The rise of Kikosi Maalum

Left to right: Former Ugandan president Milton Obote, his Tanzanian counterpart Julius Nyerere and DR Congo leader Mobutu Sese Seko. PHOTO/FILE

Kikosi Maalum (Special Forces), was a Tanzanian-based Ugandan guerrilla group formed by former president Milton Obote to counter Amin’s regime which had overthrown him in a coup on January 25, 1971. It was commanded by Gen Tito Okello Lutwa and Maj Gen David Oyite-Ojok.

On the day the coup occurred, Obote was in Singapore for a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. The following day, January 26, Obote arrived in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on the invitation of then president Julius Nyerere who offered him asylum.

Upon learning his presence in Dar es Salaam, several Ugandans, some of whom were soldiers, fled the country in the face of the killings by the Idi Amin coupists and joined Obote in Tanzania. These exiles made the core of the Kikosi Maalum.
In March 1971, according to his memoir, The Role of UPC in the Removal of Amin, Obote on the invitation of former Sudanese president Gen Jaafar Nimeiri went to Khartoum where a European mercenary was due to stand trial.

The Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the predecessor of the African Union, had passed a resolution in 1970 calling for the arrest of any mercenary known to be operating in Africa, and the mercenary was to be deported to the country where he was suspected to have committed the crime.
In that respect, Obote’s government had arrested a European mercenary who was known to be operating in southern Sudan. Uganda had deported him to Sudan.

The memoir says Obote arrived in Khartoum with 10 men and while there he asked president Nimeiri to allow him recruit men from Uganda and bring them to Sudan.

He also requested Nimeiri for Sudanese army facilities to train the recruits as guerrillas. The request was referred to Sudanese Army that responded that it was unsafe to enter Uganda from southern Sudan and doubly dangerous to bring the men to Sudan through the same route.

Obote says he insisted that his team be allowed to Oraba Market, north of Koboko, at the border point between Uganda, Zaire (now DR Congo) and Sudan and the Sudanese Army investigated and found out to be relatively safe.

He explains that he selected seven members of his team and sent them with concealed letters to UPC leaders in the recruitment areas in northern Uganda, Teso and Masindi districts via Oraba.

One, however, was to remain at or near the border to receive the recruits. He adds that the recruitment operation was very successful. None of the recruits or party leaders ran into trouble and all the six member returned safely. More than 700 men were recruited and were transported by the Sudanese Army to a place called Owiny-Kibul, south of Juba.

After months of vigorous training Obote says he proposed to the Sudanese government to infiltrate the 700 men back to their districts in Uganda through the routes that brought them and this time with concealed weapons but the request was turned down.

In May 1972, according to Obote, Sudanese government entered into negotiation with Anyanya rebels led by Joseph Lagu. The mediation was overseen by Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie. The two sides concluded the agreement to cease hostilities.

The memoir says President Nimeiri Called Obote to inform him that they could not continue with their activities at Owiny-Kibul because the Anyanya wanted that part for the implementation of the agreement.

Obote was then tasked to arrange for the men, about 743 in all to be transported to Khartoum en route to Port Sudan to be shipped to Tanga in Tanzania via the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Shortly after, the Sudanese government also arranged for Obote a flight to Dar es Saalam.

Unfortunately, according to the memoir, it was learnt later that the ship given to the men was used to ferry cattle to Aden. It was contaminated with a disease called meningitis. When the ship arrived in Tanga, only a few of the men were not sick and more had died and buried at sea.

Obote notes that the Tanzanian medical service did a commendable job. Doctors and nurses served the men with much dedication and commitment. Within days, the men were healthy again and were taken from Tanga to Andeni, not very far from Tanga.

Obote explains that while in Dar es Salaam, he wasted no time in contacting UPC party leaders and sympathisers in Uganda to report his return to Tanzania and to congratulate them for their roles in the recruitment.

Setback
Obote says in his memoir that in August 1972, President Nyerere told him that his intelligence service had been helping Museveni to ferry weapons inside Uganda and that Museveni had raised thousands of people who were already armed in areas of Mbarara, Masaka, Jinja and Mbale.

In that same month, Amin had claimed to have been instructed by God in a dream to deport all persons of Asian origin. The date for that mass deportations was in September and Obote says Nyerere informed him that Museveni had advised that an invasion of Uganda must be mounted to coincide with the date of mass deportations.

“What the president told me hit my ears as a fairy tale but diplomacy could not allow me to say so to the benefactor president. This was because I could not believe Museveni could recruit thousands of men and arm them without UPC leaders knowing anything. At the end, it turned out to be what the president was telling me, in fact, a fairy tale “, Obote notes

According to the memoir, because the Tanzanian president accepted the invasion, Obote was asked and he could not refuse his men for the invasion. He, however, says at one point he gathered his courage to tell Nyerere that the UPC leaders in Uganda had reported that there were no thousands of armed men in the areas of Mbarara, Masaka, Jinja and Mbale.

But he says Nyerere’s response was stark: “Milton, if we miss this opportunity to hit Amin, there will be no other”. The memoir says Obote had no option but to allow his men to venture into the invasion. He says in early September, he went to their camp, and addressed them and bid them farewell.

He explains that Kikosi Maalum attacked both Masaka and Mbarara upon entering Uganda and captured both towns. They then fought the whole day at the two barracks without witnessing the presence of any single man from the alleged thousands of men said to have been recruited and armed by Museveni.

He says the withdrawal only became necessary in the late afternoon as Amin was reinforcing his men heavily and also using helicopter gunships and MiG fighter planes. He however, says Kikosi Maalum regrettably lost several hundreds before they could cross back into Tanzania and it became a big setback in the struggle.

The men who crossed into Tanzania according to the memoir, were taken to an abandoned National Service Camp outside Tabora town in central Tanzania. Obote says the place was near a forest inhabited by lions and had no water.

“I visited them and based my address to them on my Legico election campaign symbol in 1958, an open hand. They looked very poor and exhausted. My message was that a poor person helps himself by his hand,” Obote writes.

He recounts that he instructed them to build as a beginning, grass-thatch huts and promise to request assistance from Tanzania. He notes that the men prospered in a short time by growing much food throughout the year and sold some to Tabora Market. They also attacked the forest and made charcoal which they sold and earned money.

He, however, says by 1978 he had recruited and arranged the training of more men and Kikosi Maalum had expanded into a formidable force which fought alongside TPDF in the joint operation that successfully ousted Amin’s dictatorial regime from power and liberated Uganda.

Obote notes that although Kikosi Maalum, the Ugandan militia force raised by the UPC leader and members which entered Kampala first and sent Amin running, the UPC has always praised, thanked and acknowledged the political force which was the greatest factor in the removal of Amin.

The memoir says that political force was Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), president Nyerere’s party.