Paul Etiang: Resisted Amin, defied family to serve Uganda

If diplomacy is the art of dealing with people in a sensitive and tactful way, it took a new meaning on August 6 during the 1973 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm) in Ottawa, Canada.
Uganda president, Gen Idi Amin, was not in attendance but a delegation from Uganda was.

With Mr Edward Heath, the prime minister of Britain, seated across the oval conference table, the head of the Ugandan delegation launched an unprecedented attack, accusing the British of racism and neocolonialism and working in pursuit of an agenda that “threatened the very foundation of their Commonwealth of nations”.
“Britain appears to be devoid of any principles or any moral strength,” he said.

The man behind the microphone was Uganda’s acting minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Paul Orono Etiang, one of the first and finest career diplomats to have been recruited shortly after Uganda’s independence. 
Mr Etiang launched the blistering attack in the name of president Amin.

Uganda and Britain were at the time embroiled in a bitter disagreement arising from Amin’s August 4, 1972 decision to expel more than 32,000 Ugandan Asians holding British passports from Uganda and subsequent nationalisation of their businesses, which Etiang defended as part of what he described as “national economic war for the benefit of our own citizens.”

Mr Harold Achema, a retired diplomat, described Etiang as “a mentor and friend who nurtured many a diplomat”.

Mr Henry Kyemba, a retired politician, who went to Busoga College Mwiri around the same time that Etiang did and with whom they served in the cabinets of both Gen Amin and Gen Yoweri Museveni talks glowingly about his deceased peer.

“He was a very polished politician and diplomat. He is one of a few unique individuals of his kind of quality,” Mr Kyemba says.
Mr Mike Mukula, the NRM vice chairperson (eastern Uganda), knew Etiang as “a natural diplomat with an innate art for diplomacy”, but his conduct at Chogm would contradict Kyemba and Mukula’s thinking.

Options
In January 1973, Joshua Wanume Kibedi, who served as the minister of Foreign Affairs before Etiang, left a meeting of foreign ministers of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) member states in Ghana, resigned and denounced Amin after his henchmen murdered his uncle, Shaban Nkutu, a former minister in the Obote I government.

Etiang could have chosen to emulate his predecessor. He could have chosen not to attack the British, but he did. Why?

During a January 2019 interview with sections of the local media, Etiang seemed to suggest that he had harbored a desire to lash out at the British during his student days.
“As a student at Makerere University, “Independence now” was the song we had at the time. We had a very anti-colonial stance,” he said.

Mr Kyemba, however, defends Etiang saying his conduct could have been dictated by the circumstances that prevailed at the time.
“It was a very difficult time to serve immediately after the takeover. Amin at first sounded and appeared well intentioned so one could be forgiven for having read the signals wrongly,” Mr Kyemba said.

No Stranger to controversy
Etiang was, however, no stranger to controversy. He, in 1965 while serving at Uganda’s mission to Moscow, announced his pending marriage to a Tanzanian national, Ms Zahra A Foum. 

Zahra was at the time attached to the Tanzanian mission in the Russian capital. No serving diplomat before him had walked down the path he had chosen to take, which put him in the spotlight.
“Intermarriages were at the time quite rear. Now you can imagine someone picking a wife from another country. It was considered a bit of a problem. Anyways, by the time others went in that direction, the problem had been solved,” Mr Kyemba said.

1975 OAU summit, Kampala
In the run up to the OAU summit meeting that was held in Kampala, Amin named Etiang minister of State in the Office of the President.
“His duty was to ensure that the summit was a success, which he did. I think it was the reason why he was later rewarded with the post of assistant secretary general, though I think he would have become secretary general,” Mr Herald Achema said.

Calm amid the a storm
Amin’s regime would perhaps best be described as a tempest of sorts. But if what, Mr Conrad Nkutu, the former managing director of Monitor Publications Limited, writes is anything to go by in the article “Amin’s Children and Me”, which was published in the Campus Journal in May 2013, Etiang continued to conduct himself as if all was well.
“…I recall (Paul Etiang), who was Minister of Transport and Communications…I was always fascinated by his Range Rover vehicle and his very gentlemanly and dignified bearing,” Mr Nkutu wrote.

