Gen Kutesa was a ‘civilian’ in army garb

Lt Gen Pecos Kutesa didn’t need to prominently wear military peeps and move with a coterie of bodyguards to prove his seniority in the army. He loathed a pompous lifestyle that other bush-war decorated generals like to flaunt. Kutesa was amiable, unassuming and restrained.

In 2017, an American marine officer, piqued over a road rage incident in downtown Kampala, slashed his vehicle tyres. When a crowd gathered and bayed for the blood of the American, Kutesa called for restraint.

For the skill he ennobled in the treacherous fields of war, many of his bush-war colleagues agree that Kutesa’s footprints will remain on the sands of time.

In the Luweero jungles, Kutesa survived the salvo of Katyushas, a gun retreating German troops ruefully referred to as Stalin’s organ during the Second World War.

Barely after the NRA captured power in 1986, Kutesa was shot as he pursued fleeing Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA) troops in eastern Uganda. The bullet nearly missed his eye and lodged in his temple.

On Tuesday, he passed away in India at the age of 65.

As Museveni’s first aide de camp (ADC) during the bush struggle, Kutesa joins his departed colleagues who completed the President’s security ring during the bush war--Arthur Kasasira and Marius Katungi, popularly known as suicide for his daring exploits.

At the time of his death, he was the Chief of Doctrine Synthesisation and Development at the Defence ministry.

A swash-buckling youngster and protégé of Museveni, Kutesa often watched James Bond movies and romanticised warfare.

It is what prompted him to take up a cadet course at Munduli Military Academy in Tanzania, in 1976.

He joined Fronasa a rebel uprising that was led by Museveni to fight Idi Amin. After the collapse of the Amin government in 1979, he was sent to Nakasongola military training school.

Museveni alongside a band of 41 fighters attacked Kabamba barracks in Mubende on February 1, 1981 after accusing Obote of rigging the December 1980 polls.

Kutesa was able to weave the strands of his youthful days as a rebel fighter in his memoirs titled, “Uganda’s Revolution 1979-1986 How I saw It.” On February 21, 1981, Kutesa, who was a Lieutenant in the UNLA, received a message from Sgt Emirio about his pending arrest.

“The young signaller gave me the message book to read and told me that he was going to take it to the commander in two hours. So I had better find a solution pretty fast. Most of the officers and men who were the subject of such messages are now dead. Only a few exceptions such as Salim Saleh [The President’s brother] and others managed to escape from UNLA prisons. Most of the rest never lived to tell the tale,” Pecos Kutesa revealed.

He later joined other deserting officers such as Matayo Kyaligonza, Benjamin Dampa Muhanguzi, Shaban Kashanku, a Mozambique-trained cadre and Joy Mirembe, who was instrumental in the early days of the struggle. The officers took up urban guerilla warfare before they joined Museveni in the bush.

Kutesa recalls that another rebel faction led by the late Andrew Lutakoome Kayiira targeted drinking places that were frequented by members of the government forces.

“One place in particular known as Kisementi situated in the Kampala City suburb of Kamwokya was a very tempting target, for it was frequented by then Chief of Staff, Brig Oyite Ojok and many other members of the UNLA top brass. Somehow Oyite Ojok escaped unscathed, and though he knew that he was the target, he was brave enough not to show this,” Kutesa wrote.

Kutesa alongside Kyaligonza and Dampa later tried to blow up a fuel depot in Kampala. “Those tanks were all built in one location at Namuwongo. If we had succeeded in blowing up the Agip tank, then Shell, Caltex and Total would all have caught fire. As luck would have it, the tank was empty.”

This elicited Obote’s heavily-armed soldiers to patrol the streets.

Kutesa wrote: “The three of us simply jumped into our gateway and Kyaligonza drove calmly to Nkrumah Road where we were staying. The flat we lived in was adjacent to Uganda House, the UPC headquarters. The Nile Grill, a pub at Uganda House was the de-facto headquarters of the NASA operatives. We used to mix with them during the day and play the deadly hide and seek game with them during the night.”

