UPDF embarrassed us on Kasese killings - Ggwanga

In an interview with Sunday Monitor on Friday, Brig Ggwanga, the presidential advisor on security in Buganda region, joined the chorus of voices, including politicians and human rights groups, to condemn the armed forces’ response to the crisis.

He also called for the release of the Rwenzururu King, Omusinga Charles Wesley Mumbere.
Sounding outraged by the civilian death toll, Brig Ggwanga questioned Brig Elwelu’s training and grasp of command and control.

“He committed murder against unarmed civilians. What they did was dehumanising! That man is in trouble, he cannot escape this. He will be tried one day. The evidence is simply overwhelming. He will be tried for this criminally reckless conduct,” he said.

Terrorists?
Speaking to NTV on the day the armed forces attacked the palace, Brig Elwelu repeatedly referred to those gunned down at the palace as “terrorists”, and argued that King Mumbere had dishonoured two ultimatums agreed with President Museveni.

“We had to go for these terrorists, they were hiding in the palace,” Brig Elwelu told NTV.
By press time, he could not be reached to comment on Brig Gwanga’s remarks. But Lt Col Paddy Ankunda, the UPDF spokesman, said: “The army will not comment on Brig Ggwanga’s comments. I shall speak to him to get his context.”

In the Friday interview, Brig Ggwanga described Brig Elwelu’s statements to journalists in the aftermath of the killings as “wild, sweeping and idiotic.” He argued that as commander of the operation, Brig Elwelu’s judgement should have been better.

“Terrorists? We know who terrorists are so he should cut the crap. He had a target, he had resources, the other people didn’t have those resources. How does a General attack civilians carrying pangas and knives? Even if a few of them had guns; they should have been identified and targeted!” Brig Ggwanga said.

“That man should have just cordoned off that area and denied them food and water; turned off power and water and they would just come out. If the President’s ultimatum was breached by the king, he was the man on the ground, he was commanding the operation. You cannot blindly take orders from someone in Entebbe or Nakasero [State House], you have to explain to the President and in that case I would have given the king more time as my boys besiege the palace. You just cannot bomb the palace and shoot everyone when you have women, cooks, shamba boys and children there. It is idiocy!”

Brig Ggwanga’s view of how the operation should have instead been conducted falls in line with that of Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party president and former army commander, Maj Gen Mugisha Muntu. Gen Muntu this week faulted the army for what his predecessor, Dr Kizza Besigye, also called a “massacre” in Kasese.

Gen Muntu asserted that the army should have besieged the area and used less force.

Up to 30 complaints of human rights violations have so far been recorded by the Uganda Human Rights Commission, Mr Katebalirwe Amooti, the acting commission chairman, said during a Friday media briefing.

Brig Ggwanga’s denunciation will amplify calls for an international inquiry with a view to bringing to book any security personnel responsible for the massacre and other suspected crimes inside the palace, which was set ablaze.

Mr Museveni has been silent on the killings in Kasese, but his Buganda region security advisor took issue with him on Friday.

“That is the problem of showering these young boys with ranks. Brig Elwelu is a Kimaka creation, which is not recognised in the world and he is a general officer,” he said.

We could not readily establish by press time if Brig Elwelu went to Kimaka, the UPDF’s Senior Command and Staff College in Jinja.

Topping his long experience and wide-ranging training, Brig Ggwanga, who joined the army in the 1970s, was also trained in 1990 at the elite Fort Leavenworth in the United States, while Brig Elwelu joined the armed forces in 1987. He was the first commander of the Ugandan contingent of Amisom forces deployed to Somalia.

Brig Ggwanga also called for the release of King Mumbere, citing the polarising nature of his incarceration and the possibility of inflaming the population. He pointed out that the timing of the king’s arrest was suspect.

“The king should be released. His people are bitter and will not sit back. Look at the nature of the arrest. Does [President] Museveni imagine Ugandans are stupid? You arrest the man for allegedly killing a police man [in March]; even then why did he wait to lose terribly in Kasese before remembering the king killed someone a year or two ago? People add up these things! It is a big mess and Museveni has embarrassed all of us.

The blood of those children and women, the unarmed civilians gunned down will haunt all of us,” he argued.
Brig Ggwanga also blasted former presidential candidate Dr Besigye, who called for an international inquiry into the killings, questioning his military credentials.

“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,” Brig Ggwanga said.

Background

Last Sunday, a joint police and military force attacked the palace in Kasese Town, leaving at least 62 people dead at the first count, according to the police.

But sources both within and outside the security forces put the death toll at more than 100 people. Rwenzururu King Mumbere and 136 of his suspected royal guards have since been arrested and detained in Jinja and other undisclosed places.

In the past, President Museveni has publically admitted to the army making operational mistakes and vowed to bring to book the officers behind such blunders. He cited the infamous Mukura massacre in Teso in which civilians were suffocated to death in a train wagon in the 1990s, and also several other incidents in northern Uganda.

The UPDF has also been put on the spot for its atrocious handling of the DR Congo war by the International Court of Justice in the Hague, Netherlands.

The court found Uganda culpable for plunder of DR Congo’s resources and gross human rights violations, giving DR Congo the greenlight to slap a hefty fine that Kampala is yet to negotiate downwards with the Kinshasa government.

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