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Failure to control regime cost Obote the presidential seat
Angered. Chosing Oyite Ojok (Lango) to go for the training in preparation to lead the fight against Amin angered Bazilio Okello and many other Acholi commanders against Obote regime. ILLUSTRATION BY IVAN SENYONJO
What you need to know:
Power struggle. Although President Obote had successfully ousted Amin, his second regime was even harder to manage. With betrayal coming from within, Tobbais Jolly Owiny shares details from Rufino Akena’s account about the failures that cost Obote his presidential seat.
Obote’s return to power nine years later in the wake of a Tanzanian invasion of Uganda, was widely welcomed by the West after the devastation inflicted by Amin; but Obote was no more successful in curbing factionalism and insurrection than he had been during his first term of office.
Before long, he had resorted to the brutal methods of his predecessor Amin since he failed to establish control over the army that proved his undoing. In 1985 he was ousted from power in another military coup and forced into exile for the second time.
Mr Rufino Akena, who served as a soldier in both Obote’s regimes, shared with this newspaper how hard-heartedness and dealing with ‘traitors’ cost Obote his regime in July 1985, a few years after toppling Amin.
“Certainly, Obote II government would not have fallen had he gotten rid of one major thorn in his government. Just like in Obote I, Bazilio Okello was another Amin in Obote II Government. And had Obote heeded the many calls to remove him from the UNLA chain of command, I would be writing a different version of this history.
Kigwa Rebel Camp (Tanzania)
The Kigwa rebel camp, located in a remote forested Tanzanian region of Tabora, was donated to Obote by his friend, President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania to host anti-Amin rebels. For almost a decade, Kigwa was our home where we survived by producing and selling charcoal and also by growing our own food. Almost everyone in the camp was from northern Uganda with an overwhelming Acholi majority followed by Lango people.
Acholi dominated the Kigwa camp and later on the UNLA because during the struggle against Idi Amin in the early 1970s, Obote recruited more fighters from Acholi somewhat easily because of its proximity to Sudan.
For example, a trick was used to lure hundreds of Acholi men into the rebellion. In the trick, a prank was disseminated in Acholi region that hundreds of elephants had been slaughtered across the border in Sudan (now South Sudan), so men were invited to go and collect free elephant meat.
Indeed, hundreds of men responded to the prank and once they reached Owinykibul, in now South Sudan, they were abducted and conscripted into the anti-Amin struggle. After undergoing brief military trainings at Owinykibul camp, the recruits were later moved to Kigwa camp in Tanzania via Indian Ocean.
Most attempts Obote made to recruit from his Lango area were tactically tricky becausse the region is located deep in the centre of the country.
For instance in 1971, Obote’s female agent Maj Janet Aol successfully recruited hundreds of young men from Lango. However, when she tried to sneak them into Sudan, they were intercepted by Idi Amin’s soldiers and they have never been seen again. Maj Aol, however, survived and escaped the massacre and continued the fight against Amin till he was toppled in 1979. During Obote II, she attained the rank of a major, becoming the first highest ranking female soldier in the history of Uganda’s army.
Survival tactics
During our time at Kigwa camp, we had Lt Col David Oyite Ojok as our highest ranking commander since our other commander Col Tito Okello was living in Dar-es-Salaam. We had several company commanders who organised and led us whenever we took our charcoal to Tabora town for sale. I worked under the company command of Oyiote Ojok with whom we always went out to the forest to cut trees. Incredibly, he participated actively and humbly in all the processes of charcoal business just like other junior soldiers.
Trips to Tabora were always done in turns; for example, a day in a week would be designated for Oyite Ojok to lead his company to Tabora and sell their charcoal. Another day in the next week would be for Bazilio Okello’s company and after that, another group, and so on. We lived quite peacefully in Kigwa without any incident except in one particular instance when our soldiers fought and killed a Tanzanian man in Tabora after a disagreement in a bar. Although the issue was quite damning, it did not dent our reputation as peace loving freedom fighters. Kigwa camp was a large community and bore all major characteristics of a traditional African community.
Failed. President Militon Obote. FILE PHOTO
Acholi-Lango tribal divide
Unfortunately, it is from this union that Acholi-Lango tribal divide became bare and showed worrying signs of nasty scenes ahead and in the end shaped the politics of post-Amin Uganda. There were families comprising husbands, wives, children since many combatants had invited their wives from Uganda and others had found wives and partners in Tanzania. Years later in 1977, Obote’s allies offered Oyite Ojok a sponsorship for further military leadership studies abroad.
It was at this time that the Acholi-Lango tribal divide would begin to creep from the rear to the fore. The Acholi outnumbered the Langi so much that the majority felt they had the prerogative to lead, most notably the military wing of the rebellion.
So when Oyite Ojok, a Langi, was chosen to go for the training in preparation to lead the fight against Amin, many Acholi commanders in the camp were angry that Obote had chosen a fellow Langi.
Despite thorough explanation from Obote that the sponsors had set minimum academic qualifications, which the embittered Acholi commanders namely Bazilio Okello, Odong Latek and Tito Okello did not possess, they were not convinced.
When Obote’s UPC government assumed office after the 1980 election, it set out to rebuild Uganda and unite its people after a decade of Amin’s dictatorship and brutality. Evidently, signs of progress and great times ahead became visible just months later. And so, as peace and security returned virtually everywhere in the country, productivity and reconstruction got underway. Equally so, children went back to school and the rural population enthusiastically resumed work on their land.
Museveni guerilla war
Sadly, however, all this progress and hope would be rolled back in a matter of months when Museveni launched his guerrilla attacks in 1981 and intensified attacks, especially in the central region.One of the tactics his guerrilla movement embarked on was ambushing civilian transport systems, especially on the Kampala-Northern Uganda route.
