Gen Elly Tumwine laid to rest
Military officers prepare to lower the casket containing the body of Gen Elly Tumwine into the grave at his ancestral home in Mukuru Village, Rwemikoma Sub-county in Kazo District on August 30, 2022. PHOTO/FELIX AINEBYONA
What you need to know:
- Gen Tumwine was buried a day before an event in which he was set to officially be retired from the army he has served since 1979.
- On Tuesday, mourners sobbed as Gen Tumwine’s casket was interred amidst military honours in a corner of his artistic compound.
Former security minister Gen Elly Tumwine was Tuesday laid to rest at his ancestral Kazo District home in Western Uganda.
Hundreds of government dignitaries and thousands of locals attended the burial preceded by rain about 260kms from Uganda’s capital, Kampala.
Chief mourner and President Museveni's representative at the funeral, Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanjah told mourners she would remember Gen Tumwine as a “straightforward mentor of many government officials.”
"He would never backbite anyone and he called an eye an eye," she observed.
Mourners sobbed as Gen Tumwine’s casket, draped with a Ugandan flag, was interred by nearly 10 top army officials at about 4:50pm- amidst a 17-gun salute in line with his military honours in a corner of his artistic compound.
President Museveni August 29 challenged Ugandans to emulate the "resilient bush war hero" whose first shot actualized a guerilla war that brought him into power in 1986.
“Young people should learn from that spirit of patriotism and sacrifice,” Mr Museveni said of his 1979 revolutionary army recruit and ideologue until 2022.
Top Ugandan military officials lay wreath on a casket containing the body of former security minister Gen Elly Tumwine in Kazo District on August 30, 2022. PHOTO/WALTER MWESIGYE
Aged 68, the ex-combatant and Uganda’s longest serving army representative in Parliament died from Lung cancer in neighboring Kenya on August 25, igniting public debate over his double-edged legacy.
PICTORIAL: State funeral of the late Gen Elly Tumwine