Surviving Amin’s purges, joining OAU
In September 1972, forces loyal to exiled former president Milton Obote invaded Uganda from Tanzania with a view of overthrowing Amin.
The forces had been banking on an outbreak of a civilian uprising which never materialised. The invaders were routed, but Amin remained suspicious of Tanzania and anyone with links to it.

“We had previously been under government scrutiny because of my wife. They thought that being married to a Tanzanian woman, I would bring a lot of problems between Amin and Nyerere since Tanzania was virtually at war with Uganda,” Etiang said in the January 2019 interview.

Amin had been quite vicious in the first half of 1977. The Archbishop of the Church of Uganda Janan Luwum, Interior minister Charles Oboth Ofumbi and Land, Housing and Physical Planning minister Wilson Oryema, had been killed in February, prompting the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to conclude in an intelligence memo of June 1977 that Etiang was one of the very few remaining respected civilian leaders in government.

“Most civilian leaders, either in Uganda or in exile, are not well known or—like former president Obote—command little respect in Uganda. One possible exception is Paul Etiang, an outstanding and widely respected member of Amin’s Cabinet. Although opposed to Amin and not trusted by the president, Etiang has managed to survive and maintain a position in the government,” the memo read in parts.
It was, however, shortly after that memo was written that he was named assistant secretary general of the OAU, a post he held for a decade.

Uganda
Etiang had by 1988 moved to the United Nations, where he had been scheduled to become the resident representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Nigeria, but Mr Museveni came calling and offered him the post of minister for Regional Cooperation. He took the offer even when his family rose up in arms against him over that decision.
“My wife and children rebelled against me…(but) I had to come back because I did not want to be misunderstood for refusing to serve in the new government,” Etiang said

Politics
Etiang had never been a politician, but was thrust into elective politics in the run up to the March 1994 Constituent Assembly (CA) elections.  He represented Tororo County in the CA and in Parliament after the 1996 elections.
That earned him reappointment to Mr Museveni’s Cabinet and elevation to post of second deputy prime minister, but the tour of duty was ended during a 1999 Cabinet reshuffle. 
The curtain on Etiang’s political career was brought down by FDC’s Geoffrey Ekanya, who defeated him in July 2011 parliamentary elections.

Humility
Yet despite having occupied high offices in government and in the Iteso Cultural Union where he was a founding patron, Etiang remained humble and open to advice. 
Mr Mukula recounts how Etiang had driven to his home in Bugolobi to seek advice on the aviation industry.
“Etiang’s son, Michael Etiang, was a student at Makerere University, but his passion was in flying. Mr Etiang came to me for advice and he took it. Michael Etiang is Uganda Airlines’ chief pilot. He flew the Bombardier from Canada to Uganda. He flew in the AirbusA330 too,” Mr Mukula said.

Search for district status
In 1998, following tensions between the Itesot of Tororo and their neighbours the Jopadhola, the Itesot petitioned the President through Mr Etiang, for their own district on grounds that they were being marginalised. A district for the Itesot of Tororo was one that Etiang pursued and dreamt of, but never realised.

Timeline
•Born on August 15, 1938 in Tororo                 •He attended Busoga College Mwiri and Makerere University College for his education.
•1962: Joined provincial administration as a district officer
•1964: Transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
•1965: Named second secretary at Uganda’s mission in Moscow
•1967: Named member and first secretary of Uganda’s mission to the UN
•1969: Named Uganda’s High Commissioner to Britain
•1972: Appointed permanent secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
•April 1973: Named acting minister for Foreign Affairs
•1974: Minister of Transport
•1975: Minister of State in the Office of the President
•1977: Assistant secretary general of the OAU
•1988: Named NRM’s minister for Regional Cooperation
•1990: Named minister for Information
1994 CA representative Tororo County
•1996: MP of Tororo County
•1996: Third deputy premier and minister for Disaster Preparedness and Refugees.

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