During the Museveni bush war, rebel ambushes on that road became so frequent that the people in northern Uganda renamed the road Lam dogi implying that a traveller ought to pray for divine mercies as they travelled on the road.
Owinykibul bus was one of the first major civilian vehicles they targeted. Owinykibul used to take Lira-Kampala route and on that fateful day in November 1981, it did not reach her destination. On that day, Museveni’s rebels ambushed Owinykibul bus around Bombo valley, approximately 22km from Kampala City killing scores of passengers.
When the news of Owinykibul bus ambush reached the Chief of Staff, Maj Gen Oyite Ojok, he dispatched two companies commanded by me and Lt Ojede to execute a counter attack operation against the attackers of the bus. What we found at the scene of the ambush was utter carnage. Owinykibul bus was on its knees while her passengers if not dead, wailed in pain. Among the victims was my brother’s daughter who had a broken leg and cried for help. We literally did not know where to start from.
At the ambush scene, we found two groups of onlookers whom we thought were locals. We asked the first group politely if they knew anything about the rebels in the area but all we could extract from their replies was simanyi (Luganda word for: I don’t know). Thus we thought it would be useful to inquire from the next group as well, so I suggested to Ojede to approach them but just metres away as Ojede walked towards them, he was shot dead. Instantly, we knew we were in the vicinity of wrong elements usually known in the area as bayekera (rebels). As a result we mounted a search operation to clear the area of the rebels.
Although we finally managed to comb the Bombo area and clear it of rebels, the war in the entire region of Luweero Triangle would later become so devastating, taking a better part of our time and concentration for five years. It later emerged that one of the rebel foot soldiers (now a General) was shocked when upon ambushing Owinykibul bus, he climbed inside and discovered his relative among the lifeless bodies.
Lu’gulu/Lu’kitgum impact
Unfortunately, Obote II government was quite popular in most parts of Uganda, even in Acholi where saboteurs like Bazilio Okello came from. In order to crash Obote, coup plotter, Bazilio Okello used tribalism as his main tool. In fact, the origin of this tactic can be traced back to Kigwa Camp in Tanzania. Much as the Kigwa group was an overwhelmingly Acholi majority, that majority was largely Acholi of Kitgum.
The skewed statistics was the results of the two factors; the elephant meat prank and the proximity of Kitgum to Owinykibul. These two factors meant easier and quicker access to Owinykibul for the Acholi of Kitgum than the others. With the Kigwa Camp majority being his very own Kitgum people, Brig Bazilio Okello who was the most senior commander among them, emerged as their de-facto leader.
So, as he took charge of them he started by nurturing balkanisation along firstly, Acholi of Kitgim versus Acholi of Gulu line and secondly, along Acholi versus Lango line. Subsequently, he enjoyed a strong loyalty from Acholi of Kitgum who regarded him not only as their clan leader but also as their military commander.
Fast-forward to Uganda under Obote II in the1980s, most of Okello’s Kitgum soldiers had been promoted to higher ranks and given powerful positions in the UNLA and together they became so powerful. Feeling energised, they began to make forceful and arrogant demands and concession from Obote’s government. For instance, apart from demanding for the sacking of the Chief of Staff Brig Smith Opon Acak, they also went as far as demanding for the sacking of some ministers they did not favour like Chris Rwakasisi of Security and Peter Otai of Defence.
As time passed, they became bolder, stronger and more determined to cause both military and political changes in the country and by 1985 their activities were causing serious tension and confusion within the UPC government and the UNLA.As a result, some Acholi of Gulu commanders like Brig Nyero approached their Kitgum counterparts to request them to give priority to peace and unity instead of war. The result of the meeting was a total fiasco. The Acholi of Kitgum rejected the request of their Gulu brothers and told them off.
Thorn in the flesh. Brig Bazilio Okello
Besides threatening them with death, they labelled their Gulu brothers as Langi collaborators. They said that historically, Acholi of Gulu were Langi who migrated from Lango land to Gulu and that explained their support for Obote and his Langi people.By this time, they had become a strong force to be reckoned with, and always got whatever they wanted. For example, in their lead up to the coup, Obote directed Prime Minister Alimadi Otema also an Acholi from Gulu to travel to Zambia and request for troops to quell the mutiny.
When they got wind of the plan, they threatened to kill Alimadi if he dared travel to Zambia. In the end, Alimadi chickened out.
Armed, Obote refuses to flee
It was around midday July 27, 1985 and everyone loyal to Obote had fled or was fleeing, but I wanted to be sure that the President had fled before me. So when I learned that Obote had rebelled and refused to flee, armed himself and was dangerously unapproachable, I stepped in. I implored his bodyguards to use all the skills they had learnt to disarm him and get him out of the country.
“He is armed with an AK47 and vowing to kill anybody who dares get near him. He simply does not want to leave. He is ready to die in Uganda,” they warned me. I desperately wanted Obote to flee because I thought if he did, he would organise us to recapture power like he did against Amin in 1970s. So, when I realised that the pressure I was mounting on the guards were futile, I became even more desperate to get my president out of harm’s way. Daringly, I stealthy sneaked through the kitchen window, dived on Obote, grabbed him from the back and called the guards for help. We then disarmed him and forced him into a car and, through the eastern route was the driven to safety in Kenya.
When Obote had settled in the vehicle and ready to flee, I told him, “Mr President, I am sure you see the value in our forcing you to flee, because if you are out and safe, you can ably mobilise us for a second liberation struggle.”
