin. These included Suleiman Kiggundu , Prof. Aloysius Lugira , Remegius Kintu, Bishop Festo Kivengere, and others.

After the completion of my studies at Harvard, I started practising law in New York though later left the practice and went to teach. It was at this time that I came to the Moshi conference with Bishop Festo Kivengere to represent UFU, where I met Museveni for the first time.

During the deliberations, I and Museveni had a similar stand on many of the issues and I thought he was a progressive man.
It was only later when I discovered that he never believed a word of what he was saying, because he thought it would make good impression and would bring some people on board. In other words, he was not walking the talk.

At the conference, the Dar es Salaam group headed by Wodada Nabudere proposed an age bracket for the UNLF president. This left me and Yusuf Lule out on the extreme ends. Lule took me aside and said: “My son, you see what’s happening? They are trying to exclude you and me”.

According to the suggested age bracket, I was the youngest and Lule the eldest. But the age issue was dropped, and that’s how we ended up with Lule.

I became a member of the National Consultative Council (NCC) and after the conference, I started doing some work between Nairobi and Dar, but later moved back to New York doing international work for the group.

Back home
In 1979, when I returned home, the NCC sent me to go and seek support from different international organisations, and I never attended the council meeting that overthrew Lule.

When Godfrey Binaisa became president, he approached me and said they wanted somebody to be based in New York and introduce to the world a new Uganda. They needed someone who was dynamic, and articulate. He sent me back to New York.

This time, I was to canvas for Uganda to be elected on the UN Security Council, this was first laughed off by many, considering what the country had just gone through. Fortunately, Uganda was elected on the Security Council.

Having completed the assignment, I was ready to come back home but Binaisa said I was to be Uganda’s ambassador to the UN and Security Council. After Binaisa’s removal by the military commission, I continued in my post.

I came back home in early 1981 after the elections and Milton Obote also asked me to remain Uganda’s ambassador to the UN, and I served up until 1985. I basically represented Uganda at the UN from 1980-1985. Within that period, I was president of the Security Council and also led different UN Trade negotiations.

1985 coup
The first person to tell me about the 1985 coup was Museveni when he called me from Gottenberg, Sweden. He got my contact from a friend of mine in Geneva who had phoned me earlier, saying he was to give my number to someone who urgently wanted to talk to me.
He said: “There has been a change in the government in Kampala. The people who have taken over you know them very well, we need your help, we think you can be a bridge.” I told him: “I need to find out more about what is happening we shall talk later.”
We spoke about three times and he appealed to me to come home and play a role, the other thing Museveni asked of me was to help him get a new passport. I told him that’s easy and it’s your right. Ironically it’s the same person who deprived me of my nationality and revoked my passport.

I tried contacting the authorities in Kampala but I was not getting anything concrete referring to ‘uncoordinated troop movement’. It was not until I was in London attending a conference that word came in from Kampala and I had also talked to Obote from Lusaka about the coup in Kampala.

That’s when I was asked to come back to Kampala and get involved in the peace talks. I was appointed foreign affairs minister, though I spent most of the time involved in the Nairobi peace talks.
The first meeting I was sent by Paulo Muwanga to Nairobi with Daudi Tawako, and Christopher Twesigye. We secretly met Museveni at Lillian Tower Hotel.

It was there that we laid plans for the talks until December 1985 when the agreement was signed. But little did we know that Museveni was not meaning what he said during the talks.
Barely a month after the signing of the agreement, Kampala fell.
I think I was among the last people to leave Kampala. I went through Jinja connected to Lira, then Gulu and crossed to Sudan up to Juba, and flew to Khartoum, then Nairobi. While in Nairobi, Museveni sent John Kazoora and Ms Njuba to convince me to come back and continue as foreign affairs minister.

My message to Kazoora was: “I don’t believe in this project, I believed in a negotiated settlement. I hope am wrong and he is right, I cannot join hands with him.”

When I left Nairobi for Paris, Kazoora visited me four or five times with the same message. I was offered the post of prime minister, and vice president but I refused. I told Kazoora I was going back to academic work and I did not want to be part of the Museveni project.

Later, the French special services came to see me and told me they had communication that a person based at the Uganda High Commission in London was coming to Paris to deal with me. That’s how I ended up in my second exile.

The life of the UPC party president

Mr Otunnu was born in Mucwini in Uganda. Unlike so many children today, he was able to go to school - first to Gulu High School in the north of the country and then to King’s College Budo.

But Uganda had its own troubles at the time and Mr Otunnu decided as a very young man that he would do what he could to make things better.

From 1980 to 1985, Otunnu served as Uganda’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations. He served as President of the Security Council (1981), as Vice-President of the General Assembly (1982–1983); as Chairman of the General Assembly Credentials Committee (1983–1984), Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Ministerial Meeting of Non-Aligned Movement (1983); and as Chairman of the Contact Group on Global Negotiations (1982–1983).

From 1998 to 2005, Otunnu served as the UN Under-Secretary General and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict. In that capacity he sought to develop and mobilize international action on behalf of children exposed to war, promoting measures for their protection in times of war and for their healing and social reintegration in the aftermath of conflict.

Mr Otunnu has received several major International awards, including the Distinguished Service Award, awarded by the United Nations Association of USA (2001); German Africa Prize (2002); Sydney Peace Prize (2005), and Global Award for Outstanding Contribution to Human Rights (India, 2006).
In 2007, he received the Harvard Law School Association Award, presented by its president Jay H. Hebert and Elena Kagan (Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court).