Kutesa later joined NRA fighters in March 1981. The rebel outfit lay out a war plan and appointed commanders under fighting units.

On April 4, 1981, the rebels carried out the second attack at Kakiri, now in Wakiso District.

Museveni, who was the Platoon commander, led five sections under Sam Magara, Kutesa, Jack Munchunguzi, Hannington Mugabi and Fred Gisa Rwigyema.  Rwigyema died on the second day of the struggle to oust then Rwanda president, Juvenal Habyarimana, after he was shot in the head in Ntungamo on October 2, 1990.

“After five minutes of firing we ceased fire, in order to assess the situation. The enemy had dispersed. Our major objective was to capture as big a quantity of weapons and military equipment as possible,” Kutesa wrote about the Kakiri battle.

Out with Kagame

Kutesa recalls an incident involving Rwanda President Paul Kagame, as they retreated after the attack.

“One enemy soldier, who was reporting from a drinking spree, bumped into us. Our soldiers started pleading with him to put down his rifle and surrender. The enemy soldier was, however, disoriented. He pointed his rifle loaded with an anti-tank grenade at me while I also pleaded with him to surrender. Rather than surrender, he just fired his grenade in the air, threw his gun down and fled. In the meantime, one soldier in my section, Paul Kagame, fired at him. When I recall Kagame with thick eyeglasses imitating how the bullets flew around Mapengo (the drank officer), I cannot suppress a smile.

“Why could I believe that one day Paul Kagame would be his Excellency? But such is life!”

On June 6, 1981, Kutesa alongside the President travelled to Nairobi, Kenya, after a trip on rickety canoes as a raging storm battered Lake Victoria.

“We were the bush people, we were mesmerised by the grandeur of the streets. The well-paved roads, the sleek cars, the neon lights, the smart sidewalks, the flower gardens but mostly our people [Sam] Katabarwa and [Amama] Mbabazi fitted into the picture. I wondered if we were in the same war as the external committee people.”

Mbabazi and Katabarwa were well-dressed and drove posh cars. But during one of the incidents, which peeved Kutesa involved the former Prime Minister, Amama Mbabazi, who asked him to wash his car in exchange for cigarettes.

“If I were a civilian, I would have lost my cool and told him that, after all, the car he was driving and the money he wanted to give me was from the civilian sympathisers.”

“Even my comrade privates, Kasasira and ‘Suicide’, felt bad when they saw their commander being humiliated. However, I checked my temper and told the gentleman [Mbabazi] that since I was from the bush, I could not trust myself to wash his car to his expectation,” recalled Kutesa.

Later, Museveni met Chris Mboijana, an affluent lawyer who had connections to Kenya’s powerful Attorney General, Charles Njonjo.  They later met Njonjo, former presidents Yusuf Lule and Godfrey Lukongwa Binaisa as they thrashed a deal to merge the NRA and Lule’s Uganda’s Freedom Fighters (UFF). Lule became the titular head of the NRM and Museveni, the head of its military wing.

But cracks began to emerge in the NRA’s armour when Museveni briefly left the bush to visit his family in Sweden. Sam Magara, a charismatic officer became acting army commander. Kutesa claimed that Magara wanted to impose his authority by using harsh methods.

A Mozambique trained officer; Shaban Kashanku, who was accused of being a double agent, was executed.

Museveni abruptly returned to the frontline as he tried to halt the growing dissent in the camp.

Writing in his book ‘Betrayed by my Leader’, bush war fighter and former Kashaari County MP, Maj John Kazoora, says: “Magara had a clique that included Jack Mucunguzi, Hannington Mugabi and Joram Mugume who believed that Museveni should not be the leader.”

Kazoora writes that tragedy befell Magara when he left for Kampala, reportedly to treat a dental problem.

