NRA treachery and tragedy of July 1985 coup

Tatatata. Tatatata. Tatatata.” Those were gunshots and now, it was apparent that it was no single incident around the taxi park, but across Kampala.

Fast disembarking the half-full taxi (Tororo/Malaba bound) at the main park, everyone swiftly took off in different directions, not sure about those with luggage in the boot, but thanks to my order, mine was a fine handbag on my lap; light enough for a mini-sprint.

That was mid-to-late morning, Saturday, July 27, 1985. Confused a little, light fire flying at a distance, mainly city centre direction, the natural mind instructed that I ran in the direction of Old Kampala, and I did. 

In good health and bound to successfully complete Makerere University marathon the following year (finishing a respectful 53rd or thereabouts), the mile or so to final destination was no problem, 15 or so minutes away.

Exhausted, scared but relieved now that I was with a relatively secure but equally confused family, a radio announcement came hours later to confirm what we had all sort of suspected; that something was terribly wrong, an army mutiny of some kind, the bandits from Luweero bushes had dared into town but, as a matter of fact, the elected government had been ended.
Yes, “the government has been overthrown, Parliament has been suspended and, Hon Yoweri Museveni is requested to report to Kampala immediately,” repeatedly went the announcement, close to verbatim.

It was a strange moment for most people around the country. A military coup, then the man who had been largely held responsible for insecurity around Kampala and its environs (in fact, the most wanted man in the country) for the previous four years and with whom the army had been in a vicious war in Luweero was now being called ‘honourable’ and, ‘invited to report to Kampala immediately’. 

The following day, looting entered town. The central business and commercial district of Kampala was shuttered. Looted. And it continued to day two. 

Meanwhile, at the helm the power vacuum was immediately obvious. Tito Okello was announced as head of state, Paul Muwanga was prime minister. But in between the lines, one could tell the missing link. Excitement had followed the coup within certain circles but soon, despondency. “Honourable Yoweri Museveni” was not reporting to Kampala (anytime soon) and nor were fellow conspirators satisfied. Uganda had moved from a boiling pot that Obote was trying to cool off, jumped into a fire and almost immediately into a frying pan.

Writing in his Notes on Concealment of Genocide in Uganda (a must read), in 1990, Obote explains that Tito and Bazilio Okello had been “suborned to overthrow the second UPC government by three sets of people – the DP leaders, Museveni gang and a band of capricious UPC members.”  

That each set had “its own objectives which, as we have seen in the case of Museveni, would not be achieved through the ballot; the UPC was too strong even for all the three combined”.

That DP were scared stiff of the pending elections which were then due in December 1985; the capricious UPC members feared the pending party primaries and for Museveni and his group, “any course to the seat that bypassed elections was sweet music”.
After the agreement to persuade the Okellos, the difficulties were: the reasons to justify first the coup, and secondly the “presence of the capricious UPC men in the planned new regime”. But this became even more intricate because part of the initial agreement was that each group would “be fairly represented in the Cabinet of the junta”. 

Tito and Bazilio had been chosen for the deal “on the ground, that they were the most senior UNLA officers from Acholi and Acholi and had the largest number of men in UNLA”. One Okello was to have “free hand in recruitment, training and deployment of troops,” the other was to have “full control of military supplies – purchase of weapons, vehicles, food and uniforms” and in Tito’s case, with assistance from China, the regime would develop a large mixed farm at Amuru (then in Gulu District) and then hand over the farm to him.

Meanwhile, the first meeting between Bazilio Okello and the cabal was organised through a ranking cleric. In the meeting, he was told that the object was to remove the UPC government before the December elections and replace it with a ‘broad-based government of all parties, including Museveni, but where upon he would become the chief of staff for the new army, after “Obote’s UNLA would now have been disbanded”. 

Although the meeting also reviewed the security and military situation in the country and confirmed that NRA had been defeated and its “remnants were fleeing to Rwenzori Mountains where without doubt, the Rwenzururu, who were staunch UPC supporters would finally destroy them,” as Obote wrote in his Notes, “simply by dangling in their eyes the glories of high rank, unearned riches and control of the UNLA” was enough to plunge the country into a destructive path by giving NRA a new lease of life.

This, the NRA took with much perfection. Not only did Museveni immediately start playing his partners by placing conditionalities for his ‘reporting to Kampala’ as he regrouped, bought time and breathed in space, equipped, recruited and trained, he peaked his propaganda by quickly turning the junta into a ‘northern, Acholi’ group of ‘illiterates’ versus particularly, the southern and western Ugandan ‘victims’, (rightful) owners of Uganda who had been ‘suppressed’ since independence by an ‘illegitimate, non-deserving lot’. It worked. The junta got isolated, went into disarray.

A desperate attempt for ‘peace talks’ in Nairobi turned into humiliating ‘peace jokes’ and, by January 1986, Kampala was a war zone – Beirut of sorts as Mwiri boys would say – a city controlled by at least seven militias.

The end was now apparent; helicopter gunships sharing Kampala skies with birds, while UNLA’s Maj Gen Zed Maruru attempting Chemical Ali’s propaganda. By now I was at Makerere and it was like a hilarious tragedy. 

“I hear some people saying that Mbarara has forren (fallen), Hoima has forren. Forren, forrren; forren to who? Tomorrow you will hear that Kampala has forren,” he said. 

We simply started enjoying the sad drama because it was clear that UNLA had been too compromised to recover and it was a matter of time before Kampala would indeed fall. 

On January 26, 1986, a stream of little boys, kadogos (some as young as eight or certainly looked), scattered around Mitchel Hall, dragging mainly AK47 rifles, some hardly as tall, hardly walking towards town to take full control of Kampala. 

It was an end of an era, a humiliating end to a six-month experiment of what can go wrong when common sense diminishes as shallow greed takes over, but too a hard lesson of a betrayal that left Bazilio Okello dead and angry in exile. 

It is reported that he was so angry that it is unreasonable to state what he allegedly threatened if he ever would meet Paul Ssemogerere.

But the biggest tragedy is the prophesy that Milton Obote is reported to have shared on the eve of the coup: In a last-ditch attempt to stop the advance into Kampala the night before and, during a meeting between then Power and Telecommunications minister Akena P’jok and Obote in the presence of Prof Kagenda Atwooki and Yoga Adhola, Obote reportedly warned Akena that should the coup succeed, “Adhola and Kagenda here will be alright, but you and I will be hounded to our graves”.

Considering the war in northern Uganda that followed the coup and the current state of Uganda, scholars will write dozens of PhD thesis with almost certain conclusion that the July 27, 1985, coup (36 years ago this Tuesday) was one of the most avoidable yet, possibly one of the most tragic historic turn-arounds in this country with NRA having the last laugh; for now.