“After a few days, rumours started circulating that he had been killed. Some men came and said Magara had been killed at a house on Balintuma road in Mengo and that Namara Katabarwa [sister to the late NRA external wing member Sam Katabarwa] had been arrested but released…There were also orders that nobody should talk about his death,” writes Kazoora.

A few days later, Katenta Apuuli and Dr John Kamanyire arrived in the bush and confirmed that Magara had been killed, recalls Kazoora.

“It was clear that he was betrayed and a victim of intrigue,” writes Kazoora.

As part of the destructive poker games, one of the commanders, Hannington Mugabi was reportedly uncomfortable with the plot to carry out a ‘palace coup’ against Museveni, especially after the chief planner had been killed in Kampala under unclear circumstances.

Muchunguzi, it is claimed, eliminated Mugabi to destroy evidence in what was recorded as an accidental shooting.

However, the NRA was able to survive these internal fissures. Kutesa wrote about how guerilla war was not a bed of roses. On February 21,1983, the NRA under the command of Saleh and Joram Mugume attacked Bukalabi in Luweero.

“In that battle, we lost 10 comrades and we suffered many casualties, among them Saleh, the commander himself who was injured in both arms, I lost two close relatives, including Mwebaze Rwamurinda and Mugabi Kunuda.  Even commander Fred Rwigyema broke down and wept when he saw the wounded commander Saleh. The President looked at me and thought I was also weeping, he called me out, ‘What are you thinking?’ I told him I was just reading a book. ‘Eh Intellectual!’”he joked.

Kutesa’s wife Dora, who was also in the bush gave birth to their first born, Caroline Nduhukire Kutesa, when he was away on an assignment.

“She gave birth in a camp when the army was relentlessly pursuing them in Bulemezi and barely after giving birth the enemy attacked the camp. There was a stampede, as everyone started withdrawing.  Stories abound how one of the soldiers while trying to carry away any useful equipment, carried a newborn baby and gave her to Jovia Saleh [a cousin of Dora] as the mother had taken a different direction. I was still in Ngoma when I got the news that I had become a father.” 

Barely after attacking Kabamba again in January 1985, the soldiers fled and settled in Birembo where they were cornered in a cal de sac.

While the rebels were cooking and in the presence of Museveni and Kizza Besigye, who was treating the wounded, the UNLA had taken up position on Kibojana Hill, overlooking Birembo.

They had been reinforced by North Korean soldiers, and were equipped with anti-aircraft guns, Katyusha rocket launchers and 120mm mortars. At 3pm, they began firing on Birembo. The bombs fell for 40 minutes, and then the infantry advanced on Birembo.

That day, the NRA lost five fighters, including Museveni’s bodyguard when a shell hit the tree.  When the guns fell silent at 7pm, and under the cover of the velvet dark and a heavy downpour, the rebels escaped. 

Heavy casualties

“The enemy had detected our camp in Kirema and were advancing with the abominable 14.5 mm gun. This gun had raised the enemy’s morale to the detriment of our people. ...Of the more than 90-armed soldiers I had come with, plus commandos, I found myself with only 15 people,” Kutesa revealed.

On July 27,1985, the Central Brigade Commander Bazilio Olara-Okello led a mutiny and overthrew Obote. Tito Lutwa Okello briefly served as the junta leader until the NRA captured Kampala on January 25, 1986.

By the time Museveni was sworn-in, Kutesa was among NRA’s senior officers alongside Ivan Koreta, Mugisha Muntu, Joram Mugume, Kahinda Otafiire, and Jim Muhwezi. On February 6, 1988, NRA officers were officially given ranks in the presence of then Rwanda President Juvenal Habyarimana at Lubiri Barracks in Kampala.

Museveni was given the rank of Lt Gen while Kutesa was given the rank of Colonel.  Maj John Kazoora says what distinguished Kutesa from other officers is that ‘when we captured power, power never got to his head like a number of other officers, he remained humble and accommodative. ’